30 Years Ago: The X-Files: "Syzygy" (January 26, 1996)

Although it is not widely considered a signature episode of The X-Files (1993 – 2002) like “The Host,” “Irresistible,” “Home,” “Pusher,” or “Bad Blood,” Chris Carter’s “Syzygy,” now three decades old, is nonetheless one of my favorite installments of the two-hundred-plus strong catalog.  

In part that position of favor arises from the episode’s deliberate and crafty re-purposing of familiar horror tropes.  In a very real way, the story is a wicked inversion of Stephen King’s Carrie (1976).  Only here, the victimizers and not the victim acquire paranormal abilities of terrifying strength.

In other words, this episode -- with its focus on high school cliques, Valley Girl lingo (“Hate him!”) and adolescent concerns -- proves something akin to Carrie meets Mean Girls (2004).  I find that creative equation practically irresistible in terms of the episode’s humor quotient.  And although I am a huge fan of Darin Morgan and his humor-based stories for the X-Files, his installments tend towards the nihilistic end of the spectrum.  For all its inherent wickedness and violence, “Syzygy” proves much less of a downer.

I also very much admire the way that “Syzygy’s” secondary plot about the Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) relationship plays as a reflection of the main plot involving the partnership of two teen girls.  In both cases, there’s something clearly amiss, and in one case that "wrong-ness" is merely funny while in the other it proves incredibly dangerous.

Episodes like “Syzygy” (not unlike the underrated “3” in the second season) remind me how elastic and flexible The X-Files format remains.  One week it can be a a dead-on, serious exploration of a terrifying and taboo subject (like “Irresistible”), another week it can be a statement of personal philosophy (“Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,”) and on yet another week it can playfully invert horror tropes and comment meaningfully on astrology and on human relationships.

What also makes the episode so much fun to watch and re-watch is the razor-sharp, hysterically-funny (and often caustic...) back-and-forth between Scully and Mulder.  Although some fans may not like the humor or subject matter of "Syzygy," it's impossible to deny the fact that the episode is brilliantly-written.

Three popular high school jocks have died in the small town of Comity in as many months, and local authorities, including the attractive Detective White (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) suspect Satanic cult activity.  

Mulder and Scully look into the matter and Scully immediately suspects that two teenage cheerleaders --Terry Roberts (Lisa Robin Kelly) and Margie Kleinjan (Wendy Benson)-- are somehow involved since they both witnessed the most recent death.

Suspiciously, the two girls are also present when a basketball who offended them is mysteriously crushed by the school gym’s retractable bleachers.  

A local astrology, Madame Zirinka (Denalda Williams) informs Mulder that the girls may possess unusual powers because of a once-every-84-year planetary alignment of Mars, Mercury and Uranus, a so-called syzygy.

This planetary alignment also seems to be having an effect on Mulder and Scully, who become, respectively, horny and snippy…

A syzygy might be defined as (according to Wikipedia) “a kind of unity, namely an alignment of three celestial bodies (for example, the Sun, Earth, and Moon) such that one body is directly between the other two, such as occurs at an eclipse.”  

But importantly, a syzygy might also be described in terms of psychology, as “an archetypal pairing of contra-sexual opposites, symbolizing the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds.” This definition explains a Jungian conceit, one that suggests two people in relationship might take on opposite sexual characteristics from their norms.

Not surprisingly, both definitions of syzygy are applicable to this episode of The X-Files.  First and foremost, the episode concerns astrology, and the effect of planetary bodies on human bodies.  

Although I am not an astrologist by any means, I have always found -- perhaps to my detriment as an intellectual -- that there is a certain veneer of believability to some aspects of this belief system.  We know for a fact that there exist cosmic forces such as gravity, and that they do boast an impact on matter and energy, for instance.  Therefore, it does not seem such a gigantic stretch to suggest that a shift in such cosmic forces could impact humans in some strange or mysterious way.

In terms of astrology, I can only sort of/kind of/not-really confirm a funny old old wives tale: For many years, I worked as the office manager in my wife’s psychological practice, and all the employees who worked with me firmly believed in the idea of “lunacy;” that the full moon brought out the worst behavior in patients, ranging from bad phone manners all the way up to self-injury. The Scully in me wondered if the timing of these incidents was a coincidence, or merely our perception of the events while the Mulder in me questioned if there might indeed be some validity to the theory of the full moon exerting a more powerful influence upon some people.

But in terms of “Syzygy,” the astrology factor is the story device which permits the author, Carter, to examine the behavior of teenagers, and then, essentially, amplify that behavior to an unimaginable, fearsome level.  We’ve all known cruel girls (and boys) in high school, and witnessed how their selfish interests become the essential orbit of all activity in their social circles.  The planetary alignment in “Syzygy” thus reveals what happens when dangerously narcissistic adolescents are suddenly able to act immediately on all their worst, selfish impulses.  It isn’t pretty, but in many ways, it is pretty funny.

Much more intriguing than the mean girls, however, is the way that Carter uses the idea of the “syzygy” in regards to Scully and Mulder.  In this episode, the couple encounters a "third body" in the form of the (hot...) Detective White, and the new alignment immediately throws off the familiar relationship.  Rob Bowman, the episode's director also deserves kudos for his sterling compositions in the episode, which often reinforce how the presence of a "third" body (White's) sends Mulder and Scully spinning into erratic orbits.  Just look at the framing below and you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about:

Three bodies in alignment or conjunction? Or are they out of alignment?

