Kubrickian Homages in Star Trek: TNG

Friend of the blog David O. has been catching up on Star Trek: The Next Generation while hitting the gym (who says all Trekkies are couch potatoes) and he noticed something that he passed on to me to pass on to you.

In Season 4, the episode "The Mind's Eye" Geordi LaForge is kidnapped and brainwashed by Romulans to assassinate a Klingon official visiting the Enterprise.

David noticed some homages to Stanley Kubrick's work in a few areas. One is when the brainwashed Geordi is walking down the Enterprise corridors; the tracking shot echoes similar shots in Kubrick's The Shining, with a similar creepy feel.

Also, the contraption the Romulans strap LaForge into to conduct the brainwashing looks like nothing so much as a 24th century Ludovico device used by the authorities to brainwash Malcolm McDowell's character in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Television productions, by their nature, are often rushed and chaotic, but anytime you can pay homage to a master filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick, as Martha Stewart was fond of saying, "That's a good thing."

Screencaps from Trekcore.com Star Trek: TNG is a Registered Trademark and Copyright 2015 by CBS Studios, Inc.  No infringement is implied with this review.