Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Movie Review

Star Treck: First Contact <------- Watch Trailer Here

The scientific content in this symbolic movie is vast. Though technically a part of the science fiction genre, the Star Trek series boasts a large amount of content of scientific and astronomical data that is not fictional. In this movie specifically, the nature of the information portrayed ranges from engineering, historical (fiction), tactical, scientific and medical. The plot of the movie follows an assault on earth by which the enemy uses time travel to alter the past to conquer and enslave the human race in the future, or 'current age' in which the movie is set. There are remnants and symbols within the plot that point to Moby Dick and the moral issues of revenge. All-in-all, I do not think the science-fiction genre has seen a movie of this caliber in a long time, which is absolutely jam-packed with astronomical data, as much of the TV series and other movies are.
Captain Picard's 'Dream Scene' as Locutus of Borg

ASTRONOMICAL DATA USED 
There some actual astronomical content used in these Star Trek books, episodes and movies:
These projects mostly deal with astronomy, and even if the data basis is fictitious, cartographic and astronomical procedures are used for its evaluation. Beside special  material (celestial maps, astronomical data tables etc.), this also includes three-dimensional spatial geometry and astronomical calculations. Because Star Trek usually does not provide us with complete maps, but at most with maps showing a mission-specific, small part of space instead of the whole explored space, we usually have to fall back on the smallest building blocks of the Star Trek cartography, with which we still have to build a complete picture of the universe: the distances given in episodes, movies and books. 

1 comment:

  1. More specifics- what astronomical data? In particular, what concepts did you learm in class that were portrayed in the movie, and were they presented accurately?

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