If we return for a moment to the second definition of "Syzygy" -- the psychological conjunction of two people taking on opposite sexual characteristics -- the episode becomes even more intriguing. 

I’ve written about this aspect of the series before, and David Duchovny has also publicly mused on the subject, but in many ways, the sex roles of Mulder and Scully on The X-Files are reversed.  Scully is much more analytical and closed-down emotionally (which are stereotypically male characteristics), whereas Mulder is more open and questioning (stereotypically female characteristics).  

In this episode -- as Scully and Mulder are impacted by the planetary alignment -- their roles reverse again, and new facets emerge.  Mulder becomes a prowling, boozing, perfume-smelling, horn-dog, and Scully is suddenly jealous, sniping, and second-guessing.  Before anyone gets mad at me for such colorful, blunt description: these are intentionally comical extremes, and the episode makes the most out of them.  Another way to put this, usually Mulder is more female and Scully more male in nature, but "Syzygy" brings out their traditional sex roles instead...and their romantic chemistry is entirely "off" because of their reversion to societal norms.

But finally, I would argue that this episode works splendidly because, in some sense…we all have moments like these in our relationships, even without astrology conjunctions. Sexual attraction isn’t a constant.  Neither is flirting or romantic banter.  Sometimes, even with our most loved ones, things get...strained.  Irritation seeps in.  Familiarity breeds contempt.  

I love the fact that “Syzygy” uses the conceit of an astrological conjunction to reveal a very human side to Mulder and Scully’s often-idealized romantic relationship.  Indeed, I feel like they are closer, more identifiable, and much more real in our imaginations because of stories just like this one, where there are moments of pure exasperation and annoyance.  

I suppose what I’m arguing here is that it isn’t a stretch to believe that Mulder likes to Bogart the driving duties out in the field, or that he frequently second-guesses Scully’s directions.  I find that some of the best moments in The X-Files are those that bow to the reality that even partners as close as Scully and Mulder sometimes get on each other’s nerves.  It’s human.  It doesn’t mean they love each other any less.

As usual, “Syzygy” seems even more impressive the deeper one digs into its creative DNA.  The name of the town where all this craziness occurs, for instance, is “Comity,” which means "friendly or social harmony." And “comity” of course is the one quality totally lacking in the town, both between Terry and Margie, and between Scully and Mulder.  

And the fact that Keystone Cops footage keeps playing on every TV in sight is a dynamic reflection of the fact that the planetary syzygy has also frazzled Mulder and Scully’s usually-sterling investigative talents.  They are clueless and competitive throughout most of the episode, bungling each stage of the investigation, and they can’t get their acts together.  

I also categorize “Syzygy” as part three of the “American Suburbia” subplot of the ongoing series. Earlier installments include “Die Hand Die Verletz” and “Our Town.”  

In all three of these stories, a small American town is revealed to boast a seamy underside, and to be under the sway of some sinister influence, whether it is Satanism or cannibalism. All three of these episodes also involve, to some degree, the mob mentality, and therefore feature some resemblance to The Twilight Zone’s classic “The Monsters are due on Maple Street.”  

In each X-Files story of this type, hysteria and finger-pointing -- as well as mob behavior -- ultimately undo the “comity,” or sense of community, at least until Mulder and Scully arrive and can restore some sense of order or balance. 

30 Years Ago Today: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) is widely championed as the finest of the Star Trek films featuring the original TV series cast, and for a multitude of good reasons.  

Yet, in many substantial ways, 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, also directed by Nicholas Meyer, actively competes for that title too.  

The sturdy foundations of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan are many.  First and foremost, the film features a strong literary bent that adds a new and even poetic sense of realism to Gene Roddenberry's far-flung, Utopian future.  Revolving around death and re-birth both personal and cosmic (vis-a-vis the Genesis Device), The Wrath of Khan never fails to prove deeply affecting.  And, of course, the film is endlessly exciting, a tense technological space duel between two evenly-matched opponents and starships.

While never a shallow copy of Khan (like 2002's Nemesis...) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country attempts a similarly ambitious alchemy.  This sixth film in the franchise grounds its tale of interstellar rapprochement in the Western literary canon (this time the oeuvre of William Shakespeare), as well as in current 1990s-world affairs, namely glasnost. Or as Leonard Nimoy called it, "the Wall coming down in space."   

The Undiscovered Country -- now 30 years old -- also reveals beloved Star Trek characters grappling with old age, and more specifically a hardening of their perceptions and sensibilities about the universe, a kind of metaphorical "death." These aren't the idealistic, energetic young space adventurers we first met in 1966.  They have grown jaded, and more than a little cynical over the long decades.  As Captain Kirk notes to Spock in the movie, "I'm really tired," and you can detect that exhaustion in his carriage and in his gait.

But also -- with Star Trek's trademark sense of optimism about the future-- this sixth Trek film sends these aging  icons out to pasture in glorious, heroic, even transcendent terms. They fly off into the proverbial sunset both literally and metaphorically.

Notably, Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country also obsesses on issues such as prejudice, death and "change," all while preparing franchise fans for the inevitable fact that "all things end."  These issues are woven into the very fabric of the film through the literate screenplay, the darker-than-usual, Gustav Holst-inspired musical score by Cliff Eidelman, and director of photography Hiro Narita's autumnal -- and then wintry -- visuals.  

