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rynneYay, finally ready to post this! Or at least, the first part of this. It's been split up into three parts due to length constraints, and the next two parts will be posted when I finish editing them a final time.
Introduction
All right, there are plenty of movie analyses out there, but not all of them have covered all the things I want to talk about, and I finally got inspired to get off my ass and write all of this down. The following reviews are my personal thoughts about the first seven Star Trek movies, the ones involving The Original Series characters. I both ramble and analyze my thoughts a lot, but as I hope the rambling and analysis shows, I have thought quite a bit about this stuff; however, they're still my opinions and I realize other people might disagree -- if you do, please just be polite.
Because this essay is 25,000+ words long, I've split it into three posts. The first post covers the introduction, The Motion Picture, and The Wrath of Khan. The second post covers The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home. The third post covers The Final Frontier, The Undiscovered Country, and Generations.
Also note that these reviews are heavily discussing Kirk/Spock (though not entirely), so if that's not your cup of tea and you still want to read, be warned, because I do look at a lot of things through a Kirk/Spock lens. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy!
A bit of background before I start. Before watching Reboot in theaters, my only exposure to Star Trek was watching one Next Gen episode, plus what I picked up around the internet. That was it. As for TOS, I knew that Kirk was the Captain of the Enterprise and a Space Casanova, Spock was the logical guy with pointed ears, and the two of them originated slash as a phenomenon. I knew that there were Vulcans and Klingons, though I couldn't have told you which was which, and that there was a blonde in love with Spock. Before watching Reboot, that was honestly about all I knew. I don't think I could have even placed McCoy as TOS.
It was actually over a year after I saw it in theaters that I picked up the movie again and fell in love with it. Or rather, obsessed over it. I have no idea what suddenly clicked, or why just then and not before, but something did. I started reading fanfiction, because that's what happens when I get obsessed with something, and I started reading K/S in particular because hey, the original slash pairing. I was not going to pass that up. At that time, though, I had no particular attachment to this pairing over any other. I chose K/S to start reading because of its history, but I might have gone for Kirk/McCoy and/or Spock/Uhura.
I am a completionist, and once I started reading the fic, I couldn't resist going back to the original source. I raised an eyebrow at how little Kirk actually resembled a Space Casanova (though that's a whole 'nother essay I keep meaning to write), but what blew me away was how close to actual text some of the K/S subtext was. This isn't an essay about K/S in TOS and how wonderfully developed it is -- Brittany Diamond's pretty much got that covered -- but once I got to the movies, I just really wanted to talk about them.
I will say before I start that while I do have an English degree, I have not studied film. These reviews come out of my literary-analysis-loving English major soul, so that's the primary focus, and anything that talks about the aspects of these films (and briefly, the TV series) as relates to their media comes from my perspective as audience.
So, without further ado, let's start.
TOS and the Movies
Even after the above paragraph, I want to start by talking a bit about the nature of TV versus movies. TOS is highly episodic, rather that serial, in nature. There is definitely an emotional progression for the three main leads, but it's subtle enough that you could watch the episodes completely out of order and still not get lost.
Something that TOS does still have, though, is themes. Each episode has a contained theme -- some of them Brittany Diamond identifies in her Analyzation/Commentary on TOS, including things like how power requires compassion (Where No Man Has Gone Before), the tragedy of extinction (The Man Trap) and humanity's role in it (Devil in the Dark), and so on. Some of these themes cross episodes, like the encompassing theme of the delicate balance between logic, emotion, and intuition, as embodied by the three leads.
But the thing about these themes is that they have to be simple enough, and overt enough, to fit into 50-minute episodes. There is typically just one plotline, and everything, from the themes to the characters, relates back to that plotline. Lenore Karidian in The Conscience of the King reflects the episode's theme of the dangers of utilitarianism (for those who don't know, utilitarianism is basically about the greater good, and the ends justifying the means) in multiple ways -- she's the daughter of Kodos, who made the utilitarian decision to commit genocide; Kirk tries using her in a very utilitarian way himself; she ends up using him back; killing the Tarsus survivors is the means to the end of keeping her father safe. The romantic connection between Kirk and Lenore isn't a subplot: it's an aspect of the main plot. Same thing with all of Kirk's other romantic connections in the series -- they're aspects of their episodes' main plots.
The movies, on the other hand, have the time to have subplots. What has captured my attention in these movies enough for me to write meta about is the interaction between the main plot, the subplot(s), and the themes, though these reviews are not limited to just plot/subplot/themes -- I have plenty of other things to talk about as well, as you're about to see.
The first six movies can be grouped in various ways. The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home are an obvious group; they happen very close together and are about the same series of events. The other three are less related to each other in terms of story, but thematically, there are ways these movies work together. The Motion Picture I group with TWoK, TSfS, and TVH, while The Undiscovered Country works amazingly well as a thematic sequel to The Final Frontier. I will be discussing these thematic groupings as I go along, but to attempt to keep things somewhat organized, I will primarily discuss each movie in its own section. I also have a few things to say about Generations. I don't really want to discuss Reboot now, though I might do that later.
Note that most of the movies, except for The Voyage Home, I've only seen once. Memory Alpha has been great about keeping the chain of events straight, but please let me know if I make a mistake.
Also note that there will be many times I refer to Kirk and Spock as being married. I do not believe that this is actual canon, or even necessarily that everything that makes me conclude they were married was intended for that purpose. What I do think is that there is enough evidence for that conclusion that it is a valid interpretation of canon at this point. It's not definitive canon, but neither is it definitely not. You don't have to tell me that Kirk and Spock were in all likelihood not married, because I know that. I just like to think they were, and I will discuss all the things that make me think so.
The Motion Picture
This movie tends to be particularly interesting to K/S fans, and I don't want to rehash all the meta that's already out there about it. Still, there are things that I do want to talk about, so please forgive me if I sound a bit redundant.
Themes
The overarching theme for this movie is, quite basically, the search for the meaning of life, and finding one's place in the universe. One of the reasons I appreciate this movie so much is that, despite its atrocious pacing, the story and the themes are very tight. Plot and subplots adhere extremely well to this theme -- honestly, I'm quite impressed.
Structure
The main plot, which I will call Plot 1, is, of course, V'Ger's journey to Earth and the dangers it represents. The basic plot is redundant in itself, as we've seen it in the episode The Changeling; where Plot 1 differentiates itself from the episode is in the theme. Nomad never attained consciousness and demonstrated no interest in the meaning of life. The basic theme I got from The Changeling was another variation of machines-cannot-replace-people, which is demonstrably different from TMP. Nomad is another version of the M5 computer in The Ultimate Computer. V'Ger is an immensely powerful forerunner to The Next Generation character Data, the android who wants to be human.
The subplots are where my main interest, and most other people's, lie. I will call them Plot 2a, which is Decker and Ilia, and Plot 2b, which is Kirk and Spock. These subplots are different enough to be distinguished, but intertwined enough to be basically on the same level. Plot 1 is the main plot, represented basically as man vs nature, the typical external force presenting a danger that must be resolved, also externally. Plot 2, on the other hand, is the emotional plot, a combination of man vs man and man vs himself. Plot 1 requires external resolution, something in the outside world changing (Decker joins with V'Ger and the Ilia probe, V'Ger stops threatening Earth), while Plot 2 requires internal resolution, the internal world changing (Decker realizes that he wants to be joined to Ilia and V'Ger, Kirk and Spock realize that their answers lie with each other, not logic or the Enterprise).
I ordered the plotlines the way I did for a very specific reason -- they go from the surface to the heart of the movie. Plot 1 is the surface conflict. Plot 2a is the Original Characters whose conflict and resolution are directly related to the surface conflict. They're part of the emotional plot because their conflict carries emotional resonance and they act as a great parallel for Kirk and Spock, but they're still OCs brought solely and specifically in for this movie, and therefore their subplot is closer to the surface.
Plot 2b, on the other hand, is the emotional heart of the movie. For one thing, it's the one involving established characters. An audience, particularly an audience made up of people who watched the show (whether they were big fans or were more casual), is going to care more about established characters than one-offs. They're already invested in this plotline the way they aren't for Plots 1 and 2a, and that investment naturally increases when Kirk and Spock (and McCoy, but I'll talk more about McCoy later) are immediately presented as being estranged and at odds, because that is not the natural state of affairs for these characters. Anyone who has watched the show even casually is going to be able to spot the conflict easily and want it resolved.
Another reason that 2b is the emotional heart of the movie is because it's the most involved plotline of the entire film. V'Ger's plot progression is relatively simple. It's presented initially as a mysterious danger, the characters gradually learn more about it and its goal through the Ilia probe and Spock's mind meld, and Decker resolves the situation. 2a is hardly more complicated. Decker and Ilia have a romantic past, one complicated by being a human/alien pairing, and the romantic tension between them is both resolved by and itself resolves the issue of Plot 1 when Decker, for Ilia's sake, chooses to join with V'Ger.
2b, on the other hand, has several components. Decker and Ilia's emotional storyline is just one storyline; it's not Decker's plot and Ilia's plot and somehow they come together. That is, however, how it is with Kirk and Spock. Kirk's plot involves his promotion, his separation from the Enterprise, and, of course, his separation from Spock. Unlike V'Ger and Spock, his storyline is not overtly about seeking answers, but the subtext of his story is very much about finding his own place in the universe. Meanwhile, Spock is also searching for answers of his own, answers that he initially thinks will lead him away from Kirk. So Kirk and Spock have their own storylines, but those stories are encompassed by the Kirk/Spock plotline of why they're estranged and how they come back together.
There's a third reason that 2b is the emotional heart of the movie, which is that Plot 1 serves 2b, rather than the other way around. 2a, Decker and Ilia, is a catalyst for the resolution of Plot 1, but Plot 1 is a catalyst for the resolution of 2b, Kirk and Spock. Even though the K/S resolution comes before the V'Ger climax, there really is a progression that leaves the K/S resolution standing on its own. V'Ger, by making the Ilia probe, changes Decker/Ilia, and they in turn change V'Ger. At the same time, though, V'Ger also changes Kirk/Spock -- but they don't change it in return. Honestly, they do nothing besides get Decker to V'Ger and give him the tools to make and implement his decision. Kirk and Spock and their resolution stand alone.
The Subplots and the Themes
I already mentioned how the main plot relates to the theme of the meaning of life and finding one's place in the universe, so let's talk about the subplots.
First let's talk about Decker and Ilia. They're Starfleet officers, one human, and one alien (Deltan). What we know about Decker is that he's the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the TOS episode The Doomsday Machine and that he was Kirk's choice to take over the Enterprise. What we know about Ilia is that she's Deltan, under a vow of celibacy, and seems to have something of a romantic past with Decker.
These two characters are almost immediately displaced. Kirk takes over as captain, displacing Decker, and V'Ger takes Ilia and returns her as a probe, displacing her not just from her position, but from her previous life.
The thing about Decker is that he obviously feels more deeply about being out of balance with Ilia than about Kirk taking over his ship. I mean, of course he was angry about Kirk, and justifiably so, because Kirk was a dick and then nearly got them all killed. But that's professional, and he can handle professional. He just goes on with his duties as first officer/science officer, and then just first officer once Spock comes back. His emotional equilibrium is upset more by not knowing where he stands with Ilia, first in the "trying to work with my ex" sense and then because now she's suddenly half Ilia and half V'Ger and he doesn't know what to do with that. Decker's journey in this movie is about figuring out where he wants to be, where he should be, and that's with Ilia, not as captain of the Enterprise. That's the place in the universe he chooses.
Then there's Ilia, who unfortunately does not get any choice in the matter, dammit. But she goes from being comfortably herself, despite some tension with Decker, to fighting between two different yet powerful aspects, her own personality, and the mechanical V'Ger. Ilia peeks out when she calls Decker by his name, and when she wears the headband, and so on. For the most part, though, she is consumed by V'Ger's goal. V'Ger searches for its answer through Ilia, but what little we get of Ilia herself is still trying to find expression. I am least satisfied with Ilia in this movie, because she doesn't get a choice, and we can only guess that she's satisfied enough when Decker makes his choice. We also don't know Ilia well enough before V'Ger to know if this would be the best conclusion for her storyline, the way we can know where Decker finds the most personal satisfaction.
