Star Trek Beyond: 5 Ups And 3 Downs (The Science Edition)

2. The Universal Translator

Whether it's Star Trek, Doctor Who or Hitchhiker's Guide, this issue of language barriers has to be addressed at some point.

Usually movies establish the idea that, although we hear people speaking in English we're actually hearing the translated version of their mother tongue. Nice and easy and we can then carry on with the plot.

The universal translator in Beyond, however, was a nice touch as, not only could we hear the native speech beneath the translation, but we caught a glimpse of the language analysis process that allowed it to translate in the first place.

Universal translators are particularly exciting to tech geeks, as we're so close to having them as a reality in the near future. The Pilot translator will even sit in your ear like an electronic Babelfish and translate speech in real time for you.