Such qualities make the sixth Star Trek film a very good movie, but the film also functions ably as great Star Trek, re-visiting core (and sometimes very funny) concepts of the franchise one last time, and even bridging the gap between Trek Classic and The Next Generation.

An important factor in terms of critical appreciation for this final Trek movie also involves visual flourish.  On this front, The Undiscovered Country is undeniably the most confidently realized of all the Trek films, reveling in dramatic camera spins, suspense-heightening cross-cutting, and other tools of a formalist's quiver.  

In colorful, pulse-pounding fashion, the film emerges not just as a glorified TV episode then, but as a proper cinematic farewell to the most beloved and charming space heroes of a generation.

"Guess who's coming to dinner."

While cataloguing gaseous anomalies in Beta Quadrant, the U.S.S. Excelsior under Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) encounters a "subspace shock wave" of dramatic proportions.  

It originates from Praxis, a Klingon moon that serves as the Empire's "key energy production facility."

This event quickly reverberates in galactic politics.  The accident at Praxis, caused by "over mining and insufficient safety precautions," inspires the Gorkon Initiative, a move by the Chancellor of the High Council (David Warner) to seek peace with the Federation.  This peace, incidentally, will involve the dismantling of Starfleet star bases and outposts along the Klingon/Federation "Neutral Zone."

Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) volunteers Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and the U.S.S. Enterprise as the peace initiative's "first olive branch."  Just three months shy of "standing down," Kirk is to escort Gorkon's vessel through Federation space to Earth, for a summit with the President of the United Federation of Planets.  

The idea of peace with the Klingons does not sit well, however, with several Starfleet officers, including Admiral Cartwright (Brock Peters) and Kirk himself.  While Cartwright terms Klingons the "alien trash" of the galaxy, Kirk -- still bitter over the Klingons' murder of his son, David Marcus -- believes that Klingons can't be trusted.  He knows that there is an historic opportunity for peace, but wonders "how on Earth" history can get past people like him.

After an awkward state dinner between the Klingon delegation and the Enterprise staff, the peace process goes awry when it appears that Kirk's starship opens fire on the Klingon battle cruiser.  

The alien ship loses gravity, and in the ensuing chaos Chancellor Gorkon is assassinated by two helmeted hit men wearing Starfleet uniforms and gravity boots.  While attempting to ascertain what has occurred, Kirk and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) are arrested by Gorkon's chief of staff, General Chang (Christopher Plummer) and held for trial.

Aboard the Enterprise, Spock and his Vulcan protege, Lt. Valeris (Kim Cattrall) attempt to clear Kirk's name and solve the mystery of Gorkon's assassination, even as Kirk and McCoy are found guilty of conspiracy and transported to Rura Penthe, a dilithium mine and penal facility deep inside the Klingon frontier, often referred to as "the alien's graveyard."

Kirk and McCoy contend with an alien "chameloid," Martia (Iman) on Rura Penthe as Spock and the Enterprise crew determine that a new Klingon weapon -- a Klingon Bird of Prey that can fire while cloaked -- was utilized to frame Kirk and the Enterprise.  It seems Klingons, Romulans and Starfleet officers are conspiring together to destroy the peace process, and maintain the current political status quo.

With the help of Captain Sulu and the Excelsior, Kirk and the Enterprise crew set out one last, grave mission: to stop the next assassination attempt, this one directed at the UFP President.

Unfortunately, there's a traitor in their midst...

"So...this is goodbye"

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country virtually obsesses on the idea of things ending; on the notion of inevitable change and the various human responses to such change.

This leitmotif is encoded right there in the film's sub-title: The Undiscovered Country.  

In Meyer's film, Gorkon defines Shakespeare's descriptor (Hamlet, Act III, Scene I) as being a reference to "the future."   

In fact, as we remember from Hamlet, "the Undiscovered Country" is a direct reference to death.  

I first saw this film while attending university, and my Shakespeare professor had fits over what he detected as the film's grievous mistake regarding this famous passage.  But it isn't actually a mistake, I submit.  Rather, the debate about "the Undiscovered Country" is part of the film's tapestry about two diverse cultures coming together without sacrificing each's sense of identity.  In "the original Klingon" version of Shakespeare, as the film makes plain, "the Undiscovered Country" may very well be the future.

So Star Trek projects an "Undiscovered Country" that is both death and the future.  In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the main characters -- good and bad -- battle over the direction of a future that few of them will actually live to experience (Spock is an exception, of course, given his extended Vulcan life-span).

In other words, this is a film which is both an "end" (a metaphorical death) for the beloved dramatis personae of Star Trek, and a bridge to a distant future as it is projected in the TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, set decades beyond Kirk's time.  Both realms, both destinations, are a mystery.

Given this backdrop, allusions to death, endings, and time's passage dominate Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  For instance, Chang quotes from Henry IV when he leaves the Enterprise:  "Have we not heard the chimes at midnight?"  

Again this quote re-contextualizes Shakespeare in terms well outside the Bard's original meaning.  Here, Chang is noting the lateness of the hour.  He departs the starship after a long night of drinking Romulan ale, but the hour is also late for Gorkon, and for peace.  In just moments, an assassination attempt which Chang orchestrates will be launched.  Chang is "marking" this anticipatory time with his quip to Kirk, and again, it portends death, change and endings.

