I&#x27;d like movies to go more for a kind of &quot;social proof&quot;. Part of the reason Star Trek, especially TNG, raised a generation of scientists and engineers is because science and engineering there is normal. Not mundane, but normal. Every protagonist and background character in this world is highly educated; no one is surprised by it, nobody boasts about it - it&#x27;s just how everyone are. Even that dirty Klinon thug knows more science and engineering than your average university graduate. It&#x27;s just <i>normal</i>, and I think it reflects on the audience.<p>Besides thinking, there&#x27;s a huge value in portraying accurate science and technology. Even if it&#x27;s background, not core of the plot. Pretty much everyone in the West learns stuff from TV and cinema, whether they like it or not. Especially if one doesn&#x27;t know about something beforehand, the movie will set baseline expectations about that thing. Think how most people seem to believe that people will explode when exposed to vacuum - thanks to decades of movies that told them exactly that. If people are going to learn from TV, they may as well learn the correct stuff.