Been thinking about
Star Trek all day now.
Decided to try and write up an essay of my thoughts on the movies' themes. It feels like a bunch of rambling, but I'll probably stick it on the blog anyway.
Be warned, it is very spoiler-y.
[Show spoiler]
Death: The Final Frontier
Throughout the saga of Star Trek, the crew of the Enterprise (and by extension, the crew of Deep Space Nine, the crew of Voyager, and every other Federation vessel or space station) is always in peril. The Federation confronts hostile alien races, insider threats, gargantuan anomalies, powerful entities, and more; such encounters usually put the ship, the crew, or even the Federation itself in lethal danger. The appeal of the TV shows is that the characters have problems to solve, and making these problems a lethal threat gives the stories higher stakes. You can usually be assured, though, that all the characters will persist and continue to explore strange new worlds in the next exciting episode.
With many of the Star Trek films, however, death doesn’t just become a mere threat: it becomes a thematic crux that drives all of the stories and characters. After exploring deep space and confronting such things as god-like entities, doomsday machines, Romulans, Klingons, the Borg, Khan, Q, Abraham Lincoln, and every other crazy thing, death is the only real unknown left for the Enterprise to explore.
These themes would have first surfaced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Its predecessor, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, never really put the crew into serious danger, except maybe that uncertain moment when the Enterprise first approaches V’Ger and takes a gamble on a transmission. And sure, V’Ger did threaten to destroy Earth, and Ilia’s body was effectively destroyed and rebuilt as a drone of sorts, but the film never really tackled death head-on as a theme. The Motion Picture was more about the wonderment of the actual trek in Star Trek, with lingering attention to the Enterprise, V’Ger, and evolution; the film basically celebrated the notion of becoming something greater.
In the next film, however, we are immediately introduced to the notion of the Kobayashi Maru test: a simulation in which cadets are given a rescue mission deep in enemy territory. Nobody can pass a Kobayashi Maru test – it is specifically designed to be impossible. Nobody can rescue the Kobayashi Maru’s crew without getting obliterated by a whole contingent of Klingon ships. This test is designed to make potential officers feel fear in the face of death, to reinforce their decision-making skills as commanders.
Nobody wins the test…except Captain James T. Kirk. How did he do it? As mentioned in The Wrath of Khan, and shown in the 2009 film Star Trek, Kirk reprogrammed the test in his favor. He effectively cheated, and Saavik was quick to note, “Then you never faced that situation... faced death.” To which, Kirk replied honestly, “I don't believe in the no-win scenario.” In every situation, Kirk does anything and everything he can to wrangle his way out of a jam: he uses his cunning, his slyness, and sometimes his fists, to make the situation work in his favor. Through these efforts, he cheats death, over and over again.
Thus, the most compelling moments in the Star Trek films are those in which Kirk actually confronts death. He does so when Spock dies at the end of The Wrath of Khan. Even when pursuing Spock’s resurrection in the next film, he faces death again when his son is unceremoniously murdered. Things get really interesting when Kirk witnesses Chancellor Gorkon’s death in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: at this point, Kirk hates the Klingons for his son’s murder, but standing so close to his enemy, watching him slowly fade away, there is no real hate in Kirk’s expressions. When Gorkon pleads, “don’t let it end this way,” Kirk is decisively troubled and disturbed. Maybe he even relates to Gorkon at this point. A lot of it may be because there was a lot at stake – peace between the two worlds, and his neck on the line – but by the film’s end, he does absolve the Klingons.
As Kirk notes in Star Trek II, “How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.” Throughout the Trek movies, vengeance is the common motivator for underscoring how certain characters deal with life. It’s actually a common trait among the villains: Khan is the most obvious example, in both The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: Into Darkness. As first introduced in the classic episode Space Seed, Khan is proven to be a man of such sheer cunning and strength that he threatened to murder the entire crew of the Enterprise; afterward, having been marooned on Ceti-Alpha V and having lost his wife, Khan’s sole purpose was to escape and make Kirk pay. Upon commandeering the Reliant, Khan was wisely informed that, with a new ship, he could go anywhere and do anything he wanted. But Khan very memorably declares, “He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him! I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up!” In the alternate universe of Star Trek: Into Darkness, Khan was exploited by the Federation, and his crew was held captive, causing him to seize control of the Vengeance to destroy the Enterprise and ultimately perform a kamikaze run on Starfleet Command. In both cases, Kahn is passionately driven to always gain the upper hand and destroy his enemies. He does so even at the expense of good sense, and in both films, he resorts to going down in a blaze of glory to have the final victory. His death in The Wrath of Khan is his ultimate failure, because the Enterprise escaped at the last moment, depriving him of his victory.
