Star Trek Nemesis (Star Trek X)

This is the tenth in a series of essays on the first ten Star Trek movies, comprising the Roddenberry-Berman era, and so completes the Trekalog.

Star Trek Nemesis, the tenth and, as it turned out, final feature film of the Roddenberry-Berman era, is by now a movie almost nobody likes.

That includes some of the people who made it. Patrick Stewart, who initially called it the best of the Next Generation movies, was subtly dissing the final cut during his promotional tour. He was later quoted as calling the film “pretty weak.”

Even while defending the movie, Rick Berman (producer and co-creator of the story, with John Logan and Brent Spiner) found ways to be softly cynical about it. Cast members were soon talking about tensions with the director on the set. (In her typically understated way, Marina Sirtis called him an idiot.)

From the beginning Nemesis got a mediocre response both critically and at the box office, and its reputation has not grown much in the years since. I saw Nemesis in a movie theatre on its first day of its general US release in 2002, and was more disappointed than not. I saw it again during its first run and then on DVD, and was even less enthused-- also dismayed and maybe a little angry at what increasingly looked like the last lost opportunity.  For there is now one undisputable fact: this was our last look at the Next Generation crew on the big movie screen.

More than 20 years later I’ve looked at it again a few times on DVD, and in some ways Nemesis is not a bad movie. The narrative is tight, with one thing leading to another, and every event contributes and pays off. It has the over-the-top villain and the big space battle that the loudest fans say they want. It includes incidents not seen before in a Star Trek movie: a shuttle careening through the interior of a starship, an android jumping through space from one ship to another, and the Enterprise ramming another starship, not to mention an attempted psychic rape.

And it certainly has a message, spelled out several times: to be human is to strive to be better than you are. It’s a classic, core Star Trek ideal, and one sorely needed in these times especially.

While its reputation was set a long time ago and people who haven’t seen it in years still hold to the same opinion, I have to admit that even after seeing it again—without the same emotional baggage—I still don’t feel it. It still doesn’t land. And I have some idea of why for me it doesn’t.

There was an unusually long delay after the ninth Star Trek film. According to Rick Berman, Paramount wanted a new and younger crew for the tenth theatrical feature. Berman pointed out that a new crew had just been introduced on television in Star Trek: Enterprise, and another set of unfamiliar characters might be too much. The studio eventually agreed, perhaps grudgingly. The Next Generation and the Enterprise-E would get another voyage.

Meanwhile, actor Brent Spiner (TNG’s Data) and screenwriter John Logan were talking out ideas for the next Next Generation movie. Logan had been a Star Trek fan since childhood, inhabiting the Enterprise and Star Trek stories as he and his family moved from place to place.

By this time John Logan was riding high as a screenwriter for Gladiator, a box office and critical hit that won the Oscar for Best Picture of the year 2000. (In fact he was one of three named writers of that film--he reportedly wrote part of the second draft-- while its star Russell Crowe claimed the script was incomplete and arrived on set in sections, with lots of improvisations ending up on screen.)

Logan’s status got Paramount’s attention, and he pitched his concepts to Rick Berman. Over the next year or so, Logan, Spiner and Berman continued to develop the story, while Logan wrote numerous drafts of the script.

Logan wanted a direct confrontation between Captain Picard and a major villain to be at the center of the story. In interviews he cited Khan in Star Trek II as the model. He wasn’t the last to do that, and as we know now, in 13 feature films, a single, larger than life villain has worked really well in a Star Trek movie exactly once: in Star Trek II.

He wanted the villain and hero to have a personal connection, as in Star Trek II. So eventually he made him a biological clone of Picard.

The first scene in Nemesis happens in the Senate of the Romulan Empire. The Praetor dismisses the proposal by someone named Shinzon, after which an innocuous box left on a table blossoms in a double helix of laser light, and everyone in the room turns to dust.

That Logan would select the Romulans as the focus for this film was predictable, since they are based on the same Roman Empire he wrote about in Gladiator. Like other stories about Rome from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar forward, that movie concerns internal power politics, treachery and murder. So does the opening of Nemesis. (How there can be an interstellar empire aping ancient Rome so closely has always been an embarrassing aspect of the Romulans, which is unfortunately emphasized in this film.) 

Like the hero of Gladiator, the villain of Nemesis is a former slave—this time from the enslaved world of Remus. (In the myth of Rome, the city was founded by the twins, Romulus and Remus.) But Shinzon is not Reman by birth—he is human, born in a test tube from the DNA of Jean-Luc Picard, meant to someday replace Picard where as a Romulan agent he could undermine Starfleet and the Federation.

As Shinzon tells Picard in their first private meeting, then the Romulan regime changed, the plan was dropped, and the very young Shinzon was abandoned to die in the dilithium mines of Remus. Instead he grew up to become a military leader in the Dominion Wars, helped by the Reman known as his Viceroy (played by Ron Perlman in heavy Nosferatu-alien makeup.  That is, the influential 1922 German expressionist vampire film of that title by F.W. Murnau, not of course the 2024 remake.) 

Before that however, we see the Enterprise crew celebrating the wedding of Will Riker and Deanna Troi in Riker’s native Alaska, after which the Enterprise is off to Troi’s Betazed for a wedding ceremony there. On the way, Geordi picks up a positronic signal on an obscure planet near the Romulan neutral zone, where pieces of a Data-like prototype, called B-4, are found and reassembled. (The sequence on this desert planet features a new ground vehicle—a kind of open-air, hyper-dune buggy-- in scenes that were subjected to mockery by some fans. In seeing it again, the more conspicuous challenge to credibility was that the planet’s pre-Warp aliens sped around in exactly the same kind of vehicle, right down to the goggles they all wore.)

So from here, the Data/B-4 pair is thematically linked to the Picard/Shinzon pair, although B-4 serves also as a plot device and a possible escape hatch when—is it possible to call this a spoiler after 20 years?--Data sacrifices his life.

Though Shinzon turns on the charm at first, it pretty quickly becomes apparent that his fearsome huge starship, the Scimitar, is a weapon generating something called thalaron radiation, and is bent on destroying all life on Earth. 

Though the plot turns out to be not much more than an Evil Twin story, cloning was a hot topic at the time Nemesis was made.

The first animal was successfully cloned in 1996 (a sheep named Dolly.) In 2000 the first “rough draft” of the human genome was produced. The next few years saw a race between a government project and a corporate project to finish the genome. In particular, Craig Vetter, who ran the corporate project, was often on television hyping the importance of the human genome. When completed, it would be the key to ending human diseases and improving human health and performance—and longevity.

