Speculation On Political Themes In STXI

[tranya]

I seem to recall reading a while back that Orci & Kurtzman wanted this film to speak to the current political climate in similar ways that TOS spoke to the late 1960s. We all know the major ways TOS did that: Ethnically diverse crew, people working together hundreds of years from now, "humanity survives," etc. etc. Regardless of whether we find these early ideals to have been laudable, silly, or somewhere in-between, these political/social themes are often cited as "Roddenberry's vision" for humanity.

So, that gets me thinking -- how will this get carried out in the film, and modernized for contemporary audiences? The late 1960s was a generation ago, and if they're going to touch on anything, it seems like it will have to be resonant with recent world political events.

If the trailer and interviews with Abrams, et al. are to be believed, there's a time travel element in which Nero (Bana) and his band of tattooed Romulans go back in time, attack a Federation ship, and potentially alter the timeline. It's been speculated many times that these events are what make the alternate Trek history of this film make sense with regards to established canon -- how Pike and Kirk are serving on the same ship, why the Enterprise looks different, etc.

I go a step further and speculate that the world of the Federation we'll see is also going to be slightly different -- if, from the perspective of circa 2230something, a big, crazy, metal-tentacled ship comes out of nowhere, attacks a Starfleet ship and kills a bunch of people (then presumably disappears ago), how would the Feds react to this? Is this event going to serve as something like a September 11th analog, leading to a Federation that's trying to move beyond fear and terror?

Obviously, Enterprise tried something similar with the Xindi storyline -- a seemingly unprovoked attack, and Starfleet dealing with the repercussions. Though, given Manny Coto's well-known conservative political leanings and now they differ from Abrams, et al's, I'm sure there will be a different way of dealing with these kinds of threats in the screenplay for the new film. All we know is that the new movie's creators have stated repeatedly that they are aiming for presenting an optimistic future (contrasting it recently with Dark Knight's brooding take on similar issues), much like original Trek was.

Any opinions?

 

[dru]

It'll be one big anti-Iraq, anti-Bush, America sucks, pro Obama ad.

 

[tranya]

Wait, is there going to be a scary, scary Bill Ayers cameo and no one told me?

 

[Data Holmes]

I still wonder if the "klingons invade romulan territory" from All Good things will come into play, or if it will be the "threat" of unification with the vulcans destroying the Romulian culture... Perhaps a "continued federation presence in Romulian space"...

There are a ton of connections to modern events...

Hell, the unification movement comes to power on romulius and weakens the government/military hold on the empire... this opens a whole for the klingons to attack, launching a trilithiume torpedo into the sun of the home system... Nero is a "insurgent" against the new klingon "liberators" who gets tortured or some thing in an undisclosed klingon detention center...

He breaks out, and concotcs the TT plan to save the empire.

 

[punkydrewster]

I seem to recall reading a while back that Orci & Kurtzman wanted this film to speak to the current political climate in similar ways that TOS spoke to the late 1960s. We all know the major ways TOS did that: Ethnically diverse crew, people working together hundreds of years from now, "humanity survives," etc. etc. Regardless of whether we find these early ideals to have been laudable, silly, or somewhere in-between, these political/social themes are often cited as "Roddenberry's vision" for humanity.

So, that gets me thinking -- how will this get carried out in the film, and modernized for contemporary audiences? The late 1960s was a generation ago, and if they're going to touch on anything, it seems like it will have to be resonant with recent world political events.

If the trailer and interviews with Abrams, et al. are to be believed, there's a time travel element in which Nero (Bana) and his band of tattooed Romulans go back in time, attack a Federation ship, and potentially alter the timeline. It's been speculated many times that these events are what make the alternate Trek history of this film make sense with regards to established canon -- how Pike and Kirk are serving on the same ship, why the Enterprise looks different, etc.

I go a step further and speculate that the world of the Federation we'll see is also going to be slightly different -- if, from the perspective of circa 2230something, a big, crazy, metal-tentacled ship comes out of nowhere, attacks a Starfleet ship and kills a bunch of people (then presumably disappears ago), how would the Feds react to this? Is this event going to serve as something like a September 11th analog, leading to a Federation that's trying to move beyond fear and terror?

Obviously, Enterprise tried something similar with the Xindi storyline -- a seemingly unprovoked attack, and Starfleet dealing with the repercussions. Though, given Manny Coto's well-known conservative political leanings and now they differ from Abrams, et al's, I'm sure there will be a different way of dealing with these kinds of threats in the screenplay for the new film. All we know is that the new movie's creators have stated repeatedly that they are aiming for presenting an optimistic future (contrasting it recently with Dark Knight's brooding take on similar issues), much like original Trek was.

