Star Trek 50th Anniversary Blogging: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (January 10, 1969)

Stardate 5730.2

The Enterprise proceeds to a critical decontamination mission on the heavily-populated world of Ariannus, but en route the sensors detect a shuttlecraft in distress. The ship was recently reported stolen from Starbase 4, and there is one inhabitant aboard: Lokai (Lou Antonio).

Lokai is a strange individual, at least in terms of physical or biological characteristics. He is white colored on half of his body, and black colored on the other side. Dr. McCoy (De Forest Kelley) believes he may be a one-of-a-kind, a mutation.

This theory is proven wrong, however, when another being from Lokai’s planet, Cheron, arrives aboard an invisible spaceship in pursuit.

At first blush, Commissioner Bele (Frank Gorshin) seems to resemble Lokai, possessing white skin and black skin, in opposition.

But all of Bele’s people are black on the right side, whereas Lokai’s people are white on the right side.

This (apparently minor) color difference seems to be the source of huge distress and anger between the two individuals. Bele claims to have been hunting Lokai for 50,000 years, and wants to return him to Cheron to pay for his crimes of insurrection. Lokai, by contrast, wants disciples to follow him, arguing that Bele and his people are violent, tyrants, and that his people are enslaved.

When Captain Kirk (William Shatner) refuses to hand over Lokai, determining that he should stand trial for the theft of the shuttle, Bele takes control of the Enterprise, forcing the ship to alter course for Cheron. 

With no choice, Kirk demonstrates that his authority over the Enterprise is final by activating the self-destruct sequence. He aborts the one minute countdown only after Bele relents, and returns control of the ship.

After the decontamination mission at Ariannus, Bele again takes over directional controls. This time, he burns out the self-destruct mechanism, so Kirk cannot stop him.

On arrival, the Enterprise crew finds that Cheron is a dead world, one that has been engulfed in the flames of hatred and division for too long. Lokai and Bele’s people are all dead, having been unable to overcome their race hatred.

This knowledge, however, does not prevent them from continuing to fight and chase one another.

Originally titled “A Portrait in Black and White,” this episode of Star Trek (1966-1969) from Gene Coon (writing as Lee Cronin) is often described by critics and fans as being heavy-handed or preachy. 

I reply to those criticisms (perhaps as an “idealistic dreamer,” as Bele terms Kirk) in the following manner:

Preach on, Star Trek.

“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” is a brilliant episode, I would argue, for the way it addresses the utter stupidity and subjective nature of racism, or race hatred.

The message is heavy-handed or preachy? Really? If that’s the case, how come in fifty years man still suffers from this brand of stupidity? 

If the message of “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” is so blooming obvious, it seems that this is a lesson would have taken hold. And for so many people, it has not done so.

I term the episode brilliant specifically for the manner in which it explains racism, or rather reduces the concept of racism to its most basic (and therefore ridiculous) tenets. In a remarkable scene between Kirk, Spock, and Bele, the Starfleet officers attempt to talk reason to the commissioner from Cheron. They note that Bele and Lokai seem to be of the same race.

Bele responds, offended: “I am black on the right side. Lokai is white on the right side. All his people are white on the right side.” 

The inference in Bele’s response is that being white on the right side (rather than on the left side) is inherently, obviously, inferior to being white on the left side.

But no supporting evidence for this belief is offered. It’s just an assumed fact; something unquestioned by Bele’s people. It's a self-reinforcing, comforting myth, or bias, with no grounding in science.

Naturally, they are superior! They’re black on the right side!

And if you gaze at racism here on Earth, in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, racism makes no more sense than Bele’s statement does.

Why are black, brown, yellow, or red considered, often, inferior to white by some? Are these skin colors encoded with quality ratings, a hierarchy?

Or are they the product, instead, of self-righteous, comforting beliefs? 

The definition of racism is “a system of belief that all members of one race possess characteristics specific to that race in order to distinguish it from other races.” So if you are black on the right side, you are good, smart, and hard-working. If you are black on the left side, you are violent, uneducated, and lazy.

See how that works? Your skin color is your destiny; never mind your individuality. Never mind your experience. Never mind your achievements.

Spock responds to Bele’s statement by offering up the example of Vulcan. The Vulcan people would have destroyed themselves over such irrational, unfounded beliefs, had they not found the discipline of logic. He recommends that Cheron should adopt the same policy, lest its people be destroyed.

Kirk also attempts to talk reason to Bele, noting that a dialogue could be started between Lokai’s people and Bele’s people. 

Bele refuses to believe that Lokai’s people are capable of change (another trope familiar to racists), and Spock then speaks one of the core tenets of Star Trek; one paraphrased again just this weekend in the new Star Trek: Discovery (2017) trailer:

“Change is the essential process of all existence.”