Hyping the importance of the genome played into a kind of genetic determinism that was dominant in science and the popular mind. Richard Dawkins, in his classic The Selfish Gene and other works, championed the gene as the major if not sole determining factor in human evolution, in interaction with the environment. According to biologist E.O. Wilson, this was generally accepted until 2010. Other scientists began questioning it after that, seeing large roles for epigenetics (factors other than DNA), behavioral means and symbol-based means (language) in human evolution.

As scientists dug deeper into genomes, they realized that the existence of particular genes wasn’t enough in itself—some genes didn’t “express,” but were still passed down, with the potential to be turned on under unknown circumstances. In any event, once the human genome was sequenced it did advance the diagnosis and treatment of some diseases and conditions, but it turned out not to be the miracle panacea it was hyped to be.

Cloning was a bugaboo on Star Trek several times before, threatening a human’s sense of uniqueness and identity, as well as the threat of its “deep fake” capabilities to replace people, the intent of the Romulan plot. That, in turn, is a standard science fiction device in various permutations (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, etc.)

Moreover, problems with animal cloning suggested that the process might not produce as exact a copy as in science fiction and the popular mind. Even twins with very nearly the same DNA are not completely identical or indistinguishable in all respects, even if they are raised together.

The movie plays with these themes of identity (Picard and Shinzon are “mirrors” of each other; Shinzon complains that he is the echo and Picard the voice, and so on) and the influences of environment (Shinzon says Picard would be the same evil genius he is if Picard had grown up in slavery, and Picard wonders if he’s right.)

But the idea that Shinzon and Picard have exactly the same perceptions and thought processes because of their genetic identity doesn't pass my smell test. It represents more disbelief than I could suspend.  I've known identical twins.  It doesn't work that way.   

There is another fatal flaw of credibility to the movie: that Shinzon is a clone of Picard is supposed to instantly create an intimate relationship based on their genes. But in the story, they are just meeting. They have no prior relationship in the real world, as (for example) Kirk and Khan did. From a dramatic point of view, the relationship is too abstract, and without content.

Shinzon is played by Tom Hardy, now a celebrated and accomplished actor, in an early role. He is supposed to be a younger version of Picard, although more physically battered by his hard life on Remus. Tom Hardy creates a character worthy of a Roman epic. But after seeing this movie a number of time over decades, I am still stopped by one impression: I do not for a moment feel, believe or accept that Shinzon is a clone of Picard.

Part of it may be the age difference, but the physical detail that often give credibility to a young actor being accepted as a child of an older actor—let alone a clone-- just isn’t there for me. Bald heads aren’t enough.  Rick Berman recognized this problem: Tom Hardy didn’t look like Patrick Stewart, “so that was kind of hard to buy,” he said later. “But we worked very hard.”

Moreover, while Hardy and Patrick Stewart act well in this film, their scenes together feel like they’re in different movies. (The two actors apparently had no contact beyond their scenes during the weeks of filming.) Hardy approaches Shinzon as a version of Ricardo Montelbam’s outsized performance of Khan, while Stewart is a much more subtle and understated Picard. (Picard in a scene with Beverly Crusher emphasizes that as a young man he was arrogant "and a damn fool" but that's not what I see Hardy playing.)  As contrasting characters of different ages that wouldn’t be a problem. But the continuing emphasis on the clone aspect changes that, at least as you watch it.

The Data/B-4 B story continues throughout the movie, but there’s no credibility problem there because Brent Spiner plays both roles, and B-4 is a less sophisticated prototype. As a perhaps unforeseen consequence, this is an obvious contrast to the not mirror-images of Picard and Shinzon.

There are other bothersome aspects to the story and the backstory. Reman society is not even suggested beyond a single dimension. Where for example are its women? How did a slave society produce a starship that dwarfs the Enterprise, with so much firepower that must require huge supplies of energy? Where the hell did thalaron radiation come from? Apart from the mind of a screenwriter.

And of course, Shinzon’s target is Earth. We won’t waste our heroes heroism on a distant planet with only a few inhabitants (as in Insurrection) or unknown alien planets (as in Generations). Earth is the biggest hot button, though it might have resonated specifically in 2002: filming had begun only weeks after 9/11, and America was feeling vulnerable. That and the subsequent War on Terror changed the direction of the Enterprise TV series and eventually all of Star Trek, from novels to almost everything that subsequently appeared on screen, right up to now. Nemesis was by no means the worst victim of this.

Logan did provide some hints to credible elements of Shinzon’s character and motivations. He was a human raised without other humans. In Picard he sought a family lineage he could feel. The idea of Shinzon regarding Picard as a father, and his pathological need as a young man to outdo him, to conquer him, can be found in the film, but not easily. His snarling assertion that by destroying Earth, he would be more famous for a longer time than Picard, is a motivation that could have been given greater prominence.

Shinzon is also fighting off death as a result of his cloning, so he attempts to kidnap Picard and drain his blood as a treatment for his genetic malady--so in the middle of this muddle it's a vampire movie after all.

If these weren’t enough, Shinzon is also lonely, and immediately attracted to the first human woman he sees, Counselor Troi. His attempts at forcible sexual contact through psychic means does pay off somewhat later as a plot device, but it leads to one of the most embarrassing scenes in all of Star Trek, in its only overt sex scene ever. (Logan told Marina Sirtis that he had a “purely professional crush” on Troi, but one wonders.)

In the end, even the core message (to be human is to strive to be better than you are) feels flat, probably because it was stated but not really dramatized. Picard pleaded with Shinzon to be better than he is, but Shinzon simply refused. In fact he did become more than he’d been, rising from a slave child to an emperor, with his own vision of greatness. The difference between what Picard and Data saw as basically choosing to emphasize one side of human nature—our “better angels” in the Lincoln formula made contemporary by Barack Obama—and what Shinzon did with his life was implied but not focused.

To further muddy that message, strict adherents of the selfish gene theory would likely be on Shinzon’s side: survival (or conquest) at all costs. This is a debate that goes back to Darwin and especially T.H. Huxley, who introduced ethics into the human evolutionary equation. But none of this is engaged by the references to the genes shared by Picard and his nemesis. It just becomes another in too many themes and currents. To be fair, the elements are there: nature, nurture and human choice. They’re just jumbled up.

So the story, which unfolds logically, is nevertheless so crowded that it erodes its own credibility while feeling rote and forced.

And then there is the production itself.

Nemesis went before the cameras in November 2001.  Besides a new screenwriter in fanboy John Logan, the director was also new to Star Trek, but Stuart Baird was not a fan. He knew little about Star Trek and specifically the TNG episodes and movies, and apparently made no effort to change that.  Baird was known mostly as a film editor, notably for the great 1979 Richard Donner film, Superman.

