Star Trek Movies
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50 free Star Trek Movies trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Star Trek has been going to the cinema since 1979, across three eras: the original crew's adventures, the Next Generation outings, and the rebooted films that began in 2009. Between them they have given the series its most quoted villains, its most argued-over plot twists and some of its strangest production stories. This quiz covers all of them: the plots and the bad guys, the actors hidden under the prosthetics, the directors and composers, and the tales fans love to retell, such as which part was first written for a famous comedian and where the engine room was really filmed. It is pitched for film fans as much as for devoted Trekkers. The early questions are ones a casual viewer can work out, while the later ones reward people who know their Klingon prisons and their shore-leave destinations.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which species of whale do Kirk and his crew bring back from 1986 in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?
Humpback
Humpback song is the only reply an alien probe will accept, and by the 23rd century the species is extinct. Few of the whales on screen were real: most were animatronics and small motorised models.
Q 02Which original Star Trek cast member directed both The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home?
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy became the first Star Trek cast member to direct one of the films with The Search for Spock. He was promptly asked back and given greater freedom over the sequel.
Q 03Which actor took over as James T. Kirk in the 2009 Star Trek film, opposite Zachary Quinto's Spock?
Chris Pine
Chris Pine called his first audition awful, because he could not take himself seriously as a leader. Once cast, he wrote to William Shatner and got back a letter of approval.
Q 04Which British actor played Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, a casting kept secret behind the name John Harrison?
Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Cumberbatch was billed as a rogue officer so that viewers would learn the truth only when the crew did, about 45 minutes in. Director J. J. Abrams said he wanted to preserve the fun.
Q 05Which English actor, then little known, played Picard's young clone Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis?
Tom Hardy
Tom Hardy auditioned by tape from Morocco, where he was shooting another film, after Patrick Stewart asked his agent for suggestions. The director had specifically wanted an unknown.
Q 06Which actor, then known for the sitcom Taxi, played the Klingon commander Kruge in Star Trek III?
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd took the part a year before Back to the Future made him Doc Brown. He was cast for his knack for powerful villains, and brought a welcome theatricality to the Klingon.
Q 07Which planet does the Romulan miner Nero destroy with a black hole at its core in the 2009 Star Trek film?
Vulcan
Vulcan is bored through to its core by Nero's mining ship, the Narada, before the black hole swallows it. The attack is his revenge on Spock for failing to save Romulus from a supernova.
Q 08Which enemy travels back in time to stop humanity's first warp flight in Star Trek: First Contact?
The Borg
The Borg were redesigned for the film to look as if machinery had converted them from the inside out. The new look took four times as long to apply as it had on television.
Q 09Which real nuclear disaster inspired the exploding Klingon moon Praxis in Star Trek VI?
Chernobyl
Chernobyl gave director Nicholas Meyer his opening: one blast that cripples an empire and forces it to seek peace, as the Cold War was ending. Chancellor Gorkon was modelled on Mikhail Gorbachev.
Q 10In which national park is Kirk rock climbing on shore leave at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?
Yosemite
Yosemite hosted the location shoot, though a fibreglass rock face stood in for the real cliff in close-ups. William Shatner trained for weeks beforehand on a wooden replica at the studio.
Q 11Which actor returned as Khan in Star Trek II, fifteen years after first playing him on television?
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Montalbán enjoyed the part so much that he played it for far less than he was offered. The film was nearly approved before anyone asked if he could get time off from Fantasy Island.
Q 12Which no-win Starfleet training test did Kirk beat as a cadet by reprogramming it, as revealed in Star Trek II?
Kobayashi Maru
Kobayashi Maru is the stricken ship that cadets are sent to rescue in the simulator. Kirk won on his third attempt, after rewriting the program so that a rescue became possible.
Q 13Which Shakespeare play gives Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country its title, in a phrase about death?
Hamlet
Q 21Which hip-hop group's song "Sabotage" is broadcast to destroy an alien swarm in Star Trek Beyond?
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys had already featured in the first film of the rebooted series. Even so, many fans felt the track sounded out of place when it turned up again in the trailer.
Q 22Which British actor played Krall, the mutated former Starfleet officer, in Star Trek Beyond?