In both Wrath of Khan and Into Darkness, Khan is defeated by the selfless actions of his enemies. Both movies actually run through the exact same scenario: somebody has to die in the radiation-flooded warp core in order for the Enterprise to power back up (and in the case of Into Darkness, it gives the crew a chance to hunt down Khan and stop him). In Wrath, Spock died in the line of duty, arguing that the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” Through this justification, Spock gave his death meaning. With Into Darkness, the roles become reversed, and Kirk becomes the one to give up his life for the greater good. Many of the lines remain the same, but now Kirk becomes the one to understand the weight of Spock’s logic. At the same time, Spock is made to understand Kirk’s devotion to preserving the crew’s life. In the final act, Spock even goes through the motions of taking vengeance on Kahn, his rage mirroring the brutal bullying scenes in the 2009 film: he probably would have beaten Kahn to death, if Uhura didn’t stop him. If that happened, then Kirk would have never been revived. It’s as though the film directly asserts that revenge is death, while selflessness preserves life.
Vengeance continues to be a prevailing element in Star Trek: First Contact, with Captain Picard taking it out on the Borg for the time they assimilated him and made him into Locutus. It’s a captain’s worst nightmare to watch his entire ship and crew being taken over, as if suffering a slow death. Picard even resorts to killing his own officers, to prevent them from turning into Borg. In his view, the assimilated crewmen are beyond saving, and he was sparing them of their misery. It is only through Picard’s 21st century companion, Lily, that he comes to his senses and chooses to abandon ship and activate the self-destruct, rather than keep on hunting the Borg in a hopeless battle. Such a move proves to be unnecessary after taking out the Borg Queen, but the fact that Picard made the decision showed that he was willing to preserve life, rather than to throw the rest of his men into danger over and over again. He was even willing to sacrifice the Enterprise.
Sacrifice as a means for others’ survival is a continuing theme that renders the Enterprise crew continuously heroic. In contrast, the villains act so selfishly that their actions continue to be fruitless and dishonorable. In The Search for Spock, Kirk sacrifices the Enterprise itself to gain the upper hand. As attached as he is to the ship, it’s the ultimate gamble and sacrifice he makes in the original six films; he’s asserting that if he can’t have the ship, then nobody can. It’s not only a brilliant move that takes out most of his enemies, but as Dr. McCoy notes, he turned “death into a fighting chance to live.” By which, he asserts that the death of the Enterprise ensures everybody else’s survival, and ultimate victory.
The Search for Spock is also a big deal for having Kirk’s son murdered. It’s a pretty hard blow for Kirk, but Saavik later says, “David died most bravely. He saved Spock. He saved us all.” Here again, a selfless sacrifice preserves life.
One of the most hard-hitting scenes in the entire franchise is the opening to the 2009 film Star Trek. Confronted with the Narada – a Romulan ship from the future – George Kirk makes the hard decision to have everybody abandon ship, while he remains behind to drive the Kelvin straight into the enemy. His sacrifice ensures that the crew, including his wife and newborn son Jim, escapes and survives. This sacrifice becomes the biggest motivator for James Kirk becoming the man he is in the film. Granted, he may have indulged in some vengeance when he destroys the Narada, but not before offering Nero a chance to escape from the black hole. Nero’s blind hate and vengeance (which had previously driven him to destroy all of planet Vulcan and massacre millions) seals his fate.
More selfish villains rear their ugly heads, and continue to leave behind a trail of bodies. In The Search for Spock, Captain Kruge selfishly sought to harness the power of the Genesis planet, destroying a hapless merchant vessel and a Federation science vessel in the process. In The Voyage Home, the threat of making humpback whales extinct for commercial gain is an overt theme, which asserts that the world will be destroyed if the whales go away; in the film’s frantic finale, Kirk and the crew race to stop a whaling ship from spearing their best chance of saving the planet. In The Final Frontier, Sybock resorts to violence and terrorism to hijack the Enterprise. In The Undiscovered Country, characters on both sides plot to assassinate key officials, to prevent peace and potentially cause a never-ending war, if not the total extinction of the Klingons. With Insurrection, it is revealed that a race of aliens want to invade a planet and relocate its people so they can selfishly steal its life-preserving properties.
