10 Examples Of Real Pop-Culture In Star Trek

The crew of the NX-01 Enterprise held regular movie nights in the ship's mess hall. During these movie gatherings, several real-world films appeared. Most of the ones we saw were from the mid-20th century, but the ship's database had an extensive catalogue of over 50,000 films.

In the episode Cogenitor, we can see Trip look through a list of some of the films in their database, which included popular classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still (which also appeared at the beginning of the first episode of Strange New Worlds), but also films based off of holodeck programs we've seen throughout Trek. The film titled Dixon Hill And The Black Orchid references Captain Picard's Dixon Hill programs, and The Bride Of Chaotica is from Tom Paris' Captain Proton programs.

Members of the crew that often attended movie night included Trip, Archer, Mayweather, and Sato. While Phlox and T'Pol didn't enjoy the films as much as the Human crewmembers, they still occasionally attended to better understand Human interests. After watching the 1931 film Frankenstein, T'Pol compared the villagers' reactions to Frankenstein's monster to humanity's reaction when the Vulcan's made first contact. She also made a recommendation to Ambassador Soval that any Vulcans newly arriving on Earth should be shown the film as preparation, much to Archer's dismay.