Idris Elba
Idris Elba's villain turns out to be Balthazar Edison, once commander of the long-lost USS Franklin. His swarm of small ships overwhelms the Enterprise and tears it apart.
Q 23Which British actor played Soran, whose scheme leads to Captain Kirk's death in Star Trek Generations?
Malcolm McDowell
Hamlet uses the phrase for what lies beyond the grave, but the film applies it to a future in which Klingons and humans coexist in peace. The words come from the play's most famous soliloquy.
Q 14Which Star Trek television actor directed both Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection?
Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes got the job after two better-known directors turned it down, so that it went to someone who understood Star Trek. He had never directed a feature film before.
Q 15Which studio scrapped a planned TV revival, Star Trek: Phase II, to make the first Star Trek film instead?
Paramount
Paramount changed course after Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind cleaned up at the box office. The cancelled show's pilot script was hurriedly reworked into the film's story.
Q 16Which two Enterprise officers marry in Star Trek: Nemesis before leaving for the USS Titan?
Riker and Troi
Riker and Troi celebrate their wedding early in the film, and he leaves to captain his own ship at the end. Marina Sirtis said her dress for the scene was nicer than the one at her real wedding.
Q 17Which relative of Admiral Kirk is killed by Klingons on the Genesis planet in Star Trek III?
His son
His son, David Marcus, is killed while defending Saavik from Kruge's hostage-takers. Kirk never forgives the Klingons, and the grudge makes him oppose peace with them in Star Trek VI.
Q 18In whose mind does the dying Spock place his katra, or living spirit, as revealed in Star Trek III?
Dr McCoy
Dr McCoy would have died from carrying the katra for long, which is why his friends steal the Enterprise. A dangerous ritual called fal-tor-pan finally reunites it with Spock's body.
Q 19Which actress, a teen star of the late 1980s, played Spock's human mother in the 2009 Star Trek film?
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder took the small role of Amanda Grayson during a quiet spell in her career, and the press noted her return to film. Stranger Things later completed the comeback.
Q 20Which Oscar-winning actress returns as the Enterprise bartender Guinan in Star Trek Generations?
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg asked to see Nichelle Nichols as soon as she arrived on set, hoping Guinan and Uhura would at last share a scene. She had to be told Nichols was not in the film.
Malcolm McDowell relished the chance to kill off William Shatner's character. He also asked that Soran have no alien features, so that he could avoid lengthy sessions being fitted with prosthetics.
Q 24Which actress played the traitorous Lieutenant Valeris in Star Trek VI, having once auditioned to play Saavik?
Kim Cattrall
Kim Cattrall refused to become the third actress to play Saavik, and signed on once the part became someone new. She chose the name's root herself: Eris, the Greek goddess of strife.
Q 25Which one-eyed Klingon, played by Christopher Plummer, quotes Shakespeare throughout Star Trek VI?
General Chang
General Chang was written specially for Plummer, who was reluctant at first and asked for a less severe, more human Klingon look. He and William Shatner had once performed together in Montreal.
Q 26Which actress made her feature film debut as Spock's protégée Saavik in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley's Saavik weeps at Spock's funeral, and the director kept it in despite objections that her people do not cry. He said that was exactly what made her interesting.
Q 27Which actor played Zefram Cochrane, the hard-drinking inventor of warp drive, in Star Trek: First Contact?
James Cromwell
James Cromwell had the part written with him in mind, although the studio floated Tom Hanks, a big Star Trek fan. His Cochrane starts out as a cynical, selfish drunk.
Q 28Which James Bond star turned down the role of Sybok, Spock's half-brother, in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?
Sean Connery
Sean Connery was busy with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so the film named its mythical planet Sha Ka Ree in his honour. Laurence Luckinbill took the part instead.
Q 29Which futuristic material's formula does Scotty trade for the whale tank's walls in Star Trek IV?
Transparent aluminum
Transparent aluminum buys the materials for a tank big enough to carry two whales home. Scotty hands its formula to the plant manager of a firm called Plexicorp.
Q 30Which lost NASA probe lies at the heart of the alien cloud threatening Earth in Star Trek: The Motion Picture?
Voyager 6
Voyager 6 is known to the machine only as V'Ger, the letters still legible on its damaged nameplate. Audiences in 1979 had just watched the real Voyagers 1 and 2 fly past Jupiter.