Hi,

 

I've been watching the 2009 Star Trek movie and somehow it appeared to me, that the makers must have been inspired by the Space Quest computer games. I'm referring especially to the following two scenes:

 

1. when James T. Kirk is hunted down by the fierce monster on the ice planet, the monster eventually grabs his foot with its tongue and tries to pull it in its mouth. The tongue and the general appearance of the monsters head and mouth seem too close to the sea monster in Space Quest 4 (or 12) during the scene Roger gets tortured by the Latex Babes of Estros.

 

2. The interior of Spock's ship containing the red matter, looks very similar to the Aluminium Mallard from Space Quest 3, at least at the moment, when the young Spock enters the cockpit, the front seat turns to front, the ship begins it ascent.

 

It may be, that I'm a little prejudiced, or on the wrong track. But I saw these scenes for the first time now, and it really struck me.

 

What do you think about this theory? Are there any other references to SQ from major movies?

 

Best,

Martin

We used to find tons of these "references" in popular culture all the time, but they usually turned out to be complete coincidences. Like Zapp Brannigan from Futurama lookimg suspiciously like Roger in SQ5, but not really.

 

We do know for a fact that Zach Braff is a Space Quest fan, though.

Yeah, and Jimmy Fallon is - or was, at least - a fan too.

 

I personally think this is more of a case of generic monster and spaceship designs in sci-fi. Something Space Quest had to work with and poke fun at, obviously. Besides, the name and part of the design of the Mallard are clearly inspired by the Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars". So, I'd say no. Just a coincidence in a damn good film :)

Space Quest does occasionally tread that triangular line between originality, parody, and rip-off sometimes, as do many other sci-fi entities. ;)

A kind way of putting it would be "utilising key tropes"... but, yeah, rip-off is probably closer to the mark. :)

The word "rip-off" gets thrown around a lot, but it really only applies when an idea is knowingly stolen and sold under false pretenses. Space Quest didn't do that, because it was an implied comedy from the beginning. We recognized the locations and situations from Star Wars, and the game didn't try to hide that it was poking fun at the genre. Likewise, any resemblance Star Trek had to the games is likely coincidental. Hundreds of people work on those films and there's always the chance a concept artist might invent the interior of the Aluminum Mallard by mistake.

 

On the other hand, if Kirk and the crew started out as a cleaning crew, battled the Sorians for the Solar Generator, and wound up on the desert planet of Kareno where they fought an Octopus-Droid, then you might have a case.

There is also the principal of fair use.