In a scene set in Spock's quarters early in the film, Lt. Valeris studies a painting: a representation of the Biblical "expulsion from Paradise."  When Valeris asks Spock why he keeps this work of art in his quarters, he replies that the painting serves as "a reminder" to him "that all things end."   

Coming so early in the film -- one widely advertised as the final voyage of the starship Enterprise -- this discussion is of great significance too.  Here is Spock -- a character many of us grew up with -- accepting, his own mortality and the change of the status quo.  He soon tells Valeris that this journey represents his final voyage aboard the Enterprise as a member of his crew.  

The universe shall unfold as it should.  All things live and all things die.  All things end

 Even Star Trek.

Spock's acceptance and "faith" in a universe of change is contrasted strongly in the film with Kirk's stubborn refusal to brace change.  The good Captain admits in the film that he is "terrified" of change, of a world with "no neutral zone," where the Klingons are allies. It is almost easier, like Chang, to believe in the concept of "no peace in our time" than to accept the possibility of something new...and unknown.

Importantly, Gorkon is also an example of Spock's approach.  He begs Kirk, on his death bed, not to let matters "end this way."  Again, it's clear from the screenplay's obsessive language about endings that a chapter of history is closing and the future is up for grabs.

When such "death" or "ending" centric dialogue is coupled with visuals such as a doppelganger of Kirk being disintegrated (on Rura Penthe), one begins to detect how deeply this Star Trek movie treads into the territory of "the future."  Spock even asks, at one point, if both he and Kirk have grown "so old, so inflexible" that they have "outlived their usefulness."

His comment is a wonderfully wry one, reminding us that these beloved characters are people, not flawless Demi-Gods.  They make mistakes, they stumble, and they don't always do the right thing.  It's the most human portrayal -- apologies to Mr. Spock -- of the characters in any of the feature films.

And that humanity even extends to expressions of prejudice, as The Undiscovered Country ably notes. 

In addition to Cartwright's description of the Klingons as alien trash, Kirk terms them "animals," and admonishes Spock to "let them die."  Chekov quips "Guess who's coming to dinner," a direct reference to director Stanley Kramer's 1967 film about race relations in America.  

In the same vein, Scotty argues that Klingons "don't place the same value on life as we do," creating a separate category for his enemies.  

These are repellent remarks, and yet they make a powerful point. Even heroic characters such as Kirk, Chekov and Scotty boast a blind spot when it comes to their opinion of "an enemy. " Can you truly begrudge Kirk his prejudice towards the Klingons, given his personal loss?  

We might not like or laud Kirk's attitude, but nor can we deny that it certainly makes sense from his perspective, and knowing his history.  The crew of the Enterprise has spent a lifetime battling the Klingons tooth-and-nail (and phasers and photons) and now, in a heartbeat, that life is over, and the Klingons are supposed to be friends and allies.  What does that sudden change do to their life's work, to their legacy?

As Kirk notes disapprovingly of his own behavior near film's end, he "got used to" the idea of hating Klingons.  It's easy to fall into a bad pattern like that, especially when you're unhappy.  And that, in some way, is how prejudice is born.

And this is one reason why I so much admire the original Star Trek, and this particular film.  The filmmakers have permitted the beloved franchise characters their own individual, politically incorrect viewpoints.  Why?  So Kirk and the others can learn through experience that their perceptions are dead wrong.  The Klingons are proud and can continue "being proud."  And they can do so without being the villains or "alien trash" of the galaxy.  

Later Star Treks, particularly The Next Generation took a different and far less dramatic, far less chancy tack.  There, the Enterprise crew became above such human flaws as prejudice, and so would meet and endlessly lecture less-advanced aliens about how they must live up to Federation ideals of equality, etc.  

The difference here involves how a storyteller chooses to construct a tale.  Either with the characters stagnant and therefore dull, having already learned everything they need to know, or with the characters in a constant state of flux and growth, learning and making mistakes as they go. 

As Kirk once noted, "we learn by doing," and that expression is reflected in the storytelling of the original series and, occasionally, in the feature films.  It's more realistic, and more true to life, I submit, than TNG's direction.

I much prefer the Undiscovered Country approach, which permits the Star Trek characters both their foibles and an opportunity -- when confronted with a mirror -- to outgrow those foibles.   

My only wish on this front is that the makers of the Undiscovered Country had been able to more fully realize their original vision.  For instance, they wanted Saavik to be the traitor in the film.  The late Gene Roddenberry scuttled that idea, hence the creation of Valeris. This substitution robs the final Star Trek film of what could have been one of the most powerful moments in franchise history.  It would have been a genuine shock to learn Saavik was a conspirator and that jaw-dropping moment would have electrified the movie.  

Ostensibly, Saavik would have hated the Klingons for the same reason that Kirk did: she was there on the Genesis Planet when they murdered his son.  She saw it.  She witnessed it all.  Kirk and Saavik both lost David, but only one of them would grow and come to take away a lesson about prejudice.  That would have a been a powerful side-by-side comparison, and the ultimate lesson about bigotry. If Kirk could past his resentment, why then, could not Saavik?  This is a missed opportunity on a cosmic scale.