In Star Trek: Nemesis, the villain turns out to be Captain Picard’s clone, named Shinzon. The two seem to hit it off well enough at first, but they couldn’t be farther apart. Condemned as a slave, Shinzon proves to be hateful and vengeful, and pulls out a super-duper flagship to wipe out Earth with. In the frantic struggle that ensues, the Enterprise E is halfway destroyed, and Data resorts to sacrificing himself to destroy the Scimitar. So once again, selfless acts prevent a selfish villain from taking more lives.
Factors of sacrifice and selfishness even play into Kirk’s death in Star Trek: Generations. The film plays out pretty bleakly, with the villain Soran selfishly destroying an entire solar system just so that he could get back into the Nexus Ribbon. So once again, selfish actions cause widespread death. In order to reverse the situation, Captain Picard unites with Captain Kirk, and they both travel back in time to stop Soran. In the tag-team that follows, Kirk ensures that Soran’s rocket doesn’t go off, but while reaching for the control pad, he suffers a fatal accident. Victory is theirs, but with great cost.
Such is appropriate for Kirk, because Kirk himself claimed in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, “I’ve always known I’ll die alone.” I realize that, with this statement, he meant that the day he died would be the day he didn’t have Spock, McCoy, or anybody else in his crew watching his back. Granted, Picard was there, but Kirk and Picard were practically strangers. With his own crew, Kirk was part of a family, and they all watched out for each other to ensure their survival and success. In all their encounters, they prevailed because they worked as a team to accomplish every mission. At times, their actions became morally questionable: they became renegades in The Search for Spock, so they could, you know, search for Spock. They infiltrated a hospital in The Voyage Home to rescue Chekov. In Into Darkness, Kirk is called out for breaking the Prime Directive while rescuing Spock from an erupting volcano on a daring mission. Lots of interesting discussion ensued, as Spock insisted that he would have died to save the indigenous people and simultaneously upholding the Prime Directive; Kirk’s actions reflected the opposite viewpoint. Pike suggested that the whole thing shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Through the events of the story, however, Kirk and Spock are made to understand each other’s stance, and they are both made to face death in their own ways. Spock experiences it firsthand while mind-melding with Pike after he is gunned down; Kirk experiences it firsthand while saving his ship and crew.
In the original six films, Spock faces death, but never comments on it. McCoy snidely retorts, “You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?” So far, the newest series has Kirk facing death, but has yet to comment on it. Having mind-melded with Pike, however, Spock mentions feelings of fear and anger. Overall, even though death plays so much into Star Trek, it is never explored as an actual afterlife or anything. But as mentioned above, it’s not about death, but life, and how the characters face death. Many of the characters face it with hatred and vengeance, and wind up causing damage to themselves and others. For those who can face it, they wind up becoming the true heroes of the saga, often sacrificing themselves for a greater good and saving lives.
The latest film, Into Darkness, is likely titled such because of many reasons: the Enterprise penetrates Klingon space, and thus enters “dark territory,” and space itself can be considered “darkness.” Above all, though, I believe it’s titled as such for the thematic exploration of death and characters facing death. Kirk faces huge odds and ultimately makes huge sacrifices to win, but thanks to every other Trek film, it’s always been in the cards. Like the Genesis Torpedo, death has always been a catalyst for life to persist in the Star Trek films. In every situation, the manner in which the characters handle life or death situations prompts them to act in either a selfish or selfless manner; the characters could perish in either case, but those acting selfishly usually cause death and die uselessly, while those who make the sacrifice ensure everybody else’s survival. Each film serves to prove that, indeed, the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
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Lockout (dir. James Mather & Stephen St. Leger, 2012)
A Movie A Day: Day 390
I do owe jvince a lot for introducing me to such films as City of Life and Death, A Bittersweet Life, and other greats.
. Sorry for that confusion.
You gotta start right away. I agree with Squid; if you're watching them for the first time, don't watch them back-to-back.
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