What I end up concluding about Ilia and her thematic place goes back to her representation of V'Ger. V'Ger, through Ilia, has found some meaning in its life, and is finally able to make decisions for itself (beyond its original mission of learn and report back). I'm not sure that Ilia here can really be separated from V'Ger anymore -- which is, of course, part of what makes the Decker/Ilia subplot much more part of the main plot.
The conclusion of the Decker/Ilia-V'Ger storyline is that, at a basic level, human, alien, and mechanical aspects unite to find all involved parties balanced and satisfied. And what made it possible was love -- more specifically, Decker's love for Ilia.
Notice how much of what I said about Decker and Ilia applies to Kirk and Spock? Honestly, I found the parallels between the two to be really rather blatant, which is why I think that together they make up the emotional plotline of this movie. Decker/Ilia is a more overt representation of the journey that Kirk and Spock make, and one that helps lead us to better understand the Kirk/Spock story here.
Let's start with Kirk. Like Decker, we begin with him professionally displaced. He's an admiral now, and despite the honor of the position, it quickly becomes apparent that he's not suited to it personally, no matter how qualified he is for it professionally. As is hammered home repeatedly throughout the movies involving Kirk, what he's meant to be is a starship captain.
What also quickly becomes apparent is that the professional displacement is not the most serious disruption to his equilibrium. He may think that being captain of the Enterprise again will fix his problem, but it most definitely doesn't. He doesn't know the ship anymore, and has to resort to commandeering it from Decker in a really douchey move. He conscripts McCoy in yet another douchey move, but McCoy is not the fix for his problems either. Kirk, whose first, best destiny it is to be a starship captain, is still so out of tune with his ship despite having the captaincy back that he nearly destroys it before Decker countermands his order.
What all of this emphasizes is that Kirk's main displacement, the one that hurts him the most and throws him the most off balance, is not professional, because fixing the professional displacement only highlights the problem. That means the underlying problem is personal, emotional. There doesn't seem to be any problem between Kirk and his bridge crew friends, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov, and the only conflict with Scotty is about the capabilities of the Enterprise. That leaves of course his closest friends, McCoy and Spock, both of whom he's been estranged from. But like I said before, getting McCoy back doesn't fix anything. The reconciliation is also over much too quickly for the rift between Kirk and McCoy to be an emotional plot point.
That leaves Spock. It's being out of balance with Spock that throws Kirk so much -- a claim validated quickly enough when Spock returns. Kirk doesn't make any more disastrous command decisions, and he seems much more settled. There's still tension between him and Spock, but he seems back in his professional groove with the ship and the crew, and his personal groove with his friendship with McCoy as they once again bond over Spock and how he likes to be difficult.
This indicates that it's Kirk's displacement from Spock, like Decker's with Ilia, that's the main issue for Kirk in this movie. The conclusion of both the main and the emotional plotlines bears this out. We don't know Kirk's professional future at the end of the movie. Kirk may be in command and happily heading "thataway", but he's still officially an admiral, with duties back at headquarters, with the V'Ger crisis only a brief mission. He could be given command of the Enterprise again, but we don't know for sure -- especially as The Wrath of Khan opens with him still an admiral. It's ambiguous.
What's not ambiguous is that the conflict with Spock has been resolved, thanks to the famous sickbay scene. Kirk has found his balance with Spock again, found his place with Spock. That is where he finds the most meaning in his life -- not in the captain's chair.
Spock is also a pretty close match for Ilia, especially once she becomes the Ilia probe. He's the one most visibly displaced, the one we know from the start is searching for answers. We're never told what the questions are, but we can make a guess, based on the sickbay scene. It's Spock's constant quest -- how can he reconcile his Vulcan and human halves? How can he make peace with who he is?
Spock has always represented logic. The Ilia probe reminds the audience of him when she says things like how a game she once enjoyed has no purpose. She's half mechanical, and Spock has constantly been compared to a machine through TOS, and has often taken it as a compliment when he's compared to a computer.
Spock has also always assumed that he'd find his answers in logic, which is why he went to Gol. I don't want to go too in-depth into the retreat to Gol, but I think it's safe to say that it was for emotional, rather than professional reasons. He seemed satisfied with his place on the Enterprise when TOS ended, and we don't know what his options were after the five year mission, but I highly doubt they presented enough of a threat to his equilibrium that he felt kolinahr to be the only answer. Emotions are what throw Spock off balance, and so it would have been emotions that pushed him to Gol. His displacement, like the other main characters in this movie, is emotional.
Spock, in failing to complete kolinahr, finds out that logic is not the answer for him. He can guess alternatives, including emotion, but as always, he doesn’t know what to do with that. He's always taken the benefit of emotions for granted -- he focuses enough on their negative aspects, thanks to his Vulcan upbringing, to want to cast them out, but doesn't understand the benefits enough to know that the cost of losing his emotions wouldn't be worth the benefits. That's what V'Ger teaches him.
The sickbay scene is where he finally truly understands the benefits of emotion, and stops taking them for granted. Kirk and McCoy have told him that often enough, but V'Ger is the one who showed him, as nothing else could. V'Ger is Spock's first encounter with a consciousness of pure logic (Nomad doesn't count, because it didn't have consciousness), and it scares him. It shows him the truth of the ideal to which he'd once aspired. Now that he finally understands what it means to be a creature of pure logic, he knows it's not for him.
This scene is also where Spock finds his place in the universe -- at Kirk's side, as if he's always been there and always will. (Thank you, Edith Keeler.) The personal meaning that he's found for his own life is "this simple feeling" that he shares with Kirk -- and Kirk agrees when he holds Spock's hand and looks incredibly sappy and shares that tiny nod.
That, right there, is both of them finding their true place with each other. Their professional lives are still very important to them, but not the most important, not the thing that goes deepest. The greatest meaning they find in their lives, both of them, is simply feeling the way they do for each other. As I mentioned when discussing Decker and Ilia-V'Ger, it's only when the human, emotional, alien, and logical/mechanical aspects unite that the characters involved find what they're looking for. And, ahem, when viewed through the Decker/Ilia parallel, what made that unity possible in the first place was love, and in particular romantic love.
Guys, this is a coherent movie. It's got its themes, and not only the main plot but the subplots and characters reflecting those themes. The plot and subplots work with and around each other very tightly. If only the pacing weren't complete crap...
I think that's about it for The Motion Picture. Now let's move on to...
The Wrath of Khan
This is typically the Star Trek fans' favorite movie, and for good reason. The pacing is much better than the first movie, it's got an ensemble cast of characters we already know and new characters with connections to the plot and to Kirk. There's a main villain bent on revenge, making the basic main storyline simple enough to understand. There are epic battles in space. And, of course, it's highly, highly emotional when one of the most beloved characters of the franchise dies.
I'm not going to discuss this one the same way that I discussed TMP. What I found most interesting about that movie (apart from the great K/S stuff) was the unity of plot and theme, which therefore entailed a more in-depth discussion of the plot and the themes and how they worked together. The things I most want to talk about have less to do with the plot than with character moments. I am a Kirk girl, and this is a Kirk movie.
Themes
The themes and how they relate to the characters is what most intrigues me. Memory Alpha tells me that Nicholas Meyer, who wrote the screenplay, had several themes in mind, including age, vengeance, death, and the tragic flaw of the hero embodied by the Kobayashi Maru.
I'm not too interested in vengeance and death. They're common enough themes, and I'm far more interested in age and Kirk's tragic flaw.
Age
So let's start with age. This movie is Kirk's mid-life crisis. He's stuck at a desk job after years exploring the galaxy, wondering if he has anything valuable left to offer. The movie begins on his birthday, an outward reminder that he's growing old. His birthday present from McCoy is a pair of glasses, because his eyes are beginning to fail him and he's allergic to the only other treatment. Oh, and we also find out that he has a grown son.
The movie also ends with Kirk saying that he feels young. The statement initially made me go wtf?, and I still feel sort of oddly about it, even after thinking and figuring it out a bit.
Kirk saying that he feels young right there is a reply to an earlier moment in the movie when he worries about getting old. I'm pretty sure he's saying that he feels young in experience, particularly as he's staring out at the newborn Genesis planet and has the beginning of a relationship with his son. He sees that there is still plenty of life ahead of him, still plenty of new things for the galaxy to throw at him. His life is not over, even without Spock.
I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I'm glad that he feels somewhat rejuvenated, that he does see a future for himself. Honestly, something I really appreciate this movie for, and Spock's appearances in Next Generation and beyond, is that they show that Kirk and Spock really did have a healthy and beneficial relationship -- whatever codependent tendencies they have are outweighed by the truly beneficial aspects. They don't wither away and die once they lose each other. They take the lessons that the other taught them and continue living and living well, exactly as the other would have wanted. Considering Amok Time, and Spock's response of "I shall do neither" when T'Pau tells him to live long and prosper after the kal'i'fee, it's pretty awesome for Spock to get to a place where he could live long and prosper even after Kirk's true death. That kind of emotional stability, especially as a contrast to how he is earlier in life when confronted with almost the same situation, comes as a result of healthy and beneficial relationships. Kirk and Spock were actually seriously good for each other. Completely awesome.
I feel that the Romeo and Juliet solution is deceptively romantic. It sounds romantic to say that you can't live without this person, that you're willing to die when they do so that you never have to live without them. But the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet wasn't just that they died at the end, or even that it was just a misunderstanding that caused it. The tragedy that I see most there is that it was a waste. They were young and stupid and selfish, because what they could have done was show some strength and live on, with the memory of the other, and, say, found a way to end the feud between their families without more senseless deaths.
It's harder to talk about Kirk after Spock's death because Spock comes back so quickly, but Spock after Kirk's death? It's pretty hard to look at Spock Prime in Reboot and not see how deeply he loved Kirk, how deeply he let Kirk influence him, what with the accepting his emotions and implying things and so on. It's also very apparent that Spock Prime regrets nothing of his life with Kirk, even the pain of living without him, because he sends his younger self to do it all over again. Kirk and Spock love each other enough not to just die for each other, but to live for each other as well. Totally awesome.
So my problem with the line isn't that it's positive. It's more the timing of the thing. It just feels out of place to me for him to be able to be that positive yet. We see how much he grieves in the next movie, though he's very calm and understated about it, even able to give a toast to Spock in his apartment. Kirk has always been able to bounce back from death pretty quickly (as expected, considering the nature of a TV show, and especially a TV show from before they started becoming psychological), but he's already acknowledged in this movie that Spock is different from everyone else, even if they weren't married. (Though of course I think they were.)
I know it's also part of the nature of a movie, especially when they don't know if they're making more. Storylines and themes have to be wrapped up, and Kirk's mid-life crisis was one such theme, and it had to be dealt with. I'm sure it also had to be dealt with in a preferably uplifting manner, considering the movie was sad enough with Spock's death. It just...feels off to me. Rayna the Random Android has Kirk destroyed enough for Spock to make him forget her, while the death of Spock himself makes him feel young? *sigh*
The Kobayashi Maru
The Kobayashi Maru is, for me, one of the more interesting philosophical points to come out of Star Trek. There are multiple sides to the issues it brings up, and all of them are valid in their own way.
We don't get much on the purpose of the test in this movie. Kirk tells Saavik that how one faces death is just as important as how one faces life. In Reboot, Spock says that the purpose is to feel fear and to do one's duty in spite of that fear.
I actually find the simulation itself inherently flawed, for the simple reason that the examinees know that it's a simulation. In The Next Generation, first season I think, there's an episode where Wesley Crusher is trying to get into Starfleet Academy and he's given a psychological test where he has to act in face of a crisis without knowing that the crisis itself is a test. Because of that, he's able to give an honest reaction to honest fear.
