Man, some of the Star Trek heroes are looking old in this one. No wonder the brand moved on to making “Next Generation” movies.

In my opinion, this isn’t one of the best Star Trek movies; it’s a little too cheesy and there’s too little action for my taste. Still, the movie plot is built around a great irony – having to crew a salvaged enemy vessel back to Earth for your own courts martial is fantastic. That’s almost like sticking a bunch of Taliban enemy combatants in a Navy battleship (by themselves) and instructing them to sail to Guantanamo to await trial. I wonder where that ship would end up. In the world of Star Trek, though, persons must have a much stronger sense of justice because the crew does exactly as they are told. That is, until they arrive at Earth and find it under attack from some sort of alien probe. Here Kirk’s crew disobeys an order basically telling them to save themselves and get away. Instead they risk their lives to save planet Earth, and in so doing, guarantee that their trial can proceed. Of course, all ends happily (and predictably).

Still, Star Trek is a great franchise to study in a “Physics in Film” class. As with all great science fiction, Star Trek did its best to weave great science and great fiction into a very imaginitive tapestry. Many of the technologies introduced in Star Trek were predictive of technologies we already have today – the communicator devices in Star Trek are earily similar to push-to-talk cell phones that are commonly used by businesses today. Other technologies in the series are likely many centuries away or even impossible. But even here, the Star Trek series tried whenever possible to stay within the realm of things that were at least physically plausible based on our current understanding of science. Only a few of the technologies are the stuff of pure fiction.

Assignment: Most of the technologies introduced in the Star Trek series were necessary to fulfill one plot requirement or another. There were very few gratuitous technologies, which is consistent with how new technologies are really developed. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all. So what I want you to do for your assignment this week is to explain the plot need behind two of the technologies in the Star Trek series. For your first technology, I want you to consider the “warp drives” on the USS Enterprise. Why was the warp drive a necessary plot device in Star Trek? Remember, this is a physics question. So discuss what some of the physical limitations were, based on what you already know, and why it was necessary to go beyond current technology. The choice for the second technology is yours, but I’d like for you to talk about why the technology was necessary for the plot and what the feasibility of the technology is in the real world.