Racism can’t exist with new input, with new facts, with new experiences. It thrives on ignorance, and stereotyping (the failure to note a person as an individual). 

If Bele lets himself believe that Lokai can change, or grow, then he can no longer cling to the myths around his own superiority.  He would have to re-examine the world, and find, perhaps, that he is not better than all others. Instead of being God's chosen, or biology's chosen, he might learn he is  just one star in a constellation of worthy beings. Clearly, at least from Bele's example, racism stems from the desire to be viewed as superior, while all others are inferior.

That idea of racial superiority based on skin color, as this episode points out, is antithetical to Star Trek and its messages. 

We may all be different. 

We may possess different strengths, and different weaknesses. 

But we are all worthwhile, and we all possess individual gifts that are separate from skin color, gender, orientation, and so forth. 

That is the heart of IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations), a concept introduced to the series earlier in the third season.

When I was a child, I did not fully understand the episode, I admit. I thought that one Cheron-ian was evil (Bele), and that one was good (Lokai). 

As I matured and re-watched the episode, I saw that the episode is not heavy-handed and obvious, because it recreates the complexity of the social unrest of the 1960’s in an even-handed way. 

Bele represents bigoted, unreasonable, privileged authority and racism, it’s true. But Lokai represents the counter-culture, and its willingness to overturn everything, in a day, without considering what could be lost by throwing the baby out with the bath water. 

Another way to put this: Bele wants to preserve the status quo, at all costs, because he strides atop it. There can be no change, especially from inferiors, that would lessen his seat of power, privilege, and prestige on Cheron. 

Oppositely -- like a cracked mirror reflection -- Lokai is against the status quo, at all costs, and sees nothing worth preserving there. He would overturn all laws, cause violence, and undertake sweeping change to the social order without recognizing the good things in the status quo.

They are diametrically opposed, and neither character is angel. They are both devils in their own way. Remember, "fundamentalism" isn't about what you believe, it's how you believe that thing. Bele and Lokai share their extreme brand of fundamentalism, even if they believe different things.

But the episode’s ultimate message is that it doesn’t matter who is right, or more right in this, or any conflict. 

Irrational hatred, for or against the status quo is destructive, divisive, and has no positive end. The episode’s final imagery, of cities in flame, is a potent warning to the riot-struck America of the 1960’s that unremitting hatred from any corner, is unproductive, and worse than that, self-destructive.

Looking around at the world today, I don’t see why this episode is considered preachy or heavy-handed.  On the contrary, I would say that Star Trek found a way to fully expose how stupid and destructive racism and hatred can be. 

Sure, it’s all about the color(s) of skin, but that, of course, is the tether that racism is often bound to. “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” is not stupid or obvious. Contrarily, it is about how stupid and obvious racism is, as a belief system.  

As Kirk compassionately notes to the survivors of Cheron, “You must both end up dead if you don’t stop hating.”

As America grows more divided, more ill-informed, more enraged about “the other” in our midst (liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, gay, straight, atheist, Christian, white, black, male, female), this is a message worth repeating. 

Hate, finally, is not a governing strategy. Hate, in the final analysis, is not a way forward. It is a path, ultimately, to a burned-out cinder of a planet, where no partisans survive, and where no one can claim victory, moral or otherwise.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore hate when we see it, or fail to call it out. Only that, we must always remember Spock’s axiom that “change is the essential process of all existence.” Those whom we think can’t change….can change. 

We can’t give up hope that they will.  “Idealistic dreamers” must not give up on those dreams of a better future.

This message is the essence of Star Trek. Think about Kirk’s journey in The Undiscovered Country (1991), or the relationship of the Federation and the Klingon Empire over the whole franchise. Hate cannot be allowed to carry the day. Racism falls when we have to see our perceived enemies as people capable of compromise.

I love that “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” exists in the episode canon, and I hope that those who call it obvious or heavy-handed go back and actually experience its messages, again.

In terms of continuity, the episode is vital to the franchise because it sets up, precisely, the parameters of starship self-destruct sequences in the 23^rd century. The codes, the multi-officer input, and the countdown are all featured again in The Search for Spock (1984), and the connection is a wonderful touch of continuity with the series. Even the auto-destruct in The Next Generation (“11001001” and “Where Silence Has Lease”) is based on the process we see explored in this particular episode.

Also, as I have noted above, it looks like Spock’s line about “change” in this episode has been re-parsed (and spoken by a young Sarek) in Discovery (2017), an indication that it will continue to carry importance across the Trek-verse.

What is the end-game for an episode such as “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?” 

Where do such idealistic dreams lead us? 

Sulu and Chekov share a conversation in this episode, wherein it is clear they have no first-hand experience with bigotry or racism. “There was persecution on Earth once. I remember reading about it in my history class,” they say.