The Kobayashi Maru, on the other hand, cannot inspire honest fear. It can come close, I think, given the nature of nerves and adrenaline during exams plus the situation itself, but it inherently presents a safety net. I don't know if the administrators of the test take the effects of that safety net into account, or whether those effects are subtle or dramatic, or if the effects made a big difference in how the examinees think or made little.
That's why I find myself more on Kirk's side, at least during Reboot, and especially if the purpose that Spock explains is supposed to be the true purpose of the test. What he did was highlight the simulation aspect. He wasn't trying to beat the Klingons; he was trying to beat the test, and make a point. Part of the point I saw him make was that the Kobayashi Maru could not be an accurate measure of its stated purpose.
But that's the test in the concrete, as we really saw it. The Kobayashi Maru in the abstract is far less clear-cut, I think.
Because what I think the purpose of the Kobayashi Maru is to see what a potential captain will do when there are no good options. Will they save their own ship but let hundreds of fellow Starfleet personnel die? Will they attempt rescue, but due to the parameters of the test, inevitably fail? How will they react when they find out their efforts are doomed, and they might have just condemned their own ships to death as well? Their initial choices will say a lot about them as a captain, and so will their reactions to the consequences of those choices.
I am still dubious about the answerability of these questions in a known simulation (nor can I figure out a way of making that test blind), but they are still important answers that Starfleet needs to have about its captains. But this is where Kirk's solution comes into play, and it is still controversial.
Kirk's solution is framed, both in TWoK and Reboot, as cheating. But original!Kirk's examiner gave him a commendation for original thinking, while Reboot!Spock brought him up on disciplinary charges. What Reboot!Spock didn't understand, I think, is that he could still evaluate Kirk's response to the test whether or not it was the kind of response he was originally looking for.
There are several important things that Kirk's response tells us. One is, of course, that he doesn't just accept no-win scenarios. I think he would find it offensive to accept death, not just for him but for his crew, and not do everything he possibly could to get them out of that situation, whether or not anyone thinks it could be done. This is in fact something we constantly see him do in the series -- his solution is often unorthodox, like Corbomite, but each solution comes out of his own creativity and his unwillingness to accept defeat, both of which are integral to the process. There are many, many times when we see that if Kirk had accepted the existence of a no-win scenario, he would not have been able to win. Self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.
So Kirk's solution tells us that he is creative. He is willing to fight to his last breath to help his crew survive. The goals of the Kobayashi Maru aren't compatible with his way of thinking, because they require that he accept the premise of a no-win scenario in the first place, which he isn't willing to do, and that is part of his strength.
On the other hand, I can see where Reboot!Spock's concern is coming from. No one has yet been able to see this Kirk's ability to pull amazing, impossible solutions out of his ass, so what Spock sees is naivete. He sees someone whose determination to beat the no-win scenario is going to have him coming up against challenges that are going to break him and any ship Starfleet might be so stupid as to give him. Spock would be thinking that refusing to accept reality does not bode well for someone who would command a starship.
One of the things that Reboot does is show how Kirk is right about the Kobayashi Maru -- but one of the things that The Wrath of Khan does is show that he isn't always right. TWoK shows that he can't always get away without a sacrifice. Sometimes there really is nothing he can do, even when the stakes are high, and that's something that Kirk needs to face. I saw Reboot first, but now that I've seen TWoK, I find its treatment here much deeper and more compelling.
Especially when you include Spock in the process, because what Spock teaches here is that winning and losing can just be a matter of perspective. His solution to the scenario is sacrificing his own life for the rest of the ship, and he seems perfectly satisfied with it. Spock is not a fatalistic or suicidal character, so his framing of his sacrifice in terms of the Kobayashi Maru, the classic no-win scenario, is just as much a denial of the no-win as Kirk's is. Spock's involves a shift of perspective -- he will die, but everyone else will live. It's obviously a perspective he's gained since knowing Kirk, because Reboot!Spock brings up George Kirk, who did the same thing Spock does in TWoK, as an affirmation of the no-win. The original Spock's salvaging a win out of a bad situation is simple, but still very powerful, and something Kirk can learn from.
Okay, so, there's my interpretation of the Kobayashi Maru itself. Now I want to talk about it as it represents Kirk's 'tragic flaw'. In this next section I will really seriously be putting on my English geek hat, so be prepared for that.
The Tragic Flaw
On Memory Alpha's TWoK page there's a nice little section about the Kobayashi Maru and how the director and writer of the screenplay Nicholas Meyer decided to have made Kirk win by cheating because Kirk needed to have flaws. He goes on to say that all heroes have flaws they have to endure, which is what makes them heroic, and that Kirk is very much like a classical hero in having to confront his flaws, and be forced to endure them and their consequences.
TWoK rather does have the structure of a classical tragedy. Nicholas Meyer even says that one of the goals of Spock's death was catharsis, which in the dramaturgical sense is the emotional purge for the audience that dramatic tragedy allows, leaving the audience more balanced. But the other main classically tragic aspect I saw in this movie is the element of hamartia.
Catharsis and hamartia are both Greek terms, going all the way back to Aristotle's Poetics. Hamartia is not easily defined, but part of it is the concept of the tragic flaw. In criticism, it's often used to describe a character failing that leads to the character's downfall, like how Macbeth's ambition leads to his death, or Othello's pride and jealousy lead to his and Desdemona's. This is not the entire sense of hamartia, though. From my own brief studies of the term, it's not necessarily so much a flaw as human error combined with ignorance. It's an aspect of the character, something that ordinarily might not even be considered a flaw, that the character acts through, but in ignorance of what will result.
Kirk's hamartia in this movie isn't that he cheated. It isn't presented in a positive light in this movie, first in Saavik's initial reaction to the revelation, and at the very end of the movie when Kirk is talking to David and says that he's cheated his way out of death, as well as the way Nicholas Meyer mentioned it, as something that demonstrates one of Kirk's flaws. That Kirk is willing to cheat may be considered a flaw, but it's not a tragic flaw. In fact, the "tragic flaw" in this movie is not normally considered a flaw at all.
What I identify as Kirk's hamartia in this movie is his confidence as a captain. The turning point of the story comes when Khan in the Reliant fires on the Enterprise with its shields down, damaging Engineering so badly that later Spock will have to sacrifice his life to fix it. Spock's death, the tragedy of this movie, can be directly traced back to that moment, and to Kirk's delay in raising the shields, even when Saavik tells him he should.
And that moment is an entirely Captain Kirk moment. Saavik quotes regulations, but Captain Kirk is well known for his...creative interpretation of regulations. He doesn't just blindly obey, and that is one of his main strengths. This is, however, a situation where he should have listened to regulation. The hamartia comes from the fact that it's not his weakness that leads to his downfall, but his strength, and his ignorance of how this can be used against him.
Miscellaneous
In which I discuss other things of interest in this movie that aren't really part of an overarching category.
The Emotional Heart of the Movie
In TMP, the emotional heart of the movie was a subplot. There are plenty of emotional subplots in this movie, most having to do with Kirk -- his difficulties with aging, dealing with his ex-lover and his son, confronting his own mistakes. But is there anyone who could deny that the emotional heart of this movie is Spock's death?
Spock's death is where all of Kirk's emotional plotlines come together. Kirk is forced to confront what aging ultimately leads to, even if Spock's death is not the result of old age -- and we know that Spock's death is what resolves the aging issue because Kirk feels young in response to it, and to understanding what Spock was trying to teach him through it. Spock's death is a catalyst for Kirk beginning a new relationship with his son. And Spock's death is what makes him confront his mistakes.
But there's also that Spock's death is just plainly the most emotional moment in the movie. Christ, it's sad. Kirk and Spock are in their own little world, for what seems the last time, but they're still separated by the glass. Spock uses the last of his strength to reassure Kirk about his own emotions and his hope for Kirk's future. They mirror each other with the hands against the glass and the way they slump over at the end.
Kirk isn't concerned about being in command right there, even though there are other people around. He's not being strong for his crew there. He's just numb.
Spock's death is just so much a Kirk/Spock moment, from the way the scene is entirely about them to what Spock's death ends up teaching Kirk. Just like the first movie, and like the next two, the Kirk/Spock relationship is the emotional heart of the story. It's very sad right here, but totally awesome in general.
Spock's Funeral
We don't know much about Starfleet's procedure for people killed in the line of duty. (Do we? Does any sort of policy exist somewhere? I've only seen TOS, the movies, and Next Gen through the third season.) The most logical assumption is that they either follow the terms of the will, or they let the family decide. I don't know much about this particular legal procedure (yet -- I'll likely learn more when I start law school), so please let me know if I'm wrong, but these seem to me to be the most likely courses of action.
Either way, it's really interesting that it seems to have been Kirk who made the decision for Spock's body. I mean, I know that The Search for Spock hadn't been planned yet and therefore we didn't know for sure that Spock's body would need to be taken to Vulcan, but a starship has to have a morgue of some sort, some way to transport the bodies who should be taken home. Maybe it's Starfleet's policy that everyone who dies will be either disintegrated/cremated or shot into space, but that seems a pretty cold policy, especially for an organization as human-centric as Starfleet, that knows how humans feel about treatment of the dead. It doesn't seem unreasonable for there to be a morgue of some sort on board.
I bring up this very morbid point because it becomes obvious in the next movie that Sarek wasn't consulted. I assume Spock had a will, because that'd be logical, so either he didn't know about how katra and body shouldn't be separated and left the decision about his remains to Kirk (or said specifically he should be shot into space, but I rather doubt Spock would say that), or he trusted that circumstances would make the course of events obvious (as in, he'd be able to tell Kirk himself that his body should go back to Vulcan). The only family we know Spock has at this point is his parents, so if it was his family's decision what to do with his body, it would be family other than Sarek. Most likely a spouse. And it is Kirk who made the decision.
I can only see Kirk being allowed to make that decision if Spock legally gives him the right. What would give him the right is marriage, the will, or both. Very likely I'm overthinking this, because as I said, TSfS and its plot hadn't been planned yet, and I'm betting the writers for both movies weren't exactly thinking about the legalities involved with dead bodies. So maybe I am overthinking it, but when I try to make this event match up with common sense, this is how it turns out. Kirk had the legal right to decide what to do about Spock's body, and I think the most likely circumstances that would give him that right would be as a spouse.
Interesting Parallels
There are some interesting parallels I noted within the movie and between it and City on the Edge of Forever.
First is that, within the movie, Khan is angry about a lot of things. He's angry that his attempted colony got screwed up, he's angry that Kirk abandoned them and never checked on them -- and he's angry that thanks to all of this, his wife died. So he decides to get revenge on Kirk.
Kirk and Khan are very much counterparts in this movie. They're the protagonist and the antagonist, direct rivals, the nemeses. Khan isn't happy with anyone from the Enterprise, but his main target is Kirk.
So I think it's interesting that Khan's revenge for the death of his wife results in killing Kirk's husband. (And yes, I do believe Kirk and Spock were married at this point. Substitute "closest friend" if you so desire.) That's some great balance there -- though I'm only speaking in terms of the story, because it's still damn sad.
Khan might even actually be satisfied with it. Of course he wanted to kill Kirk, but on the Regula planetoid after he beams up the Genesis device, he says this:
He says there that he leaves Kirk abandoned in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Kirk gets away there, but in the end, Khan does leave Kirk as Kirk left him -- widowed. Poetic justice. Once again the very structure of the story points towards a Kirk/Spock interpretation. I love it when that happens. :D
Then there's some interesting stuff with City on the Edge of Forever. First:
"Always been there and always will." "Have been and always shall be yours."
Remarkably similar sentiments and phrasing, don't you think? *g* Spock knows where he belongs, finally.
There's one more parallel, which is in the sacrifice of Kirk's loved ones. Kirk's in love with Edith, but he has to sacrifice her to get his proper future back. Kirk loves Spock (of course I also believe they're in love as well, but it's still a given that Kirk loves him), and Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship.
It's sort of a reverse parallel. With Edith, the decision is in Kirk's hands, and he has to sacrifice her. With Spock, the decision is not in Kirk's hands, but Kirk still has to face that sacrifice. Oh, Kirk.
