I just finished watching the new "Star Trek" movie for the second time in just a few days (it's cycling around on my cable network). I saw it in the theater in the states a couple of times last summer as well.
I think this is one of the most awesome movies I've ever seen. I could quite happily watch it again. And again.
Perhaps I should explain. I am a scientist, and I hope that you understand that I mean that in a very old-fashioned sense. If this were the 19th century, I'd say I am a naturalist. There is very little natural history that I don't follow at least on a dilettante level: biology (flora and fauna), genetics, evolution, medicine, geology, physics, chemistry, math, engineering...I read in wide swaths across the technical and lay literature of all of these fields.
And I can tell you with absolute confidence and a straight face that "Star Trek" is responsible for my profligate embrace of the world of science.
No, not the 2009 movie, but the original TV series.
My brother and I would rush home from school so that we could watch "Star Trek" every day. We of course had no idea then that the show was in syndicated reruns by that point. We were totally absorbed, consumed, by every nuanced and heavily overacted scene. This was the world of the future! We inhabited that world alongside Jim, Bones, Spock, Sulu, et al.
"Star Trek" utterly shaped my view of the world, of the universe, and of what a scientist should and could be--an explorer, a seeker, a risk taker, an adventurer. Spock was always my personal hero.
The "Star Trek" movie that came out last year has to be one of the most magnificent prequels ever devised. Gradually linking in every major character, sketching three-dimensional backstories in just a few minutes, and setting us up for the TV series, the movie is a two-hour homage. You know the red-uniformed guy is going to get killed first. "Cap'n, I'm givin' it all she's got!" "Jim, I'm just a doctor!" Even the sound effects created in the 21st century echo the best of the 1960's. To the great satisfaction of even the most die-hard Trekkie, the movie didn't leave out a single cliche or cultural meme.
And let's not dance around this: in the movie, the young Spock is totally hot. Awesomely and totally hot. In a cerebral, Vulcan sort of way, of course, but still, totally hot.
This week I'm delivering a new course that I built called "Petroleum Geology for Engineers", designed to give production, drilling, and reservoir engineers at Saudi Aramco some idea of what petroleum geology is and how it is practiced in this company (I use the word "company" loosely; Aramco is not a company but a branch of the Saudi government; but as they say, that is a whole 'nother rant for another day). I will spend this week in front of a group of 20+ young Saudi engineers, suspicious of me from the get-go because I am a westerner, even more so because, god forbid, Allah help them, I'm a woman. Still, let's not lose sight of what is important.
If I can infuse them with even a tiny spark of the same excitement that infuses geologists at Aramco, then I am indeed "going where no man has gone before."
I could do far worse than trying to follow in Spock's footsteps.
2 comments:
My brother and I did the SAME thing! We would sit on my parents bed and watch it every day, fond memories!
Even more interesting is that you and your brother were privy to the first viewing of each Star Trek adventure when it was a weekly series. The show came on on Friday nights and we all watched it..faithfully. So, you've had mega doses of going where no man has gone before. Am not surprised that Spock is your favorite.
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