As it stands, The Undiscovered Country never exactly makes a case for why Valeris should fear peace with the Klingons. Kim Cattrall is engaging as the character, but there's no audience connection, no history to Valeris, and so it isn't a surprise that the "guest star" in this film is a bad apple.

It' a shame that in this case, some of Star Trek's greatest defenders and advocates couldn't see the larger picture.  That prejudice is universal...affecting even the most enlightened of us.  And also, optimistically, that prejudice can be overcome by facing change and the future head on.  

And if you don't think this is still a very big issue in America right now, you haven't been paying attention to the national discourse.

"There is an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China."

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is great Star Trek for so many reasons.  

First, it lives up to Star Trek's history in that it serves primarily, as a morality play.  It tells the story of a Captain Kirk who first stands in the way of history, and then, ultimately nudges it in the right direction by overcoming his own prejudice and personal shortcomings.

Secondly Star Trek uses a timely metaphor to dramatize that tale, namely the ending of the Cold War.  In the film, doomed Praxis, the key energy production facility, tracks as Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant that suffered a terrifying meltdown.  Gorkon tracks as Gorbachev, a man who took a chance on peace to save his people.  And Kirk is very much the conservative hawk (the Reagan or Nixon) who, in the end, unexpectedly finds himself the greatest warrior for peace.  

Now, regular readers of this blog are well aware that I am no Reagan fan. But I also deeply admire the fact that the man grappled with reality, changed his mind, and grew.  Reagan began his tenure as President calling Russia "The Evil Empire," joked that "bombing begins in five minutes" on an open mic and erroneously claimed that a sub's nuclear missiles could be recalled after launch.  But by the end of his second term, he was Gorbachev's committed partner for world peace. Reagan walked back from the precipice and from his own, hawkish views of "winnable" nuclear war, as well.  It wasn't easy for him, and it wasn't painless.  His right flank savaged him, accusing him of giving up the nuclear store.  But Reagan fought for peace anyway, because he believed in the cause. If that's not something to compliment one of my least favorite modern Presidents on, I don't know what is.

Going further, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country also refers to another Reagan era issue: the Iran-Contra Scandal.  Here, a rogue Colonel named West -- think of Colonel Oliver North -- conspires with intergalactic (international) enemies for an illegal policy.   Even Valeris's denial of involvement, "I do not remember," harks back to North's frequent invocation before Congress that he could "not recall" details of the alleged wrongdoing.

In addition to being timely, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country also ably serves the larger franchise (which at the time only included TNG and the movies) by providing the connective tissue between generations.  

In this film, we meet Lt. Worf's ancestor, Kirk's lawyer, also played by Michael Dorn.  And the writers of the film knowingly set the peace conference at Khitomer, a planet referred to in such TNG episodes as "Heart of Glory."  Beyond those small continuity touches, the film finally shows us the ambitious  last "piece" of Kirk's era: the turbulent story of how the Klingons and the Federation learned to begin trusting one another.

On a much more amusing note, Star Trek VI seems hell bent on recycling one last time many beloved tropes of the classic series.  Kirk gets to kiss a  very sexy (but weird) alien woman, Iman's Martia.  He is forced into hand-to-hand combat with an alien twice his size on Rura Penthe.  And, of course, James Tiberius even gets to face off against a doppelganger, as he did in series segments such as "Whom Gods Destroy" and "The Enemy Within."  

Then there are the submarine movie cliches the movie adopts for its final battle, as the equivalent of a German U boat (an invisible Bird of Prey) repeatedly strikes a surface vessel, the Enterprise.  We saw this idea originally in "Balance of Terror," but The Undiscovered Country outdoes even that remarkable episode in terms of spectacular effects and suspense.

And suspense is important, especially when we talk of a movie concerned with endings.  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier certainly had their moments, but overall they were also jokey, almost flabby affairs.   There wasn't much tension in those stories.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country corrects that deficit in spades.  It jauntily plays with the very idea that this is Kirk's last mission, and so every event, every battle, takes on a new importance.  These characters aren't coming back for another movie, so we wonder throughout the film...are they going to die?  

Have these characters "outlived their usefulness" not just to the Federation, but to the entertainment franchise itself?  This uncertainty, when combined with Meyers' dynamic cross-cutting, the mad pans, and the dazzling camera spins, makes for a highly suspenseful adventure, perfectly pitched.

"Second star to the right, and straight on till morning...

Everything comes together in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country's valedictory scene.  

Bones reminds the crew that it isn't against the law "to have feelings," and Spock expresses his feelings of disdain for Starfleet rather strongly:

 "If I were human, my response would be...go to hell.  If I were human," he says, at news of the Enterprise's de-commissioning.

And then Kirk gives his final order from the center seat.  "Second star to the right, and straight on till morning," an allusion from Peter Pan that concerns not death, or ending...but perpetual youth and immortality.  

The inference is that in overcoming his prejudice regarding the Klingons, Kirk has restored his own soul, his own youth and his own innocence.

And more so, that the Enterprise crew --- especially to those who love her -- shall remain forever young in our hearts, even as it sails into retirement and the history books.  That sense of youth is evident in the crew's ability here to change, grow, and surprise us even after twenty five years of going "where no man...where no one...has gone before."

