Coolest Star Trek Gagets In Honor of the New DVD
Article by Bryan Enderson
As a big Star Trek fan, and also in honor of the fact that we’ve got a new Star Trek DVD on the way, it’s important to take a few minutes and think of some of the gadgety coolness that Star Trek has contributed to modern life. Of course, this list could end up being very long as the franchise has made quite a mark on popular culture. To help keep it to a more manageable size I am just going to talk about the top five Star Trek Gadgets.
1. Transporters
The fact of the matter is that the only reason transporters became a part of Star Trek was that early producers needed to find a way to quickly and cost effectively get the crew to and from planets on each episode. They found that it would entirely too expensive to film sequences with shuttle craft. And the compromise between art and science was that the notion of the transporter was invented.
However, the transporter has become a part of popular culture since those early days and today it is difficult to imagine Star Trek without them. It may not be an overstatement to say that, “Beam me up, Scotty!” may be the most enduring catchphrase of all the famous Star Trek catchphrases.
2. Communicators
Star Trek basically invented the idea of the personal communicator. These were used in the original series as a way for crew members to communicate with each in a technologically advanced way. They were entirely a product of the imagination of Gene Roddenberry as there was no comparable technology in the 1960s.
To think that all of our cell phones and other personal wireless devices were predicted by Star Trek. And the fact of the matter is that humanity should be impressed with itself for how fast the ideas of the personal communicator came from far-flung sci-fi to reality.
3. Warp Speed
The fact of the matter is that the vastness of space necessitated the creation of warp speed. Because space is so very large it would take an entire lifetime just to get from one star to another — and that is at the speed of light!
It was decided that for dramatic reasons the Enterprise would have to move much faster than that. So, based on some existing scientific principles, the idea of warp drive (faster than light travel) was created.
4. Phaser weapons
Remember folks, keep your phasers on stun! The phaser was introduced in Star Trek so that the crew could have a weapon to fight the bad guys with that was not a gun as that seemed kind of quaint for a futuristic show such as Star Trek.
As a result the hand held phaser became a staple of many Star Trek adventures. Additionally, starships were equipt with phasers and the result was some of the most interesting space battles in cinema history.
5. Tricorders
In Star Trek both the medical and engineering corps never responded to a situation without a tricorder in hand. The tricorder was a small, portable device that could provide instant readings about a medical or sci-fi related situation.
The beauty of the tricorder was that they could tell you anything about just about anything so they became a standard part of away missions as well as on board endeavors.
With a new Star Trek DVD set to arrive in stores this fall, interest in Star Trek has never been higher. The important thing to realize is that even though there have been a great deal of cool gadgets in star trek’s past, there are even cooler things promised for the future.
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About the Author
Bryan is a Star Trek fan for life. He writes articles across the web on this an other subjects. His most recent articles on the soon to be released Star Trek DVD can be read on hubpages.