Kirk and Carol Marcus
So, Carol Marcus is one of the three non-crew women Kirk interacts with in all six movies, the others being Gillian Taylor in TVH and Martia in TUC. I'll talk more about Gillian and Martia with their movies, but all three of these women establish how poorly Kirk deserves his Space Casanova reputation in these movies. If these women are trying to make Kirk seem less married to Spock, they fail miserably, and in fact provide more evidence for the opposite conclusion, just by contrasting his behavior with them and his behavior with Spock.
Anyway, Kirk and Carol Marcus. They're old flames, and in fact have a son together, David, but Carol raised David exclusively. In fact, David doesn't even know that Kirk is his father. Carol wanted David raised in her world, not Kirk's.
Anyway, what's interesting about this is that Kirk is not willing to risk or change his career even for his own child. Do I even need to point out that as early as Amok Time, Kirk was willing to risk his career for Spock? XD
So, Kirk and Carol are old flames, and he still clearly cares about her. What I see from them in this movie, though, is that the flame is dead. Look at the body language in shots like this:
That is some very isolating body language on Kirk's part. He's not facing her, and his body's not even angled toward her at all, nor is he even sitting near her.
Despite being the mother of his child, Carol is no more a serious contender for Kirk's affections than was Areel Shaw, Janet Wallace, or Janice Lester when they returned. These movies...really completely suck at establishing Kirk as straight, except in the past before he met Spock. Hah.
Spock's "Human" Soul
This line I'm sort of iffy on. It demonstrates Star Trek's ethnocentrism, which is disappointing in a franchise that is about aliens and humans living together, and is also trying to be progressive. I dislike the idea of "human" being the absolute pinnacle of achievement, as Kirk is implying. I also dislike that it's the hero who expresses this view, especially considering that Kirk is the one character in the entire series to consistently accept Spock as being half-Vulcan and half-human, with neither one a complete description of who he is or should be. It honestly feels strange for Kirk to reduce him to only being human here.
On the other hand, though, Kirk does mean it as the highest compliment. I very much dislike the expression of the compliment, as I think Spock would, but I also think that Spock would appreciate the sentiment behind it.
I think that it doesn't help that there just aren't words in English for an expression of general peace, good will, compassion, sympathy, etc. for all beings regardless of species. I mean, the words we do have for that kind of concept are ones like "humane" and "humanitarian", which are likewise ethnocentric, and understandably so considering we haven't actually met any extra-terrestrial intelligences. It's why Kirk in The Undiscovered Country tells Spock that "Everybody's human." He's trying to express the spirit of a sentiment that he doesn't have better words for, because we don't have better words for it.
In the series, when Kirk pokes fun at Spock by saying he's doing something human, and Spock responds by claiming he's insulted, I see those moments as banter. Not so much with McCoy and Spock, because McCoy tends to have that edge of judgment that Kirk generally doesn't, but Kirk and Spock come across as bantering to me when they do that. I see it that way mostly because I think that Spock really being insulted would be an insult to Kirk and every other human on board. He may be sarcastic and snarky to McCoy and other people who think he's deficient for not being more human, with an edge of real insult in his remarks to them, but I don't think he would act that way to Kirk. Between the two of them, it's more like teasing -- both of them poking fun at the other's attachment to his own species.
So, though I wish Kirk had found a different way to express his regard for Spock during Spock's funeral, I think that Spock would have understood the spirit of his remark.
Kirk and Cheating Death
I've already discussed my view of Kirk "cheating death" with the Kobayashi Maru, but I find his conversation with David at the end to be particularly interesting, in a K/S sense.
Claiming that Kirk has never faced death is...really an extraordinary statement. First of all, Kirk has always deeply felt the loss of every crewmember who died under his command, even the most random redshirt. Watch the S2 episode The Apple, where Kirk mourns over a redshirt and says that the redshirt's father helped him get into Starfleet Academy. Kirk knows these people, and he cares about them, and he hates it when they die. He always does everything he can to preserve his crew.
But okay, they're still the crew. He can't know all of them all that well. Which brings me to friends.
First there's Gary Mitchell. Kirk and Mitchell were good friends at the Academy, close enough that Kirk asked for Mitchell for his first command. But Mitchell dies, Kirk even had to kill him himself -- and that's not facing death? Or some of his other starship commander friends, like Commodore Matt Decker. Kirk thought highly enough of him and his son Will that he advocated for Will Decker getting the Enterprise when Kirk was promoted. But Commodore Decker sacrifices his life to help destroy the doomsday machine, and that's not facing death?
What about people he loves, then? Like Edith Keeler? She's one of the only, if not the only, woman Kirk demonstrates genuine love for. He tells Spock (and the audience) that he's in love with her, and Kirk is an emotional authority. We're meant to believe him when he claims things about emotion, especially love. He also acts like he cares about her, more than he does for the women he seduces under ulterior motives. He also has to let her die. So he loves this woman, and she dies right in front of him, with him partly complicit in her death -- but that's not facing death?
Then there's his family. We don't know anything about his parents in this universe, so they might still be alive or not, but we do know about his brother. Who died. And whose dead body Kirk found himself. Kirk was then forced to helplessly watch his sister-in-law also die in horrible pain. We also know, from the first mention of Sam in What Are Little Girls Made Of, that he had three children -- we only know that Peter survives, so it's very likely that the other two kids also died. So Kirk loses his brother, sister-in-law, and nephews in one fell swoop, but that's still not facing death?
It's very possible the writers of this script just weren't thinking at all about all the people that Kirk has lost, but that's not a good excuse. Kirk's statements still have to make sense in the context of his life.
What we can conclude from this line alone, even before the next movie where Kirk calls Spock his soul, is that Kirk sees Spock as part of himself.
(And a quick note about the "part of himself" thing -- in the season two episode Metamorphosis, Kirk tries to explain romantic love to a particularly alien creature, and he does it by asking, "Is he important to you, more important than anything? Is he…as though he were a part of you?" This is Kirk's personal definition of romantic love. Who does Kirk consider more important than anything? Who does he think of as a part of him?)
Kirk says things like that he's tricked his way out of death, but that's very focused on his experience of his own death. It's a very interesting statement to make in response to someone else's death.
Because that is what the conversation is about -- someone else's death. When they talk about facing death, they mean facing death as a reality, as an inevitability, in all its devastating finality. It makes no sense to be talking about Kirk's own death, because Kirk hasn't faced his own death in this movie any more than he has the rest of his life -- and less so than he did, say, in Amok Time. He didn't know about the neural paralyzer in Amok Time any more than Spock did -- he would have thought, as he was losing consciousness, that he really was going to die. In this movie, he's gotten out of facing his own death once again, and it might have been because of Spock's help -- but he's put his life in other people's hands before, and lived because of what other people have done, even when those other people sacrificed their lives to help save his, like Commodore Decker.
So I guess what it means for Kirk to face death is to lose not just a friend, not just a brother, not just a lover -- but to lose Spock, the man who was all three, his t'hy'la.
And I'm going to shut up about The Wrath of Khan now.
Part Two
Introduction
All right, there are plenty of movie analyses out there, but not all of them have covered all the things I want to talk about, and I finally got inspired to get off my ass and write all of this down. The following reviews are my personal thoughts about the first seven Star Trek movies, the ones involving The Original Series characters. I both ramble and analyze my thoughts a lot, but as I hope the rambling and analysis shows, I have thought quite a bit about this stuff; however, they're still my opinions and I realize other people might disagree -- if you do, please just be polite.
Because this essay is 25,000+ words long, I've split it into three posts. The first post covers the introduction, The Motion Picture, and The Wrath of Khan. The second post covers The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home. The third post covers The Final Frontier, The Undiscovered Country, and Generations.
Also note that these reviews are heavily discussing Kirk/Spock (though not entirely), so if that's not your cup of tea and you still want to read, be warned, because I do look at a lot of things through a Kirk/Spock lens. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy!
A bit of background before I start. Before watching Reboot in theaters, my only exposure to Star Trek was watching one Next Gen episode, plus what I picked up around the internet. That was it. As for TOS, I knew that Kirk was the Captain of the Enterprise and a Space Casanova, Spock was the logical guy with pointed ears, and the two of them originated slash as a phenomenon. I knew that there were Vulcans and Klingons, though I couldn't have told you which was which, and that there was a blonde in love with Spock. Before watching Reboot, that was honestly about all I knew. I don't think I could have even placed McCoy as TOS.
It was actually over a year after I saw it in theaters that I picked up the movie again and fell in love with it. Or rather, obsessed over it. I have no idea what suddenly clicked, or why just then and not before, but something did. I started reading fanfiction, because that's what happens when I get obsessed with something, and I started reading K/S in particular because hey, the original slash pairing. I was not going to pass that up. At that time, though, I had no particular attachment to this pairing over any other. I chose K/S to start reading because of its history, but I might have gone for Kirk/McCoy and/or Spock/Uhura.
I am a completionist, and once I started reading the fic, I couldn't resist going back to the original source. I raised an eyebrow at how little Kirk actually resembled a Space Casanova (though that's a whole 'nother essay I keep meaning to write), but what blew me away was how close to actual text some of the K/S subtext was. This isn't an essay about K/S in TOS and how wonderfully developed it is -- Brittany Diamond's pretty much got that covered -- but once I got to the movies, I just really wanted to talk about them.
I will say before I start that while I do have an English degree, I have not studied film. These reviews come out of my literary-analysis-loving English major soul, so that's the primary focus, and anything that talks about the aspects of these films (and briefly, the TV series) as relates to their media comes from my perspective as audience.
So, without further ado, let's start.
TOS and the Movies
Even after the above paragraph, I want to start by talking a bit about the nature of TV versus movies. TOS is highly episodic, rather that serial, in nature. There is definitely an emotional progression for the three main leads, but it's subtle enough that you could watch the episodes completely out of order and still not get lost.
Something that TOS does still have, though, is themes. Each episode has a contained theme -- some of them Brittany Diamond identifies in her Analyzation/Commentary on TOS, including things like how power requires compassion (Where No Man Has Gone Before), the tragedy of extinction (The Man Trap) and humanity's role in it (Devil in the Dark), and so on. Some of these themes cross episodes, like the encompassing theme of the delicate balance between logic, emotion, and intuition, as embodied by the three leads.
But the thing about these themes is that they have to be simple enough, and overt enough, to fit into 50-minute episodes. There is typically just one plotline, and everything, from the themes to the characters, relates back to that plotline. Lenore Karidian in The Conscience of the King reflects the episode's theme of the dangers of utilitarianism (for those who don't know, utilitarianism is basically about the greater good, and the ends justifying the means) in multiple ways -- she's the daughter of Kodos, who made the utilitarian decision to commit genocide; Kirk tries using her in a very utilitarian way himself; she ends up using him back; killing the Tarsus survivors is the means to the end of keeping her father safe. The romantic connection between Kirk and Lenore isn't a subplot: it's an aspect of the main plot. Same thing with all of Kirk's other romantic connections in the series -- they're aspects of their episodes' main plots.
The movies, on the other hand, have the time to have subplots. What has captured my attention in these movies enough for me to write meta about is the interaction between the main plot, the subplot(s), and the themes, though these reviews are not limited to just plot/subplot/themes -- I have plenty of other things to talk about as well, as you're about to see.
The first six movies can be grouped in various ways. The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home are an obvious group; they happen very close together and are about the same series of events. The other three are less related to each other in terms of story, but thematically, there are ways these movies work together. The Motion Picture I group with TWoK, TSfS, and TVH, while The Undiscovered Country works amazingly well as a thematic sequel to The Final Frontier. I will be discussing these thematic groupings as I go along, but to attempt to keep things somewhat organized, I will primarily discuss each movie in its own section. I also have a few things to say about Generations. I don't really want to discuss Reboot now, though I might do that later.
Note that most of the movies, except for The Voyage Home, I've only seen once. Memory Alpha has been great about keeping the chain of events straight, but please let me know if I make a mistake.
