Ok, well, first, I didn't know what forum I should place this in. Could be placed in the Star Trek (2009), or perhaps in the TNG forum, so I just put this here.
Over the past few weeks, I watched Unification, Face of the Enemy, The Forge, and the new film, as well as a few various episodes, and I am always appreciative of any elaboration into Vulcan culture and the relationships of Vulcans to Romulans.
I didn't watch those epsides in roder recently. Last night I watched Unification. It seems that in watching it, I realized that the writers had a great resolution to a story and yet it it wasn't that story they were primarily interested in telling. What's more, the follow-ups to that story, while adequet, seemed to have forgotten the point as well. Perhaps.
Think, and ask yourself: What was the point of Unification?
The big Spock episode. Yet, the episode has so many dissonant aspects to it that it is amazing that hangs together soe well, it almost does so by the force of its own sheer will, where it is actually just trying to play out like an epic two-parter, one worthy of calling up Nimoy.
I'll try to explain.
It is stated that Spock could be a defector. Picard must find out. To start, he goes to see Sarek. He and Sarek know each other. They had a mind-meld. The writers of Unification were smart enough to jump of from Sarek as a means of bringing Spock into the fold. However, perhaps they did this a little too strongly. The story seems less about how Spock is interacting with our characters in the TNG universe, and not much more than what he is even doing on Romulus than it is about his conflict with Picard, which, we learn, is just a manifestation of the story shown throughout ALL of Trek from Journey to Babel to the current film and that is the conflict between Spock and his father.
And one could say that that dramatic concept is just way of telling his real story, which is far more basic, and that is the fact that he is not pure Vulcan and that he is half-humn. THAT is a theme that runs through all of Trek from the beginning.
I'll step back a bit to say here that I don't blame the writers of Unification for using that as an important thread in that story, as it is so fundamanetal to Spock and to Trek in general.. the relationship to Spock and his father seemed to underly a great many scenes in Unification that had Nimoy in them, and particularly those with Nimoy and Picard. Indeed, I felt that we really didn't see Picard and Spock interact as much as we thought they did, as much of what was being said or talked about seemed to go back to Sarek, and there was a lot of great dialogue therein about how Picard was speaking with Sarek's voice (possibly) and that the arguments between the two characters weren't resolved before Sarek passed. My point is that, in a snese, it was less Picard and Spock intereacting so much as it was Spock and Sarek interacting through Picard, and then Spock understanding Picard ina more roundabout way.
To the writer's credit, that is a really strong theme, a great way to connect Picard to Spock, and it does work well. To be devil's advocate, however: I will say that this story thread is given so much weight in the episode, that all other aspects of the episode seem secondary. I mean you almost forget that there was Riker was investigating something, and you don't know (or hardly care) who really owned that big weapons ship the big E was fighting. There were other stuff in there too: Data was obliged to share info with the Klingons, Data was screwing up playing a Romulan, there was a bad senator who betrayed Spock, Sela (the worst character in all Trek) was brought in, blah blah.. And yet, truth be told, the episode still somehow hangs together well, and all this stuff somehow works in the story by the force of tis own sheer will. I actually liked all of it, even Sela.
But here's my point: a few scenes caught my eye. Scenes that were short but really important to the story. Scenes that I think I really important to Star Trek as a franchise. The scenes I am talking concern the Romulan underground itself. This is shown mainly through D'tan, the Romulan boy.
Interestingly, almost proving the point I am about to make, different characters seem to pronounce this kid's name differently, and no one really bothered to correct them after watching the dailies.
D'tan is interested in Vulcan culture, and has toys that are not only old for Vulcan but would get him in a lot of trouble if the Romulans found out. But he is interested in these because he is interested in understanding how these cultures were actually one culture once.
Here's what I am saying: it all comes down to one of the final lines of the episode, spoken by Spock:
Spock: The reason for my coming here has never been more clear, Captain. The union of the Romulan and Vulcan peoples will not be achieved by politics. Or by diplomacy. But it will be achieved. The answer has been here in front of us all the time. An inexorable evolution toward a Vulcan philosophy has already begun: Like the first Vulcans, these people are struggling to find a new enlightenment. It may take decades, centuries for them to reach it... but they will...and I must help.