At the time Berman said that he selected Baird because he was impressed by his directorial feature, Executive Decision. But years later Berman admitted (as revealed in the second volume of The Fifty Year Mission by Altman and Gross) that he was instructed to hire Baird by Sherry Lansing, head of Paramount.

Still, the idea of bringing “fresh blood” (Berman’s words) to a Star Trek film was extended to the cinematographer. At first it seemed it would be Dante Spinotti, Italian-born veteran and innovator, that IMBD calls “one of the most appreciated cinematographers in Hollywood.” But in the end the job went to another Hollywood veteran, Jeffrey L. Kimball, known mostly for action films, including Mission Impossible II, which included Star Trek veterans Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga as two of the three writers.

I recall at the time that I for one longed for a different visual approach for this well-known Star Trek crew, so we could see them in a new way—something akin to the creativity directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks brought to their westerns, with cinematographers like Gregg Toland, Winton C. Hoch and Joe McDonald.

Seeing Nemesis on DVD recently I did notice some different framing and camera movements inside the Enterprise, but nothing really striking. Others have complained of the visual darkness and murky imagery.  Still, Ford and Hawks showed you can come up with memorable images in a movie that emphasizes action.

Some fans fault aspects of the production (and I tend to agree that the Romulan uniforms are comical) but for all the difficulties the Enterprise cast had with the director, they all managed to come through. For me the most discouraging aspect of production was what we didn’t see in the final film.

It quickly became known that some 45 or 50 minutes of Nemesis had been cut before theatrical showings. When the movie was released on home video in 2003 and then in the Special Edition two-disk set in 2005—which is the one I own— at least some of the deleted scenes were included in the otherwise lackluster special features.

Some were trimmed scenes (and the DVD only included one part of the wedding sequence that was cut—this time fortunately, for it was a well-acted but misguided scene with Wesley Crusher) but some full scenes are notable. The first is introduced by Patrick Stewart, who calls it “an important scene” between Picard and Data that early on set up major themes of the movie. (If memory serves, Stewart talked about this scene in a pre-release talk show appearance as well.)

There’s a useful scene in sick bay that gives the neglected Gates McFadden another moment, and allows Picard to bookend something he said to Shinzon when he asked if Picards were always warriors. “I think of myself as an explorer,” Picard replied. In this scene he recalls that when Charles Darwin went on his voyage of biological exploration, his ship sailed “without a single musket.” “That was another time,” Crusher says gently, pocketing a phaser. “How far we’ve come,” Picard replies, ruefully and pointedly.

The final cut includes one scene of group mourning for Data. Deleted was another scene—a very TNG scene-- in which Geordi and Worf are in Data’s quarters, examining and packing up what he left behind—and Data’s cat Spot adopts Worf.

But the most conspicuous loss is the scene that was supposed to end the movie. Its the last few moments on the Enterprise bridge for Riker, now leaving to become Captain of the Titan, and the introduction of the new First Officer with a Riker prank. Captain Picard gets a new command chair—with seatbelts. “It’s about time,” he says, and so say we all.

Then we see the movie end the way Star Trek films properly end: with the Enterprise warping into space, bound for where no one has gone before. Instead Nemesis ends with a shot of the Enterprise still in space dock, an unfortunate metaphor for the impact of this film.

J.M. Dillard’s novelization of Nemesis includes these deleted scenes in her narrative. The result is a more satisfying Star Trek story, especially since it exposes fewer of the story’s problems. But my response to the scenes as filmed and cut was that, not only would it have been a better movie with most of them included, but as scenes they were better than some that made the final cut.

All of these possible reasons for less than enthusiastic responses to Nemesis are responses to the movie itself, and so require that the movie be seen first. None of them explains the conspicuous mystery of the film’s relative failure to attract the usual proportion of fans to the opening weekend, so Nemesis was in some ways a failure before anyone had actually seen it.

When I began this series of posts on the first ten Star Trek movies (The Trekalog) way too long ago, I described a little of what it was like to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture in a movie theatre in 1979 with an early audience (as I did): the anticipation, the cheers as each major character was first seen—including the Enterprise. This set a pattern of long lines and enthusiastic fans to greet each new film’s first showings.

In December 2002, I saw the very first showing of Star Trek Nemesis at my local theatre in a far northern California college town. It was in the afternoon—not the midnight show that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets got in some places in November, or that The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers would have the very next weekend after Nemesis.

Besides me, there were all of four people in the seats when Nemesis began that afternoon, and when it ended. I knew two of them from seeing them around and exchanging greetings when we passed. One had a disability that isolated him (for awhile he had to wear something that made him look like that 22^nd century soldier in the TNG pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint,” which he no doubt realized.) The other was the most conspicuous cross-dresser in town. I note this not to disrespect them (quite the opposite), but to recognize that from first to last, Star Trek found some of its most fervently committed fans among such outsiders.  But on that afternoon, we were alone.

In terms of numbers in the seats, Star Trek Nemesis didn’t start out quite that badly across the country, but it was the first Star Trek movie not to win its opening weekend, and its direct competition wasn’t formidable. Eventually it would be one of the least popular of the Trekalog, and least liked by critics. But it was also somewhat mysteriously ignored even before anyone saw the actual movie.

“...nobody came to see it,” producer Rick Berman is quoted as saying in the second volume of The Fifty Year Mission by Altman and Gross. “It wasn’t even a question of not getting good reviews. Any Star Trek movie opened and it would have a huge opening weekend, but this one didn’t. Now, why? I understand and appreciate the criticism of the production or script, but to this day, I have some difficulty understanding why it met with such a poor reception.”

At the time, the most repeated reasons involved the competition from Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, and the “franchise fatigue” that seemed to contribute to the early demise of the “Star Trek: Enterprise” series on television a few years later. There was also a sense that Paramount essentially subverted this film with weak marketing and perhaps deliberately fateful placement in the release schedule. But by the time Nemesis got to the international market, that direct scheduling competition didn’t exist (as Berman also acknowledged), and the film didn’t do well there either.

All of that pertains mostly to the general public. Why didn’t the fans show up? A lot of the diehard fans probably did that first weekend, there just weren’t as many of them. Many who might have been Star Trek fans had perhaps moved on to other sagas. But there was also a new factor in fandom in 2002: the Star Trek fan sites and their “bulletin boards” (or BBS.)

The two big ones then were Star Trek Today (which went online in 1999) and TrekWeb (around the same time.) I was reading both of them in the pre-Nemesis period, and I was a BBS participant. Looking back, I’d say at least two trends still noticeable in fandom today more or less began then.

