Mythic Thinking

It is extremely difficult for me to write about Star Trek without going into geeky fan-mode, so I will begin with my entree into the Trek-verse. For me, it all started with the season finale of Season V of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was completing elementary school and was attracted to the previews for this episode where these futuristic people go back into time because they found the head of their android commrade. The special guest star was Mark Twain, and the episode was “A Fistful of Datas.” I had no conception of a “cliffhanger” and faithfully watched ST:TNG every night waiting for the second half of the episode. During that summer of reruns, I obsessively learned everything I could about the show. What we now call “Classic Trek” was not being shown, so everything I learned about it came from books and the six movies. I finally saw some classic episodes during the summer rerun season a couple years later, which coincided with the time I finally learned what a “cliffhanger” is.

For this reason, I have always had a stronger connection to ST:TNG and the 6 films (The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country). None of the other series could capture my attention as strongly, though I give them all kudos for trying. If you have to do any homework before seeing the 2009 Star Trek film, see the classic pilot episode, the movies, and the TNG 2-part episode “Unification.” And be prepared to unlearn everything you just learned.

*Spoilers Likely in the Following. Read at Your Own Risk*

The film starts off with the USS Kelvin approaching some anomaly that surrounds this many-tentacled, squid-like ship. The Kelvin is attacked and the captain is asked to come aboard ship. He does, he dies, and the first officer takes command. The Kelvin is attacked and badly damaged, to the point that he has to evacuate everyone. He realizes that he has to stay aboard and manually self-destruct the ship, so he sends his wife, in labor, onto a shuttle craft and listens to the birth of his son over the comm. Serious tear-jerker. He blows up and we meet for the first time James T. Kirk.

What follows is an action-packed, cinematic experience that tells how the crew of the Enterprise comes together, but there are some major differences. This film takes place in an alternate reality, one set in motion when Spock tried to save the planet, Romulus, from a super nova. His plan backfired and he created this time-warping blackhole that sucked both his ship and the Romulan mining vessel (the many-tentacled, squid-like ship that destroyed the Kelvin) conveniently back into the past of Spock’s youth. I’ve seen enough Star Trek to know that it’s not a good idea to mess with timelines.

Kirk has the hardest time getting along with Spock, and it is this dynamic that lies at the crux of the whole film, not to mention is the most important dynamic within the Trek-verse. I don’t think any other incarnation of Trek has successfully pull this off. It would be far too easy to say that they are each other’s shadows, in Jungian terms. Rather, I suggest that they represent the ultimate (emotional) coniunctio. The coniunctio is the alchemical sacred marriage. This is the union of opposites: man/woman, sun/moon, etc. The symbolism is endless. Kirk is unbridled, raw emotion. He doesn’t think before he acts, and the best solution to anything is to act on first instinct, even if it means getting into needless fist fights. It is no accident that he is only of the only captains in Starfleet history to regularly go on away missions. He cannot handle being outside of the action and fun. In this alternate reality, Kirk’s emotions are suggested to be due to a lack of childhood control, a rebellious nature, because of his father’s death and his mother’s off-planet work. One of the early scenes in the movie shows Kirk driving his uncle’s hot rod at high speeds down the backroads of Iowa listening to the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” He is maybe 10 or 12 at this point, and can barely see above the steering wheel.

Spock, on the otherhand, is a homunculus. He is the son of a Vulcan and a human. Trek-lore tells us that his human mother had to go through all sorts of treatments just to make carrying him possible, because inter-species “breeding” isn’t easy. He is bullied as a youth (shown in the movie) for being the child of both worlds. He tries to control his emotions and embrace the Vulcan stance of pure reason and logic, but has a tipping point when people comment on his mother. By the time he gets to Starfleet, he chooses to be Vulcan and to suppress his human side, and this is the Spock Kirk meets. Super-logical, super-rational, and by the book.

Spock is so put-off by Kirk’s unbridled emotions that he has him marooned on a snowy, desolate planet. One that ressembles Star Wars‘ Hoth planet. Already this is suggestive of trying to “cool him down,” try to bring Kirk from the hot side of raw emotion to the cooler side of reason. Kirk is rescued from being eaten by a monster by none other than Future Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy, the only actor to reprise his role in the film). Future Spock clues Kirk into what their future holds and why this alternate reality exists, because Kirk is supposed to captain the Enterprise, not Spock. In Future Spock, Kirk sees the benefits of their friendship. Future Spock has found his balance, softening up his rational and logic, having learned from Kirk that sometimes irrationality is the key to solving a problem. Kirk takes this lesson to heart when he returns to the Enterprise (with Scotty and a new understanding of transporters), and goes easier on Spock, only after he tricks Spock into proving emotionally unfit to captian the ship.

The film ends with Leonard Nimoy reciting the familiar poem of Star Trek. “Space, the final frontier…” Afterall, Star Trek is a space Western. It allows the imagination that has already wandered into every nook and crany of our planet a place to project its adventures and myths. Perhaps for this reason alone, the Trek-verse has endured. Sometimes good and sometimes bad, the Trek-verse has always been there for the projections of the collective psyche. Mix with a familiar lines and jokes (”Dammit man, I’m a doctor not a physicist!”) and you have a recipe for what is sure to be a worthy movie experience.

For film details, visit their page on IMDB.