Also note that there will be many times I refer to Kirk and Spock as being married. I do not believe that this is actual canon, or even necessarily that everything that makes me conclude they were married was intended for that purpose. What I do think is that there is enough evidence for that conclusion that it is a valid interpretation of canon at this point. It's not definitive canon, but neither is it definitely not. You don't have to tell me that Kirk and Spock were in all likelihood not married, because I know that. I just like to think they were, and I will discuss all the things that make me think so.
The Motion Picture
This movie tends to be particularly interesting to K/S fans, and I don't want to rehash all the meta that's already out there about it. Still, there are things that I do want to talk about, so please forgive me if I sound a bit redundant.
Themes
The overarching theme for this movie is, quite basically, the search for the meaning of life, and finding one's place in the universe. One of the reasons I appreciate this movie so much is that, despite its atrocious pacing, the story and the themes are very tight. Plot and subplots adhere extremely well to this theme -- honestly, I'm quite impressed.
Structure
The main plot, which I will call Plot 1, is, of course, V'Ger's journey to Earth and the dangers it represents. The basic plot is redundant in itself, as we've seen it in the episode The Changeling; where Plot 1 differentiates itself from the episode is in the theme. Nomad never attained consciousness and demonstrated no interest in the meaning of life. The basic theme I got from The Changeling was another variation of machines-cannot-replace-people, which is demonstrably different from TMP. Nomad is another version of the M5 computer in The Ultimate Computer. V'Ger is an immensely powerful forerunner to The Next Generation character Data, the android who wants to be human.
The subplots are where my main interest, and most other people's, lie. I will call them Plot 2a, which is Decker and Ilia, and Plot 2b, which is Kirk and Spock. These subplots are different enough to be distinguished, but intertwined enough to be basically on the same level. Plot 1 is the main plot, represented basically as man vs nature, the typical external force presenting a danger that must be resolved, also externally. Plot 2, on the other hand, is the emotional plot, a combination of man vs man and man vs himself. Plot 1 requires external resolution, something in the outside world changing (Decker joins with V'Ger and the Ilia probe, V'Ger stops threatening Earth), while Plot 2 requires internal resolution, the internal world changing (Decker realizes that he wants to be joined to Ilia and V'Ger, Kirk and Spock realize that their answers lie with each other, not logic or the Enterprise).
I ordered the plotlines the way I did for a very specific reason -- they go from the surface to the heart of the movie. Plot 1 is the surface conflict. Plot 2a is the Original Characters whose conflict and resolution are directly related to the surface conflict. They're part of the emotional plot because their conflict carries emotional resonance and they act as a great parallel for Kirk and Spock, but they're still OCs brought solely and specifically in for this movie, and therefore their subplot is closer to the surface.
Plot 2b, on the other hand, is the emotional heart of the movie. For one thing, it's the one involving established characters. An audience, particularly an audience made up of people who watched the show (whether they were big fans or were more casual), is going to care more about established characters than one-offs. They're already invested in this plotline the way they aren't for Plots 1 and 2a, and that investment naturally increases when Kirk and Spock (and McCoy, but I'll talk more about McCoy later) are immediately presented as being estranged and at odds, because that is not the natural state of affairs for these characters. Anyone who has watched the show even casually is going to be able to spot the conflict easily and want it resolved.
Another reason that 2b is the emotional heart of the movie is because it's the most involved plotline of the entire film. V'Ger's plot progression is relatively simple. It's presented initially as a mysterious danger, the characters gradually learn more about it and its goal through the Ilia probe and Spock's mind meld, and Decker resolves the situation. 2a is hardly more complicated. Decker and Ilia have a romantic past, one complicated by being a human/alien pairing, and the romantic tension between them is both resolved by and itself resolves the issue of Plot 1 when Decker, for Ilia's sake, chooses to join with V'Ger.
2b, on the other hand, has several components. Decker and Ilia's emotional storyline is just one storyline; it's not Decker's plot and Ilia's plot and somehow they come together. That is, however, how it is with Kirk and Spock. Kirk's plot involves his promotion, his separation from the Enterprise, and, of course, his separation from Spock. Unlike V'Ger and Spock, his storyline is not overtly about seeking answers, but the subtext of his story is very much about finding his own place in the universe. Meanwhile, Spock is also searching for answers of his own, answers that he initially thinks will lead him away from Kirk. So Kirk and Spock have their own storylines, but those stories are encompassed by the Kirk/Spock plotline of why they're estranged and how they come back together.
There's a third reason that 2b is the emotional heart of the movie, which is that Plot 1 serves 2b, rather than the other way around. 2a, Decker and Ilia, is a catalyst for the resolution of Plot 1, but Plot 1 is a catalyst for the resolution of 2b, Kirk and Spock. Even though the K/S resolution comes before the V'Ger climax, there really is a progression that leaves the K/S resolution standing on its own. V'Ger, by making the Ilia probe, changes Decker/Ilia, and they in turn change V'Ger. At the same time, though, V'Ger also changes Kirk/Spock -- but they don't change it in return. Honestly, they do nothing besides get Decker to V'Ger and give him the tools to make and implement his decision. Kirk and Spock and their resolution stand alone.
The Subplots and the Themes
I already mentioned how the main plot relates to the theme of the meaning of life and finding one's place in the universe, so let's talk about the subplots.
First let's talk about Decker and Ilia. They're Starfleet officers, one human, and one alien (Deltan). What we know about Decker is that he's the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the TOS episode The Doomsday Machine and that he was Kirk's choice to take over the Enterprise. What we know about Ilia is that she's Deltan, under a vow of celibacy, and seems to have something of a romantic past with Decker.
These two characters are almost immediately displaced. Kirk takes over as captain, displacing Decker, and V'Ger takes Ilia and returns her as a probe, displacing her not just from her position, but from her previous life.
The thing about Decker is that he obviously feels more deeply about being out of balance with Ilia than about Kirk taking over his ship. I mean, of course he was angry about Kirk, and justifiably so, because Kirk was a dick and then nearly got them all killed. But that's professional, and he can handle professional. He just goes on with his duties as first officer/science officer, and then just first officer once Spock comes back. His emotional equilibrium is upset more by not knowing where he stands with Ilia, first in the "trying to work with my ex" sense and then because now she's suddenly half Ilia and half V'Ger and he doesn't know what to do with that. Decker's journey in this movie is about figuring out where he wants to be, where he should be, and that's with Ilia, not as captain of the Enterprise. That's the place in the universe he chooses.
Then there's Ilia, who unfortunately does not get any choice in the matter, dammit. But she goes from being comfortably herself, despite some tension with Decker, to fighting between two different yet powerful aspects, her own personality, and the mechanical V'Ger. Ilia peeks out when she calls Decker by his name, and when she wears the headband, and so on. For the most part, though, she is consumed by V'Ger's goal. V'Ger searches for its answer through Ilia, but what little we get of Ilia herself is still trying to find expression. I am least satisfied with Ilia in this movie, because she doesn't get a choice, and we can only guess that she's satisfied enough when Decker makes his choice. We also don't know Ilia well enough before V'Ger to know if this would be the best conclusion for her storyline, the way we can know where Decker finds the most personal satisfaction.
What I end up concluding about Ilia and her thematic place goes back to her representation of V'Ger. V'Ger, through Ilia, has found some meaning in its life, and is finally able to make decisions for itself (beyond its original mission of learn and report back). I'm not sure that Ilia here can really be separated from V'Ger anymore -- which is, of course, part of what makes the Decker/Ilia subplot much more part of the main plot.
The conclusion of the Decker/Ilia-V'Ger storyline is that, at a basic level, human, alien, and mechanical aspects unite to find all involved parties balanced and satisfied. And what made it possible was love -- more specifically, Decker's love for Ilia.
Notice how much of what I said about Decker and Ilia applies to Kirk and Spock? Honestly, I found the parallels between the two to be really rather blatant, which is why I think that together they make up the emotional plotline of this movie. Decker/Ilia is a more overt representation of the journey that Kirk and Spock make, and one that helps lead us to better understand the Kirk/Spock story here.
Let's start with Kirk. Like Decker, we begin with him professionally displaced. He's an admiral now, and despite the honor of the position, it quickly becomes apparent that he's not suited to it personally, no matter how qualified he is for it professionally. As is hammered home repeatedly throughout the movies involving Kirk, what he's meant to be is a starship captain.
What also quickly becomes apparent is that the professional displacement is not the most serious disruption to his equilibrium. He may think that being captain of the Enterprise again will fix his problem, but it most definitely doesn't. He doesn't know the ship anymore, and has to resort to commandeering it from Decker in a really douchey move. He conscripts McCoy in yet another douchey move, but McCoy is not the fix for his problems either. Kirk, whose first, best destiny it is to be a starship captain, is still so out of tune with his ship despite having the captaincy back that he nearly destroys it before Decker countermands his order.
What all of this emphasizes is that Kirk's main displacement, the one that hurts him the most and throws him the most off balance, is not professional, because fixing the professional displacement only highlights the problem. That means the underlying problem is personal, emotional. There doesn't seem to be any problem between Kirk and his bridge crew friends, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov, and the only conflict with Scotty is about the capabilities of the Enterprise. That leaves of course his closest friends, McCoy and Spock, both of whom he's been estranged from. But like I said before, getting McCoy back doesn't fix anything. The reconciliation is also over much too quickly for the rift between Kirk and McCoy to be an emotional plot point.
That leaves Spock. It's being out of balance with Spock that throws Kirk so much -- a claim validated quickly enough when Spock returns. Kirk doesn't make any more disastrous command decisions, and he seems much more settled. There's still tension between him and Spock, but he seems back in his professional groove with the ship and the crew, and his personal groove with his friendship with McCoy as they once again bond over Spock and how he likes to be difficult.
This indicates that it's Kirk's displacement from Spock, like Decker's with Ilia, that's the main issue for Kirk in this movie. The conclusion of both the main and the emotional plotlines bears this out. We don't know Kirk's professional future at the end of the movie. Kirk may be in command and happily heading "thataway", but he's still officially an admiral, with duties back at headquarters, with the V'Ger crisis only a brief mission. He could be given command of the Enterprise again, but we don't know for sure -- especially as The Wrath of Khan opens with him still an admiral. It's ambiguous.
What's not ambiguous is that the conflict with Spock has been resolved, thanks to the famous sickbay scene. Kirk has found his balance with Spock again, found his place with Spock. That is where he finds the most meaning in his life -- not in the captain's chair.
Spock is also a pretty close match for Ilia, especially once she becomes the Ilia probe. He's the one most visibly displaced, the one we know from the start is searching for answers. We're never told what the questions are, but we can make a guess, based on the sickbay scene. It's Spock's constant quest -- how can he reconcile his Vulcan and human halves? How can he make peace with who he is?
Spock has always represented logic. The Ilia probe reminds the audience of him when she says things like how a game she once enjoyed has no purpose. She's half mechanical, and Spock has constantly been compared to a machine through TOS, and has often taken it as a compliment when he's compared to a computer.
Spock has also always assumed that he'd find his answers in logic, which is why he went to Gol. I don't want to go too in-depth into the retreat to Gol, but I think it's safe to say that it was for emotional, rather than professional reasons. He seemed satisfied with his place on the Enterprise when TOS ended, and we don't know what his options were after the five year mission, but I highly doubt they presented enough of a threat to his equilibrium that he felt kolinahr to be the only answer. Emotions are what throw Spock off balance, and so it would have been emotions that pushed him to Gol. His displacement, like the other main characters in this movie, is emotional.
Spock, in failing to complete kolinahr, finds out that logic is not the answer for him. He can guess alternatives, including emotion, but as always, he doesn’t know what to do with that. He's always taken the benefit of emotions for granted -- he focuses enough on their negative aspects, thanks to his Vulcan upbringing, to want to cast them out, but doesn't understand the benefits enough to know that the cost of losing his emotions wouldn't be worth the benefits. That's what V'Ger teaches him.
