10 Examples Of Real Pop-Culture In Star Trek
Trek has referenced countless things in pop-culture. Let's go over some of the most interesting.
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00:00 Human culture in Star Trek has changed so much over the centuries, yet there still exist
00:04 many relics of art and inventions from modern times.
00:08 Pop culture references appear in many different forms, from brief mentions in dialogue to
00:13 background appearances and sometimes even important plot devices.
00:17 So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture, here with 10 examples of real pop
00:21 culture in Star Trek.
00:23 10.
00:24 Rick and Morty
00:26 Rick and Morty has been the center of a lot of controversy lately. With Justin Roiland,
00:30 the voices of both Rick and Morty, being fired from the show for domestic abuse, the future
00:34 of the show is uncertain.
00:36 But if the second season of Star Trek Picard is to be believed, the show will do just fine
00:41 without Roiland in 2024.
00:43 In the episode "Assimilation," right after Rios met Theresa's son, Ricardo, Theresa told
00:48 the boy in Spanish to finish his homework or else he couldn't watch Rick and Morty.
00:53 Aside from the fact that Rick and Morty seems a bit mature for a 9-year-old kid, lots of
00:57 folks online have pointed out how strange it is that the creator of Star Trek Lower
01:01 Decks, Mike McMahon, now exists in Star Trek canon, given that he also worked on Rick and
01:06 Morty as a writer, producer, story editor, and fourth season showrunner.
01:11 Does this mean that the show Lower Decks also exists in Trek canon?
01:14 It raises a lot of confusing questions, though the same questions could probably be raised
01:18 for many of the entries on this list.
01:20 9.
01:21 Nintendo Switch
01:22 Video games as we know them today don't pop up in Star Trek that often, as most humans
01:27 prefer to spend their time on holodecks during the 24th century, and things like recreation
01:32 rooms and basic holographic tech were available at least a century before.
01:36 Yet we've seen some older forms of media that still exist in Trek, like books, plays, and
01:41 we've even seen characters like Tom Paris and the NX-01 crew watch television and films.
01:46 It seems odd that classic video games are virtually absent from human society in the
01:51 show.
01:52 One of the only relics of the classic video game industry was a Nintendo Switch that appeared
01:56 very briefly as part of Colonel Hawes' collection in the Lower Decks episode "Kaishon, His Eyes
02:01 Open," along with dozens of other rare artifacts from real life and Star Trek history.
02:06 You can see the console in a display case behind Beckett and Jet while they're fighting
02:11 over the Kaishon doll and trying to escape Hawes' automated defense systems.
02:15 Video games have been referenced before in Dialogue, and the Katarian headset from the
02:20 Next Generation episode "The Game" could be seen as a form of video game.
02:24 Still, it seems odd that we haven't seen more references to real-world video games
02:28 or video game consoles in Trek.
02:30 We'd love to see more stuff like the episode "Lasting Impressions" from The Orville,
02:34 when the crew opened a time capsule from 2015 that contained a copy of Minecraft for the
02:39 Xbox 360.
02:40 8.
02:41 Fidget Spinners
02:42 In the same display case as the Nintendo Switch, you may have noticed another pop culture reference,
02:47 just to the left of the console.
02:50 Anyone who lived through 2017 will recognize the shape of fidget spinners, and remember
02:54 the hugely popular craze that spread across the world that year.
02:58 Fidget spinners seemingly came out of nowhere in 2017 and were gone from pop culture almost
03:03 as fast.
03:04 Yet, while they were popular, you couldn't visit any market, convenience store, or virtually
03:08 any establishment without seeing a huge collection of fidget spinners on display, usually positioned
03:13 strategically near the checkout counter.
03:15 It's unclear why Kerner-Hawes was so attached to the fidget spinner.
03:20 Maybe it was an actual relic from 2017 Earth, since it's unlikely that a replicated spinner
03:25 would be as impressive to him.
03:26 The episode "Kay Sean His Eyes Open" was absolutely packed with references to Trek,
03:31 but the Switch and this fidget spinner were the best examples of modern pop culture items
03:35 in his collection.
03:36 7.
03:37 Movie Night
03:38 The crew of the NX-01 Enterprise held regular movie nights in the ship's mess hall.