The first was increasingly fan attention to “the biz” aspects: movie and TV budgets, studio politics, etc. There were still threads in which participants discussed the deeper meaning of individual episodes or movies, both current and past, and why Star Trek spoke to them—something that I find is rare these days, if not quaint. But there was more and more talk of promotion budgets, movie grosses and TV ratings.

The second was a kind of negativity, a virtual competition for attention-getting nastiness and outrageous assertions. There was also a growing sector of far right fandom on the boards, very different from the fandom that attended conventions and still championed the Roddenberry ideals. (Star Wars also had such fans, who rooted for the Empire to win.)

The Internet had already become a source of early information about the films still in production, including posting the entire script of Star Trek: Insurrection before its release. But these new sites made such information and speculation even more widespread, so there were debates about scenes, characters and plot points expected in Nemesis well before anyone had seen a frame of the finished film.

Rumors about Nemesis— known at first as Star Trek X—began on this sites some three years before release. At various times the director was said to be Josh Whedon, Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton. Outlines of the actual Nemesis plot were known more than a year ahead.

There was a lot of sustained and insistent negativity not only about Nemesis but about Star Trek: Enterprise, and those in charge of Star Trek—Paramount as well as Rick Berman. Perhaps this somewhat represented the views of a more general public, or of many Star Trek fans. Or perhaps it represented the views of only certain fans—and certain kinds of fans—that found an outlet and identity on the BBS.

It wasn’t all negative. Though the negativity was my enduring impression, I actually kept some pages about Nemesis from these sites, and there was also positive sentiment—including a lot of anticipation for the film’s release. Still, the debates and the expectations—both positive and negative—went on for months before that release. Did the movie itself become irrelevant?

In any case, the tepid box office and general grousing response to Nemesis was part of a larger dissatisfaction. By 2004, Star Trek: Enterprise was getting a lot of grief on the fan sites, and UPN—Paramount’s ill-fated attempt to start a cable channel—moved it to Friday nights, the well-known graveyard of the original series Star Trek, in what would predictably turn out to be its final season.

I visited the Star Trek: Enterprise set that summer of 2004 as part of my New York Times article about the ongoing Farewell to Scotty convention and the talk that Star Trek was dying. At one point I was in the shotgun seat of one of the electric carts studio people used to travel across the Paramount lot. Manny Coto, that year’s new showrunner for Enterprise, was in the back seat. Our driver was careening around and had to make a sudden stop to avoid a collision. “I have never understood the human predilection,” said I, “for piloting vehicles at unsafe velocities.”

Manny Coto laughed. “So you’re a fan,” he said. I’d paraphrased Data’s line from Nemesis, as Captain Picard sped his ATV across an alien desert.

Now I realize this is the only line I even half-remember from this movie. Unlike just about any other Star Trek movie you can name, I can think of no memorable lines associated with memorable moments. And as DeForrest Kelley once sagely pointed out, Star Trek movies are made of special moments.

Coto was upbeat about Star Trek’s future that day. But for my article I spoke with Leonard Nimoy, LeVar Burton, Denise Crosby (whose second “Trekkies” film had just come out) and others, including writer Nick Sagan and the president of a large Star Trek fan organization, and they all said more or less the same thing: maybe it’s time to give Star Trek a rest. There had been two and sometime three series running simultaneously for years, and new movies every few years. There was a sense that both creators and audiences were exhausted and, if not oversaturated, at least no longer hungry for Star Trek stories.

My article quoted UPN’s president denying he would do what he soon did: cancel “Enterprise” after four seasons. Even afterwards Rick Berman was still insisting plans for the next movie were being discussed—not John Logan’s proposed story bringing the captains of the Roddenberry-Berman era together, but the approach Paramount had wanted before Nemesis: a brand new crew unrelated to the prior ones.

Soon that project was abandoned as well, Berman disappeared (as did UPN), and the people who had been making every aspect of Star Treks for a generation were scattered. The original Roddenberry lineage was effectively broken.

For years, fans mourned the loss of a better exit for the TNG crew than Nemesis. And then, nearly 20 years later it miraculously happened. The third season of the limited series Star Trek: Picard (ten episodes in the new world of streaming) reunited the crew—and the Enterprise D—in a new adventure. The magnificent seven all got their stories—including at long last Doctor Crusher. Since there were also links to a future (like the next generation of the Next Generation), fans were left wanting more. But if--as seems very likely-- it is the last we’ll see of the Next Generation, these episodes are a fitting end.

Picard3: Many Happy Returns

The final season of Star Trek: Picard has been widely and deservedly praised as a triumph.  It certainly seemed to be the most self-assured of the three seasons.  Producer, writer and director Terry Matalas infused this new form of the 10 episode series with elements of the old movie serials, complete with cliffhanger endings.  But he also provided a couple of episodes that ended in temporary resolution, so the audience could catch its breath. This series had some pacing—difficult in a (roughly) ten hour movie chopped up into ten pieces a week apart.  Matalas pulls together all the strands of the story in a finale that is complete and satisfying.  (It is described beautifully, for example, by Jim Moorhouse at Trekcore.)

 I still maintain that despite intentions to aim this series towards adults, it’s inevitably going to get younger viewers, f-bombs and all.  Still, while several moments of violence were shocking, they were within conventional bounds and unlikely to be traumatic.

 Matalas said his goal was to provide the Next Generation characters with the send-off that their last feature didn’t give them—partly because they didn’t know it was their last feature.  That was Star Trek Nemesis in 2002, written by John Logan, who impressed the cast with his fanboy knowledge of Star Trek, and directed by Stuart Baird who impressed them with his willful ignorance.  Logan apparently had a thing for Counselor Troi, with unfortunate results.  This time, Matalas focused on Doctor Crusher, in a very different way and with much better effect.

 Gates McFadden has been a real soldier for Star Trek, gamely decorating the movies with little to do, while thoughtfully articulating the Star Trek ethos whenever asked. If you believe a little scene in Jeff Greenwald’s book Future Perfect in which Brannon Braga dismisses her phone message suggestion for First Contact, she didn’t get a lot of respect from the higher ups.  Yet elsewhere in that book she’s very articulate about the core—the soul—of Star Trek.  She seems to have been an underused resource, and it’s great to see her character given so much substance and power in this series.

 All the acting is outstanding in this third series, in general and within this context: actors who haven’t played the character in 20 years finding the differences they can play that still work within the characters they established, and first-time actors, especially Ed Speelers, creating convincing characters that fit.  Jonathan Frakes, who hasn’t acted much in recent years, comes across relaxed and genuine as a seasoned, sassier Riker.

  

 Brent Spiner has tour de force moments as the new Data, while Patrick Stewart, Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd of the Picard cast from prior seasons have exceptional moments as well. Scenes between Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden, and between Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis, are rightly lauded for their economy and power. 

