"Spectre of the Gun" *
Additional title as of 1999, "The Episode the Wachowski Brothers watched and got the idea for The Matrix"
Captain Kirk, the original "Space Cowboy" (a title later awarded to Han Solo), finds himself in a foggy recreation of an Old West shootout with Wyatt Earp.
After royally pissing off an alien brain surrounded by fog, the brain transports the 5 to a low-budget recreation of the Old West. Spock determines that the alien reached into the ancestral recesses of Kirk's brain to find a suitable execution place. This spectral realm now contains the bare essentials necessary to bring about their deaths. (clever way to explain your budget constraints) Kirk tries to negotiate peace, Scotty takes to drinking Bourbon, Bones and Spock try to make a knock-out-grenade, and Chekov has a short romance with a local girl.
Each of these goes sour. The gas-bomb fails to render anyone unconscious and Kirk fails to make peace, (I mean, really, what can he expect? He's arguing with cowboys here, not sissy pajama wearing aliens). Chekov gets shot, and everything looks the worst.
Spock determines that the blue-brain aliens have created this spectral existence in the minds of the crew. Physical reality does not exist here, they are only given reality by the mind. "Chekov is dead because he believed the bullets killed him? If we do not believe that the bullets are real, then they can't kill us?" (insert long speech that was later copied and pasted into the Matrix).
Armed with this epiphany alone, the crew goes up against Wyatt Earp and his gang.
The bullets zip right through the Enterprise crew, and Kirk continues to beat the crap out of Wyatt Earp. Seeing how Kirk outsmarted them, the aliens decide to give Kirk another chance and release the crew.
With this as a foundation, it's clear that a film like the Matrix would develop sooner or later. The Matrix. Star Trek. Both starring good looking but terrible actors, featuring terrible sequels, horrible social commentary, and some philosophy 101. I bet this episode was a childhood favorite of the Wachowski bro's. Each dreamed of making a ridiculous film full of flying bullets and kung fu where the hero never got hurt. My question is: Why do bullets still hurt people in The Matrix? If gravity isn't real, if physics can be bent, if punches that can take out a wall don't kill... why can't bullets be "unreal" just as they were in this Star Trek episode?
Spock asks Kirk if he ever "wanted" to kill Wyatt Earp. Kirk explains that he wanted to, but he did not give into his desires. He said that humanity got past the violence of the old west because we "overcame our instinct for violence". With films like The Matrix increasing their violent content, I think humanity isn't overcoming too many instincts.
In conclusion: Hey, with a great flying dropkick like this, The Matrix is an obvious grandchild of "Spectre of the Gun".
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