Star Trek Beyond/Background information/Continuity

* In this installment, begins sporting the hairstyle of his prime universe counterpart on .
* At Starbase Yorktown, meets up with and daughter. It pays homage to former Hikaru Sulu actor George Takei, who is gay. His daughter is possibly Demora Sulu's alternate counterpart first seen in . (This would make her much older than the Demora of the primary timeline, who was born in 2271.)
* According to logs of the , Balthazar Edison was a MACO major before he was captain of the Franklin. The logs also said that he participated in the Xindi wars, possibly as one of the MACOs assigned to under Captain Jonathan Archer in . It also mentioned that he fought in the Earth-Romulan War.
* The Franklins registry number (NX-326) is a reference to Leonard Nimoy’s birthday (March 26). The ship is named after director Justin Lin's father.
* The saucer section crash landing on Altamid is an homage to when the crash-landed on Veridian III in Star Trek Generations.
* One of the many stories of the Franklins fate involved a "giant green hand". This could be an homage to . A giant green hand also appears in the end credits of the film.
* The ripping of 's shirt at the beginning of the film is an homage to various Original Series episodes such as , , , and in which Kirk gets into fights and his shirt is ripped.
* This movie marks the third time an Enterprise is destroyed in a Star Trek film. The original was destroyed in 2285 in and the Enterprise-D was destroyed in 2371 in Star Trek Generations.
* This film marks the second time a ship captained by Kirk has crashed into an ocean, the first time being in , and the third time it made contact with the water, the second time being in Into Darkness, when it was hiding on Nibiru.
* Kirk mentioning the Enterprise being on its 966th day in deep space is a reference to the month that Star Trek: The Original Series first aired: . 
* This is the second Star Trek film not to feature any scenes taking place on or near Earth. ( was the first.)
* The photograph of the prime crew views while looking through Ambassador Spock's belongings near the end of the film is a publicity photo for . Terry J. Erdmann commented: "When Spock opened the kit at the end and sees that picture of the original crew, Paula [M. Block] and I just looked at one another. I arranged that photo shoot, getting all the actors together after the fact. They had only shot together as a full cast for a few days, so I had to get the wardrobe, set, lighting, etc. to make that moment happen. I was so pleased to see it on screen when the picture flashed in front of me in the theater. I thought, that photo shoot still has legs". 
* This marks the third movie to feature Kirk's birthday. The first was shown at the beginning of and the second was the opening scene of .
* Kirk having a drink with McCoy as he discusses his life is reminiscent of many such scenes in The Original Series where Kirk sought Bones' counsel, often over a drink, as seen in episodes such as and .
* The drink that McCoy dismisses when he finds Kirk drinking is Saurian brandy, the preferred drink of Kirk and McCoy in The Original Series.
* This is the second film – the first being The Wrath of Khan – where Kirk ponders his future on his birthday.
* The toast McCoy offers to Kirk while sharing Saurian brandy, "To perfect eyesight and a full head of hair", is interesting considering that in the prime universe, Kirk requires corrective lenses, being allergic to Retinax V.
* The toast Kirk gives at his birthday party in honor of the fallen crewmembers was also spoken by his counterpart in , Captain Jean-Luc Picard in , and Kor in . His toast to the Enterprise also echoes the toast Montgomery Scott raises to the original Enterprise in .
* Commodore could possibly be a distant relative to Admiral Owen Paris and his son, Tom Paris, from . Simon Pegg later confirmed that Commodore Paris was a nod to Tom Paris from Voyager and stated that the commodore "probably" could have been his grandmother. 
* Simon Pegg stated that the names of the two crew members killed by Krall were taken from , Martine and Tomlinson. 
* Chekov states that Scotch whisky was invented by an old woman in Moscow. It is reminiscent of Chekov's dialogue about Scotch from .
* Shortly before the Franklin lifts off from Altamid, Kirk asks Sulu if he can fly it. Sulu turns and says, "You kidding me, sir?". In , Captain Sulu of the similarly turned toward Janice Rand and said "Are you kidding?", when she asked if they should report to Starfleet that Praxis had exploded. 
* Given that the film opens on the 966th day of the five-year mission (2 January 2263), it can be extrapolated that the five-year mission began on 12 May 2260.
* Spock Prime's date of death is listed on screen as stardate 2263.02, ostensibly the same day as 2263.2, when Kirk records his Captain's log early in the film.
* This is the third Star Trek film after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek in which no Klingons appear on screen. While Klingon ships appeared in both other films, this is the first where there is no reference to them at all.
* Karl Urban has said that the medallion he wears at the end of the film, as well as his shirt being open, is an homage to DeForest Kelley's similar first appearance as McCoy in . 
* Spock's pondering leaving Starfleet to return to New Vulcan (to dedicate his life to completing the late Ambassador Spock's work) is possibly a reference to the fact that in the prime universe, he left the service soon after the end of the five-year mission (as seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture) to dedicate himself to the kolinahr discipline. By the end of the events of that film, he had resolved his internal conflicts and had decided that his initially reluctant return to Starfleet was now a permanent one. In this film, Spock ultimately decides, after looking at a photo of Ambassador Spock with his fellow aged Enterprise comrades, that he also belongs with his own Enterprise family.
* This is the first on-screen use of saucer separation since Star Trek Generations, and the first on-screen use by a ship other than the Enterprise-D.
* This film establishes that Kirk's mother, Winona, is still living, as McCoy asks the captain if he will be calling his mother on his birthday.
* With a release at Star Treks 50th anniversary, this film includes fifty new alien species. 
* In one line, Krall refers to the Federation's "centuries of expansion"; according to , by the events of the film, the Federation was just over a century old (Although, considering the unknown circumstances of the Franklins arrival on this planet, it may be that Krall was the victim of a time dilation effect or Krall has simply lost track of time after so long trapped on Altamid with no awareness of the date on Earth).
* When Scotty beams Spock and McCoy onto the Franklin separately, he explains that it's so they wouldn't become spliced by the cargo transporter, a prospect that McCoy finds horrifying. This references the Voyager episode – one of the two people put together by the transporter is a Vulcan, Tuvok.
* The episode also features two characters who are often at odds being stuck with each other (Odo and Quark) being separated by a one-at-a-time beam-out, with the one initially left behind, Odo, believing Quark has abandoned him (due to death).
* This is the second time in the alternate reality that equipment originally created for mining was used as a weapon (against the Enterprise); the first was Nero's ship, the Narada.
* In his intercom address during the Enterprises mission to Altamid, Kirk states to his crew that "There is no such thing as the unknown, only the temporarily hidden." His prime timeline counterpart similarly stated to his crew, "there's no such thing as the unknown. Only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood," in the episode .
* In , the opening tagline ended with "where no man has gone before", a wording that could be seen as sexist, so in it was changed to "where no one has gone before". In Star Trek Beyond, the line is spoken (using "no one") by a woman, .
* Thasus is mentioned in the film. Thasus was the homeworld of the non-corporael Thasian species. It was home to Charles Evans after a transport ship crash-landed on the ship.
* Spock quotes Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act 3, Scene 1 - "The miserable have no other medicine but only hope."