Captain's Log: Benny Would Be Proud

It's a major studio Marvel Superhero movie with a black African hero, a largely black cast, a black director and writer--not only was this movie made and released, it quickly broke records at the box office.  

Black Panther is an immense success. Released in 2018, it is already a favorite in several categories for next year's Academy Awards.

Benny Russell would be proud. Benny was the 1953 science fiction writer who imagined Ben Sisko as captain of a space station in the famous DS9 episode "Far Beyond the Stars," with Avery Brooks starring and directing.  Prejudice stifled him.

Benny would also take note of Ta-Nehisi Coates, an award-winning journalist and author, who recently has been writing for the Black Panther comic books.  It was just announced that he will be writing a story for the Captain America comics, the first black writer to get that assignment.

There's been a troublesome trend building for the past 20 years or so but becoming highly charged and visible the past few years, of a vocal group of gamers and fans, including Star Wars and Star Trek fans, with belligerent racist and anti-women demands,trying to force their twisted conceptions on everyone else through bullying, boycotts and other tactics.  These along with the most extreme online trolls have injected poison into the process.

Star Wars and Star Trek, and the Marvel and DC superhero movies, have all become massive "franchises" with billions of dollars at stake.  And they have become increasingly sensitive to fandom, sometimes appearing to be making creative decisions based on what's popular with the most vocal groups of fans. (Which is something that Gene Roddenberry said very plainly that he would not do.)

Fortunately, and almost against expectation, these franchises have not pulled back in the areas of diversity and equality.  Star Wars films and the latest Star Trek TV series feature prominent non-white and non-male characters.  And the superhero franchises especially have proven that these white and male supremacist bullies are not representative.

DC had its biggest superhero hit, both critically and at the box office, with Wonder Woman.  Marvel is now enjoying its biggest critical and box office success with Black Panther, and it's not nearly over.

Benny--and his fellow writer Kay Eaton-- would be overjoyed by this, too.

Captain's Log: Star Trek and Star Wars: The Gifts That Keep On Giving

The X-Prize has been awarded to two groups that developed working models for medical devices that mimic the functions and portability of the Star Trek tricorder.

Second prize went to a group of 50 doctors, physicists and programmers, backed by a major corporation.  But the first prize winners were four brothers and three friends, one of them an emergency room doc, who funded themselves.  That's three of them pictured above, in uniform.

The Washington Post:

"Final Frontier Medical Devices, led by Basil Harris, a suburban Philadelphia emergency room doctor, won the $2.6 million top prize. The open competition, launched in 2012, challenged applicants to produce a lightweight, affordable health kit that diagnoses and interprets 13 health conditions and continuously monitors five health vitals. The team’s kit, equipped with noninvasive sensors, collects information that is synthesized on a diagnostic device — an iPad was used in the competition, but it could ultimately work on a smartphone. Harris’s only invention before this competition was a cotton-candy machine he made with his brothers in grade school."

This is a prime example of what's become the Star Trek fan ethos, the same do-it-yourself enthusiasm and dedication that resulted in generations of fan-fictions and fan films that almost evolved into independent Trek films before Paramount intervened.

But it also exemplified a Star Trek ethic.  The Post story ends:

"Harris recalled how he felt when he entered the competition four years ago. “It was intimidating because there were all these groups being backed by large corporations,” he said before the prize announcement. “But we were always thinking beyond the X Prize. We’ve met our objectives. We’ve made something worthwhile.”

Making something worthwhile, making a difference is a living expression of the soul of Star Trek.  Congratulations to the Final Frontier.

Meanwhile, as Star Trek wraps up the 50th anniversary of its first television season, Star Wars begins its celebration of the 40th anniversary of its first film, now known as The New Hope, but in those days, just Star Wars.

At the first event of its ongoing celebratory convention--which included tributes to Carrie Fisher and other fascinating moments reported at length by the Hollywood Reporter--Star Wars creator George Lucas explained the intent of that first movie:

"The idea was to do a high adventure film that I loved when I was a kid with meaningful, psychological themes," said Lucas...Lucas admitted he wasn't supposed to say this, but he described A New Hope this way: "It's a film for 12-year-olds. You're 12 years old. You're going to go on in the big world. You're moving away from your parents being the center focus. You're probably scared, you don't know what's going to happen, and here's an idea of some of the things you should pay attention to. Friendships, honesty and trust — and doing the right thing. Living on the Light Side. Avoiding the Dark Side."

From the technology to the ethic, from the approach to the attitudes and the future they make, Star Wars and especially Star Trek were aspirational.  They were models for how to be better people, how to build a better future-- for the people and institutions that would make it a better future.

And though neither the Star Trek or Star Wars universe is a reality, the power of the stories themselves continues, more than two generations later, to be living models, to set aspirations and to inspire.

Captain's Log: New Trek Series, Old Star Wars

A flurry of news on the upcoming Star Trek series on the CBS pay site: Bryan Fuller, writer for Deep Space 9 and Voyager, is the showrunner.  Nicholas Meyer, writer and director of several Trek movies, is consulting producer and staff writer.  And GR's son Rod Roddenberry is executive producer, along with the COO of his Roddenberry Entertainment,  Trevor Roth.   Alex Kurtzman, of the NuTrek regime is also an exec producer, along with tv producer Heather Kadin.