It was great to hear the voices of Majel Roddenberry and Walter Koenig in Star Trek again, as well as classic Star Trek musical themes, and—well, there’s a YouTube video that shows emotional fan response to the bridge crew on the Enterprise-D—the (next to) final big reveal that the series managed to keep a surprise. 

Much has been made of the “conflict” between these familiar characters as they were introduced in this series, as different from the past when they didn’t conflict.  It’s worth going a little deeper into that.

 For not all “conflict” is the same. In a drama (especially melodrama), conflict among characters usually means real opposition and intent to do harm, with at least one character driven by suspicion, ambition, envy, jealousy, vengeance, desire, fear etc.; racial/ethnic/gender/class hostility or just personal animosity.  These characters often engage in deceit, intimidation, subterfuge and scheming against others, if not overt violence. Characters actively or passively do harm through manipulation, bullying, subversion, or any number of other destructive behaviors, often driven by unexamined and unconscious forces.

  None of that applies to the TNG characters in these episodes, even though they made different choices responding to different experiences over the years of their separation, and even if during the episodes they engage in disagreements that they may not have actively pursued before (or then again, they may have). 

The kinds of conflict seen in Picard were seen in the TNG series, including marital or other relationship troubles (though perhaps not so often among the senior officers.)  Wherever conflicts at the level of problems occurred, they were solved the same way: through recognizing them and talking them out.  That happens again in this year of Picard.

 The Roddenberry-mandated lack of the first kinds of conflict among the main characters in Star Trek was meaningful: it said that in the future, a diverse group of individuals will have achieved the degree of self-awareness to step back from their own emotions and see their actions or feelings from a different perspective, and they will have the concepts and vocabulary to engage in solving these problems.  And by the 24^th century, they will have a ship’s counselor to help them through these processes. (If there was no conflict between or within members of the crew, the counselor would be unnecessary.)

 For example, one of the major conflicts of Star Trek: First Contact was Captain Picard’s obsession with hurting the Borg that distorted his judgment and behavior.  It was internal conflict, but it took a literary parallel to give him the perspective to see it. But he did see it, and changed.

 What’s necessary for these conflicts to be resolved is self-respect and respecting others.  From the original series onward, the evident fact that people on Star Trek treated each other with respect was one element that attracted fans who did not see people respecting them or each other in their real lives. As Dave Marinaccio discovered when he was researching his book All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek, this revelation actually changed lives.

 The TNG characters had a long history of respecting each other so that they trusted each other absolutely, and that made it possible for problems arising from divergent choices to be resolved in Picard. (Parenthetically, had these characters not respected each other for seven years, I wonder if the actors playing them would have become as close for as long as they did?)

 There was another reason for Star Trek characters to treat each other with respect in the Roddenberry canon: they needed to work together in service of a larger whole: the ship, Starfleet, the Federation and ultimately all life in the galaxy.  Even aboard a ship of exploration and peace, the Enterprise crew had to guide their actions according to the integrity of others and the welfare of the whole.  That was their sworn priority.

 And this isn’t just a matter of math, of the needs of the many.  It’s about defining and then defending the whole and its integrity—that which ultimately we are part of.  In the fictional 23^rd and 24^th and 25^th centuries of starships and life among the stars, it is the galaxy.  For us in the 21^st century it is the Earth.  We have the power to help heal the Earth we have unknowingly been destroying.  But now we know, even though the harm still goes on, and we know it is self-destruction.  At the same time, we learn something new every day from science or other branches of knowledge that it is the integrity of the whole that supports us.  Addressing the global threat needs to be our priority.

 The final episode of Picard3 had moments of adventure movie ebullience: the reaction to Doctor Crusher’s sharpshooting, Data using the Force to find the Borg target.  But it was brilliant also in showing the price these characters were willing to pay to defend the whole.

 Ever since the filmmakers of the 70s became old enough to be parents (and to get divorced), defending the family became the unquestioned prime motivation in movies, including science fiction. Several major villains in Star Trek movies were avenging the deaths of their wives.  Yet Counselor Troi had to decide to sacrifice her husband, Doctor Crusher her son. Picard’s journey had taken him unexpectedly to find completion as a father, and he was willing to sacrifice himself for that, but not at the cost of the whole. 

Saving the galaxy may be a kind of Star Trek cliché (“I take it the odds are against us and the situation is grim,” said Nexus Kirk in Generations,) a kind of cosmic MacGuffin.  But slowing things down to suggest the real costs and consequences re-centers Star Trek on an element of what it is about and why it was different. 

 At the same time, the story in this third series suggests consequences of the Federation’s questionable past decisions, specifically from the DS9 and Voyager eras.  This series confirmed that (as portrayed in post-9/11 Star Trek novels) the Federation engaged in torture. I was glad to hear Picard say that the Dominion War was a "travesty." The consequences depicted here have their real world counterparts in the modern history of terrorism and war, as elsewhere in history.  Even in the 90s, as the Star Trek saga started to sprawl, its stories driven not by those who had seen war but who had seen a lot of war movies, it began to lose focus.  The overwhelmingly positive response to this season suggests that the TOS and particularly the TNG era are still the heart and soul of Star Trek.

That Star Trek deals with our contemporary issues doesn't mean it replicates the contemporary world in one-to-one correspondences.  Quite the opposite: it shows consequences, and it offers alternatives.  Star Trek similarly can comment on war and conflict by illustrating the skills of peace and conflict resolution.

(However, a little sly commentary on our society is also part of the Trek tradition--and I wonder if there wasn't some of that in the ability of the Borg to turn the young into zombies by connecting them to a central control--maybe like a viral technology we already know, via the phones everyone bows to and holds up to their faces all the time?  And that they needed the old people with their skepticism, individuality and old technology?  Nothing that blatant, of course.)

 Critics (including some writers for Trek) complained that the Roddenberry rules concerning conflict and human nature aren’t realistic, perhaps forgetting that Star Trek posits faster than light travel to meet up with dozens of alien civilizations comprised of people who look like us with some added facial appliances, and are so similar that we can exchange recipes and interbreed. 

 Is all that more realistic than people using skills, heart and consciousness to solve problems? This is science fiction—a believable branch of fantasy, wonder tales, allegory and myth that operates on a different level to open minds to new possibilities—such as what a more hopeful future might necessarily look like. 

 At this, no Star Trek has done better than The Next Generation.  Picard3 was less conceptual than character-driven, but it supported the Star Trek vision through these characters, and especially through the continuity as well as the changes in the characters with history enacted over scores of stories and hundreds of hours.  Revisiting these characters as they are decades later, with their history, was unique.  So far...

