The Geomancer

9/22/08

Shatner on the "Machine Where You Suck in the Air with the Molecules"

Via SFSignal. On the one hand, I'm disturbed (though not surprised) that Shatner doesn't seem to know what the teleporter is called. On the other hand, he makes a good point. The fact is, Star Trek has to ignore half the implications of its teleporter/replicator technology for the sake of drama, because the truth is that it would eliminate death entirely in just the way he understands.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:10 PM

    Oh, Shatner.

    If the transporter can bring in your evil double from another universe and bring you back from the dead, does this mean that there's the possibility of a Star Trek evil space zombie movie?

    If I were Shatner, I'd hold out for that one, too. Take notes, J.J. Abrams.

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  2. What amazes me is this: If you ask Leonard Nimoy about Trek, you will get a very thoughtful, considered and intelligent answer about its place as a cultural phenomena, about its role in civil rights, about its role in inspiring actual science, etc... If you ask William Shatner about Trek, you will hear about William Shatner.

    He's bang on, though, with the teleporter technology. When you watch Trek, it's apparent they have an unjustifiable bias to human limits - don't try and become too smart, too old, too powerful, too anything stretching human limits. I'd love to see a real Data who was focused on all the things he could uniquely do, like parallel processing his mind and downloading into ship's computers, rather than on imitating the limits of human biology.

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