Roddenberry said in a press release: “Moral dilemmas, human issues, complex characters, and a genuine sense of optimism: These are the cornerstones of Star Trek and are what have made it such an influential and beloved franchise for the last 50 years.”   Meyer mentioned his Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as a key to the direction of political comment.

At the same time, Fuller and Meyer emphasized that the series would be "different."  The initial press release indicated that it won't be about characters from past Star Trek shows.  (It should be noted however that "executive producer" and "consulting producer" can mean a lot of things in television.)

I still stand by my first prediction: that it is likely to be set in the 25th century or beyond, in the "prime" or GR timeline. Or possibly between TOS and TNG, but in that timeline. The CBS pay site is clearly building around Star Trek, and it is showing other TV series in the GR Star Trek universe.  So staying in the GR/TV timeline would make all kinds of sense, from "branding" consistency to a feedback effect from show to show to providing the new series with the depth of history.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Nick Sagan were brought aboard, assuming he's available.  And I say once again, they'd be crazy not to at least ask Jonathan Frakes to direct and consult, and Levar Burton if he's still interested in directing.

On the Star Wars front, a fascinating pattern continues to play out.  Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was an immediate blockbuster by any standards.  The opening reviews were mostly glowing and the fans were ecstatic.

Much was made of J.J. Abrams decision to go old school and avoid CGI where he could, in contrast to George Lucas in the previous three Star Wars films (now the first three in the chronology.) Abrams also brought back the beloved stars of the first trilogy (now Episodes 4-6), and introduced a new generation of characters, more diverse than the last. These new actors also got good reviews (mostly) and good fan reaction.

This film's gigantic global success, and the decisions made in contrast to Lucas's last three films (as well as Disney's rejection of his proposed storyline for this and subsequent episodes in what he'd initially envisioned as a 9 film series) seemed a melancholy repudiation of the old guy who created the Star Wars universe.

 But then the coverage took some odd turns.  A couple of Los Angeles Times writers wondered at length whether they'd all been taken in by the hype.  And then emerged: George Lucas.

In hype-related statements, he'd professed enthusiasm for the movie and Disney's plans for much more Star Wars.  But  then in an interview by Charlie Rose, George Lucas said he didn't much like The Force Awakens, and made some awkward joke about Disney being "white slavers" who kidnapped his children (meaning Star Wars.) Very soon he backtracked both on that comment and his opinion of the movie.

Not long afterwards Bryan Curtis in the New Yorker, noted that the conventional wisdom was that fans were glad to see Lucas exiled from new Star Wars.  But...

"Then the new movie came out, and a strange thing happened. Even as critics saluted “The Force Awakens” and fans turned it into a billion-dollar hit, both camps have come scurrying to the feet of Lucas, the master, rather than Abrams, the apprentice. To call what’s happening a full-blown critical reëvaluation is perhaps going too far. It’s more like a reawakening. For the first time in a more than a decade people are talking about Lucas with something other than withering contempt."

Even his reviled prequels (Episodes 1-3), Curtis wrote, were now being seen as "noble failures."  But Curtis' colleague at the New Yorker Richard Brody went further than that.  He wrote in ecstatic praise of two films in the more recent Lucas trilogy, Attack of the Clones and especially Revenge of the Sith.  (It's perhaps worth mentioning that though their reputation became fairly low, that trilogy was also successful with filmgoers worldwide.)

So people were talking about George Lucas in positive terms again. However as time went on, J.J. Abrams did not fare as well. "It took a unique—well, derivative—sequel to create an atmosphere in which Lucas could be viewed in a new light," Curtis wrote. "The biggest reason Lucas looks better is because “The Force Awakens” is an admission that, thirty-eight years later, the original can’t be topped."

The 'derivative' notion gradually became elaborated. Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times was perhaps the first to complain that The Force Awakened was maybe too much like Episodes 4-6.  Others pointed out resemblances in the story to Episode IV: A New Hope, the one that was once called just Star Wars.  Most recently, a Wired article described the findings of a computer science professor who did a data analysis that showed intricate mirroring that another site somewhat sarcastically headlined as Data conclusively proves that The Force Awakens is just A New Hope.

All this might be deja vu for Star Trek fans, who saw lots of resemblances between the villain of Abrams' Star Trek and Khan in The Wrath of Khan.  And then of course lots more resemblances between The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek Into Darkness.

Abrams reportedly first refused to do this Star Wars film because he didn't want to become known as the maker of sequels.  But does he make sequels?  Or does he make remakes?  None of this invalidates the movies he does make, and both the differences and similarities to these previous films have meaning. Obviously millions of people like these films.  But the Star Wars experience may help clarify responses to the recent Star Trek films that have evaded definition.

Captain's Log: Trek v. Wars, premiere v. trailer, and the Day We Became One Planet

             illustration from UFOP: Star Base 118

As the premiere of The Force Awakens approached, there were a surprising number of Star Wars v. Star Trek debates in the media (for instance, here and here)--so much so that the business-oriented wire service Reuters noticed.

 While fans of each saga can be... fanatical about their favorite, in truth many if not most of them will eventually see both. Paramount apparently saw it that way when they announced that a trailer for Star Trek Beyond will be seen at showings of The Force Awakens.