Watching the episode, I can't help but think that this quote is the point of the episode, of the actual story that is being playing out. It is exemplified in the character of D'ton.
Yet, the story of Sarek/Picard/Spock is just as strong thematically, and is certianly given more weight emotionally in the story. Everything else in the story is almost unimportant, it's all plot stuff to get us from here to there. The Picard/Sarek/Spock stuff (great stuff indeed) was given so much more heft in the story, that even this final speech that I quoted didn't seem to resonate by the time you watch the episode, and the last shot of the show, the mind-meld, implies that Picard/Sarek/Spock story is more important than the unification story.
What I'm confliced about is that it very well be.
Ok so, we have Unification, and how it's disparate tones have led me to question what was the most important thread. Then, we have Face of the Enemy. Great to hear that Spock is still at work, and that other higher-ranking Romulans support that dissident movement. The story involves them defecting. However, depsite how cool that is, it seems oddly irrelevant. Read the quote again. The point of what Spock is doing is to show how the cultures are similar, and how they were once the same and can be again. In Face of the Enemy, and in the new film, this aspect was not followed up on. The deep cultural unification these two races have was not important to the post- Unification stories, despite the fact that it was the reason Spock even went to Romulus.
In a way, I feel that the biggest treat we were given from this thread concerning the Spock's mission to reunite cultures that were once whole and now disperate was the fact this major plot element was recognized in a story that predates Spock: The Forge. This is a great story, and this line really hit home:
Syran (Arev): But his katra was spirited away... before the last battle against those who marched beneath the raptor's wings. Those who wanted to return to the savage ways.
So here's my point, it seems that the writers of Unification figured that this cultural separation as a good background plot, but it was simply a means to end to tell the story of Picard/Sarek/Spock and wasn't really that important, and it certainly wasn't important in any of the followups, but it seems to be such a waste, because I think it resonates, at least for me.
Over the past few weeks, I watched Unification, Face of the Enemy, The Forge, and the new film, as well as a few various episodes, and I am always appreciative of any elaboration into Vulcan culture and the relationships of Vulcans to Romulans.
I didn't watch those epsides in roder recently. Last night I watched Unification. It seems that in watching it, I realized that the writers had a great resolution to a story and yet it it wasn't that story they were primarily interested in telling. What's more, the follow-ups to that story, while adequet, seemed to have forgotten the point as well. Perhaps.
Think, and ask yourself: What was the point of Unification?
The big Spock episode. Yet, the episode has so many dissonant aspects to it that it is amazing that hangs together soe well, it almost does so by the force of its own sheer will, where it is actually just trying to play out like an epic two-parter, one worthy of calling up Nimoy.
I'll try to explain.
It is stated that Spock could be a defector. Picard must find out. To start, he goes to see Sarek. He and Sarek know each other. They had a mind-meld. The writers of Unification were smart enough to jump of from Sarek as a means of bringing Spock into the fold. However, perhaps they did this a little too strongly. The story seems less about how Spock is interacting with our characters in the TNG universe, and not much more than what he is even doing on Romulus than it is about his conflict with Picard, which, we learn, is just a manifestation of the story shown throughout ALL of Trek from Journey to Babel to the current film and that is the conflict between Spock and his father.
And one could say that that dramatic concept is just way of telling his real story, which is far more basic, and that is the fact that he is not pure Vulcan and that he is half-humn. THAT is a theme that runs through all of Trek from the beginning.
I'll step back a bit to say here that I don't blame the writers of Unification for using that as an important thread in that story, as it is so fundamanetal to Spock and to Trek in general.. the relationship to Spock and his father seemed to underly a great many scenes in Unification that had Nimoy in them, and particularly those with Nimoy and Picard. Indeed, I felt that we really didn't see Picard and Spock interact as much as we thought they did, as much of what was being said or talked about seemed to go back to Sarek, and there was a lot of great dialogue therein about how Picard was speaking with Sarek's voice (possibly) and that the arguments between the two characters weren't resolved before Sarek passed. My point is that, in a snese, it was less Picard and Spock intereacting so much as it was Spock and Sarek interacting through Picard, and then Spock understanding Picard ina more roundabout way.