The sickbay scene is where he finally truly understands the benefits of emotion, and stops taking them for granted. Kirk and McCoy have told him that often enough, but V'Ger is the one who showed him, as nothing else could. V'Ger is Spock's first encounter with a consciousness of pure logic (Nomad doesn't count, because it didn't have consciousness), and it scares him. It shows him the truth of the ideal to which he'd once aspired. Now that he finally understands what it means to be a creature of pure logic, he knows it's not for him.
This scene is also where Spock finds his place in the universe -- at Kirk's side, as if he's always been there and always will. (Thank you, Edith Keeler.) The personal meaning that he's found for his own life is "this simple feeling" that he shares with Kirk -- and Kirk agrees when he holds Spock's hand and looks incredibly sappy and shares that tiny nod.
That, right there, is both of them finding their true place with each other. Their professional lives are still very important to them, but not the most important, not the thing that goes deepest. The greatest meaning they find in their lives, both of them, is simply feeling the way they do for each other. As I mentioned when discussing Decker and Ilia-V'Ger, it's only when the human, emotional, alien, and logical/mechanical aspects unite that the characters involved find what they're looking for. And, ahem, when viewed through the Decker/Ilia parallel, what made that unity possible in the first place was love, and in particular romantic love.
Guys, this is a coherent movie. It's got its themes, and not only the main plot but the subplots and characters reflecting those themes. The plot and subplots work with and around each other very tightly. If only the pacing weren't complete crap...
I think that's about it for The Motion Picture. Now let's move on to...
The Wrath of Khan
This is typically the Star Trek fans' favorite movie, and for good reason. The pacing is much better than the first movie, it's got an ensemble cast of characters we already know and new characters with connections to the plot and to Kirk. There's a main villain bent on revenge, making the basic main storyline simple enough to understand. There are epic battles in space. And, of course, it's highly, highly emotional when one of the most beloved characters of the franchise dies.
I'm not going to discuss this one the same way that I discussed TMP. What I found most interesting about that movie (apart from the great K/S stuff) was the unity of plot and theme, which therefore entailed a more in-depth discussion of the plot and the themes and how they worked together. The things I most want to talk about have less to do with the plot than with character moments. I am a Kirk girl, and this is a Kirk movie.
Themes
The themes and how they relate to the characters is what most intrigues me. Memory Alpha tells me that Nicholas Meyer, who wrote the screenplay, had several themes in mind, including age, vengeance, death, and the tragic flaw of the hero embodied by the Kobayashi Maru.
I'm not too interested in vengeance and death. They're common enough themes, and I'm far more interested in age and Kirk's tragic flaw.
Age
So let's start with age. This movie is Kirk's mid-life crisis. He's stuck at a desk job after years exploring the galaxy, wondering if he has anything valuable left to offer. The movie begins on his birthday, an outward reminder that he's growing old. His birthday present from McCoy is a pair of glasses, because his eyes are beginning to fail him and he's allergic to the only other treatment. Oh, and we also find out that he has a grown son.
The movie also ends with Kirk saying that he feels young. The statement initially made me go wtf?, and I still feel sort of oddly about it, even after thinking and figuring it out a bit.
Kirk saying that he feels young right there is a reply to an earlier moment in the movie when he worries about getting old. I'm pretty sure he's saying that he feels young in experience, particularly as he's staring out at the newborn Genesis planet and has the beginning of a relationship with his son. He sees that there is still plenty of life ahead of him, still plenty of new things for the galaxy to throw at him. His life is not over, even without Spock.
I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I'm glad that he feels somewhat rejuvenated, that he does see a future for himself. Honestly, something I really appreciate this movie for, and Spock's appearances in Next Generation and beyond, is that they show that Kirk and Spock really did have a healthy and beneficial relationship -- whatever codependent tendencies they have are outweighed by the truly beneficial aspects. They don't wither away and die once they lose each other. They take the lessons that the other taught them and continue living and living well, exactly as the other would have wanted. Considering Amok Time, and Spock's response of "I shall do neither" when T'Pau tells him to live long and prosper after the kal'i'fee, it's pretty awesome for Spock to get to a place where he could live long and prosper even after Kirk's true death. That kind of emotional stability, especially as a contrast to how he is earlier in life when confronted with almost the same situation, comes as a result of healthy and beneficial relationships. Kirk and Spock were actually seriously good for each other. Completely awesome.
I feel that the Romeo and Juliet solution is deceptively romantic. It sounds romantic to say that you can't live without this person, that you're willing to die when they do so that you never have to live without them. But the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet wasn't just that they died at the end, or even that it was just a misunderstanding that caused it. The tragedy that I see most there is that it was a waste. They were young and stupid and selfish, because what they could have done was show some strength and live on, with the memory of the other, and, say, found a way to end the feud between their families without more senseless deaths.
It's harder to talk about Kirk after Spock's death because Spock comes back so quickly, but Spock after Kirk's death? It's pretty hard to look at Spock Prime in Reboot and not see how deeply he loved Kirk, how deeply he let Kirk influence him, what with the accepting his emotions and implying things and so on. It's also very apparent that Spock Prime regrets nothing of his life with Kirk, even the pain of living without him, because he sends his younger self to do it all over again. Kirk and Spock love each other enough not to just die for each other, but to live for each other as well. Totally awesome.
So my problem with the line isn't that it's positive. It's more the timing of the thing. It just feels out of place to me for him to be able to be that positive yet. We see how much he grieves in the next movie, though he's very calm and understated about it, even able to give a toast to Spock in his apartment. Kirk has always been able to bounce back from death pretty quickly (as expected, considering the nature of a TV show, and especially a TV show from before they started becoming psychological), but he's already acknowledged in this movie that Spock is different from everyone else, even if they weren't married. (Though of course I think they were.)
I know it's also part of the nature of a movie, especially when they don't know if they're making more. Storylines and themes have to be wrapped up, and Kirk's mid-life crisis was one such theme, and it had to be dealt with. I'm sure it also had to be dealt with in a preferably uplifting manner, considering the movie was sad enough with Spock's death. It just...feels off to me. Rayna the Random Android has Kirk destroyed enough for Spock to make him forget her, while the death of Spock himself makes him feel young? *sigh*
The Kobayashi Maru
The Kobayashi Maru is, for me, one of the more interesting philosophical points to come out of Star Trek. There are multiple sides to the issues it brings up, and all of them are valid in their own way.
We don't get much on the purpose of the test in this movie. Kirk tells Saavik that how one faces death is just as important as how one faces life. In Reboot, Spock says that the purpose is to feel fear and to do one's duty in spite of that fear.
I actually find the simulation itself inherently flawed, for the simple reason that the examinees know that it's a simulation. In The Next Generation, first season I think, there's an episode where Wesley Crusher is trying to get into Starfleet Academy and he's given a psychological test where he has to act in face of a crisis without knowing that the crisis itself is a test. Because of that, he's able to give an honest reaction to honest fear.
The Kobayashi Maru, on the other hand, cannot inspire honest fear. It can come close, I think, given the nature of nerves and adrenaline during exams plus the situation itself, but it inherently presents a safety net. I don't know if the administrators of the test take the effects of that safety net into account, or whether those effects are subtle or dramatic, or if the effects made a big difference in how the examinees think or made little.
That's why I find myself more on Kirk's side, at least during Reboot, and especially if the purpose that Spock explains is supposed to be the true purpose of the test. What he did was highlight the simulation aspect. He wasn't trying to beat the Klingons; he was trying to beat the test, and make a point. Part of the point I saw him make was that the Kobayashi Maru could not be an accurate measure of its stated purpose.
But that's the test in the concrete, as we really saw it. The Kobayashi Maru in the abstract is far less clear-cut, I think.
Because what I think the purpose of the Kobayashi Maru is to see what a potential captain will do when there are no good options. Will they save their own ship but let hundreds of fellow Starfleet personnel die? Will they attempt rescue, but due to the parameters of the test, inevitably fail? How will they react when they find out their efforts are doomed, and they might have just condemned their own ships to death as well? Their initial choices will say a lot about them as a captain, and so will their reactions to the consequences of those choices.
I am still dubious about the answerability of these questions in a known simulation (nor can I figure out a way of making that test blind), but they are still important answers that Starfleet needs to have about its captains. But this is where Kirk's solution comes into play, and it is still controversial.
Kirk's solution is framed, both in TWoK and Reboot, as cheating. But original!Kirk's examiner gave him a commendation for original thinking, while Reboot!Spock brought him up on disciplinary charges. What Reboot!Spock didn't understand, I think, is that he could still evaluate Kirk's response to the test whether or not it was the kind of response he was originally looking for.
There are several important things that Kirk's response tells us. One is, of course, that he doesn't just accept no-win scenarios. I think he would find it offensive to accept death, not just for him but for his crew, and not do everything he possibly could to get them out of that situation, whether or not anyone thinks it could be done. This is in fact something we constantly see him do in the series -- his solution is often unorthodox, like Corbomite, but each solution comes out of his own creativity and his unwillingness to accept defeat, both of which are integral to the process. There are many, many times when we see that if Kirk had accepted the existence of a no-win scenario, he would not have been able to win. Self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.
So Kirk's solution tells us that he is creative. He is willing to fight to his last breath to help his crew survive. The goals of the Kobayashi Maru aren't compatible with his way of thinking, because they require that he accept the premise of a no-win scenario in the first place, which he isn't willing to do, and that is part of his strength.
On the other hand, I can see where Reboot!Spock's concern is coming from. No one has yet been able to see this Kirk's ability to pull amazing, impossible solutions out of his ass, so what Spock sees is naivete. He sees someone whose determination to beat the no-win scenario is going to have him coming up against challenges that are going to break him and any ship Starfleet might be so stupid as to give him. Spock would be thinking that refusing to accept reality does not bode well for someone who would command a starship.
One of the things that Reboot does is show how Kirk is right about the Kobayashi Maru -- but one of the things that The Wrath of Khan does is show that he isn't always right. TWoK shows that he can't always get away without a sacrifice. Sometimes there really is nothing he can do, even when the stakes are high, and that's something that Kirk needs to face. I saw Reboot first, but now that I've seen TWoK, I find its treatment here much deeper and more compelling.
Especially when you include Spock in the process, because what Spock teaches here is that winning and losing can just be a matter of perspective. His solution to the scenario is sacrificing his own life for the rest of the ship, and he seems perfectly satisfied with it. Spock is not a fatalistic or suicidal character, so his framing of his sacrifice in terms of the Kobayashi Maru, the classic no-win scenario, is just as much a denial of the no-win as Kirk's is. Spock's involves a shift of perspective -- he will die, but everyone else will live. It's obviously a perspective he's gained since knowing Kirk, because Reboot!Spock brings up George Kirk, who did the same thing Spock does in TWoK, as an affirmation of the no-win. The original Spock's salvaging a win out of a bad situation is simple, but still very powerful, and something Kirk can learn from.
Okay, so, there's my interpretation of the Kobayashi Maru itself. Now I want to talk about it as it represents Kirk's 'tragic flaw'. In this next section I will really seriously be putting on my English geek hat, so be prepared for that.
The Tragic Flaw
On Memory Alpha's TWoK page there's a nice little section about the Kobayashi Maru and how the director and writer of the screenplay Nicholas Meyer decided to have made Kirk win by cheating because Kirk needed to have flaws. He goes on to say that all heroes have flaws they have to endure, which is what makes them heroic, and that Kirk is very much like a classical hero in having to confront his flaws, and be forced to endure them and their consequences.
TWoK rather does have the structure of a classical tragedy. Nicholas Meyer even says that one of the goals of Spock's death was catharsis, which in the dramaturgical sense is the emotional purge for the audience that dramatic tragedy allows, leaving the audience more balanced. But the other main classically tragic aspect I saw in this movie is the element of hamartia.
Catharsis and hamartia are both Greek terms, going all the way back to Aristotle's Poetics. Hamartia is not easily defined, but part of it is the concept of the tragic flaw. In criticism, it's often used to describe a character failing that leads to the character's downfall, like how Macbeth's ambition leads to his death, or Othello's pride and jealousy lead to his and Desdemona's. This is not the entire sense of hamartia, though. From my own brief studies of the term, it's not necessarily so much a flaw as human error combined with ignorance. It's an aspect of the character, something that ordinarily might not even be considered a flaw, that the character acts through, but in ignorance of what will result.