Though Trek fans were there first in most expressions of fandom, it's hard not to view with awe the dedication of some Star Wars fans. They began lining up to see the new film some 10 days before it opened in Hollywood. Though it was in part a promotional gimmick, this Mashable  story makes it clear that it was also a community expression.

Some participants had done the same thing for previous films--officially as part of this promotion since the first prequel film in 1999, but at least a few who'd lined up at this theatre as children for the original Star Wars (now Episode 4) in 1977. For them, the experience of being together with other fans--including friends they made at similar events for the prequel films--is an important part of Star Wars.

 The premiere itself was huge--taking up three theatres and several Hollywood city blocks--and the advance bookings themselves made The Force Awakens a major hit. Media reports of responses by the first audiences were also highly positive.

 Among his many media interviews, The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams did this one with the Los Angeles Times, inevitably commenting on the difference between the Stars he's been part of. This is what he said: "At the heart of “Star Wars” is the idea of the Force. It’s this spiritual thing – it’s almost antithetical to science-fiction. And “Star Trek” is such a science-fiction story."

Abrams speaks eloquently and movingly of the essence of Star Wars. And "spiritual" is a strange word, open to many interpretations. But could it be that he never really got the essence of Star Trek? His comment suggests that possibility.

 Abrams as the director of The Force Awakens must realize that its story and its buzz and its preordained success is based at least partly--and perhaps, at this point before the movie has been widely seen, primarily-- on the fact that the beloved stars of the original Star Wars are in it.

 But apparently as the producer of Star Trek Beyond, he did not see that a movie released deliberately during Star Trek's 50th anniversary year might benefit from tangible ties to its storied past, especially in casting. Granted that Harrison Ford is a huge movie star apart from Star Wars, and Star Trek has no actor of that wattage, not even Sir Patrick. But the crews of Star Trek and TNG are beloved international icons. If some had been included, might we be seeing lines of Star Trek fans camping out for the 50th anniversary film premiere this summer?

On the day of the new Star Wars movie premiere in Hollywood, somebody "leaked" the first Star Trek Beyond trailer, "forcing" Paramount to release it. Some s/f and entertainment sites (like Cinema Blend) were all agog, but fans logging onto Trek Movie were divided, as they were (though a little less so) at Trek Core and (a little more so) at Trek Today.

 Some complained about "Star Fast and Trek Furious." Some of the disappointment was poignant, as the fan who commented: "I'm nearly 25 years old, and I've been a life long Trek fan. My parents were divorced growing up and Trek was something for me and my father to bond over. Now when he and I watch the new films, we just feel sadness and shame."

 As many noted, the trailer emphasized action, and only a rudimentary idea of what could be a complex story was suggested. Most of those who liked it or defended it did so because it looks like an exciting action movie that updates Star Trek, while many (though not all) of those who reacted in the negative said it didn't feel like Star Trek. One comment at Trek Core for instance: "There is nothing of the contemplative, exploratory, intellectual, dreamy, optimistic, humanistic, or political Trek in this trailer. It's being marketed as Fast and Furious in Starfleet uniforms. The characters may be moderately recognizable, but the essence of Trek is dead in this one."

 Apart from those who were definitively disappointed and those who were excited were others who pleaded to suspend judgment of an entire film on the basis of a first trailer.

 Okay. I'll go with that.

 But I will say this. The response of many fans affirms that there is something more than "science-fiction" action entertainment that they value about Star Trek....That there is an essence, a soul of Star Trek, which is as deeply important to these stories as the Force is to Star Wars.

Update: Co-writer and actor Simon Pegg responded to the response to the Trek trailer, saying he was puzzled by the trailer and a bit disappointed. He suggested the movie has more substance than that, and director Justin Lin suggested at least one question about the nature of the Federation that the movie deals with, through the antagonist, while adding some 21st century terrorism-inspired asymmetrical warfare to the alternate universe 23rd.

The Day We Became One Planet 

 It seems the world is catching up to Star Trek technology, with Trek being mentioned when anything develops that looks vaguely like tractor beams or the tricorder, or the TNG communicator pin. But in an even more essential way, the world has unexpectedly behaved as if it is finally growing into the Star Trek future.

 It happened on Saturday, December 14, 2015 in Paris, when delegates of nearly 200 nations passed by acclamation an agreement on addressing the global climate crisis.

 It's taken a quarter of a century from the first United Nations attempt to do so, but the words of the delegates, of national leaders who attended the first day of the conference in force, and of the media covering the event--all emphasized this agreement was made for the future of the planet.

 “History will remember this day,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after the pact was sealed by thunderous applause. “The Paris agreement on climate change is a monumental success for the planet and its people.”

 It is the first time that the planet Earth united on behalf of the planet Earth.

 There were no huge apparent changes--nations still dealt with internal and international politics, bombs still fell, terrorism still exists, as does hunger and disease. The challenges remain of addressing climate crisis effects already on the way, and this pact alone may well not be enough to save civilization. But it was a kind of paradigm shift, towards the united Earth that gets its act together at home, and works together to go into space (as some experts say must happen if humanity is to explore what's beyond), determined not to make the same mistakes of invading in the guise of exploring.