Any opinions?

It's good to see that other people were thinking about these things. One of the reasons I didn't like ENT was it seemed to have no message, but rather a bunch of confused, bungled attempts at talking about things that turned out to be nothing. That's when the franchise lost me. My great fear about this movie isn't that the ship isn't cannon, or that continuity will be altered but that it will be another meaningless shoot 'em up with no substance. You know, like Star Wars. No matter how awesome the effects are if the story sucks, then the story will suck. We shall see...

TOS was obviously prog/lib with messages against vietnam, racism, ect. TNG took that further by showing a society without material gain as a central goal, and depicting Starfleet more as a science/exploratory agency, with only a secondary defense aspect. TNG was downright radical and utopian. And we find that trek lost ratings when they got away from that, and towards the end of VOY started relying more on phasers and TnA. DS9 had a lot of shoot 'em stuff, but again there was usually a thoughtful message about the nature of war.

The only Abrams thing I'm familiar with is Cloverfield, and as far as message goes that really didn't do much for me. There were a lot of images and scenes in Cloverfield that were deliberately evocative of 9/11 but seemingly without message or reason, and they made me feel really uncomfortable. Monster movies can have message, like the original Japanese version of Godzilla being about the fire bombing of Japan and fear of nuclear war. Cloverfield not so much. Cloverfield was an uncomfortable waste of time. So Abrams + message/political themes we shall see.

Oh, and while we're on the subject http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAu5PD4OS-w this is one of my favorite sci fi authors talking politics. Abrams oughtta take a cue from him.

At the very least this movie will look super cool.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Star Trek talked about social and political issues via allegory, and did so very well.

Most of the values were not so much "liberal", but humanistic.

Truth be told, however, interesting allegory is one thing, but the film should not actually be a political movie.

One thing that Star Trek has at it's core is the simple idea that people, some not even human, would outgrow many of the issues humanity currently faces to embrace each other's differences and use each other's assets for the greater good.

This idea might be portrayed in many ways in the movie without becoming a political statement.

 

[Kirk1980]

Yeah, I just hope we don't get the cheap and easy political views which characterize much of today's Hollywood.

Parallels can be done without beating people over the head.

 

[tranya]

Yeah, I just hope we don't get the cheap and easy political views which characterize much of today's Hollywood.

Welllllll, to be fair, it's not like any episode of TOS was terribly sophisticated. The overall premise and setting of the show was optimistic and certainly reflected a political position, but I can't think of a single episode of TOS which reflected a terribly nuanced view of any political situation, with the possible exception of "A Private Little War."

 

[punkydrewster]

Star Trek talked about social and political issues via allegory, and did so very well.

Most of the values were not so much "liberal", but humanistic.

I was thinking more classical liberalism, in the way the US conservatives and liberals are actually both liberals, and I think humanism is an outgrowth of that. But, yeah you're right I'd definitely go with "humanism" as a 'trek philosophy"

One thing that Star Trek has at it's core is the simple idea that people, some not even human, would outgrow many of the issues humanity currently faces to embrace each other's differences and use each other's assets for the greater good.

This idea might be portrayed in many ways in the movie without becoming a political statement.

I'd settle for that.

 

[Kirk1980]

Yeah, I just hope we don't get the cheap and easy political views which characterize much of today's Hollywood.

Welllllll, to be fair, it's not like any episode of TOS was terribly sophisticated. The overall premise and setting of the show was optimistic and certainly reflected a political position, but I can't think of a single episode of TOS which reflected a terribly nuanced view of any political situation, with the possible exception of "A Private Little War."

Compared to modern cinema, TOS was far far more sophisticated.

Even at it's hammiest.

 

[JoeZhang]

Spoilers

Spoiler: About Nero's prison

It's a federation prison but being run by the Klingons like an space version of Gitmo, so they don't have to give him a trial. Nero was a poor dairy farmer before being snatched mistakenly by Klingons looking for reward money from the federation - who have invaded Romulus to "help free the people from it's dicactors" and secure the supply of diluthum crystals.

 

[Ovation]

Spoilers

Spoiler: About Nero's prison

It's a federation prison but being run by the Klingons like an space version of Gitmo, so they don't have to give him a trial. Nero was a poor dairy farmer before being snatched mistakenly by Klingons looking for reward money from the federation - who have invaded Romulus to "help free the people from it's dicactors" and secure the supply of diluthum crystals.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

It'll be one big anti-Iraq, anti-Bush, America sucks, pro Obama ad.