"Second star to the right, and straight on till morning," is the perfect way to bid farewell to these characters.  As they contemplate the end of their journeys (a Never Never Land of its own), they do so not with cynicism and prejudice, but with hope, vigor and indeed, a charming, even awe-inspiring innocence.

So as you experience that final, lump-in-your-throat goodbye -- as the original starship Enterprise flies off into the sunset and our cherished  memories -- I challenge you to deny that, indeed, the franchise saved the best movie for last.

Thirty Years Ago: Die Hard (1988)

Die Hard is the movie that launched a hundred cinematic knock-offs or so, and the journey began on July 15, 1988, approximately thirty years ago.

John McTiernan’s blockbuster so dramatically and thoroughly revolutionized the action genre at the end of the eighties in fact that -- for at least half-a-decade -- virtually every new entry in the genre was described as “Die Hard in a (fill in the blank.)”

Movie-going audiences soon saw Die Hard on a Bus (Speed [1994]), Die Hard on a battleship (Under Siege [1992]), Die Hard on a Train (Under Siege 2 [1995), Die Hard on a Plane (Passenger 57 [1992], Executive Decision [1996]) and even Die Hard in a Hockey Stadium (Sudden Death [1995]).

The film is very closely based on novelist Roderick Thorp’s (1936-1999) literary work, Nothing Lasts Forever (1979), which in turn was inspired by the author’s viewing of The Towering Inferno (1974).

The novel concerns a retired detective, named Leland, who visits the L.A. high-rise HQ of a company called Klaxon Oil. He is there to visit his daughter Stephanie, for the Christmas party, when a German terrorist, Anton Gruber, takes seventy-four hostages. 

Many elements in the film, including a barefoot hero, the gun taped to the protagonist’s back, and the use of explosives in an elevator shaft, recur directly from Thorp's written words.

Rich in invention and humor, Die Hard (1988) succeeds on many levels, and remains today much more than a thrilling fusion of disaster film and thriller tropes.

First and foremost Die Hard is absolutely dazzling from a visual standpoint, in large part because director McTiernan eschews excessive and unnecessary cutting, and preserves the space or geography of the action by utilizing tilts, pans, and other, often extreme or sudden camera motions. 

Not only is the space of the action preserved in this fashion, but the rapid camera motion accelerates the film’s sense of pace.  

Our view of the action literally banks, turns and performs barrel rolls. It’s as if we’re seeing through the furtive eyes of the desperate hero, registering everything, everywhere, in an effort to endure and survive.

Secondly, for all its bells and whistles, Die Hard essentially boils down to a battle of wits between two evenly-matched opponents, one ruthless, intellectual and urbane (Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber) and one wide open: Bruce Willis’s John McClane.

At times it actually feels like a realization of destiny that these two resourceful, ingenious, determined characters should face each other, “mano e mano” at the Nakatomi Plaza. No other place in the world is tall enough for both of their egos and self-confidence, perhaps.

Yet in terms of its pure, psychic appeal, Die Hard is actually something more than a great and eminently satisfying action movie. 

It is undeniably a primal male wish-fulfillment fantasy that was forged in a time when masculinity was facing existential questions about its value and worth in the larger American culture.

John McClane’s battle in this film is not simply to defeat Hans Gruber or rescue the hostages in Nakatomi Plaza, including his wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia).

No, his battle, as I hope to explain in this review, is to redeem himself as an alpha “male” and showcase his viability as such. 

Some might suggest that this leitmotif renders the film sexist in some way. I’m not here to make any particular conclusions or social judgments about that notion, only to draw your eye and your intellect to the argument the film crafts on both a visual and often sub-textual level.

“Just a fly in the ointment, Hans, just a monkey in the wrench, just a pain in the ass.”

For Christmas, the NYPD’s John McClane (Willis) flies to Los Angeles to be with his estranged wife, Holly (Bedelia) and his two children, John and Lucy. A limousine delivers him to the high-tech Nakatomi Plaza, where Holly works a successful and high-powered career executive.

When John and Holly reunite, they argue about their marriage, and the fact that Holly now uses her maiden name, Gennero, rather than her married name, McClane.

Their personal differences must wait, however, because a group of European terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Rickman) invade the building, cut the power, and take seventy-four Nakatomi employees hostage, including Holly.

John seizes an opportunity to escape the offices, into the larger building. Almost immediately, he begins taking on the terrorists, one-at-a-time, much to the irritation of the erudite, well-organized Gruber.

John also gets a call outside of the building for help, and ends up teaming via walkie-talkie with L.A. cop Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson).

Before long, news crews, and the F.B.I. are also on the scene, but McClane is the only man on the inside of the building, the only man who can stop Gruber’s plan. 

That plan involves explosives, a bank vault and much deceit…

“It’s Christmas time, Theo. It’s a time for miracles.”

It is plain to see how Die Hard adopts many key elements from The Towering Inferno. There’s a rooftop rescue that goes awry in both productions, for example, a lot of fire, and the same central location: a Los Angeles high-rise building. In both productions, helicopters are destroyed too.

Die Hard takes that setting and those creative elements, however, and creates something new for the cinema, an action movie in which the hero is an “every man” who is outnumbered, out-gunned, and cut-off from authority He is tested quite egregiously, and must succeed based on nothing but his wits and his cunning. 

McClane is a man alone.