 George Takei has said that Gene Roddenberry's vision was of the Enterprise as a Starship Earth, representing the diversity on the planet, working together. That's part of it. But the term "Spaceship Earth," just becoming widely known in the Star Trek 1960s, had another meaning.

 As coined by Buckminster Fuller (designer of the geodesic dome, a U.S. Navy vet and a sailor), "spaceship Earth" was a specific metaphor. Earth, like a ship at sea, has limited resources and must use them intelligently, or all aboard will perish. Gene Roddenberry, a sailor himself as well as a flyer, knew the practicality of that metaphor.

 Just a few days ago, leaders of the world's nations acted on that fact, and the language they used made it clear. The planet is in peril, not by an alien invader, but as a result of what humanity has done--at first unknowingly, and then unheedingly. Now the nations of Earth have begun to unite for the sake of future generations, the future itself, and the planet Earth.

The Difference in the Stars

What forthcoming movie with "Star" in the title dumped its first screenwriter and story ideas, and was being written in a hurry up to its deadline, even as the rest of the production was clamoring for information so sets could be built etc.?

If you're a Trek movie fan, you're probably thinking of recent interviews by Simon Pegg, now co-writer of its next movie as well as actor in it.  But apparently this also describes the new Star Wars film, coming out this December.

That however is where the resemblance between these two projects pretty much ends.  How they differ is interesting and maybe illuminating.

The promotional machinery for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is getting into gear, not only with teaser trailers but with appearances on the convention circuit.  Some of the movie's actors--both new and beloved from the classic "middle" three films (but first three released)--have made appearances, along with executives like Kathleen Kennedy.  But the star of those shows and clearly the new face of the franchise is the film's director, J.J. Abrams.

The next Star Trek film has yet to go into production (scheduled for this summer) for its release in 2016, and so promotional machinery hasn't been engaged.  But it's still eerily quiet.  And it suggests this question: who exactly is the face of the Star Trek franchise?  Or even the active half--the Paramount movie?  Or the face of Star Trek in general?

For a generation of course it was Gene Roddenberry, and then when there was a lot of Star Trek on TV it hardly mattered, because the cast of TNG for example were active leaders, and Rick Berman was visible when needed, and the original series stars were making Trek movies.  After the Trek business was divided between CBS and Paramount, the only active projects were the Paramount films, and the face of them was...J.J. Abrams.

He was producer, he was director and had his hands in the scripts.  One of the writers, Roberto Orci, maintained a very visible presence on fan boards and Twitter.  Abrams had the smarts to bring Leonard Nimoy aboard his movies, which added cred and continuity.

Now Orci is out of the picture in more ways than one (and may have damaged his ability to represent Trek by a pattern of let's say controversial comments and responses to fans and writers on the Internet,) and Star Trek has suffered the enormous loss of Leonard Nimoy.  And J.J. Abrams, whose company is still pretty much in charge of the next movie, is busy on his other job.  His face is on another movie with Star in the title.

So basically, as an ongoing project, Star Trek has no face.  Or apparent leader.  Or much in the way of continuity.

Continuity is certainly something that Star Wars has, and is making an important part of its promotions.  While Star Trek has a hot director who has apparently never directed anything like a Star Trek movie before,  and two writers who have never written anything like a Star Trek movie before, and have never worked together before either, the new Star Wars movie was written by Abrams with Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote The Empire Strikes Back.

No one knows if any actors from Star Trek's past will appear in the next movie.  It seems doubtful, even though its release on Trek's 50th anniversary would make it pretty appropriate. In fact the Paramount film seems to have spurned offers of participation by past Trek icons.  Star Wars however has three beloved human actors and several other beloved characters which we can safely guess are featured prominently.

 This includes a bona fide Hollywood star in Harrison Ford, who has coincidentally enhanced his Hans Solo stature by becoming a real world hero: he piloted a crashing plane to safety and without endangering others, with what other pilots describe as perfect skill, including precise knowledge of that specific and rare aircraft.

Meanwhile, J-Trek has a group of attractive actors who appeared in the past two films, but beyond fandom are not really associated with their Trek roles, and aren't major presences on the Trek convention circuit.  Several of them are in other prominent films and franchises, which is great for their careers, but does not create an iconic presence for Star Trek.  Two films is probably not enough anyway to create that kind of presence.  No matter how many movies and plays Patrick Stewart does, he will always be Jean Luc Picard, and not only to Star Trek fans at conventions.  William Shatner has assumed more of a leadership role in representing Trek among fans, but gets little love from its corporate masters.

Morever, J.J. Abrams never was accepted as the face of all of Trek.  He was J-Trek, and perhaps that's all he tried to be. But by embracing Star Wars past, including the actual actors as well as the original characters, he's become the emblem of Star Wars as a whole, the heir apparent to George Lucas.

Months from now, when the next Trek film is finished or closer to it, its director and cowriters and stars will trot around the convention circuit hoping to hype excitement--who knows, maybe the currently unengaged J.J. will be prominent among them.  In the meantime, judging from a YouTube or two I've seen of Abrams etc. Star Wars appearances, the kind and quality of fandom that Star Trek pioneered is being reconstituted elsewhere.  I take particular note of the Star Wars Force for Change project that raises money for UNICEF--a lot of money.  It's the kind of thing Star Trek fandom used to do, although I'm not aware of such official organization and support (Disney kicked in a million bucks to get it started.)