Kirk's hamartia in this movie isn't that he cheated. It isn't presented in a positive light in this movie, first in Saavik's initial reaction to the revelation, and at the very end of the movie when Kirk is talking to David and says that he's cheated his way out of death, as well as the way Nicholas Meyer mentioned it, as something that demonstrates one of Kirk's flaws. That Kirk is willing to cheat may be considered a flaw, but it's not a tragic flaw. In fact, the "tragic flaw" in this movie is not normally considered a flaw at all.
What I identify as Kirk's hamartia in this movie is his confidence as a captain. The turning point of the story comes when Khan in the Reliant fires on the Enterprise with its shields down, damaging Engineering so badly that later Spock will have to sacrifice his life to fix it. Spock's death, the tragedy of this movie, can be directly traced back to that moment, and to Kirk's delay in raising the shields, even when Saavik tells him he should.
And that moment is an entirely Captain Kirk moment. Saavik quotes regulations, but Captain Kirk is well known for his...creative interpretation of regulations. He doesn't just blindly obey, and that is one of his main strengths. This is, however, a situation where he should have listened to regulation. The hamartia comes from the fact that it's not his weakness that leads to his downfall, but his strength, and his ignorance of how this can be used against him.
Miscellaneous
In which I discuss other things of interest in this movie that aren't really part of an overarching category.
The Emotional Heart of the Movie
In TMP, the emotional heart of the movie was a subplot. There are plenty of emotional subplots in this movie, most having to do with Kirk -- his difficulties with aging, dealing with his ex-lover and his son, confronting his own mistakes. But is there anyone who could deny that the emotional heart of this movie is Spock's death?
Spock's death is where all of Kirk's emotional plotlines come together. Kirk is forced to confront what aging ultimately leads to, even if Spock's death is not the result of old age -- and we know that Spock's death is what resolves the aging issue because Kirk feels young in response to it, and to understanding what Spock was trying to teach him through it. Spock's death is a catalyst for Kirk beginning a new relationship with his son. And Spock's death is what makes him confront his mistakes.
But there's also that Spock's death is just plainly the most emotional moment in the movie. Christ, it's sad. Kirk and Spock are in their own little world, for what seems the last time, but they're still separated by the glass. Spock uses the last of his strength to reassure Kirk about his own emotions and his hope for Kirk's future. They mirror each other with the hands against the glass and the way they slump over at the end.
Kirk isn't concerned about being in command right there, even though there are other people around. He's not being strong for his crew there. He's just numb.
Spock's death is just so much a Kirk/Spock moment, from the way the scene is entirely about them to what Spock's death ends up teaching Kirk. Just like the first movie, and like the next two, the Kirk/Spock relationship is the emotional heart of the story. It's very sad right here, but totally awesome in general.
Spock's Funeral
We don't know much about Starfleet's procedure for people killed in the line of duty. (Do we? Does any sort of policy exist somewhere? I've only seen TOS, the movies, and Next Gen through the third season.) The most logical assumption is that they either follow the terms of the will, or they let the family decide. I don't know much about this particular legal procedure (yet -- I'll likely learn more when I start law school), so please let me know if I'm wrong, but these seem to me to be the most likely courses of action.
Either way, it's really interesting that it seems to have been Kirk who made the decision for Spock's body. I mean, I know that The Search for Spock hadn't been planned yet and therefore we didn't know for sure that Spock's body would need to be taken to Vulcan, but a starship has to have a morgue of some sort, some way to transport the bodies who should be taken home. Maybe it's Starfleet's policy that everyone who dies will be either disintegrated/cremated or shot into space, but that seems a pretty cold policy, especially for an organization as human-centric as Starfleet, that knows how humans feel about treatment of the dead. It doesn't seem unreasonable for there to be a morgue of some sort on board.
I bring up this very morbid point because it becomes obvious in the next movie that Sarek wasn't consulted. I assume Spock had a will, because that'd be logical, so either he didn't know about how katra and body shouldn't be separated and left the decision about his remains to Kirk (or said specifically he should be shot into space, but I rather doubt Spock would say that), or he trusted that circumstances would make the course of events obvious (as in, he'd be able to tell Kirk himself that his body should go back to Vulcan). The only family we know Spock has at this point is his parents, so if it was his family's decision what to do with his body, it would be family other than Sarek. Most likely a spouse. And it is Kirk who made the decision.
I can only see Kirk being allowed to make that decision if Spock legally gives him the right. What would give him the right is marriage, the will, or both. Very likely I'm overthinking this, because as I said, TSfS and its plot hadn't been planned yet, and I'm betting the writers for both movies weren't exactly thinking about the legalities involved with dead bodies. So maybe I am overthinking it, but when I try to make this event match up with common sense, this is how it turns out. Kirk had the legal right to decide what to do about Spock's body, and I think the most likely circumstances that would give him that right would be as a spouse.
Interesting Parallels
There are some interesting parallels I noted within the movie and between it and City on the Edge of Forever.
First is that, within the movie, Khan is angry about a lot of things. He's angry that his attempted colony got screwed up, he's angry that Kirk abandoned them and never checked on them -- and he's angry that thanks to all of this, his wife died. So he decides to get revenge on Kirk.
Kirk and Khan are very much counterparts in this movie. They're the protagonist and the antagonist, direct rivals, the nemeses. Khan isn't happy with anyone from the Enterprise, but his main target is Kirk.
So I think it's interesting that Khan's revenge for the death of his wife results in killing Kirk's husband. (And yes, I do believe Kirk and Spock were married at this point. Substitute "closest friend" if you so desire.) That's some great balance there -- though I'm only speaking in terms of the story, because it's still damn sad.
Khan might even actually be satisfied with it. Of course he wanted to kill Kirk, but on the Regula planetoid after he beams up the Genesis device, he says this:
KHAN: I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you, as you left me - as you left her.
He says there that he leaves Kirk abandoned in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Kirk gets away there, but in the end, Khan does leave Kirk as Kirk left him -- widowed. Poetic justice. Once again the very structure of the story points towards a Kirk/Spock interpretation. I love it when that happens. :D
Then there's some interesting stuff with City on the Edge of Forever. First:
SPOCK: Interesting. Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?
EDITH: You? At his side, as if you've always been there and always will.
--City on the Edge of Forever
SPOCK: You are my superior officer. You are also my friend. I have been and always shall be yours.
--Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
"Always been there and always will." "Have been and always shall be yours."
Remarkably similar sentiments and phrasing, don't you think? *g* Spock knows where he belongs, finally.
There's one more parallel, which is in the sacrifice of Kirk's loved ones. Kirk's in love with Edith, but he has to sacrifice her to get his proper future back. Kirk loves Spock (of course I also believe they're in love as well, but it's still a given that Kirk loves him), and Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship.
It's sort of a reverse parallel. With Edith, the decision is in Kirk's hands, and he has to sacrifice her. With Spock, the decision is not in Kirk's hands, but Kirk still has to face that sacrifice. Oh, Kirk.
Kirk and Carol Marcus
So, Carol Marcus is one of the three non-crew women Kirk interacts with in all six movies, the others being Gillian Taylor in TVH and Martia in TUC. I'll talk more about Gillian and Martia with their movies, but all three of these women establish how poorly Kirk deserves his Space Casanova reputation in these movies. If these women are trying to make Kirk seem less married to Spock, they fail miserably, and in fact provide more evidence for the opposite conclusion, just by contrasting his behavior with them and his behavior with Spock.
Anyway, Kirk and Carol Marcus. They're old flames, and in fact have a son together, David, but Carol raised David exclusively. In fact, David doesn't even know that Kirk is his father. Carol wanted David raised in her world, not Kirk's.
Anyway, what's interesting about this is that Kirk is not willing to risk or change his career even for his own child. Do I even need to point out that as early as Amok Time, Kirk was willing to risk his career for Spock? XD
So, Kirk and Carol are old flames, and he still clearly cares about her. What I see from them in this movie, though, is that the flame is dead. Look at the body language in shots like this:
That is some very isolating body language on Kirk's part. He's not facing her, and his body's not even angled toward her at all, nor is he even sitting near her.
Despite being the mother of his child, Carol is no more a serious contender for Kirk's affections than was Areel Shaw, Janet Wallace, or Janice Lester when they returned. These movies...really completely suck at establishing Kirk as straight, except in the past before he met Spock. Hah.
Spock's "Human" Soul
This line I'm sort of iffy on. It demonstrates Star Trek's ethnocentrism, which is disappointing in a franchise that is about aliens and humans living together, and is also trying to be progressive. I dislike the idea of "human" being the absolute pinnacle of achievement, as Kirk is implying. I also dislike that it's the hero who expresses this view, especially considering that Kirk is the one character in the entire series to consistently accept Spock as being half-Vulcan and half-human, with neither one a complete description of who he is or should be. It honestly feels strange for Kirk to reduce him to only being human here.
On the other hand, though, Kirk does mean it as the highest compliment. I very much dislike the expression of the compliment, as I think Spock would, but I also think that Spock would appreciate the sentiment behind it.
I think that it doesn't help that there just aren't words in English for an expression of general peace, good will, compassion, sympathy, etc. for all beings regardless of species. I mean, the words we do have for that kind of concept are ones like "humane" and "humanitarian", which are likewise ethnocentric, and understandably so considering we haven't actually met any extra-terrestrial intelligences. It's why Kirk in The Undiscovered Country tells Spock that "Everybody's human." He's trying to express the spirit of a sentiment that he doesn't have better words for, because we don't have better words for it.
In the series, when Kirk pokes fun at Spock by saying he's doing something human, and Spock responds by claiming he's insulted, I see those moments as banter. Not so much with McCoy and Spock, because McCoy tends to have that edge of judgment that Kirk generally doesn't, but Kirk and Spock come across as bantering to me when they do that. I see it that way mostly because I think that Spock really being insulted would be an insult to Kirk and every other human on board. He may be sarcastic and snarky to McCoy and other people who think he's deficient for not being more human, with an edge of real insult in his remarks to them, but I don't think he would act that way to Kirk. Between the two of them, it's more like teasing -- both of them poking fun at the other's attachment to his own species.
So, though I wish Kirk had found a different way to express his regard for Spock during Spock's funeral, I think that Spock would have understood the spirit of his remark.
Kirk and Cheating Death
I've already discussed my view of Kirk "cheating death" with the Kobayashi Maru, but I find his conversation with David at the end to be particularly interesting, in a K/S sense.
DAVID: Lieutenant Saavik was right. You never have faced death.
KIRK: No, not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death, tricked my way out of death, and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.
Claiming that Kirk has never faced death is...really an extraordinary statement. First of all, Kirk has always deeply felt the loss of every crewmember who died under his command, even the most random redshirt. Watch the S2 episode The Apple, where Kirk mourns over a redshirt and says that the redshirt's father helped him get into Starfleet Academy. Kirk knows these people, and he cares about them, and he hates it when they die. He always does everything he can to preserve his crew.
But okay, they're still the crew. He can't know all of them all that well. Which brings me to friends.
First there's Gary Mitchell. Kirk and Mitchell were good friends at the Academy, close enough that Kirk asked for Mitchell for his first command. But Mitchell dies, Kirk even had to kill him himself -- and that's not facing death? Or some of his other starship commander friends, like Commodore Matt Decker. Kirk thought highly enough of him and his son Will that he advocated for Will Decker getting the Enterprise when Kirk was promoted. But Commodore Decker sacrifices his life to help destroy the doomsday machine, and that's not facing death?
What about people he loves, then? Like Edith Keeler? She's one of the only, if not the only, woman Kirk demonstrates genuine love for. He tells Spock (and the audience) that he's in love with her, and Kirk is an emotional authority. We're meant to believe him when he claims things about emotion, especially love. He also acts like he cares about her, more than he does for the women he seduces under ulterior motives. He also has to let her die. So he loves this woman, and she dies right in front of him, with him partly complicit in her death -- but that's not facing death?
