Heck, even Donald Duck got into the action back in the day.

Now you’ve got me wondering if Disney has a live-action remake of “Lilo and Stitch” anywhere in their lineup.

Richard Feynman had a great quote in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!—I can’t recall it exactly offhand, but he was talking about having a sense of utter hopelessness after his work on the Manhattan Project creating the atomic bomb. He’d see people building a new skyscraper or a bridge or something, and think, “Why…

I was a big fan of the Oz series of books as a kid, and I remember a character in one of the later books saying that, in Oz, “magic is [their] science.” The Clarke quote is great—and was used to good effect in the first Thor movie—but the idea certainly isn’t original to him.

To your point: I don’t think I’ve ever read a comic book, and was only ever a casual fan of superhero movies (hard sci-fi is more my thing). But I used to work with a guy who was into comics and strongly recommended the first Iron Man movie to me when it came out on DVD. I was pleasantly surprised, saw Iron Man 2 a…

I suspect the practical advantage is that they want to capitalize on the people who only know Trek from the recent reboot movies. That’s why they’re setting it right around the same time period of those movies, and giving it a similar look and feel. (And despite their claims that the new series is in the “prime…

Agreed that context matters. I actually thought the one quick tribble cameo in Enterprise was a perfect little throwaway gag: Hoshi walks in while Phlox is feeding his animals. Phlox pulls out a tribble. Hoshi says, “How cute!” Phlox throws it into another cage where it immediately gets eaten. Hoshi reacts in horror.…

True; I’d forgotten about that example. (As well as a few others people have posted elsewhere in the comments.)

I think the idea always was that people in the future do refer to God (the person or the concept) but no longer use the word “god” as a throwaway swear word. Personally, I have no problem with the concept that colloquial speech patterns will have changed like this over the course of 200+ years. (I actually wish Star…

I think the difference (according to the article) is that Kirk here is using the word “God” to refer to the actual concept of “God,” not just using it as a throwaway word. Apparently the former has survived to the 23rd century, whereas the latter has not, and I have no problem with that distinction.

Regarding all the comments about video vs. an image gallery.... Let’s at least give them due credit for taking the time to put together an original video rather than just reposting something someone else created (a la Sploid).

Your mention of Time Lords reminds me of a favorite quote from the Ninth Doctor which seems relevant to this conversation:

“Lures you into a false sense of positivity?” Really? A major point of science fiction in the first place is to dream the impossible, to imagine a better future and give us something to strive for. Maybe it’s not “realistic,” maybe we’ll never achieve it, but I for one will sure never give up trying.

I adore this clip. Thanks for posting it, because it’s absolutely relevant to this conversation. This is how we change the world for the better—one life at a time. Good for Doohan for living out that vision and setting the example.

Interesting concept, and even one with some Trek precedent. Others have already mentioned DS9's Tosk; TNG’s Mizarians could also be considered something of a “prey species” since Picard says they’ve allowed themselves to be conquered repeatedly, and in the cases of both species Federation citizens clearly find it…

Great example. At least Tosk shows that there’s a precedent for something like this in the Trek universe—and also for Federation people being a bit prejudicial against a “prey” species.

Someone else posted a picture of Tosk from DS9, another “prey” species, and I remember in that episode O’Brien took issue with the fact that Tosk refused to fight back or stand up for himself. So I can see how that could lead to some people looking down on “prey” species as a whole.

That was what I’d always heard as well—the Doctor was written to be the “non-human commentator” on Voyager. Seven later shared that role with him, and in Voyager’s better moments it led to some good discussions between the two.

“Star Trek: Discovery’s Retro Future-Tech”

Yeah, there were two huge revelations literally on the last page of the book that made it go from “good” to “awesome” for me. One was Ellie’s discovery that God had placed his “signature” in pi. The other [spoilers, of course] was her learning that the man she thought was her father was not actually her biological…