That is the world worth building. 

This is the world we can build. And episodes such as “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” light the way, as Star Trek often does. We can either end up like Bele and Lokai, dining on the ashes of hatred, or like Sulu and Chekov, looking back and wondering how people could have ever been so damned hateful.

In two weeks, another episode laced with social commentary: “Mark of Gideon.”

Memory Bank: The Star Trek Compendium (1981)

It was Christmas, 1981, I believe, when I visited my aunt Patty and uncle Bob at their house in Summit, New Jersey.  

I was ten years old, and absolutely obsessed with Star Trek. 

In part, that obsession had been super-charged by the premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), which I found to be a challenging and beautiful cinematic experience.  

Basically, I lived and breathed Star Trek, and was desperate to see all the episodes of the original series again, because our local station, WPIX, always seemed to air the same handful of episodes ("That Which Survives" seemed to be on the air every other week, for some reason.)

Anyway, Patty and Bob presented me with a Christmas present, and one which absolutely inspired me: Allan Asherman's Star Trek: Compendium (Wallaby/Pocket Books), which was described on its cover as "the most thoroughly researched and complete Star Trek reference work ever published."

First, I have to say, I loved the look of the book cover. 

This was a crucial part of the experience. 

It was very futuristic, colored in metallic blue and silver (much like a poster of the Enterprise that hangs in my home office to this day). The Star Trek logo was that of The Motion Picture vintage, in golden or yellow lettering. 

Future editions of the book lost the metallic sheen and the futuristic feel, I felt, though added photos from the TV series in its place.  The lettering also changed back to the sixties TV show logo style.

The Star Trek Compendium -- which has indeed been reprinted and updated four times since the early eighties -- featured fascinating information on (according to the back cover): "photography and production," "technical matters," "series concept and continuity," "symbolism and trivia," "episode titles, dates of production and discussion of plots," and "career and biographical information of actors and production personnel."

In short, it was a treasure trove of information about my favorite TV series (and favorite new movie, too).  The Compendium lived up to its description on the back cover as a "gold mine" of information about Star Trek.

I read, re-read and then read again The Star Trek Compendium, and basically it with me wherever I went. I read it in the car on shopping trips.  I read it before bedtime. I read it with breakfast, the next day. 

Sadly, the book came apart from the heavy usage, by about 1984. I continued to read it, even with pages falling out. I finally got a new copy at a used book store sometime later, but it was one of the later editions, and didn't have the same feel/look of that first edition.

Today, decades later, I still remember unwrapping this book at the holiday season, and thrill of leafing through the pages of the Star Trek Compendium for the first time.  

For me, it was a magical time, and a magical book too. I am certain that this is among the handful of books that inspired me to become a writer.

I have just learned that Allan Asherman passed away, and I want to offer my deepest condolences to his family. 

But I also want to offer the author my sincerest thanks for a book that was my constant compendium as I grew up.  You made a difference, Mr. Asherman, in this young Trekker's life.

Memory Bank: Electronic U.S.S.Enterprise (South Bend; 1979)

The toy you are looking at was the holy grail for myself as a nine-ten year old kid. 

The year was 1979, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was coming to theaters.  At the same time, new toys and model kits were landing in the toy stores by the droves. It was an amazing time to be a kid, and a Star Trek fan.

South Bend produced a pair of dueling phasers, and this amazing toy, which the box art described as a "replica of the NEW U.S.S. Enterprise," complete with "integrated circuitry."

This toy also featured "throbbing warp engines" and "phaser firing sounds," plus "flashing bridge lights," and a "space docking cradle," (better known as a stand).  

But the cool thing about this easy, "snap together" toy (besides the fact that "no gluing is necessary") is that it could be disassembled and re-assembled as other vessels.  The Enterprise thus "offers choice of 5 exciting Starfleet ships."

I thought this was amazing, but finding a toy store that carried the South Bend Toy was nearly impossible, at least where I lived. 

I finally saw a rack of them at Two Guys in Totowa, but the Enterprise cost 19.99 at that point. In 1979, that was a lot of money, and I couldn't convince my parents to spring for it. Especially because they had already bought me the expensive AMT model kit.

It was not until 1999 -- twenty years  later -- that I got my hands on a used South Bend Electronic U.S.S.Enterprise. It was being sold at Sweet Union Flea Market in Monroe, NC, for ten dollars.  I happily forked over the cash, and the toy is now on display in my home office. 

Now and then, I still take it off the "space cradle" and re-configure the ship to be another vessel in the fleet. And the "integrated circuits" still work, after all these decades.