R.I.P. 2022 Star Trek Family

 

Star Trek lost one of its brightest stars in 2022.  I wrote about Nichelle Nichols here.

In a stellar career, British actor David Warner appeared on screen in two Star Trek movies (notably as Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI) and one memorable episode of TNG.  He also appeared in a 2013 episode of Doctor Who, and as a voice actor, played roles in various Star Trek, Doctor Who (playing the Doctor) and Star Wars audio productions and games, and numerous other franchise, as well as other science fiction (especially playing Jack the Ripper in Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time) and dramatic roles.  He was an accomplished stage actor, and his 1965 Hamlet is still considered the definitive Hamlet of his generation.  

Sally Kellerman was a guest star in the second Star Trek pilot, which then became an episode in its first season, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."  She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the film M*A*S*H.

Kirstie Alley played Vulcan Lt. Saavik in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  She had an Emmy-winning career on television as well as roles in feature films.

Louise Fletcher played Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adani in a number of later episodes of Deep Space Nine.  She won an Academy Award for her performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and was nominated for two Emmy awards for her work in the TV series Picket Fences. 

Prominent movie actor and award-winning stage actor Paul Sorvino appeared in a 7th season episode of TNG, "Homeward" as Worf's brother Nikolai.

At the age of 104, Marsha Hunt was the oldest of the Star Trek actors to pass away in 2022.  After a Hollywood career beginning in the late 1930s, and a period sidelined by the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950s, she appeared in one episode of TNG, "Too Short A Season."   

Douglas Trumbull was a pioneer genius in visual effects, adding Star Trek: The Motion Picture to his innovative work on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and many more.  He also directed movies, including the cult classic Silent Running.

Harold Livingston was the credited screenwriter for ST: TMP.  He had previously worked on the Star Trek: Phase Two series that was never made, in favor of the Motion Picture. Tony Dow, famous for portraying Wally Cleaver on TV, directed an episode of DS9.  Esteemed science fiction writer Greg Bear wrote a series of Star Trek novels.  Among his many novels is the s/f classic Darwin's Radio.  Veteran and multiple Emmy Award-winning director Marvin Chomsky directed a Star Trek episode.  Although he never acted in Star Trek, Ray Boyle appeared in the 1952 movie serial Zombies of the Stratosphere with Leonard Nimoy.  His many subsequent TV roles included parts in Captain Video and numerous westerns.  He was 98.

Kathyrn Hayes as "The Empath" TOS 

Among the actors and others from the Star Trek family who died in 2022: Brad William Henke, Tim McCormack, Ralph Maurer, Eric Whitmore, Laurel Goodwin, Kirk Bailey, Michael Ryan, Kathyrn Hayes, Valora Noland, Estelle Harris, Nehemiah Persoff, James Bama, David Birney, Neal Adams, Michael G. Hagerty, Marvin Hicks, Robert Brown, Fabio Passaro, Leslie Jordan, Andrew Prine, William Knight, John Aniston, Maggie Thrett,

 

Pamela Kosh TNG

Pamela Kosh, Gary Bullock, Kenneth Welsh, George Perez, Jack Kehler, Gregory Jein, Michael Braveheart, Leon Harris, Webster Whitney, Walter Soo Hoo, Dorothy Duden, Mary Mara, Mike Reynolds, Gregory Itzin, Neil Vipond, Gene Le Bell, Wayne Grace, Amanda Mackey Johnson, visual effects artist Richard Miller.

Bernard Cribbins with David Tenant

The Doctor Who family lost veteran and much beloved comic actor Bernard Cribbins, who had a featured role opposite David Tenant and Catherine Tate in series 4 and the Tenant specials, recently voted by fans as the best season of revived (21st century) Doctor Who.  Cribbins apparently reprised the part for next year's 60th anniversary season, though it's not known if his performance will appear.  He was 93.

Other members of the Doctor Who family who died in 2022 included writer Henry Lincoln (the last surviving writer of the 1960s seasons), designer Spencer Chapman, and BBC vision mixer Shirley Coward who devised the original regeneration effect.  Also actors David Warner (who not only appeared in a Matt Smith TV episode but played the Doctor in audio dramas), Jeremy Young, Ann Davies, Sonny Caldinez, June Brown, Lynda Baron, Jane Sherwin and Stewart Bevan. 

May they rest in peace.  Their work lives on.

Revisiting TNG "Journey's End"

I am revisiting the TNG seventh season episode “Journey’s End” for several reasons.  The most obvious and proximate is Wesley Crusher’s brief scene in the final episode of Star Trek: Picard’s second season, his first official reappearance since this TNG episode, some 28 years previously.  (His very different kind of moment in the 2002 feature film Star Trek Nemesis wound up on the cutting room floor, and in discarded scenes special features.)

 The second reason is that the story of “Journey’s End” relates to the story of the ninth Star Trek feature film, which is next on my list to write about in this site’s way too longstanding “Trekalog” series.

 But the third reason is the most compelling: I’ve always wanted to write about it, because contrary to other opinions, this is one of my favorite TNG episodes, especially as it informs this site’s theme of the soul of Star Trek.

 “Journey’s End” came late in The Next Generation’s final season, when elements that would be important in the ongoing Deep Space 9 series, and the upcoming Star Trek: Voyager were shoehorned into TNG stories, not always to their benefit.  So this episode featured Cardassians—major DS9 villains—and established the existence of Native American settlers in Cardassian space, anticipating Voyager.

 The episode title primarily applies to Wesley Crusher, whose TNG journey began with the first episode, when as a 14 or15 year old boy (played, as he always would be, by Wil Wheaton), he was accompanying his mother, Doctor Beverly Crusher, in her new assignment, living on the new starship Enterprise-D. When this story begins (six years later), he is in his final year at Starfleet Academy.  

 The title can also be applied to the group of North American Indians, whose search for a new planetary home had ended after two centuries on the remote world called Dorvan Five.  But because of the new peace treaty between the Federation and the Cardassians, Dorvan Five was to be no longer a Federation planet but under Cardassian jurisdiction.  The Indians would be required to leave this new home for another. These two superpowers determined that their journey had not ended--until they come together to allow it.

 The Indians' journey to a new home remains over, but in a sense a new journey begins: the Indians under Cardassian rule. And after ending one journey Wesley begins another with the Traveler—which eventually leads him to becoming a Traveler himself, and to return to Earth to also recruit a new member. 

“Journey’s End” begins with Cadet Wesley Crusher visiting the Enterprise-D for a school break. His mother Dr. Beverly Crusher escorts him to the new separate quarters he requested. He is welcomed by Geordi and Data, but barely manages to say what he believes they want to hear, and the scene ends with him sitting alone on his bed, isolated and uncertain.

