Yep, B5 was a lot of fun.

I don’t know, Star Trek did well at predicting potential future technologies- ie the communicator was pre-cell phone, the “TV telephone-like thing they had/have” is like these picture phones where you can see the person while you talk, but very few people have those phones so far.

ChemTeacher - 12 July 2008 08:58 PM

Well, yes, but Sylvester Stallone also thought movies should have no dialogue, and look what he cooks up!

“Party at Kitty and Stud’s”?

Mriana - 14 July 2008 09:26 AM

I don’t know, Star Trek did well at predicting potential future technologies- ie the communicator was pre-cell phone, the “TV telephone-like thing they had/have” is like these picture phones where you can see the person while you talk, but very few people have those phones so far.

Every science fiction series has something similar to that so it’s not really a biggie and anyway ST has transporters, gravity fields, phasers, tractors, pressors, shields, warp drive, holo-decks, replicators, photon torpedoes, one of science fictions most awesome enemies, the Borg and finally the deflector dish without which no recent ST series could exist.

There’s not a lot of real world physics in Star Trek at all (and I say that as someone who watches a lot of it) ... Star Trek’s strength is that although it is a separate Trek-style physics that requires a mental leap to accept, it tends to be fairly self-consistent once that leap is made but it sure as hell don’t exist ain’t real-world. That said Star Trek has penetrated popular culture more than any other science fiction series (though I think X-Files did more to re-establish SF as mainstream TV again ... bugs the hell outta me because I always hated the bloody thing).

Kyu

I loved watching Startrek because the Science (if you suspended disbelief a bit) far outweighed the Fantasy.  I couldn’t stand the X-Files because I saw them as mainly Fantasy with very little Science inserted.

Occam

“Left Hand of Darkness” is such a remarkable story I can’t picture the motion picture industry being able to translate it into a film without destroying it.

I’d like to see Silverburg’s “At Winter’s End” as a film.

There’s not a lot of real world physics in Star Trek at all (and I say that as someone who watches a lot of it) ... Star Trek’s strength is that although it is a separate Trek-style physics that requires a mental leap to accept, it tends to be fairly self-consistent once that leap is made but it sure as hell don’t exist ain’t real-world. That said Star Trek has penetrated popular culture more than any other science fiction series (though I think X-Files did more to re-establish SF as mainstream TV again ... bugs the hell outta me because I always hated the bloody thing).

What!  You don’t like X-Files!  I’m going to have to nuke the UK.

X-Files is just a really different mind set than most sci-fi.  DS9 is closer to X-Files than most other Treks.

Trek can be really good science wise and other times totally ridiculous.  That episode in TNG with the duplicate Will Rikers where he got copied in the transporter for instance.  One goes in but two come out.  That would require double the energy.  Where did the energy come from?

Now the episode where Scotty stored himself in a transporter buffer was really cool.  If you can accept the matter energy conversion to specified patterns then it makes sense.  I am willing to overlook the fact that I can’t buy energy to matter conversion. 

Heisenberg Compensaters! 

The slick thing about that is that a kid could look up Heisenberg and actually learn some real physics.  The same for Soliton Wave.  They used that in an episode so I looked it up.  There really is such a thing involving reducing distortion in transmission lines.

psik