Star Trek 50th Anniversary Blogging: "Catspaw" (October 27, 1967)

Stardate 3018.2

In orbit of Pyris VII, the Enterprise becomes involved in a horrifying mystery. Mr. Scott (James Doohan) and Mr. Sulu (George Takei) disappear on the planet surface, while a security officer, Jackson (Jimmy Jones) is beamed back aboard.  However, he returns dead.  Aliens speak through his corpse as though he is possessed by spirits, warning Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to depart.

Kirk disobeys the ultimatum, and with science officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) beams down to the mist-enshrouded surface.  There, three witches attempt to warn them away, but Spock notes that they are not real.

The landing party soon finds a dark castle on a craggy mountain.  Inside, Scott and Sulu are the zombie servants of aliens Korob (Theo Marcuse) and Sylvia (Antoinette Bower), who appear to be a warlock and witch, respectively.  The strange duo is served by a familiar -- a black cat -- and Sylvia and Korob attempt to bribe the Enterprise crew to leave.

Kirk refuses, and learns that Sylvia and Korob have assumed human form. In doing so, they have made themselves susceptible to human emotions such as lust, and envy.  Kirk attempts to use this new-found humanity against the aliens, who have attempted to look “fearsome” by co-opting the old Earth symbols and figures of “trick or treat,” or Halloween.

Kirk realizes that if he can seduce Sylvia, he may be able to retrieve her power source: a magic wand of sorts called a “transmuter....”

“Catspaw” is a hokey and not entirely successful episode of the original series. It shares many story elements with another Trek, “The Squire of Gothos,” from the first season.  There, Kirk and Sulu (again!) are transported to a castle by a super being, Trelane. 

Similarly, in both stories, the key to resolving the crisis involves Kirk’s destruction of the alien power source, which can re-arrange energy and convert it to matter.  In “The Squire of Gothos,” Trelane had a mirror which could accomplish this, and which Kirk shattered.  In “Catspaw,” the transmuter, the magic wand, is the device of great power that must be destroyed.

Also, both stories involve alien beings of great power who misunderstand some aspect of human history.  Trelane looked through his scope and saw the Earth of Napoleon’s time.  He tailored his world to this primitive era, in an attempt to make the humans comfortable on his world, not realizing his error. 

In “Catspaw,” the aliens seek to keep Captain Kirk away and to do so mine the human collective unconscious for “spooky” imagery.  They also fail to realize that humanity has outgrown its irrational fears of witches, black cats, iron maidens, and so forth.

Even the episode conclusions are similar, as aliens are revealed to possess surprising forms.  Trelane is but a alien child, ordered to come home by his pure energy parents. And Sylvia and Korob are tiny bird/insectoid aliens.

“Catspaw” also relies on two familiar and formulaic Star Trek tropes. The first involves the idea that Captain Kirk must seduce some alien woman of tremendous power in an attempt to save the Enterprise.  Naturally, this alien female finds him irresistibly attractive.  In “Catspaw,” this plot-line requires Shatner to have his hands and lips on Antoinette Bower quite frequently.

Secondly, this story involves aliens from another galaxy who assume human form, and find that the “sensations” that go with human existence are over-powering, uncontrollable.  A better, more coherent version of the same story, replete with aliens from another galaxy, is the second season’s “By Any Other Name.”  That story features both a Kirk seduction of an alien woman, and emotionally arrested beings.  What “By Any Other Name” possesses -- and that which “Catspaw” lacks – is a sense of knowing humor about itself and the characters.

Known as the “Halloween” episode of Star Trek, “Catspaw” is probably as close as the series gets to Lost in Space (1965-1968) territory. In that series, as you may recall, aliens appear who have one human trait or occupation. The Robinsons encounter a space “knight,” a space “thief,” a space “pirate” and even a space “department store manager.”  There isn’t much rhyme or reason to these particular encounters, but Hollywood studio stock costumes and sets can be re-used and re-purposed, instead of invented.  “Catspaw” feels very much like a story of that type. Kirk and his crew encounter witches and warlocks in a castle, and get thrown in a dungeon.

The reason I mention Lost in Space is that the series makes no point of really explaining why aliens look like “types” from either 20^th century Earth, or historical Earth.   Here, we have a reason: Sylvia and Korob are explorers getting a foothold in our galaxy and they try to scare Kirk and co. away with symbols of human superstition and terror.

The only problem is that this idea isn’t consistent. The aliens try to scare Kirk off with Jackson’s corpse, and they try to bribe him with rare gems.  But they must understand that as long as they hold Scotty and Sulu hostage, the Enterprise isn’t leaving.  So while they are urging Kirk to leave them be, they also continue to hold his crewmen, literally forcing his continued involvement.  The obvious answer would have been to use the transmuter to hide, not interfere with the crew, and send back Scotty and Sulu.

Still, even in the campiest of Star Trek episodes, there are nuggets of greatness, both in terms of character interaction and series philosophy.  In terms of the former, Spock gets a great line about the MacBeth-style witches reciting bad poetry. It’s a perfectly Spock-ian line. Fear is an effective tool only where emotion is present, and he feels none.