Trek fans are obviously still involved in worthy projects, like supporting LeVar Burton's efforts on behalf of Reading Rainbow.  But most of what I see on the Internet is about products.  Star Trek as a living enterprise appears to be floundering, and with it perhaps the essential value, its soul.

Captain's Log: Star Trek Wars (and President Obama Groks Spock)

Among the many comments and commentaries on Star Trek JJA, the most intriguing to me involve the perceived resemblances between this movie and Star Wars. There's a short video from College Humor deep in this Trek Movie thread that depicts the main points succinctly. I'm linking to it rather than the original source because of one of the comments, # 12 from Magic Al, which adds this:

The Star Wars comparison could be extended to the young hero lost and running from monsters on a snow planet until an old friend rescues him and tells him was he has to do next. It’s relevant because JJ Abrams is known to be a bigger Star Wars fan than a Star Trek fan. The comparison film illustrates the common “hero’s journey” mythology of these two films.

It reminded me that seeing J.J. Abrams on a Star Wars documentary prompted me to suggest here on this site, almost two years ago, what Abrams might do with his Star Trek movie. Abrams, I wrote:

... speaks about the first step, the hero's "Call to Adventure" (as [Joseph] Campbell called it). "At the heart of the story is some kid who is being called to service, to deal with something so much bigger than him."So of course I immediately thought of the Star Trek movie, and wondered if it might begin the Kirk story farther back than many have speculated--even earlier than at Starfleet Academy. With a boy in Iowa perhaps. What is his call? What is the crisis that changes his life? What is the "threshhold-crossing" event, in which (as someone said) you realize you're not in Kansas anymore. Or Iowa. That takes Kirk into a bigger world?

Later I wrote: Abrams talked about the appearance of the mentor. "In moments of absolute disconnect and loss and confusion and fear...these characters arrive that give purpose and confidence" to the hero. Who will be Kirk's mentor, I wondered, and the film gives us Captain Pike, challenging him at that crossroads moment. I also wondered:

The classic hero has companions to help on the quest, the journey. We know who Kirk's companions will be by the time the five year mission begins. Are they with him from the beginning?

That's what this film does--the story of how the hero's journey begins-- though how well or how meaningful it does it is an open question. There are lots of other questions in commentaries and comments since then, some of which the movie's writers addressed, as summarized in the above noted Trek Movie thread, or more directly at Darth Mojo.

I don't know that the answers are entirely consistent or satisfactory. But the basic question--reflected in a number of comments here--is how true to Trek this movie really is, beyond the superficial. Since it's become so popular, some of the possibilities JJA says he's entertaining for future stories worry me as well--like bringing back Khan, etc. This takeover of the classic characters was always dangerously close to exploitation. I would hate to see it go clearly over the line.

In general I'm sticking to what I said, possibly too far down in my commentary last time, concerning the differences between this movie and Star Trek GR: "Ultimately what we’ve got are stories. They may now occur in two separate Star Trek story universes, but they rise or fall on what they are as stories." So far, Star Trek JJA has but one story--even if you include the comic book prequel. Naturally we're talking about this one now because it's the newest and the biggest in awhile. But soon, this site will be getting back to those many other Star Trek stories, and what they tell us about the soul of Star Trek and the soul of the future.

It was the meaning in those stories, after all, that influenced several generations, including the current President of the United States, who has just screened the new movie at the White House, and talked about Star Trek to Newsweek. "Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand]." "I used to love Star Trek," the President said, not for its special effects but for its "evocative" stories and meaning, even to him at ten years old.


Speaking of this site, Soul of Star Trek appears recently on some fascinating lists: Blogs.com Top Ten Star Trek Blogs, the select Star Trek blog roll at UK's the Guardian, and the select Trek blog link list at Ex Astra Scientia. To which I humbly say, cool, and thanks a lot!

Final note: since torture is so much in the news again, I keep being reminded of the posts I did on the topic (also two years ago) and especially the TNG "Chain of Command" episodes (famous to fans for Picard's cry of "There are four lights!") It was in the second of those episodes, made all those years ago, that Picard says what was known even then: torture doesn't work in eliciting accurate information, a lesson that's more public than ever now.

So here's a link to that "Star Trek vs. 24" posting. I've also given the label "torture" to those and other relevant posts, which you can find in the label list in the sidebar column to the right, and see all those posts.

From "Muse," an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

Myths of Wars and Treks

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the start of the Star Wars movies, the History Channel broadcast a program called "The Legacy Revealed," a fascinating piece that detailed how Star Wars used figures and motifs from ancient mythology as well as history and the more modern forms of film and entertainment folklore figures (Hans Solo as the modern lone hero of movie westerns; R2D2 and 3CPO as Laurel and Hardy) to tell the myth of the Hero's Journey, what Joseph Campbell called the "monomyth" of many diverse cultures.