03:43 During these movie gatherings, several real-world films appeared.
03:46 Most of the ones we saw were from the mid-20th century, but the ship's database had an extensive
03:50 catalog of over 50,000 films.
03:53 In the episode "Cogenitor," we see Trip look through a list of some of the films in their
03:58 database, which included popular classics like "The Day the Earth Stood Still," which
04:01 also appeared in the beginning of the first episode of "Strange New Worlds," but also
04:05 films based off of holodeck programs we've seen throughout Trek.
04:09 The film titled "Dixon Hill and the Black Orchid" referenced Captain Picard's Dixon
04:13 Hill programs, and "The Bride of Chaotica" is from Tom Paris' Captain Proton programs.
04:19 Members of the crew that often attended movie night included Trip, Archer, Mayweather, and
04:23 Sato.
04:24 While Phlox and T'Pol didn't enjoy the films as much as the human crew members, they still
04:28 occasionally attended to better understand human interests.
04:32 After watching the 1931 film "Frankenstein," T'Pol compared the villagers' reactions to
04:37 Frankenstein's monster to humanity's reaction when the Vulcans made first contact.
04:42 She also made a recommendation to Ambassador Saval that any Vulcans newly arriving on Earth
04:47 should be shown the film as preparation, much to Archer's dismay.
04:51 6.
04:52 The Flux Capacitor
04:53 Technobabble is basically just made-up words that writers can use to explain sci-fi technology.
04:59 Star Trek really loves to use Technobabble in dialogue, but it's far from the only franchise
05:03 to do so.
05:04 Perhaps the most famous example of Technobabble is the Flux Capacitor from "Back to the Future,"
05:09 which somehow allowed Doc Brown to time travel.
05:12 Star Trek made an homage to this famously ambiguous device in the Next Generation episode
05:16 "Holo Pursuits," albeit accidentally.
05:19 While trying to figure out why the anti-grav units failed, Wesley suggested that Lieutenant
05:23 Barclay should check the flow capacitor.
05:25 Later in the episode, Barclay complained about the incident to a hologram of Counselor Troi,
05:29 saying "I knew about the flux capacitor, but I didn't need to hear about it from some 17-year-old
05:33 kid."
05:34 Unfortunately, the term was accidentally changed from "flow capacitor" to "flux capacitor"
05:39 by Dwight Schultz, but regardless, the inclusion of a flux capacitor into the Star Trek Technobabble
05:44 dictionary is certainly welcome.
05:46 5.
05:47 Morn
05:48 Deep Space Nine wouldn't be the same without everyone's favorite Lurian barfly, Morn.
05:53 Morn was one of Quark's best customers, and can be seen at his bar in dozens of episodes.
05:58 He was known for being a brilliant storyteller, a shoulder to cry on, and one of the most
06:02 talkative creatures the crew had ever encountered.
06:05 Throughout Deep Space Nine, many people aboard the station came to consider Morn a close
06:09 friend.
06:10 You may not know that Morn was actually based on the character Norm, who appeared at the
06:14 bar in every episode of the television show Cheers.
06:17 Both characters were heavy drinkers and the subjects of several running gags in their
06:21 respective shows.
06:22 Morn's legacy lives on today through the numerous other Lurians we've seen in Star Trek Discovery.
06:27 Morn himself even returned to television in the Lower Decks episode "Here All Trust Nothing."
06:31 It's great to know that after everything that's changed on the station, Quark still has his
06:35 most loyal customer by his side.
06:38 4.
06:39 Dungeons & Dragons
06:40 Dungeons & Dragons, the hugely popular tabletop role-playing game, was referenced in a really
06:45 fun way in the Lower Decks episode "The Least Dangerous Game."
06:48 In the episode, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford played a Klingon-themed role-playing
06:53 game called "Batleths and Bainuks," where the goal was to die with as much honor as
06:58 possible.
06:59 The gameplay shared many similarities with Dungeons & Dragons.
07:02 The game had figurines, multiple expansion packs, and even a 20-sided dice.
07:07 Tendi saying to herself, "Come on, natural 20" was also a nice touch.
07:11 The game also featured a screen with interactable simulations of famous Klingons like Martok
07:16 and Gowron, who would basically act as the dungeon master of the game by telling the
07:20 story and introducing obstacles for the players to overcome.