In terms of the latter, there’s the aforementioned -- and remarkable scene -- in “Catspaw” during which Sylvia and Korob attempt to bribe the landing party with rare gems and jewels.  Kirk points out that the Enterprise could manufacture such minerals with very little difficulty.

What this means in practice is that the pursuit of wealth is not a motivating factor in the 23^rd century.  Rare gems are not even something that catches Kirk’s eye. Mankind has finally outgrown the need to be “rich.”  Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) takes this idea and runs with it, but “Catspaw” is an important piece of the puzzle.

Also, hokey or not, I absolutely love the scene in which Sylvia uses magic to “curse” the Enterprise, first floating a necklace of the ship over a candle’s hot flame, and then encasing it forever in a small lucite block.  It’s irrational and silly, sure, but strangely effective.

In two weeks: “I Mudd.”

At Flashbak: Captain on the (Toy) Bridge

This week at Flashbak was posted a hold-over from the Star Trek 50^th anniversary celebration on my blog.  It concerns…plastic toy versions of that great Star Trek hub adventure: the starship bridge.

Here’s a snippet and the url: http://flashbak.com/captain-on-the-plastic-bridge-remembering-the-first-fifty-years-of-star-trek-bridge-playsets-and-models-364296/

“It’s funny to think about, but all the great adventure -- in all the various iterations of Star Trek, Prime or Kelvin -- starts on the bridge of a starship. 

Accordingly, various toy companies over the last fifty years have recreated the U.S.S. Enterprise’s famous control room in plastic.

A model doesn’t promise the same interactivity as a playset, but in the 1970s, Star Trek fans were thrilled nonetheless when AMT released the U.S.S. Enterprise Command Bridge model kit. 

This kit replicated “the nerve center of the United Federation Starship Enterprise,” and came with three figurines of the crew (Kirk, Spock, and Sulu) that required assembly and painting.  The bridge itself – and all accouterments like chairs and consoles – had to be assembled and painted too, and the set also came with details to recreate the colorful displays on the upper wall of the original NCC-1701 bridge.

The kit had a number of drawbacks (including chair stands that broke), but the big drawback was that Uhura, Scotty and Chekov were not included in the model.

More interactive -- and more durable too -- was Mego’s Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise "Action Playset, the toy of choice for a generation of Trekkie kids. This mock-up of the U.S.S. Enterprise interior (bridge and transporter room) was a "giant, 24" long command center," "with captain's chair, console, two stools" plus six interchangeable "view screen scenes."  The set comfortably housed all the Mego Star Trek figures of the era, and, while not very show accurate in terms of design, was nonetheless a great toy.

In 1979, to coincide with the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Mego produced the new bridge playset to reflect the changes to the Enterprise since the end of the TV series. "All scaled for Mego 3 3/4 inch Star Trek crew" figures, this bridge "measures over 24 inches long and 12 inches wide and features" the following: "Working Docking Port," "Helm Control Center," "Navigational Station," "Captain's Chair," "Science Center," Communications Console" and "Authentic Decals."

Alas, this highly prized (and incredibly expensive) toy is made of the flimsiest, most lightweight plastic, and held together only by tiny square adhesive stickers.  The control panels, meanwhile, are simple stickers. It’s a beloved toy for me, but also a bit of a disappointment..."

Please continue reading at Flashbak.

The Films of 2016: Star Trek Beyond

[Watch out for spoilers]

The world really needs a good Star Trek movie right about now.

Why?

As a reminder of who we are, who we have been, and who, I hope, we can be again.

And because -- let’s face it -- 2016 hasn’t been a good year for humanity.

Historic international alliances are in jeopardy because of the politics of fear and resentment, and major candidates for high office paint dystopian, apocalyptic pictures of our collective future based on the scapegoating of ethnic and religious minorities.

Instead of actively engaging with the world, we see candidates putting forward major policies about retreat and retrenchment. They want to build walls to separate us from the rest of humanity, presumably to cower behind in terror.

It’s a worrisome time to be alive, as the unity of Western society frays, and long-held values are threatened by surging nativism, racism, and demagoguery. We are told to fear and ban those who don’t share our “beliefs,” while those who make such recommendations trade on slander, conspiracy theories, logical fallacies, and division.

Who needs enemies from outside our borders when we have them inside our borders, inciting violence and hatred?

By contrast, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek has proven itself a beacon of light and optimism for fifty years now.

It is a vision of a future in which people of different cultures (and co-cultures) -- and different beliefs -- work together in unity, to push the boundaries of knowledge and friendship ever further.

It is a vision in which racism is conquered, and all life forms are considered worthy of respect, of appreciation. 

