Five Master Shots- Star Trek

Star Trek- S1 EP "The Man Trap"

In this scene the straw plants depict what is commonly used as giving a girl flowers in our world. Because of the lack of flowers the straw like plants symbolize the flowers in which the commander gives to his old girlfriend.

In this scene the ship that Spok is aboard is flying around the planet that his crew members are currently ongoing scientific research. Because both of these events are ongoing at the same time this depicts simultaneity. 

In this scene one of the crew members sees Kirks ex differently, as someone that he used to know. This is because the creature takes different form from feeding on the salt from humans bodies. Because this is the first instance in which these creatures (whom everyone at this point still believes to be real people) gives viewers insight that something is off, setting the stage for the creatures to be revealed later- portraying parallelism.

This scene shows more of the crew members dead by sudden salt deprivation, showing the red molds on their faces. Because every time a person dies, the first shot is always their face with the red molds onto it. These molds tell readers there is an underlying cause and the issue is much larger than suggested, and in this case its a creature doing the killings not the atmosphere. This is a repeated shot (4) times portraying leit motif.


This scene is when the creature is revealed and that it is not just the crew members imagination that she can take different forms. This contrast is sudden because it changes the climax of the episode and goes from a presumably good character to a bad one. Because it changes on the spectrum so rapidly it creates a contrast scene.