  Admiral Necheyev also arrives on board the Enterprise to meet with Captain Picard.  She shows him the new borders of Federation and Cardassian space resulting from three years of negotiation as part of their peace treaty. 

According to the treaty, several planets switch governances and colonists must relocate.  One of these is Dorvan Five, settled 20 years before after a long search by a group of North American Indians, who left Earth to preserve their culture.  Picard immediately sees a problem in historical context.  “You see, Admiral, there are some very disturbing historical parallels here.  Once more, they’re being asked to leave their homes because of a political decision that has been taken by a distant government.”

 In fact, virtually all American Indian peoples had been driven from their ancestral lands, none more dramatically than the five tribes, including the Cherokee, forced in the mid-19^th century to walk across the country from the Southeast to the West, leading to thousands of deaths in what became known as The Trail of Tears.

 The Federation is aware of this, it was debated but ultimately the decision was made “for the greater good,” the Admiral says.  It will be up to Picard to persuade the Indians to leave (with promise of aid in finding another planet) or, failing that, to forcibly remove them—also a painful part of American Indian historical experience, as Picard knows. 

Meanwhile Wesley’s repressed emotions boil over in an ugly scene with Geordi in engineering, a combination of undergraduate sneering at elders’ supposed old-fashioned ideas, and a late adolescent snit.  Beverly learns that his Academy grades have been falling, that he’d been moody and distracted.  He would later admit that he’d been depressed.

 Picard and Counselor Troi meet with an Indian council to get them to agree to relocation but the parties seem to be talking past each other.  Troi points out that there are three other nearby planets with similar environmental conditions.  But Anthwara, the council leader, speaks of other “more intangible concerns.” “When I came here twenty years ago, I was welcomed by the mountains, the rivers, the sky…This planet holds a deep spiritual significance for us.  It has taken us two centuries to find this place.  We do not want to spend another two hundred years searching for what we already have.”

   They agree to reconvene the next day, and Picard invites them to a reception on the Enterprise that evening. At the reception, Anthwara asks Picard to tell him about his ancestral family, for ancestors are very important to his people.  “They guide us, even now.”

 Wesley arrives late and meets Lakanta, an Indian who tells him that two years before he had a vision that Wesley would come to Dorvan Five. “I know why you came to us, Wesley.  To find the answers that you seek.”  

 Wesley beams down to the surface and is met by Lakanta, who asks Wesley what is sacred to him.  But that concept is not part of Wesley’s world.  “Look around you,” Laconta says.  “What do you think is sacred to us here?”  Wesley guesses Laconta’s necklace, and designs on a building wall.

 “Everything is sacred to us,” Laconta says.  “The buildings, the food, the sky, the dirt beneath your feet. And you.  Whether you believe in your spirit or not, we believe in it.  You are a sacred person here, Wesley….So if you are sacred, then you must treat yourself with respect.”

 Wesley responds that no one has ever told him he was sacred, but admits that he’s been lacking in self-respect lately.  Laconta sees this as a sign that Wesley is ready for his own vision quest.

 Some viewers have denigrated what Laconta said as a Hollywood version of Indian spirituality.  This episode doesn’t get everything right (and the vision quest, a real ritual in some tribes, seems to have captured the non-Native imagination.) It requires a suspension of disbelief to accept that an Indian culture would choose to leave the Earth that nurtured it, but many tribes did relocate over the centuries for one reason or another, even before Europeans showed up. The ceremonial space of the “Habak” where Wesley’s vision occurs is decorated with designs and objects that seem often to miss the point of real Native designs and objects, but this is partly because the real American Indian consultants to this episode did not want anything to identify a particular tribe (the original idea was a Hopi or Pueblo kiva.)

 But this key concept—that everything in the given world is sacred—is not Hollywood; historical research and contemporary accounts, including those of tribal members, affirm that it is central to Indigenous beliefs among peoples across North America and Central America.  It is as well a core concept in Buddhism. It is moreover a major moment in Star Trek, because it runs counter to the assumptions of our technological civilization—but might be another way to express a key value in Star Trek, especially TNG.

 Laconta makes another important point in a seemingly casual way that is true to today’s Native peoples.  Wesley notes that in the Habak collection of ceremonial figures (similar to Kachinas) is one that looks Klingon.  Laconta laughs, and acknowledged that it is.  “Our culture is rooted in the past,” he says, “but it’s not limited to the past.” This is something that non-Natives often don’t realize, at least at first. 

In the Habak, perhaps under the influence of a ceremonial hallucinogen, Wesley has a vision of his father, a Starfleet officer who was killed in the line of duty when Wesley was very young.  “You’ve reached the end, Wesley,” he says. When his father died, Wesley “set out on a journey that wasn’t your own.  Now it’s time to find a path that is truly yours.”

 Wesley says he doesn’t understand.  “Yes, you do.  It’s just hard for you to accept.”

 Later, when talking to his mother, Wesley admits that the vision only crystallized what he already knew. (Recall also that in the fourth season episode “Family,” Wesley saw his father as he was when Wesley was born, in a holotape he made that Beverly had just retrieved with other possessions she’d left behind on Earth. His father mused then that Wesley might grow up to wear the Starfleet uniform.) 

 Meanwhile, the Native leader Anthwara tells Picard that one of his ancestors had participated in a brutal and bloody slaughter of southwestern American Indians, and that they believed he was sent to make amends.   Picard tries again to petition Starfleet to revisit their decision, but to no avail.  The Native villagers will not leave.  Picard orders Worf to make plans for their removal via the transporter.

  But the situation on the planet has become more complicated with the premature arrival of Cardassians to conduct a survey of the buildings and other resources they will inherit.

 When Wesley leaves the Habak, he sees Worf preparing the beam-out.  He shouts out a warning to the villagers to resist.  The Starfleet team is forced to return to the ship.

 Captain Picard is livid in his confrontation with Wesley, but Wesley calmly tells him, “What you’re doing down there is wrong.  These people are not some random group of colonists.  They’re a unique culture with a history that predates the Federation and Starfleet.”

 Picard responds, “this does not alter the fact that my orders are to—“

 “I know Admiral Necheyev gave you an order, and she was given an order from the Federation Council.  But it’s still wrong.”

 This speech will echo in the future, but this time Picard tells Wesley he must follow orders as long as he is in Starfleet, and Wesley tells him he is resigning.

 Before a shocked Picard can respond, he must meet with the Cardassian Gul Evek.  It is at this point that Wesley explains to his mother how the vision revealed what he had already known, that his path did not include Starfleet.  She then remembers the Traveler telling Captain Picard that Wesley “was destined for something quite different from the rest of us.”  But at this point, his new direction isn’t clear. 

