Two crucial errors in the climactic sequence from 1994’s Star Trek: Generations have been bugging Jeremy Tinker for 30 years.
Tinker, an associate professor of physics at NYU, loves Star Trek, but there are a few things about the climactic sequence of the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations that send him straight into lecture mode about what it doesn’t quite get right.
First, there’s the matter of a rocket—launched by a bad guy in a tussle with Captain Picard—traveling far faster than the speed of light.
But what happens next is even more interesting for what it reveals about what would—and wouldn’t—happen if you could somehow suddenly stop energy production at the center of a star:
Source: NYU
