Other articles by Phil Villarreal:

'Express' a summer hit Movie gem from Down Under is sure to charm your pants off Mistaken identity draws artist to film scene Journalist was a force of nature Ask Phil Phil's picksDon't ask 'Mummy' 'Savage Grace' provokes guilty gawking and no empathy You can see Tucson musician in 'Swing Vote' Lock 'n' load, rock 'n' roll

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Beam me up, J.J.

That was the nature of former Tucsonan Carolyn Porco's response when J.J. Abrams, director of next year's "Star Trek" film, asked her to serve as a scientific consultant on the movie.

Porco, a former faculty member at the University of Arizona, will advise graphics technicians after the film has been shot, lending a measure of credibility to the imaginary technology depicted onscreen. The movie, which depicts the early adventures of series icons Kirk and Spock, is due out in May 2009.

Porco, 54, served in a similar capacity for "Contact" (1997). She's the leader of the Imaging Science team on NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. and an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado.

"He called me on the phone and started talking to me about his thoughts on sci-fi flicks. He mentioned the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Since '2001' is my all-time favorite sci-fi film, it made me think this guy thinks like me. I was 'in' at that point."

"I was one of the originals. I watched Captain Kirk back in the '60s. I used to actually take my younger brothers to 'Star Trek' conventions. I watched ('Star Trek: The Next Generation,' the series with) Picard and the first 'Star Trek' movie, 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture.' I've seen 'The Wrath of Khan.' "

What will you work on?

"Not at all with warp drives and phasers. I'll probably be working with them creating astronomical scenes, planetary scenes, whatever there's going to be."

"I doubt there will be very much shooting down (with) inane things like phasers. I'm going to be the planetary policewoman. That's what I'll try to be. I'll be consulting, but in the end it's Abrams' decision what he takes and what he doesn't of my advice. From what I can see, this is a sincere group of people trying to get it right. From what I've seen, the idea is to make this movie different. Of course, it's still gonna be 'Star Trek.' "

" 'Armageddon' I didn't even watch. People told me it was very badly done. So ridiculous. I did watch 'Deep Impact.' That wasn't too bad."

"You know how these things go. If you do something right, another person gets the credit. Do something wrong and you get the credit. In the end, Abrams makes the decision. . . .

"It would be lovely to get some of the real solar-system phenomena on the big screen. You can't really expect reality. You couldn't realistically depict objects as they would be observed at 10 astronomical units away from the sun because our eyes are not evolved to work under those conditions. So, you have to violate something to begin with. Sunlight illumination on Saturn is 100 times less than what we have here. High noon on Saturn is like early twilight on Earth. If we were to make our Cassini pictures look totally realistic, you wouldn't be able to see them because they would be too faint.

"Another fact is you basically lose your color response when solar illumination is dim. So, things would look pretty colorless if we were to aim for perfect realism."

If you're involved in filmmaking and would like to be featured in a Q&A, write to pvillarreal@azstarnet.com.