It is a vision in which the unknown is only knowledge “temporarily hidden,” and fear and hatred are more dangerous forces than are alien beings, or other belief systems.

Consider: fifty years ago, the makers of Star Trek put a white Caucasian male, a green-blooded Vulcan, an Asian man, a Russian, a Southern gentleman, a Scot, and an African woman together in the control room of a starship and showed us that this crew represented humanity’s best not in spite of their differences, but because of their differences

Captain Kirk, a bold leader, needed the advice of his logical alien friend, and of his cantankerous Southern medico too.  But he could not take his starship anywhere without the Asian man and Russian man driving it, or the Scotsman keeping the whole thing from flying apart. And the African woman at the communications console was the ship’s voice to the universe at large, mellifluous and gentle.

The lesson of Star Trek was -- and remains -- that the future is ours for the taking if we can overcome the petty differences of the present.

We achieve that world by getting to know each other, and learning to respect and even love the differences we see in one other. When we don’t know others, we stereotype them, we discriminate against them.  When we get to know others, we detect common ground, and we see ourselves mirrored back.

A hideous rock monster, upon further knowledge, is a mother protecting her young. (“The Devil in the Dark.”) A weird energy cloud is not a zoo-keeper or captor, but a companion, and friend, upon learning the facts (“Metamorphosis.”)  A hideous monster in a giant spacecraft is actually a child-like being, prone to laughter, testing our resolve, and seeking friendship (“The Corbomite Maneuver.”)

Those are just three examples from Star Trek’s fifty year history in which hostility is reduced not by war or gunfire, but by attempts to understand and appreciate that which is different, or unknown, to us.

We need a good Star Trek movie right now -- especially now -- to remind us of all this.  We need Star Trek to remind us that we don’t have to wallow in petty resentment, and nay, that we musn’t do so, if we hope to achieve the egalitarian future Star Trek projects with such optimism and confidence.

Thankfully, Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond (2016) is not just a good Star Trek movie, it is a great one -- the best of the reboots so far -- and perhaps the best motion picture in the franchise since the original series cast said goodbye in 1991’s The Undiscovered Country.

The purists and nitpickers will complain -- because they always do -- but Star Trek Beyond is a joyous, optimistic expression of Gene Roddenberry’s core ethos and belief system. The future need not be about war or bloodshed. It can be about friendship, loyalty, progress, and the better angels of human nature.

Star Trek Beyond occurs in a dangerous period for the Enterprise -- and the Federation -- as an unknown menace strikes unexpectedly from out of the dark, threatening the crew’s survival. This force hates everything the Federation stands for, and wants to take Earth and its people back to a previous age, to a time of victory and glory, but not, importantly, of inclusion or equality. This force thrives on fear and disunity.

Facing this threat, the Enterprise crew -- separated and endangered -- never forgets its unity of purpose, or ideals, and fights back to preserve progress.

Replete with many delightful and pertinent references to Treks past (particularly, Enterprise [2001-2005]), Star Trek Beyond doesn’t recycle old villains or ask us to relive old narratives.

Instead, it provides a fresh tale that plays right into the cultural dialogue of the present epoch. It thus fulfills Star Trek’s highest aesthetic and moral purpose: it serves as a social commentary on who we are, right now. 

And -- again optimistically -- it shows us that we draw strength from unity, not fear. 

Perhaps the greatest quality about this movie is the manner in which it shows each crew member -- Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, and Chekov -- contributing to the well-being and safety of the crew, and indeed, the universe. Not since Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), have we had a Trek movie which highlights every member of the bridge crew so effectively, and with such delightful good humor.

Similarly, Star Trek Beyond’s commentary about “unity” in the face of backwards, divisive villains, not only reflects the specifics of the asymmetric warfare tactics of our current age, but finds literary and historic “symbols” to make its case about progress.

Sometimes, we get “lost,” the movie suggests, but we can find our way back…with a little help from our (pointy-eared) friends.

“Unity is not your strength. It is a weakness.”

Three years into the Enterprise’s five year mission, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is tired, and uncertain about the future, feeling that every day is becoming “episodic.”  As his birthday nears, he considers a vice admiral position in Starfleet, and turning the ship over to Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto).

Spock, upset to learn of the death of Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy), is also reconsidering his options for the future.

The ship docks briefly at a new starbase on the frontier, Yorktown. Once there, Kirk learns from Commodore Paris (Shohreh Aghdashloo) that the Enterprise is needed to help a crew in distress.

That distress call, however, proves to be a lure to get the Enterprise into an uncharted nebula. Once inside, the ship comes under attack from a swarm of bee-like spacecraft, which cripple her.  The enemy leader, Krall (Idris Elba), apparently seeks an artifact that Kirk has aboard the starship; an artifact that can be used as a weapon.