To the writer's credit, that is a really strong theme, a great way to connect Picard to Spock, and it does work well. To be devil's advocate, however: I will say that this story thread is given so much weight in the episode, that all other aspects of the episode seem secondary. I mean you almost forget that there was Riker was investigating something, and you don't know (or hardly care) who really owned that big weapons ship the big E was fighting. There were other stuff in there too: Data was obliged to share info with the Klingons, Data was screwing up playing a Romulan, there was a bad senator who betrayed Spock, Sela (the worst character in all Trek) was brought in, blah blah.. And yet, truth be told, the episode still somehow hangs together well, and all this stuff somehow works in the story by the force of tis own sheer will. I actually liked all of it, even Sela.
But here's my point: a few scenes caught my eye. Scenes that were short but really important to the story. Scenes that I think I really important to Star Trek as a franchise. The scenes I am talking concern the Romulan underground itself. This is shown mainly through D'tan, the Romulan boy.
Interestingly, almost proving the point I am about to make, different characters seem to pronounce this kid's name differently, and no one really bothered to correct them after watching the dailies.
D'tan is interested in Vulcan culture, and has toys that are not only old for Vulcan but would get him in a lot of trouble if the Romulans found out. But he is interested in these because he is interested in understanding how these cultures were actually one culture once.
Here's what I am saying: it all comes down to one of the final lines of the episode, spoken by Spock:
Spock: The reason for my coming here has never been more clear, Captain. The union of the Romulan and Vulcan peoples will not be achieved by politics. Or by diplomacy. But it will be achieved. The answer has been here in front of us all the time. An inexorable evolution toward a Vulcan philosophy has already begun: Like the first Vulcans, these people are struggling to find a new enlightenment. It may take decades, centuries for them to reach it... but they will...and I must help.
Watching the episode, I can't help but think that this quote is the point of the episode, of the actual story that is being playing out. It is exemplified in the character of D'ton.
Yet, the story of Sarek/Picard/Spock is just as strong thematically, and is certianly given more weight emotionally in the story. Everything else in the story is almost unimportant, it's all plot stuff to get us from here to there. The Picard/Sarek/Spock stuff (great stuff indeed) was given so much more heft in the story, that even this final speech that I quoted didn't seem to resonate by the time you watch the episode, and the last shot of the show, the mind-meld, implies that Picard/Sarek/Spock story is more important than the unification story.
What I'm confliced about is that it very well be.
Ok so, we have Unification, and how it's disparate tones have led me to question what was the most important thread. Then, we have Face of the Enemy. Great to hear that Spock is still at work, and that other higher-ranking Romulans support that dissident movement. The story involves them defecting. However, depsite how cool that is, it seems oddly irrelevant. Read the quote again. The point of what Spock is doing is to show how the cultures are similar, and how they were once the same and can be again. In Face of the Enemy, and in the new film, this aspect was not followed up on. The deep cultural unification these two races have was not important to the post- Unification stories, despite the fact that it was the reason Spock even went to Romulus.
In a way, I feel that the biggest treat we were given from this thread concerning the Spock's mission to reunite cultures that were once whole and now disperate was the fact this major plot element was recognized in a story that predates Spock: The Forge. This is a great story, and this line really hit home:
Syran (Arev): But his katra was spirited away... before the last battle against those who marched beneath the raptor's wings. Those who wanted to return to the savage ways.
So here's my point, it seems that the writers of Unification figured that this cultural separation as a good background plot, but it was simply a means to end to tell the story of Picard/Sarek/Spock and wasn't really that important, and it certainly wasn't important in any of the followups, but it seems to be such a waste, because I think it resonates, at least for me.