The highest plateau of film quality, for me, arises with the idea of visuals mirroring or reflecting thematic and narrative concepts. We see this idea play out in Die Hard as director John McTiernan deploys a kinetic, almost constantly-in-motion camera. Objects -- like a whirring table saw, for example -- loom suddenly in the foreground. Or the camera suddenly shifts on its axis, and goes plummeting down a basement staircase the viewer has not yet detected.

This approach possesses two virtues.

The first is that this brand of camera motion preserves the space of the battlefield, to adopt a war metaphor. Were the film to feature an over-abundance of cutting, the space (and time) would feel fractured. But by whirling to register objects, or tilting and panning to see things, McTiernan makes us feel like we are trapped in the building with McClane.

The second virtue is connected to the first. The camera’s movement -- always “discovering” new objects, rooms, and enemies -- recreates the mental state of the film’s characters. Around every corner could be a threat or an opportunity, and the camera work expresses a kind of nervous energy as Gruber and McClane both harness the (same) environment to win the day. 

The camera-work also is adrenaline-provoking. We are never sure what we will see next, and so we start paying attention to every detail, every moment of the action. This is reflected in the character dynamics in so many ways. Hans picks up that McClane is walking barefoot, and in the next moment, orders his henchman to shoot out the glass from a nearby pane, creating an impediment for his opponent. The camera and the characters learn things at the same time, and seize on that learning for their game of chess.

Sometimes, the camera moves brilliantly to  reveal the proximity of danger. At one point, for example, cinematographer Jan de Bont's camera tilts up from a smoldering bullet-hole in a vent shaft to a close-up of a vulnerable McClane, perched inches away. The director could have cut to a reaction shot, instead, of his hero. But that simple tilt tells us just how close McClane came to death.

The whole movie is filled with anxiety-provoking moments such as that one. As a result, Die Hard is fun to watch -- a veritable roller-coaster ride of a movie -- and that’s primarily because of the ingenuity and efficacy of so many compositions. The visuals engage us, and demand attention.

As I noted above, Die Hard is also a primal male fantasy. 

It is about a man who grew up with heroes like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Roy Rogers and James Arness (Marshal Dillon) discovering, as an adult, that men like that are no longer called for in American society. 

Those cowboys were protectors and patriarchs, but Gruber dismisses them all as products of a “bankrupt culture.”  Even other 80s male icons such as Rambo are name-checked, and Lee Majors’ The Fall Guy is seen on TV at one point.  The idea, I suppose is that American culture has changed radically in the 1980s, but no one has bothered to tell the movies about that fact. We still raise our boys into men thinking they can be cowboys. They still kill the bad guy, get the girl, and ride off into the sunset.

Yet just consider for a moment the shift in demographics and the economy that occurred in the eighties and how they changed the picture for masculinity in this country.

By 1985 half-of-all college graduates were women, and women with outside-the-home careers jumped to 49%. Women moved successfully into traditionally-male held jobs in banking and white collar management too.

On one hand, movies like Working Girl (1988) epitomized the era. On the other, efforts such as Mr. Mom (1983) dramatized the opposite side of that equation: a stay-at-home Dad raising the kids.

Die Hard, very simply, concerns a man, John McClane (Bruce Willis) who doesn’t cope well with this shift in cultural expectations, and what that change means for his ego and self-respect. His journey in the film involves a successful attempt to re-assert his role, value, and place in the American family when he is no longer the primary bread winner or the "hero."

That opportunity occurs at the workplace of his wife, Holly, who has moved out of John’s home in New York with his two children, and earned kudos as an executive at a Japanese-run corporation. Holly is a complete success, and is so confident in that career success that she goes by her maiden name, “Gennero” instead of her married name, “McClane.” 

Several times, the film gives us visualizations of that name, Gennero. We see it in the building registry and on the door to Holly's office. In a very concrete, visible way, then, Holly has separated herself from her marriage, and her husband.

But then John ultimately saves the day, and Holly introduces herself to Al Powell not as Holly Gennero, but as Holly McClane. 

That, right there, is the the punctuation of the whole movie. That’s the whole wish fulfillment aspect in a nut-shell: the idea that John can bring his wife around to his “idea of what this marriage should be.”  

He doesn’t do this by being a good listener, by being a shoulder to cry on, by being a good dad, or by being a partner in the work-force, an equal earner.

He does it by being just like those predominantly cowboy heroes of yesteryear.  By besting the bad guys, getting the girl, and riding off into the sunset.

Yippy-kay-yay, motherfucker.

The sub-text, of course, is that John McClane and other men have been somehow emasculated by the rise of women in the workplace in the 1980s. John is rudderless and alone, and must re-assert himself and his male-ness.  

This idea gets a surprising amount of visual play in the movie because of a nifty little bait and switch trick.  John keeps seeing gorgeous, often naked women, and though he registers them, he doesn’t act on his sexual impulses to conquer them.

What type of shot or sequence or shots recurs in Die Hard quite frequently?  

Well, it is a shot of a beautiful woman who is “seen” by McClane either in the same shot, or in cutaway reaction shot.  Then, he kinds of sighs, and moves on, with resignation, after noticing her allure

This happens again and again in the film, and one must ask why. Why does this composition recur?

Let me give you the examples before I answer that question.

In the airport, McClane sees a women in tight-white pants leap effortlessly into the arms of her boyfriend. Her rear-end appears to defy gravity.