This program intercut statements by experts and celebrities, including director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings)--and J. J. Abrams, impresario and director of the next Star Trek feature film. Abrams is seen particularly at the beginning, talking about the beginning of Luke Skywalker's mythic journey. He speaks about the first step, the hero's "Call to Adventure" (as Campbell called it). "At the heart of the story is some kid who is being called to service, to deal with something so much bigger than him."

So of course I immediately thought of the Star Trek movie, and wondered if it might begin the Kirk story farther back than many have speculated--even earlier than at Starfleet Academy. With a boy in Iowa perhaps. What is his call? What is the crisis that changes his life? What is the "threshhold-crossing" event, in which (as someone said) you realize you're not in Kansas anymore. Or Iowa. That takes Kirk into a bigger world?

Who was Kirk's mentor--the Obi Wan Kenobe/Yoda of his life, to give him guidance and insight? Mentors are often "alien" in some way, like little Yoda, or like Chiron, the half-man, half-horse who instructed the Greek hero Achilles. There are lots of half-and-half beings in Star Trek. Who will instruct the Geek hero, James T. Kirk? How will he learn discernment, and spiritual as well as physical discipline?

Abrams talked about the appearance of the mentor. "In moments of absolute disconnect and loss and confusion and fear...these characters arrive that give purpose and confidence" to the hero.

The classic hero has companions to help on the quest, the journey. We know who Kirk's companions will be by the time the five year mission begins. Are they with him from the beginning?


The History Channel program deals with all six Star Wars movies, and it is particularly fascinating to develop the heroic themes with the different outcomes, as the young hero Annakin Skywalker goes over to the Dark Side to become Darth Vader. The prequel trilogy is generally less popular than the Luke Skywalker films, yet it adds more sophistication to the mythology, particularly with the political dimension. Lucas announced the twin themes himself: "how a democratic society turns into a dictatorship, and how a good person turns into a bad person." (Quoted in my San Francisco Chronicle piece that briefly explores it. I expand on it a bit elsewhere on this site: just click the Star Wars label.) "The Legacy Revealed" does a solid job in bringing both trilogies into a coherent mythology.

The political story, with its resonances of Vietnam and the G.W. Bush administration, caused consternation among the more rightward leaning fans. Some even argued that the real heroes were the Sith. But this does emphasize a point that's made more than once in the History program: that myths are predominately cautionary tales, and tragic myths are lessons in what to avoid, like arrogance, giving into fear and greed for power. The hero, like all of us, sooner or later gets wounded, and how we deal with the wounds of our life determine our character.

Though it told its share of cautionary tales, Star Trek is a much different mythology. Although in Trek's mythology, the Earth has been subjected to ruinous and deadly warfare in the 21st century, and even after becoming spacefaring, has to overcome a war with the Romulan Empire, those parts of the story have not yet really been dramatized.

What we've seen has often been a different kind of myth--an exemplary tale, to show a possible future by example, by seeing the struggles of heroes beyond the initiatory struggle to become heroes, and an heroic society.

It's been said that Gene Roddenberry deliberately avoided detailing that part of the story partly because it would take political sides, but clearly it is also not the part of the story he wanted to tell. He wanted to model a future, and that's been an enormous part of Star Trek's attraction. He was responding to a time when there didn't seem to be much chance of a future (as Lucas was when he did the Luke trilogy.) We're entering another time like that now, I believe.

Star Trek stories have dealt with myth and mythmaking many times. I happened to see one recently--an episode of Star Trek: Voyager called "Muse." (I've never been a big Voyager fan, but my local video store has a couple of Trekkies working there, and twice when I went in they were playing a Voyager episode on the in-store screens. I found myself getting sucked into the stories. Then we started having some work done on the house which disrupted part of my day, so I could do little else than watch TV and DVDs, so I rented and saw a bunch of sixth and seventh season Voyagers. I'm not sure whether the series was much better than I remember it, or what's on television now is so much worse that it has become a masterpiece by comparison. But I'm likely to see more.)

"Muse" is an episode by the incomparable Joe Menosky, in which Belanna Torres crashes her shuttle on an unknown planet, and is nursed by a poet in a pre-industrial society that, like a more simplified ancient Greece, depends on theatre to guide it. It looks very much like Greek theatre as well, with masks and Chorus. The poet begins writing plays about Torres and Voyager that become very popular. When his patron is about to go to war, the poet wants to write the final story with an argument for peace. (There is of course a lot more to the episode, but this is the part bearing on the Trek mythology.)

In that final scene, Janeway and 7 of 9 (representing the Borg Queen in his telling) are fighting to the death. Janeway wins, but refuses to kill 7. Seven tells her that "my death is irrelevant. You will be annihilated. You will never see the gleaming cities of Earth."

"What if I let you live?" Janeway asks. "Also irrelevant." "You don't believe that. The battle's over. Go home." Seven tells her it's foolish to release her, she will be free to attack again. "And again and again and again," Janeway says. "Until all your drones and all of my crew are destroyed. Until everything we value is gone, and there is nothing left but our hatred."

After a sudden appearance--and disappearance (via transporter) by Belanna, the Chorus concludes: "The stories will continue, as long as we have the breath to tell them, and as long as our patrons remain wise and compassionate. And Voyager will continue on her journey to the gleaming cities of Earth, where peace reigns and hatred has no home."

