Exactly. But that also means that Luke, Han, Leia, et al. aren’t human, since they evolved separately on a completely different planet; they just happen, by coincidence, to resemble humans remarkably closely. Maybe their descendants made their way to the Milky Way and seeded Earth. (Now there’s an interesting idea for…

IIRC, that’s the way R2-D2 was actually listed in the credits back when the original trilogy came out... I don’t think Kenny Baker got his name listed until the Special Edition.

As both a professional musician and an amatuer astronomer, I’ve always been a fan of William Herschel. He started his career as a composer and oboist, while pursuing astronomy as a hobby on the side. Then, in 1781, he happened to discover the planet Uranus... and completely shifted his focus to astronomy full-time…

Obligatory...

Captain Pike has some experience with #8.

And his third arm is disguised as his necktie. :) Or maybe it’s actually still the 23rd century and Lieutenant Arex is simply visiting a very retro café on Earth. The kid is saying, “Look, Dad, an Edosian! I’ve never met one before!”

A friend pointed that out to me years ago, but described him as a chef—which helps explain the big hat. Kentucky is his forearm, and Ohio is the pot of soup he’s holding. (Or West Virginia is his teapot; take your pick.)

Reading through some of the comments... Pulaski is certainly polarizing, if nothing else! People seem to either love her or hate her. I personall fall into the former camp, for many of the same reasons mentioned in the article.

This is one area where I think the old 80’s TV show Voyagers! got it right. When they press the button on the Omni, they travel instantly through time but find themselves floating in space, and immediately enter some version of warp speed until they “catch up” with where Earth is in the new time period. They come out…

I think he’s trying (and halfway succeeding) to sound like voice actor Paul Frees, who narrated lots of old Disney educational films, as well as (perhaps most famously) Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride.

Director Nicholas Meyer famously felt the same way about Spock’s resurrection in Star Trek 3. Yet the ending of The Wrath of Khan is still a powerful death scene, even though you (now) know that Spock will be back. I’d say the same is true of Coulson in The Avengers.

I do, actually. I’ve written for a number of different types of instruments and ensembles, but most of my published music is for handbell choirs.

OK, fair point. :)

A friend of mine used to get really frustrated at the “cell phones=communicators” comparison, especially when people complained that Star Trek’s communicators couldn’t take photos or play MP3’s. He would ask, “Can your cell phone call the International Space Station—on its, own, without a cell tower?” Yet Kirk can…

After the 2009 "Star Trek" came out, I saw a video interview with J. J. Abrams in which he actually said, "The first question I asked myself was, 'What can we learn from Star Wars?'" It's not that he doesn't have reverence for a franchise's history per se, it's more that he wished he was making a Star Wars film and so…

I’ve never written comics, but have had a bunch of music published, and vividly remember the nervousness of submitting my work to publishers for the first time. I say go for it! You’ll get your share of rejection letters—every author/composer does—but if you don’t let it discourage you and just keep at it, eventually…

The Doctor: "The TARDIS alters your brain so that you can understand foreign languages."

It's been explored in one-off episodes here and there, like TNG's "Lower Decks" and Voyager's "Good Shepherd." You could also argue that Lt. Barclay falls into that category. Not sure if you were just joking or not, but I do think once in a while it's refreshing to see that not everyone in the Star Trek universe is a…

Thanks for this—I was aware of some of these, but not all.

"I have one job on this lousy ship. It's stupid, but I'm gonna do it! OK?"