I.A.M. Musing About…

Here’s where SF really gets some proper treatment. As pointed out in the last one, the important doo-hickey is to use the weird setting of the vacuum of Space and characters who are gooey and / or green in order to discover more about the human beings of here and now. Ergo: The Day the Earth Stood Still has less to say about saucer technology than it does about the xenophobia and ‘Red Scare’ aspects of early-’50s America. Science is the platform that the fiction is placed upon, but then the setting supposedly makes the examination of delicate current topics ‘safer’ or less contentious, thus permitting more rational consideration of the points of both sides of the question. It’s also often done by setting bits of William Shakespeare’s work in new settings, such as Orson Welles’ Fascist Germany-set production of Macbeth demonstrating a battle for power by a success-driven megalomaniac.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Thus, we have “Star Trek VI” re-examining the question of racism, the original series having already done so in the episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (Season III, Episode 14), which I happen to have seen projected on a big screen locally when I was young. Here, however, the ‘extra complication’ is that it’s not merely another race, but a former deadly enemy involved. The parallel here is USA suddenly dealing with a post-fall of the Berlin Wall Soviet Union. Given the ‘Cold War’ history of the two nation’s interactions, plus the fact that Cuba still exists – which, in a pinch, could be seen as a Romulan Empire… kind of… maybe – makes it all work really well.

Due to the above Really Big Questions makes the character development fairly substantial, and it’s about damned time, frankly; in a way it’s a shame this is the last outing for the original crew of the Enterprise, as it really makes you think of Kirk as a far more intellectual and philosophical individual than before. Until now, the Klingons were “the bad guys” and we felt quite content to see them blown-up all the time. Yet, what would one think if one were Klingon? Is there a more intellectual and understandable side to them with which we might recognize our own need to expand our territories for use as food supply, raw materials for material wealth, and so on? Is it possible to see ourselves through their eyes as being simply irrational beings, clinging inconsiderately to our resources for no reason, when they might make better use of those materials for the benefit of all?

Even if one can make the jump to understand the need to trust the former enemy in a “new galaxial order”, can one truly feel that on a visceral level? Can one actually stand side-by-side with them and say “yes, we are brothers”? Would you let your daughter marry one?

This last question is actually posed in the script, and there was a bit of controversy about what, if anything, the reply might be. Another line was re-assigned due to Nichelle Nichols refusing to make a reference to the famous movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, which itself dealt with racial discrimination at a time that great tension was caused even by the mentioning of the topic itself.

So, thus, there’s more than enough validity in asking these questions, whether you assign national, racial, or even planetary roles to the specifics of the question. Until such time as the poignancy of the question is no longer existent, the theme must be employed.

This probably is the best of the entire series, and is easily the best of the films for the original crew. What a shame it’s also the last, as well as still looking like a TV show with much of its camerawork.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Paramount Pictures (presents)

Directed by
Nicholas Meyer

Writing credits
Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek)
story by Leonard Nimoy plus Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal
screenplay by Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 6:19 pm and is filed under movies, Personal, Reviews, TV Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.