We can remember that a premise of Star Trek in the 24th century is that Earth has been peaceful for centuries. We don't know how exactly this happened, and it would be fascinating to hear those stories. But we can also see this episode as talking about the Star Trek saga itself, and the Earth it describes is the ideal, the goal. Roddenberry wanted to explore beyond the repeating cycle of unconsciousness that characterizes human history, in what he believed was our childhood and adolescence. Star Trek is the story of humanity as it consciously becomes adult--when it still has unconscious impulses, but has the wisdom and compassion--and the self-knowledge-- to overcome them before they destroy.

George Lucas told a story of the wars between good and evil, within us and among the stars. Gene Roddenberry began the saga of the human journey into the larger universe beyond its childhood.

"Muse" is Star Trek storytelling--and mythmaking--at its best. And a key to Star Trek's power to motivate so many lives--to inspire people to become their own heroes, to work in whatever large or small way towards a present and a future where hatred has no home.

Anakin Skywalker

Birth of An Empire

by William S. Kowinski

The political dimensions of "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith," currently still breaking box office records, seemed to take many people by surprise. The Washington Post reported on a number of observations, some of them angry, that the transformation of the Republic into the Empire had certain clear similarities to U.S. actions and rhetoric in respect to Iraq. The article was entitled "The Empire Strikes Bush."

Then the New York Times weighed in, with news of conservative blogs attacking Lucas for anti-Bush sentiments, such as Anakin Skywalker--- who'd just been re-named Darth Vader--- saying, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy," (a close echo of Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.")

The Times also reported that a conservative website it described as "little trafficked" had called for a boycott of Star Wars, along with films starring Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, and the music of the Dixie Chicks. It's either little trafficked, or largely ignored.

Cornered on the question in Cannes, where he opened "Sith," Lucas reinterated that his movie was devised in response to the Vietnam war, but he did allow that"The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."

However, if anyone had paid attention to what Lucas had been saying for several years now, they couldn't be surprised. He's announced over and over that the theme of this film and the prequel trilogy it completes is meant to be "...how a democratic society turns into a dictatorship, and how a good person turns into a bad person."

A pop culture phenomenon like "Star Wars" has an inevitable relationship to other cultural currents in the society of its time. This has been especially true of the Lucas films, since the story within their space opera adventure is partly political: the rise and fall of an Empire.

That first "'>Star Wars" burst onto screens in 1977 when science fiction films were rare and dour. After Vietnam and Watergate, and with the Cold War superpowers still facing off with immense nuclear arsenals, and dire planetary warnings coming from a fledgling environmental movement, the future seemed doubtful, and the anti-hero ruled the screen. Enter Lucas with a simple and revolutionary concept: to consciously inject heroic mythological themes into the fantasy world of the space opera serial: Joseph Campbell directs Flash Gordon.

"Star Wars" edged the old innocent virtues with contemporary knowingness in recognizable new heroes: Hans Solo, the swaggering mercenary with hidden heart, and Princess Leia, the damsel in distress who runs the war room and shoots the bad guys. Soulless technology became personable in the robots, C3po and R2D2. But the true classic hero was Luke Skywalker, all impulse and openness, with buried powers that could be used for anything, depending on who and what he trusted to bring them forth.
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Luke Skywalker

Lucas captivated audiences on yet another level with one astonishing premise: The Force, which emanates from all life and is both accessible to all and inborn more strongly in some. The Force has a good side, accessed by the Jedi knights, like Obi Wan Kenobe, serving the rebel alliance. It also has the dark side, represented by Darth Vader, serving the Imperial Empire and its powerful hooded emperor. The Force not only added an all-purpose explanation for fantastic accomplishments but a mystical and spiritual dimension largely absent from a 1970s American culture dominated by the rigid and linear materialism of economics and science.

In the third film of this trilogy, "'>Return of the Jedi," the Empire is overthrown by Luke Skywalker and an underdog alliance with more virtue than technology, in a final battle fought partly in space, and partly on a green world that looks very much like Eureka, California. It was a satisfying ending, and everyone identified. Released in 1983, its message inspired New Age advocates and environmentalists, and also President Ronald Reagan, who began referring to the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire, and proposed a missile defense system that was quickly dubbed "Star Wars."

But Lucas had a larger, more complex and perhaps less comfortable story in mind. Darth Vader, the black-clad, half-machine villain skulking in the darkness, turned out to be the evil father of Luke Skywalker and his twin sister, Leia. Even though Vader turns away from the dark side before he dies, the question was raised: how does evil father good? The answer given in the new prequel trilogy is provided by the less literal reversal: how good fathers evil.

Beginning with '>"The Phantom Menace" in 1999, Lucas explores the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, who will become Darth Vader in "Revenge of the Sith." (The Sith are revealed as the dark side equivalent of the Jedi.) In the past several years, DVDs of all five prior Star Wars films were released(including "'>Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones" from 2002) with commentary tracks that included George Lucas talking in his low-key Modesto way about the arc of these two trilogies.

In between chat on mechanics of filmmaking (the Bantha is really an elephant in costume) Lucas reveals how deliberate his thematic thinking has been. The evil Empire figures wear black and white, because they represent a black-and-white world view of self-righteous certainties. The rebels are clothed in earth-tones, representing the organic complexities. The same situations and motifs recur purposefully; the difference is in the choices characters make each time.

