OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)

[Fairlight]

On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 07:32:22PM -0400, Kenneth Brody, the prominent pundit,
witicized:
> 
> There was a show on the Discovery Channel a few months ago called
> "How William Shatner changed the world", and was basically how
> things from Star Trek ended up inspiring some of the people who
> are responsible for much of today's technology.  (Like the guy
> who is credited with inventing the cell phone, who got the idea
> from the Star Trek communicators.)

Obviously titled by someone that didn't give thought to the fact that
Roddenberry was actually the man with the ideas, Shatner was just the actor
that brought one role to life.  I'm not a huge Roddenberry loyalist like
some.  Actually, I'm surprised he was never maliciously accused of being a
Communist, given his views on some things.  But the man deserves the credit
he's due for creativity and vision.  I like Shatner more than a lot of
people seem to, but damn, people need to get their priorities straight when
crediting people.

Strangely, one wouldn't think that Roddenberry, as the show's creator,
would have had much of a grasp on the finer details of the fictional
science on an ongoing basis--more a general overview.  I remember somewhere
on the DVD's for either the original series or maybe TNG there's a
segment with one of the staff writers that worked on both shows.  In that
interview, the writer said that Roddenberry sat him down one day and said
that the writers were using shields and deflectors interchangeably, there
was a difference, and spelled it out for them. :) I thought that was
actually pretty cool.  That puts him more in the category of a Straczinski
(B5) or Whedon as far as being artistically hands-on and more than just a
show-runner or general producer.

(Shields are active shields for defense against combat weapons, etc.
Deflectors are navigational, basically to avoid problems at high speeds
with micrometeorites, or even interstellar dust at those velocities, which
would rip a ship to shreds.  Just for those that were confused.)

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