those damn hippies
- Thread starter hifijohn
- Start date
Yet I never thought anything else. The episode is full of discussions about how the legend of Eden could be true, they allude to the Bible, and they don't say a word about any other, future legend that we'd have to be told about.
If memory serves. 
Hence I added the theory of a 23rd century legend to my head canon to make the premise less preposterous.
I once read a fan Trek chronology which proposed that the amazingly beautiful planet (nicknamed Eden) was discovered in the 22nd Century, prior to the Romulan war. The records of the planet were partially lost during the war. The Romulans caused the changes to the planet's ecosystem in order to prevent it's use by the humans, hence why the hippies knew nothing about this when the rediscovered it.
That's a great theory, Mytran!
JB
JB
Not my theory! It was all in that chronology, but I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it!
Not for one second did I ever think they were saying the original Eden was this planet. Why? Because (1) They don't say this, and (2) I know that ST isn't written by crazy people.
Even with the wildest s3 episodes, there is a certain standard. One could decide to interpret it that way, but respecting Trek as I do, I don't. Granted, they don't go out of their way to establish that it isn't original Eden. That's the sloppy part.
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But since I know Eden's not a planet, I look for another way to interpret it. Apparently over centuries, an Eden legend has built up. It may be a more generic Eden-like idea. Most cultures may have their Eden.
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It's possible the writer meant it to be the Eden. Let's ignore that possibility...
Even with the wildest s3 episodes, there is a certain standard. One could decide to interpret it that way, but respecting Trek as I do, I don't. Granted, they don't go out of their way to establish that it isn't original Eden. That's the sloppy part.
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But since I know Eden's not a planet, I look for another way to interpret it. Apparently over centuries, an Eden legend has built up. It may be a more generic Eden-like idea. Most cultures may have their Eden.
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It's possible the writer meant it to be the Eden. Let's ignore that possibility...
Yeah, I never got the impression that anybody in that episode believed that they were literally going to the Garden mentioned in the Bible. It was, as noted, just another mythological/literary reference of the sort Trek is fond of: like the Genesis Device or "The Paradise Syndrome" or whatever. When Khan implies that he would rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, he's not literally asking Kirk to beam him down to Hades.
Heck, even in real life, lots of planets and moons take their names from classical mythology. Doesn't mean that anybody believes that Pluto is actually the realm of the dead or whatever . . ...
What else are you going to call a fabled paradise planet except "Eden" or "Shangri-La" or "Elysia" or something like that?
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Maybe they got a planet. Kirk likes giving planets to murderous types. (Khan. The Kelvans )Kirk was very forgiving - Lenore, Lester, damn hippies.
Sevrin's old job was being the brutal dictator hiding behind a drugged out puppet.
Nah, that was Julian Clegg with a toupee! 
JB
JB
I could imagine it actually being an abandoned ancient (by human standards) Romulan bioweapon research cultivation base. They genetically altered/bred plants to produce toxins and biological weaponry, but abandoned it years ago.
"in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die". (though granted, in the Bible, it was a spiritual death - Adam of old didn't drop dead with one bite) Maybe somebody named it Eden sarcastically because a crew member from their ship died there on a chance visit. The reason for the name was forgotten and urban legends grew up around the planet.
"in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die". (though granted, in the Bible, it was a spiritual death - Adam of old didn't drop dead with one bite) Maybe somebody named it Eden sarcastically because a crew member from their ship died there on a chance visit. The reason for the name was forgotten and urban legends grew up around the planet.
I've always enjoyed the episode in general and the space hippie angle, but the "planet Eden" business never made a lick of sense. Trek was chock full of life-sustaining planets, many of them relatively virgin and lush with vegetation. What were the unique qualifications of this one planet, that caused it to become mythical?
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I heard Adama was kicked of there for moral reasons.
hmmmmm.
Nerys Myk said:
Yes, that's it! Kirk was exaggerating when he said that Talos IV was "The one forbidden world in all the galaxy". There are many other forbidden worlds in the known galaxy.
For example, all the planets in the Romulan Neutral Zone and in the Romulan Empire itself were forbidden planets, forbidden to trespass on pain of war with the mighty Romulan Empire.
Places and planets that are forbidden are alluring, forbidden fruit, making the fruit growing on the forbidden planet Eden doubly forbidden fruit. People who might have seen Eden from afar, but never been close enough to taste the forbidden (and poisonous) fruit of Eden, told ever more exaggerated stories of how wonderful the inaccessible planet was while ignoring countless other planets that were equally as good (and even better since their plant life was not deadly poisonous) because those planets were accessible and thus seemed ordinary to them.
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I think with just a bit of tweaking "Return to Eden" could have been a much more well regarded episode. I personally didn't think it was that bad.
The main problem I have with it was that the Enterprise was taken over a little too easily, the hippies being a bit too OTT, Kirk taking himself a little too seriously and the hippies being a bunch of attempted murderers. They could have easily fixed this.
The main problem I have with it was that the Enterprise was taken over a little too easily, the hippies being a bit too OTT, Kirk taking himself a little too seriously and the hippies being a bunch of attempted murderers. They could have easily fixed this.
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