In "Jedi" we saw Luke reject the temptations of the dark side's power by restraining his anger and hate. The entire prequel trilogy may be seen as a demonstration of how someone makes the opposite choice, and Lucas has clearly tried to make Anakin Skywalker sympathetic as well as strong. To up the ante, Lucas even gives him the equivalent of a virgin birth, born of the mating of a woman and the Force itself. He is "the chosen one."

Anakin is hotblooded but his reactions seem reasonably provoked: he is taken from his mother as a child, and as a young man sees her killed by kidnappers. He is forbidden the woman he loves. His personal descent is mirrored in the politics Lucas spends a lot of time elaborately setting up, with the apparently reasonable and reactive, step-by-step transformation of the democratic Republic into the dictatorial Empire, though it is being manipulated by one of its own.

The society and the hero that think themselves good but transform themselves into evil is a bold theme that resonates in post-9/11 America. Lucas says forthrightly that his point of view was formed during the Vietnam war. Though of course he could not have predicted that this film would open while the U.S. has an army of occupation in Iraq, it inevitably applies, especially considering how officials declared the preemptively virtuous right to attack those they define as the Axis of Evil.

Moreover, Lucas is clear about the paths to the dark side: The hunger for more and more power serving a possessiveness and greed that includes surrender to revenge, and to the emotional demands of what Buddhists call attachment. In other words, the current functional morality of our politics and society.

This prequel trilogy says that hot-blooded righteousness in a hero is not enough, for it is too easily turned. Like all cautionary tales, this is a call to consciousness. Like all tragedies, it tells us that even born heroes have human flaws that mirror their society's faults.

Anakin takes a walk on the Dark Side

That's a lot for a film series to bear, especially one wrapped up in the animated noise of a tech-crazy age, and partly pitched to children. As Lucas warned, this film is darker than any of its predecessors, showing Anakin Skywalker's descent into hell (almost literally, in the fires of a volcanic planet.)

Revenge of the Sith is packed with space battles and enough fast moving shots per minute to quench the quick-image hunger of the youngest video game-raised fan, although it tends to bludgeon older viewers into sullen impatience. There is likely to be some discomfort with the acting---more Anakin the manikin talk---though there were more effective moments in this film. But the political applicability is inescapable and explicit in the dialogue. "Only the Sith see the universe in black and white." However it's more complex and subtle than an anti-Vietnam or anti-Iraq war screed.

As the chancellor is moving quickly towards becoming emperor, the capital city starts to look less cleanly futuristic and more garish, with lots of neon. Anakin talks to him at a Senate session during what appears to be some sort of stadium light show. It is the manipulation by means of misdirection and imagery (also a Bush administration characteristic, thanks especially to a compliant media)which leads directly to one of the more quoted lines in the film, Queen Amidala as she observes Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine declare the Empire to a palpitating throng in the Senate: "This is how liberty dies---to thunderous applause."

Pretty nervy stuff for a film that is getting thunderous applause at the box office. The film is also likely to offend some self-described Christian fundamentalists, with lines like Yoda's, when he questions whether the prophesies of the Chosen One were misinterpreted. Though the basic moral message of what turns good into bad does jibe with much of what Jesus says in the gospels, and what early Christians believed, it is not the kind of doctrine today's so-called fundamentalists are likely to embrace. Especially when the people who talk like this today are mostly Buddhists. It is actually a pretty subtle philosophy (having really not much to do with religion) about how things work.

It also is conspicuously counter to the motivation of heroes in recent action films, who usually wind up blowing stuff up and killing a lot of people not for king or country or even their religion, but to save their family. That in essence is what Anakin wants to hold onto as his core value, and it leads to his downfall.

Beyond politics and religion as well is this film's function within the six-film cycle of the Star Wars saga. Located at dead center in the myth, this is an authentic tragedy. It concerns a great man with a fatal flaw: the classical Greek formula. We are meant to feel pity and terror, not only for Anakin but for ourselves.

The political complexities within the film will also likely have fans talking about what was really going on for some years more. Were the Jedi Knights just a little past their prime? Was Anakin rightly confused by the Jedi's bending their own rules, or was this a matter of thinking only in black and white?

It's fascinating that it will likely be the real fans who will engage in actual moral and political discussion, with this film as text. Beyond those invested in this story universe, many are too into their ideological identity to allow doubt or argument. In America at least, the audience seems split between angry triumphalism and forlorn, global-cooked dread. It's the Rapture red staters versus the apocalyptic blues. Even Lucas will probably not be surprised if this essentially moral message is lost or, as in the Reagan 80s, co-opted.

It may take seeing these six films in sequence for the moral themes to fully emerge (and the prophesy perhaps to be fulfilled.) Even the enormous gap in movie technology from the first trilogy to the second may emphasize the themes, as grand digital landscapes suddenly become more human, with human virtues regaining their Samurai/Jedi power. It may look like decadence yielding to simplicity and conscious innocence. The implications of the fall should be sobering, but there's both hope and instruction in this humbler resurrection. If Lucas himself succeeds in doing what he's announced, which is to make smaller, more personal films, it may be a prediction of his future as well.