"America sucks" doesn't fit in with any of those things.

 

[M'Sharak]

It'll be one big anti-Iraq, anti-Bush, America sucks, pro Obama ad.

"America sucks" doesn't fit in with any of those things.

And none of it fits in this forum, thank you. If I get the slightest feeling that this thread is turning toward real-world partisan sniping, it gets closed.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

It will be interesting to see if the movie can encompass any political allegory, especially since the political climate has changed radically with the economic downturn.

TOS, made in the 60s, managed to reflect the hopes of humanism that were making inroads in American cultural life with the Civil Rights Movement, Feminism and Vietnam. Keep in mind TOS was a little conflicted on these issues - There was Errand of Mercy with a clear message of "an evolved species is entirely peaceful" and then there was A Private Little War in which Kirk advocates escalation of arms to maintain a balance of power. There was Spock treating Uhura as a competent officer with superior technical skills, and there was Uhura saying pleadingly, "Captain, I... I'm frightened!" The overall feel of TOS was of humanity having a relatively shaky and precarious hold over it's humanistic triumphs, and a sense that they could easily be shed for savagery under the right circumstances.

TNG, made in the 80s, represented an altogether more assured and dominant philosophy for humanism. It has triumphed completely, there is a utopia on earth which has moved beyond all the petty economic ideologies of the 20th century (it is not capitalistic, nor communistic, nor even socialistic because apparently everyone owns their own means of production in replicators). Humanity is so assured in its own superiority, that the show evidences a decidedly colonial attitude toward alien worlds, and cultural hegemony now hinges on technology - and technology alone. You get to know about the rest of the galaxy when you develop warp drive. Even if you have a culture of the most advanced nature in art, philosophy and cultural development - no warp and you need to be isolated and protected. TNG is very paternalistic, as was America in the 80s. Now, now, 3rd World, just be quiet and we'll protect you with our Mighty Big Guns. What TNG failed to do was to bring up any of the damage this sort of attitude causes.

DS9, in the more fragmented world of the 1990s, did get into the complex nature of cultural relations, where no one was the unadulterated Good Guys. The Federation screwed up, the Bajorans screwed up, the Cardassians, the Founders - everyone was just trying to protect their own. It was a pretty accurate allegory of the Post-Cold War World.

Voyager and Enterprise had no point of view and no allegory. When they tried, they tried too hard and it fell flat.

Today, one really huge issue is the interdependency of the world (as evidenced by how the collapse of the American subprime market is causing a recession around the globe) coupled with most people still feeling pretty nationalistic. That is, we are all in this together, but we want to pretend like we're not. We both embrace and reject globalization. We love those cheap clothes coming from other countries, but we hate jobs going overseas. Other countries love the tech they get from America, but hate our rampaging cultural hegemony. Something that dealt with humanity having to come to terms with the complications of an expanding cultural horizon could be pretty timely. We are poised at a crux point in history with strong forces pulling towards change into a more completely humanistic society that goes beyond national boundaries, and with strong forces pushing us into a more fragmented state based on us versus them and the drive for power to dominate other nations.

Then there's terrorism and religious fundamentalism (and I include fundamentalism around the globe here - meaning in America too). There's a world with only one superpower, while other areas are rapidly rising. I don't know how they'd do anything about economics, given that Trek tends to assume wealth.

 

[Kirk1980]

Lapis, you make this political scientist very happy

That was a very well thought out post and I can't help but agree with your analysis.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

Lapis, you make this political scientist very happy

That was a very well thought out post and I can't help but agree with your analysis.

Really? Cool - thanks!

 

[Kanenas]

It'll be one big anti-Iraq, anti-Bush, America sucks, pro Obama ad.

Hopefully they will dump this idiotic "there is no money in the future" nonsense that had no credibility.

 

[Eric Cheung]

Well if there was warp drive, contact with aliens, or protein resequencers I'd think those factors would at least drastically change the economy. There are theories about what such an economy would be like and the term that seems to fit best is post-scarcity. In that case the relevence of class may shift from having one's basic needs met to social and political status--money wouldn't neccesarily dictate who has power as much as other factors. Who you know may be more important in the future, especially as humans expand throughout the galaxy.

Perhaps that would be the filter through which any political allegory is told in this, or future, Trek stories. In terms of the socio-political themes of this particular film, Nimoy mentioned that vengeance plays a part, probably vengeance in the context of unilateral political action. It's also something that promises to give hope, in stark contrast to films like The Dark Knight and nu-BSG. I wonder if in being optimistic, that it sacrifices complexity for optimism. I hope not.

 

[tranya]

Great post, Lapis!