Krall captures most of the Enterprise crew, including Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) and holds them captive on a nearby planet surface. Scotty, however, befriends an alien, Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), who has made herself a home out of a crashed Starfleet vessel over a century old, the U.S.S. Franklin.

As Kirk and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) attempt to locate the position of the missing crew-members, McCoy (Karl Urban) must tend to Spock, who has been badly wounded.

As Starfleet’s finest gather -- with no ship and no crew -- the Federation’s future itself is at stake from a monster who wants to see the progress of the last century torn down. He wants a return to the past he knows, and will stop at nothing, even mass-murder, to achieve that goal.

“This is where the frontier pushes back.”

One of the greatest lines in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country comes from the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner). He notes to Captain Kirk that “if there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it.”

His line suggest that progress is always jeopardized by an old guard; a generation, or establishment that wants to maintain the status quo. Even if that status quo is conflict and warfare.

In many ways, this is also the subject matter of Star Trek Beyond.

Krall is a man who was bred into war and conflict, and who fought the Romulans and the Xindi as a military officer. After those wars, he saw the emergence of a “brave new world” (like Gorkon’s) and couldn’t adjust to it.  Instead, he feared it.

The world he had served in was, specifically, human centric, but this new “Federation” is not.  Instead, in the new order, humans are just one square in a quilt of many colors and designs.  This fact is conveyed in beautiful visual terms through Beyond’s surfeit of aliens.  It has been years since so many alien beings took center stage in a Star Trek film, and their make-up and designs here are fantastic.

But the message is that Krall wants things to go back to being the way they were when he was comfortable and at the top of the food chain; he wants to return to a “human” world, or one where humans are, at least, first in line. 

We see a similar desire in 2016 America, as demographics change.  There is a longing by some to “take America back” to a time when it was less diverse, less colorful, and more monolithic.

It is no accident, I submit, that the new starbase in the film is named Yorktown. 

It is true, of course,  that Yorktown was the original name of the starship Enterprise in pre-production of the original series in the 1960s.

 

But historically-speaking, Yorktown was the site of the last battle of the American Revolutionary War. It was there, in 1781, that the forces of the Colonies defeated the British, and finally, truly became something greater than a group of states. After Yorktown, those states -- which had declared their independence from England in 1776 -- truly became the United States of America.  The war was, for all intents and purposes, over.

And yet those thirteen colonies, of course, still had big differences in terms of industry and agriculture, religious belief, and even geographical features. Beyond, by selecting the name Yorktown, celebrates the last battle for the birth of the United Sttates. And thus, we can speculate that this Yorktown is the place that expresses, in the final frontier, the ideals of the ethnically-diverse, still young United Federation of Planets.

We know it is vulnerable. Bones compares it, explicitly, to a glass snow-globe.

Glass snow-globes break. By inference, we understand that this is a fragile time in the history of the Federation.

Pitched against the young Federation is a villain named Krall, who is essentially a 23^rd century equivalent to Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899).  This character’s includion makes Star Trek Beyond the second blockbuster movie this summer, after Legend of Tarzan (2016), to feature a character based on Kurtz, and his real-life, historical counterpart, Leon Rom.

But Krall is based more upon the literary figure, Kurtz, than he is the historical one, Rom. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is described as a demi-god; as being more than a man.  Given his abilities to regenerate (and absorb life), Krall could be given the same description.

In Conrad’s narrative, Kurtz is a man who goes to the Congo Free State and becomes a tyrant of sorts, using superior technology to control the natives. He is prone to exclamations of hate such as “Exterminate the Beasts!” 

Krall -- also like his literary corollary -- travels to uncharted territory, harnesses unusual technology, and plans a campaign of extermination. He even gets, upon his demise, a kind of “the horror, the horror” moment, at least in visual terms. 

But most importantly, Krall is a strong contrast to our Starfleet crew.

He is a twisted reflection of Kirk, at least on one level.  Kirk fears getting “lost” as captain of a starship, engaging in an enterprise with no end, and with no relativistic direction. Krall is the embodiment of such a lost captain; one who goes up river, or into the nebula, and strikes out to make his own kingdom or fiefdom. He cannot live in modernity.

And Krall, again in keeping with his literary antecedent, views alien races (read: the natives) not as equals or as beings to respect, but as people to conquer; to destroy. Like the Enterprise crew, he is “of” civilization, and yet falls victim to ethnocentrism; the belief that other cultures are not as worthy as his own. This is especially ironic considering how he willingly and repeatedly sacrifices his human appearance for longevity.

Star Trek Beyond thus diagrams a pitched battle between the forces of egalitarian progress -- represented by the U.S.S. Enterprise crew -- and the regressive forces of nativism/racism/imperialism. This “war” is waged at the aforementioned Yorktown, a place that -- if it survives -- will be remembered, perhaps, as a true test of the Federation’s unity (just as the 1781 battle of Yorktown cemented the unity of the Colonies).

