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