07:24 The interactable Klingons on the screen also seem to be a reference to Star Trek The Next
07:27 Generation A Klingon Challenge, which was an interactable VHS board game that featured
07:32 a video of a Klingon named Kavok, who would explain the game to players as they tried
07:36 to stop him from taking the Enterprise D to Kronos.
07:39 3.
07:40 Star Wars
07:41 Interestingly, R2-D2 popped up briefly in both the 2009 Star Trek film and Star Trek
07:47 Into Darkness.
07:48 In the 2009 film, he can be seen through the Enterprise's viewscreen after they walked
07:53 to Vulcan, and in Into Darkness, he got sucked into space along with several crew members
07:57 when the Enterprise suffered a devastating hull breach.
08:01 While these appearances were obviously just little Easter eggs that hardly anyone noticed,
08:05 it's much more fun to take it overly seriously and pretend like this proves that R2-D2 traveled
08:10 through a wormhole from a galaxy far, far away to be in these films.
08:14 So there you have it, Star Wars is officially canon to Star Trek.
08:18 And it's not just the alternate timeline either, because the Millennium Falcon can actually
08:22 be seen during the battle with the Borg in Star Trek First Contact.
08:26 All this time, we've been arguing over whether Star Trek or Star Wars was better, but we
08:30 failed to realize that they were in the same universe all along.
08:34 2.
08:35 Doctor Who
08:36 Here at WhatCulture, we're huge fans of both Star Trek and Doctor Who, so we love when
08:41 the two franchises reference each other.
08:43 Doctor Who is a lot more direct with its references.
08:46 Star Trek has actually been mentioned by name on multiple occasions, like when Joy asked
08:51 if a member of the Silence was wearing a Star Trek mask in the episode "The Impossible Astronaut."
08:55 Trek, by comparison, has been a bit more discreet.
08:59 This reference was removed from the Blu-ray remaster of The Next Generation, but in the
09:03 original version of The Neutral Zone, the graphic of Claire Raymond's family history
09:07 included several names of actors who have played the Doctor.
09:11 William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, which was
09:16 spelt incorrectly, by the way, and Colin Baker.
09:19 They all appeared as part of the family tree.
09:22 Also, in The Naked Now, Riker asks for a sonic driver to open a force field, which seems
09:27 to be a clear reference to the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.
09:31 The Doctor has encountered the Federation in comic books, but we would love to see this
09:35 happen on screen.
09:36 Both franchises have already shown that interdimensional travel is possible, so maybe we'll get a full
09:41 crossover episode one day, but it's probably a pipe dream.
09:45 But I will take this opportunity to direct you towards our sister channel WhoCulture
09:49 if Doctor Who is also something that you are interested in.
09:52 Number 1.
09:53 Shakespeare
09:54 It's well known that Picard was a massive Shakespeare fan.
09:57 When Q visited the Cerritos in the Lower Decks episode "Veritas," he even complained about
10:02 Picard, saying that "He's no fun.
10:05 He's always quoting Shakespeare.
10:06 He's always making wine."
10:08 Q wasn't wrong.
10:09 In the very first Next Generation episode "Encounter at Farpoint," he quoted "Kill all the lawyers"
10:14 line from Henry VI, Part 2.
10:17 Then in the episode "Menage a Troy," he recited several lines from Shakespeare's sonnets and
10:22 Othello in order to save Lwaxana Troy from Damon Togg.
10:26 This habit continued into Star Trek Picard, with Jean-Luc quoting "No legacy is as rich
10:30 as honesty," from "All's well that ends well" to his dog number one.
10:35 We can see in the Next Generation episode "Hide and Queue" that Picard kept a copy of
10:39 Shakespeare's complete works in his ready room, and the Enterprise D often held live
10:43 performances of Shakespearean plays, so it's safe to say that the playwright was a major
10:48 inspiration to the Captain.
10:50 And that concludes our list.
10:51 If you think we missed any, then please do let us know in the comments below.
10:55 And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell
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11:05 And I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:09 I've been Ellie with Trek Culture.
11:10 I hope you have a wonderful day.
11:12 And remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
11:15 [MUSIC PLAYING]