Meanwhile, villagers have taken some Cardassians prisoner, and things are moving swiftly towards an armed confrontation between the Cardassians and the Enterprise, which would lead to a resumption of war.  Wesley is on the surface when a villager and a Cardassian are struggling over a weapon, and a Cardassian is hit.  Wesley shouts “No!”—and everything stops.

 Across the frozen tableau, Laconta strides towards Wesley.  “You pulled yourself out of time,” he tells Wesley.  “You took the first step…to another plane of existence, another way of thinking…You’ve found a new beginning for yourself. The first step on a journey that few humans will ever undertake.” 

Laconta then reveals himself as the Traveler, who offers to take Wesley with him.  “You’ve evolved to a new level—you’re ready to explore places where thought and energy combine in ways you can’t even imagine.  And I will be your guide, if you would like.”  

 They leave, with the Dorvan Five situation unresolved. The Traveler tells Wesley to have faith in the others’ ability to solve things on their own. “They must find their own destinies.”

 After Picard pleads with him not to restart the horrors of war, Gul Evek pulls back from confrontation.  An arrangement is made for the Native villagers to remain on Dorvan Five, but under Cardassian jurisdiction. Anthwara believes Picard has “wiped clean a very old stain of blood.” 

The final scene is Wesley’s transporter room sendoff by Doctor Crusher and Captain Picard. “Where will you go?” Picard asks. “The Traveler said that my studies would begin with these people,” meaning the Natives on Dorvan Five.  “He said that they’re aware of many things.  I can learn a lot from them.” 

 After emotional goodbyes, his transporter trace ends with a benevolent smile, and Beverly and Picard leave together, mother and father-figure, with the prospect of never seeing their son again on his unimaginable journey.

 Though Laconta and the Traveler seemingly being the same person complicates things, that the Traveler has Wesley begin his explorations with this Native culture is also a major moment: a further acknowledgement of the legitimacy, the importance, of their very different knowledge and point of view.

Star Trek crews explore the universe with high technology, and they meet other technological species. But from the beginning, the Star Trek universe has included beings that defy the science upon which those technologies are based.  They reflect aspects of reality that these sciences don’t touch.  Each contact with another culture raises questions of ethics and principle, and causes them to reevaluate their sense of themselves and their place in the universe.

 Similarly, Star Trek ships are crewed by individuals responsible for using and maintaining that technology. Their jobs require technical skill and knowledge, and often enough, technical creativity and brilliance. But beginning especially aboard the Enterprise-D of the Next Generation, many of those individuals explore other aspects of their inner beings, through music, art, books, drama, dance as well as spiritual pursuits and engaging with animals and plants. 

 They explore history and archaeology, engage in rituals, and explore their minds through psychology and meditation.  They confront ethical questions, both in relation to other species and each other.  They pursue relationships and confront elements of their past relationships, including family. They do so individually and in groups, and they support each other’s endeavors.  In other words, they take care of the machinery, but they also cultivate soul.

 This is what has set Star Trek apart from other space opera.  Star Trek takes another step in this episode by recognizing a way of seeing and experiencing reality different from the technological and sometimes technocratic premises and practices of the dominant culture, by a culture with more ancient roots on Earth.

 It would not be the last time a Star Trek story explored cultures with such beliefs—these became more common in DS9 and Voyager.  The results were mixed and arguably superficial, but they were acknowledgements. 

 In this episode, however, a particular move is made: the core beliefs of Native Americans and many Indigenous peoples is linked to the realities beyond scientific knowledge and mindset, the unimaginable “levels of existence” known to the Traveler—and that Q on occasion suggested to Picard. 

 This is daring, and causes a certain amount of disbelief, resentment and even anger among some Star Trek viewers.   Yet it is a vital contribution to the soul of Star Trek.

Moreover, among Native peoples these beliefs have motivated practical care for life and the Earth that is the basis for ecology. Today's Native tribes often practice sound ecological science on their tribal lands, and several are taking on responsibility in managing national parks and forests, because of their commitment and expertise.  These sciences and these transcendent beliefs coexist. 

 It is worth noting that this episode aired in early 1994. Beginning in 1992, the 500^th anniversary of the first voyage of Columbus to the New World, there was an unprecedented degree of attention to the history, arts, literature, beliefs and contemporary lives of the Native American peoples who had been living in that New World for thousands of years. 

 The relevance of these beliefs to the plight of the planet Earth became more recognized, as did the sometimes uncomfortable relationships of some Indigenous beliefs to ideas implied by the most advanced physics. 

  This episode, like others from the seventh season (for instance, “Phantams,” “Parallels,” “Genesis” and “All Good Things) and before (such as “Inner Light,” “Darmok,” “Transfigurations” and “Where No One Has Gone Before,” the first season episode in which the Traveler and Wesley meet) broke ground that led to later Trek explorations as well as the many time-dilation and multiverse stories of today.  But this episode stands out in suggesting that societies with advanced technology (historically based on heedless destruction of the natural world) are not innately superior to so-called primitive cultures—that it is not a question of a linear “superior” versus “inferior” civilization, or a sense of evolution as “progress” towards high technology. 

 Granted it is only a suggestion: there is not much depth in this episode.  Profound ideas can sound trite without context or relationship.  But the basics—the sense of sacredness of nature and community, and the consequent attitudes of respect and connection—are correctly if simply stated.  By definition the sacred is not to be disrespected, dishonored or carelessly exploited.  

This is also the respect for life that is at the center of many TNG episodes—be it alien life of a previously unencountered kind, or sentience in machines.  There are hints that this respect extends to environments, though the issue of self-destructive exploitation arises too seldom.  In this regard, I note one of the special features to the latest TNG movie collection that discusses the villains in Star Trek features.  Towards the end when villains of 9 of the first 10 features were described, writer and director Nicholas Meyer asks, Who is the villain in Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home?.. "It’s us.” 

 It is human beings who hunted the whales to near extinction.  There are Native peoples who traditionally hunted whales, but they consider them sacred, so they take only what they need, with respect and rituals of appreciation.  This is just one aspect of these cultures that mitigates against hunting whales to extinction, or otherwise destroying their environment for future generations.  The respect for life--and our planetary life support--is more than logical (at least in human terms.)  It is a profound outcome of a certain understanding of the universe.

In “Journey’s End,” the two journeys that end and begin again will eventually be joined by a third new journey, when Captain Picard faces a situation very similar to what he found on Dorvan Five, but makes a very different decision.  That’s the subject of the third TNG feature film, Star Trek: Insurrection.

Thanks to Trekcore for screencap images.