Then there's his family. We don't know anything about his parents in this universe, so they might still be alive or not, but we do know about his brother. Who died. And whose dead body Kirk found himself. Kirk was then forced to helplessly watch his sister-in-law also die in horrible pain. We also know, from the first mention of Sam in What Are Little Girls Made Of, that he had three children -- we only know that Peter survives, so it's very likely that the other two kids also died. So Kirk loses his brother, sister-in-law, and nephews in one fell swoop, but that's still not facing death?
It's very possible the writers of this script just weren't thinking at all about all the people that Kirk has lost, but that's not a good excuse. Kirk's statements still have to make sense in the context of his life.
What we can conclude from this line alone, even before the next movie where Kirk calls Spock his soul, is that Kirk sees Spock as part of himself.
(And a quick note about the "part of himself" thing -- in the season two episode Metamorphosis, Kirk tries to explain romantic love to a particularly alien creature, and he does it by asking, "Is he important to you, more important than anything? Is he…as though he were a part of you?" This is Kirk's personal definition of romantic love. Who does Kirk consider more important than anything? Who does he think of as a part of him?)
Kirk says things like that he's tricked his way out of death, but that's very focused on his experience of his own death. It's a very interesting statement to make in response to someone else's death.
Because that is what the conversation is about -- someone else's death. When they talk about facing death, they mean facing death as a reality, as an inevitability, in all its devastating finality. It makes no sense to be talking about Kirk's own death, because Kirk hasn't faced his own death in this movie any more than he has the rest of his life -- and less so than he did, say, in Amok Time. He didn't know about the neural paralyzer in Amok Time any more than Spock did -- he would have thought, as he was losing consciousness, that he really was going to die. In this movie, he's gotten out of facing his own death once again, and it might have been because of Spock's help -- but he's put his life in other people's hands before, and lived because of what other people have done, even when those other people sacrificed their lives to help save his, like Commodore Decker.
So I guess what it means for Kirk to face death is to lose not just a friend, not just a brother, not just a lover -- but to lose Spock, the man who was all three, his t'hy'la.
And I'm going to shut up about The Wrath of Khan now.
Part Two
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Date: 2011-04-19 03:08 pm (UTC)Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your analysis so far. I agree with a lot of what you said. I'd never put that much thought into the Kobayashi Maru before, and it actually offers a very interesting insight into Kirk's character. One thing I thought of as I was reading it, was something that someone else pointed out a while back (I don't remember who or when though), which was that Kirk has really never had it all. I mean, during TOS, he was happy in his career, but he didn't have Spock, because Spock still had all his issues with emotion. Then, by the end of TMP and up to WOK, he had Spock, but was unhappy in his career. In SFS, he has to make the conscious decision to throw his career away to get Spock back, and he also loses his son. Then, fast forward to TFF, he's Captain again, but the ship is falling apart, and at the same time, he's got Spock, but Spock is still struggling to fully recover from the fal tor pan and understand his emotions, and it feels like Kirk still has to fight for him. Then, in TUC, he's got his career back to where he wants it, but his relationship with Spock is kinda rocky (for really the first time that we've seen). Anyway, my overall point is, that although Kirk has never faced the No Win Scenario as a Captain, he seems to have faced it all throughout his personal life. The universe seems to be conspiring to prevent him from having everything he wants, and he's constantly having to choose, and always seems to lose one aspect of his life just when another seems to be going well.
Anyway, I dunno if that means anything or is just an interesting discussion point, but just thought I'd mention it.
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Date: 2011-04-20 03:22 am (UTC)Well, Kirk did get to have both Spock and the Enterprise in between TFF and TUC, but yeah, we never actually see him have it all, and he only did for a few years. I wouldn't exactly call that kind of situation a personal No Win Scenario, because even if he rarely had both Spock and the Enterprise, he did spend half his life having at least one of the two -- the scales are constantly going back and forth between different win/lose situations.
That might be why so many of us are so intrigued by Reboot. I actually prefer the TOS iterations of the characters, but I find myself so involved with Reboot because at the moment, it's so open. We can imagine Kirk having it all, as he never got to in TOS. Probably the only thing Reboot!Kirk's got going for him. XD
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Date: 2011-04-20 01:26 pm (UTC)I'm really interested about your opinion that Kirk and Spock are married. I've been watching Trek for as long as I can remember but I wouldn't have called myself a "Fan" fan until I discovered K/S (literally only about a week ago, and now I'm obsessed. I'm reading everything I can find about it. That's just how my brain works - I really identified with what you were saying about how you came to fall in love with the Trek-verse!) Last night I read 'Bitter Glass' by Killa and am still reeling from the emotional fall-out - that is one magnificent piece of writing right there. Haunting, powerful, beautiful, poignant and often unbearably sad. So in an effort to shake off the chronic boo-hoos that it's engendered, I'd love to hear about what has you convinced they were married. It would be so nice to think of them as happy.... :-)
Anyway, sorry for the length of the comment. I have a tendency to witter on and on when something gets me excited! Loved the review and am looking forward to the others. Especially can't wait to hear what you have to say about 'Generations' and that nonsense in the Nexus! :-)
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Date: 2011-04-20 10:15 pm (UTC)I'd never really thought in-depth about the body language between Carol Marcus and Kirk before.
Heh, and like I said, I've got a degree in English, so most of what I'm used to analyzing is written. But the body language when I was watching the movie just really struck me. It might be because I'd been in fandom for a few months before I watched these movies, and heard about Carol Marcus beforehand, and was therefore deliberately watching for that sort of thing. But there's also that body language has always been very important to Kirk and Spock -- in the series, they constantly stand closer than they have to, touch for longer than they have to, hold each other's eyes for long periods of time, and incline their bodies toward each other. Body language really matters for romantic relationships, and because I tend to be a shipper, I also tend to look for that sort of thing.
My conviction that they were married comes from a lot of things. First is that I do believe they were in love with each other during the series, recognized it in themselves, and probably each other. I don't think they did anything about it, mainly because of Spock's issues with emotion, but they're both intelligent and fairly self-aware, and I think they at least knew it.
Fast forward to TMP, when the barrier of Spock's issues goes away. I've already talked in my TMP section about how this movie is about them realizing that they belong with each other, that that's their place in the universe. I also think they recognize that as well, or else the little shared nod between them at the end of the sickbay scene makes no sense. They were agreeing to something there. We're not told precisely what they're agreeing to, but it has to be something related to Spock finally accepting his emotions.
To me, the shared nods look like something that was previously said or understood finally being acknowledged. I don't think it's something as simple as their agreement that emotions can be good, because that's what the rest of the scene is about. Spock has already acknowledged that both verbally and by body language in taking Kirk's hand, and Kirk's agreement is in the way he brings his other hand up. The nod could be "yes, emotions are good" if it were just Kirk, if he were just agreeing to what Spock said, but that shared nod makes me think it's something else, because Spock doesn't need to nod there if it's just about emotions in general -- he already expressed his opinion. So that makes me think that the shared nod was about something else, more related to "this simple feeling" that he shares with Kirk than to emotions in general.
Honestly, I very much think that that shared nod was their agreement to become a couple.
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Date: 2011-04-20 10:15 pm (UTC)Second, and this one is sort of subjective, but the way they interact with each other during TWoK just comes across more as RST to me. They seem even more comfortable with each other than they did during the series, where they had that UST edge. Spock holds Captain rank now, but he's teaching at the Academy, not commanding a starship -- I can only imagine that he decided to do that to stay near Kirk. The way they still joke around and flirt, the way Spock is finally willing to say that Kirk is his friend, the way they interact during Spock's death -- it just comes across as RST to me.
There are also the things I noted in my review, like how Kirk made the decision about Spock's body, not Spock's parents, and how Khan's revenge for the death of his wife results in killing Spock. In terms of character interactions, plot points, and structure -- given input from all of those sources, the conclusion I come to is that they were certainly together and at least possibly married during this time. I call them married because I don't see anything against it and I prefer to think they were, but whether or not they were married, I definitely think they were together.
Does that answer your question? :) See, I ramble on as well! And if you're interested, the next part of my reviews is up (linked at the bottom of this part), and I should be posting the last one sometime tonight.
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Date: 2011-04-21 12:39 pm (UTC)Thank you! I realized after I posted that asking the question kind of made it look like I hadn't read or had ignored the stuff in your review, like the arrangements for Spock's funeral and so on - I promise, it wasn't that at all! I thought that your point about the funeral arrangements in particular was really interesting, incredibly valid, and completely brushed over in the film text. Really made me think. And, you know, I had that same impression about their relationship in WOK: their ease, their comfort together, and so on. And that look on Kirk's face when he realizes, hey - where's Spock? And goes tearing off down the ship in a panic and has to be physically restrained by Bones and Scotty, and then that look of devastated resignation when he realizes there's nothing he can do. Yeah. You can't tell me that's not deep, profound, romantic love. As to whether they're married - well, it makes sense to me that TMP is what gets them finally to admit to their love, and then there's, what, ten years before WOK is set? It stands to reason that a relationship that endures ten (presumably happy) years would result in marriage and I think, from everything I'm reading about Gene Roddenberry's vision, that he very much had in mind that same sex relationships would be socio-culturally normalized by the twenty-third century, so it would make absolute sense that they'd want to express their love openly. The only thing I can't get past is that Antonia nonsense from the Nexus. She's situated right, slap bang in the middle of the period between TMP and WOK (although I can't see where Memory Alpha gets the in-depth info on her; is it in the movie? I don't remember anything from that sequence other than Kirk saying how it had all gone tits up after he told her he was returning to Starfleet, but it's a while since I've seen it as it irritates me so intensely!) Antonia drives my poor little K/S brain mental.
But yes, it makes me happy to think of them as married. Married or not, as long as they're together, I'm a happy bunny :-) Am off to read the next part of your reviews!
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Date: 2011-04-22 04:59 am (UTC)1. First of all, the Nexus gave Picard a fake wife too. He realized very quickly that she wasn't real, but for Kirk, who doesn't seem to have realized so quickly that the world was fake? I find it much more likely that he was given a fake love interest as well than that he fell in love with this woman before TWoK, enough to consider marrying her, and never mentioned her until this movie. I mean, life in the Nexus isn't based on actual events. Kirk says that he intends to ask Antonia to marry him, even though that certainly never happened in the real world. I find it very plausible that the Nexus completely made up Antonia altogether and inserted her into relevant moments in Kirk's life so that he ended up integrating her as well.
2. Some significant things to note about Generations is that it was written by TNG writers, not anyone who's done any TOS stuff, and that Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley turned it down. This means that the writers had never written Kirk before, and they couldn't use Spock or McCoy. As I said in my Generations review, Kirk is mischaracterized throughout the entire Nexus sequence, so I take everything he does there with a grain of salt. As well, since it wasn't possible to have Spock or McCoy there, the writers had to make up a random person to tie Kirk to his life in the Nexus, but that doesn't mean they had to do it smoothly. Antonia was shoe-horned in there, and considering the Nexus is a place of made-up stuff anyway, it's not that hard to dismiss Antonia as an ill-conceived Nexus dream.
3. Like I said in my Generations review (dunno if you've gotten that far yet), the way of thinking of the Nexus that makes the most sense to me is as the Matrix. That explains why it does what it does and why it wants to keep the people inside it happy. But as the past twenty-five years have proven, the people Kirk loves most in the world are Spock and McCoy. That they were not there is very significant, in-universe. It could plausibly mean that the Nexus is in fact incapable of creating the people that the people inside it really care about (which is also why Picard was given a completely fake family, apart from the brief appearance of his nephew), because the people inside the Nexus will know their loved ones well enough to realize that the Nexus is fake. The Nexus therefore either completely creates new people, or takes those who were only minor presences. Antonia could have been made up, or she was just a minor presence. Either way, I can't believe she was that important to Kirk if she was never mentioned before -- the movie writers could have chosen a previously-established Kirk love interest, but they chose to make up someone random.
Yeah. I think there are plenty of ways to explain away Antonia that make more sense than taking her at face value. :p