I find it fascinating how Star Trek Beyond’s screenplay suggests a knowledge of history and literature, and more than that, finds a way to give those influences valid context inside the Star Trek world.

It’s no accident, either, that the film picks and chooses its original series references carefully.  

In my introduction, I noted the line about the unknown being something, simply, “temporarily hidden.” 

That is an exact quote from Pine’s Kirk in Star Trek Beyond.  It is also, importantly, a quote from Shatner’s Kirk in the original Trek episode, “The Corbomite Manuever.” 

That episode concerns the Enterprise crew grappling with a fear of the unknown, until the light of understanding dawns.  There is even a crewman in that installment, named Bailey, who becomes convulsed with fear…until steadied by Kirk.  Star Trek Beyond chooses wisely indeed, this particular allusion, because the film concerns what happens when people are fearful.  The “other” becomes someone not merely different…but terrifying…a force to be destroyed. 

This is precisely how Krall sees the universe.

There are other original series references in Beyond that will draw positive reactions from longtime fans.  These come from “Amok Time” (“in a pig’s eye!”), “Who Mourns for Adonais” (the giant green space hand quip), and “A Private Little War” (“Lucky his heart is where his liver should be, or he’d be dead right now.”) That last one, especially, plays into Beyond’s theme of being strong because of differences, not in spite of them. McCoy credits Spock’s survival to his Vulcan anatomy. Were he human, he would have been killed. 

He is strong, literally, because of his differences from us.

The theme of “differences making one strong” weave in and out of the Beyond narrative at different points. Jaylah is a thickly-accented alien of unique appearance, for example. She could be treated as an enemy, but Scotty treats her as a friend, and her knowledge and abilities become part of the key to defeating Krall.

Strictly-speaking, Kirk doesn’t “need” Jaylah alive to defeat Krall at Yorktown. By that point, she has done all she can do, really.  But Kirk treats her as a necessary member of the team, and risks his life to rescue her, in one of the film’s many dynamic action sequences.

Star Trek Beyond also references today’s post-War on Terror threats with Krall’s method of ambush. He launches an attack against the Enterprise with thousands of bee-like fighter crafts which carry quite a “sting.”

There is no typical ship-to-ship combat here (a nice way of keeping things fresh and inventive, certainly). Instead, the Enterprise is overwhelmed by a force of chaos the crew can hardly understand.  Welcome to the world of modern, unconventional warfare. Two forces, with significantly different strategy and tactics, collide.

Historically-speaking, I couldn’t help but think of this ambush scene as being reflective of the U.S.S. Cole incident.  That American Navy destroy was attacked by terrorist bombers in October of 2000.  

But the situation is analogous. A powerful force, representing a vast organization or nation-state, is suddenly and unexpectedly jeopardized by a small but zealous force of vicious fighters using the techniques of asymmetric warfare.

But Star Trek Beyond succeeds as Star Trek not only because of its social commentary and allusions to literature and history, but because writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung have absolutely captured the essence of the franchise’s diverse characters, and their relationships. 

It is a pleasure to report that Pine, Quinto, Urban and all the others have become their characters in a dynamic, delightful way.  In the original Star Trek, there was always this sense of esprit de corps -- of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants ingenuity in the face of danger and insurmountable odds. 

This film nails that spirit like no film in the franchise since the aforementioned The Undiscovered Country.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura and the others live and breathe again, and showcase, for fans, the promise of Starfleet.

Even when the people around you are different in color, sex, or planet of origin, they are worthy of, loyalty, empathy, compassion, and, finally, love.

That pointy-eared hobgoblin who drives you crazy can be, simply, the best friend you’ll ever know.

Although I can’t believe this, there are those fans who complain of too much action in Star Trek Beyond.  There is indeed, plenty of it, but what there is really a lot of here is, simply, characterization…of the crew as individuals, and the crew as teammates. 

Again, not since Star Trek IV have we seen the crew on individual adventures, but working towards a task accomplishing “the needs of the many.”

And the message -- of all these unlike parts working together for the betterment of us all -- is transmitted, expertly, particularly in the film’s coda. 

We hear the traditional Star Trek narration. You know the words by heart: “Space, the final frontier…”

But for the first time, this fifty-year old narration is not spoken by merely the captain of a starship. 

Instead, the entire command crew delivers it sequentially -- handing-off the words from Kirk to Spock to Bones, to Scotty, and so on -- thus proving again, that the diverse characters of Star Trek are joined in a noble purpose, for the sake of us all. They are united.

We needed a good Star Trek movie. Especially in 2016.

I am thankful we got a great one in Star Trek Beyond.