At the party, McClane ogles a woman standing beyond a fountain, in long-shot.  Here we get both the object of his gaze, and a view of his gaze.

Then, in Holly’s office, a sexually available woman bursts in with her lover. John sees her, through the mirror, so that we get his gaze, and the object of his gaze in the same composition.

Immediately after McClane escapes from Holly’s office, John heads to a floor upstairs. He looks out a window, and sees an apartment across the way. A half-naked woman is lounging there, in front of her window. The camera moves in on McClane as he registers her presence.  Again, this encounter features two shots: the object of McClane's gaze, and a view of him gazing at that object.

And, finally, during his chases back and forth through the infrastructure of the Nakatomi Building, McClane twice sees a pin up of a nude woman. She catches his eye on one occasion, and he cranes his neck to look at her. On another occasion, he speaks to her like an old friend.

There are no fewer than six instances, then, in Die Hard, wherein John’s gaze is explicitly connected to the visual of a sexually-desirable woman.

What does it mean? 

Quite simply, there’s the idea here that marriage and society -- and modern convention too -- shackle men, and prevent them from being their true selves. These things hold them back, rendering them impotent, just as new-fangled 1980's ideas about women in the workplace take away their manhood too (by the movie's way of thinking; not mine).

And how does John exert or assert his manhood, if not by conquering these available, luscious women he constantly encounters?

 By shooting guns. A lot.  By killing terrorists.

In Die Hard, McClane asserts his masculinity not by having sex with all the abundantly desirable women he miraculously keeps casting his eyes upon, but by committing bloody violence and re-taking his place as a powerful alpha male.

Now, no man is an island, of course, and John still requires emotional support, even while doing things that a man must do. He turns not to his wife (who is unavailable to support him), but to a "bromance" with Al Powell. McClane finds that for his emotional needs in a time of crisis he needs, simply, another man, and one who is, importantly, a cop like he is.  

Al Powell has been rendered impotent by society too. He’s a desk jockey who hasn’t fired his gun since an accident years earlier.  

How does he get his groove (and masculinity) back?  

Again with a pistol, by killing someone.

Once more, I would like to stress that I’m not rendering any kind of judgment, pro or con for the argument that Die Hard so carefully constructs. However, it is abundantly plain the message is there, and part of a wish-fulfillment fantasy aimed straight at men in the eighties. 

They have been held back too much, and if they want to earn back the respect of women and men around him, they have to be gun-toting heroes in the mold of John Wayne, Rambo, or any of the other heroes that Gruber names.

The appeal in Die Hard, not entirely unlike the appeal of the Dirty Harry films, is the characterization of a male hero -- in a time of change -- reverting to "simple" cowboy form. Die Hard makes that characterization funny by references to Roy Rogers’ sequin shirts, and by McClane’s foul-mouthed but nonetheless immortal catchphrase.  

In other words, Die Hard is a movie that is both primal male fantasy and simultaneously smart enough to be self-aware about it. 

It would be easy to write much more about this film. 

For instance, Die Hard is one of my favorite Christmas movie of all time, because -- again -- it deals so ironically and with such self-awareness about the contradictions between a holiday celebrating love and peace and the bloody violence in the Nakatomi Building. 

This conceit, this juxtaposition, reaches its zenith of brilliance in the film’s final shot. Nakatomi burns and smolders, and the soundtrack plays the song “Let It Snow.” The lyrics, in case you have forgotten, commence with: “The weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so delightful.”

The fire at Nakatomi Plaza is delightful?

Hell yeah it is. For John McClane, who has won back his wife, defeated the bad-guy, and is horizon-bound.

When I first devised the idea of writing about Die Hard (1988), I thought about all the approaches I could take, and realized just how brilliantly the film fulfills multiple functions.  

It’s an ironic Christmas story. 

It’s a development of the Towering Inferno setting. 

It’s a primal male fantasy about re-asserting manhood according to the Hollywood definition of that term, and, finally it’s an elegantly-shot action film too. 

Sadly, the passing of Alan Rickman demands that I add one more paragraph to an already too-long critique of this film.  

His Hans Gruber is, without exaggeration, the perfect movie villain. Not because Gruber can shoot. Not because Gruber threatens people. But because Rickman projects so much intelligent, wit, and cunning.

At one point, Rickman's Gruber quips about the “benefits of a classical education,” and that dialogue makes a valuable point. 

Rickman, a slender intellectual sort is able to project so much cerebral menace as Hans Gruber that we feel the muscular, t-shirt clad McClane is in constant danger from him. 

In short, Rickman proves that not only is smart sometimes sexy, smart is also sometimes damned scary.  

His best scene in the film involves Hans’ on-the-fly adoption of an American accent when he unexpectedly encounters McClane. This scene is rife with tension because we don’t know what John knows, and we didn’t expect Hans to prove quite so…adaptable in the field.

Gruber also gets a death scene that has yet to be topped in the action film genre (pictured above).

So if my description of Die Hard as a primal male fantasy is somehow disturbing or uncomfortable for anyone, there’s no need to focus exclusively on that aspect. 

Die Hard features so many other virtues -- from its stirring fight scenes, accomplished camera-work and great performances to its brilliant Michael Kamen score -- that’s it difficult to choose which one really makes the movie soar.

So the year 1988 and the dawn of Die Hard? 

A “time of miracles” indeed.