It's feasible if the Yangs and the Kohms came from earth though isn't it? They must have been trapped in a time warp and landed on Omega IV in the stone age of our world perhaps!
JB
JB
The Omega Glory
- Thread starter EnriqueH
- Start date
It's feasible if the Yangs and the Kohms came from earth though isn't it? They must have been trapped in a time warp and landed on Omega IV in the stone age of our world perhaps!
JB
I always figured an Earth ship, full of people who yearned for a simpler time, just crashed and had the documents and flag aboard. The Yangs, identifying them as similar to their own beliefs took them as their own.
We know that this one village has relics of the U.S., it doesn't mean the whole planet worshiped them or even knows of them. Even identifying as Yangs and Kohms could simply be a local phenomenon based off the relics and people from the crashed Earth ship.
This is one of my favorite episodes. Morgan Woodward and Roy Jenson were great. I still find myself hearing Cloud William recite the preamble and trying to figure it out like Kirk 
One of my favorite exchanges was betwen McCoy and Spock -
MCCOY: Spock, we've got to do something!
SPOCK: I am open to suggestions, Doctor.
MCCOY: What are you doing?
SPOCK: I'm making a suggestion.
One of my favorite exchanges was betwen McCoy and Spock -
MCCOY: Spock, we've got to do something!
SPOCK: I am open to suggestions, Doctor.
MCCOY: What are you doing?
SPOCK: I'm making a suggestion.
Unfortunately it wasn't revealed as an earth colony lost in time so we just have to assume it was a paralell world with a similar history to ours! and as for making a suggestion I wish we'd seen more of Irene Kelley...
JB
JB
I'm a lifelong original series fan, and this is absolutely my favorite episode of TOS. That is to say, I don't necessarily recognize it as the BEST original series episode, but it is my favorite. Screw the haters. They've always displayed a herd mentality in their hatred, never been able to cogently defend their hatred of this episode, anyway.
"Haters" is an easy way to trivialize other people's opinions. Cogent? Most people who decry this episode are very clear that it's the stars & stripes "E pleb nista" ending which is at fault. That's pretty to the point. If a story fails to satisfy in its climactic moment, it generally spoils the whole thing. If the ending were less American flag waving (a parallel rather than literally the US Constitution) I bet this episode would be much better regarded in general.
Some have long used their own anti-American platforms to attack this episode, when the series--if they paid attention--was essentially using the American model of its own "melting pot" and the then-strong national interest in space exploration, as the framework for the sci-fi series. I've heard the U.S.S. Enterprise referred to as the "U.S.S. America" on numerous occasions over the decades.
There was a good reason for that perception.
...and criticizing specifically because of the "stars and stripes" indicates the criticism is not with the deficiencies, in-universe, , because of the limitations of the narrative form being used; but rather, because the critic doesn't like what they feel the "stars and stripes" represents external to the Star Trek universe.
So that's NOT a legitimate reason to criticize the episode! It doesn't matter how much you don't like what you think the stars and stripes represents in the "real world." That's not a fair criticism of the episode.
Sure if you want you can complain because of the unlikeliness or narrative laziness (actually it was production limitations) of episodes like Omega, Miri, A Piece of the Action, This Side of Paradise, well, how many episodes were there that similarly involved a visit to some very uncannily-Earth like habitat?
But then that's not a specific criticism of that particular episode, is it?
If you want to criticize the stars and stripes and what you think it represents there are plenty of other message boards to do that on.
I never really understood criticizing it on the presence of the Constitution or the Flag beyond the likelyhood of such a thing happening. But it is a sci-fi program, so I tend to give it some slack based on that criteria.
But people who criticize it because it somehow shows favoritism towards American values I think are way off base. It is no different than criticizing a British program for showing favoritism towards British way of life or a Japanese program that does the same thing. Star Trek was made primarily for American audiences, so people may as well let that criticism of it go.
But people who criticize it because it somehow shows favoritism towards American values I think are way off base. It is no different than criticizing a British program for showing favoritism towards British way of life or a Japanese program that does the same thing. Star Trek was made primarily for American audiences, so people may as well let that criticism of it go.
Frankly, it's not your place to tell people where they can post what.
Your entire argument is that you're defining what "legitimate criticism" is. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.
You're also appear to be jumping to conclusions about why people don't like it. Criticizing the flag waving because is often because it feels like a lame and uncreative twist, not because people have problems with the US or its flag or what any of it represents. Hell, I'd still roll my eyes at the end of the episode if they walked in with the flag of India and Kirk read from the Ramayana because springing the parallel Earth "twist" at the end is lame-o.
Discussing this episode can be a minefield. The show was going for the kind of twist-ending that Rod Serling put into the first Planet of the Apes film, but more hopeful, and also "stirring" to American patriots, which meant almost the whole domestic TV audience at that time.
With an eye toward more plausible science fiction, and the broader audience that worldwide syndication would eventually bring, they probably should have skipped the flag-and-constitution idea, even though that was apparently the whole point of the original story.
With an eye toward more plausible science fiction, and the broader audience that worldwide syndication would eventually bring, they probably should have skipped the flag-and-constitution idea, even though that was apparently the whole point of the original story.
If it could have been a duplicate of Fundamental Declarations of the Martian colonies or the Statutes of Alpha Three with their respective flags, but I think they chose the Constitution of the United States because it was 1967, there was no worldwide broadcast of shows, so it was only in USA and maybe Canada with some rare exceptions, and based on that no exposition would have to be given, the nature and meaning of the Constitution and flag of the United States would be known.
So, it's a production decision and a story decision, for the cost and for the impact of the target audience at the time.
And I will just mention again, I never had a real problem with the idea of "parallel cultures" as much as the perfectly duplicated cultures. For example, Patterns of Force used exact Nazi stuff but it was John Gill's fault, A Piece of the Action used Untouchables/Chicago stuff but it was the fault of the book, there's no "thing or person" in Omega Glory and that's my whole criticism, and the more I repeat it the less valid it sounds even to myself. So there wasn't anything, there could have been in the past. I just would have like something very small, like the box they got it out of looked like it could have been part of a locker from a space capsule.
And using BillJ's lost explorer in a time warp theory, it's not even bad, I just wish the show bothered to do it itself. Maybe it was Voyager 9, or Nomad's brother, even.
We, as Star Trek fans, can make all kinds of cool explanations, I just wish the show itself did.
So, it's a production decision and a story decision, for the cost and for the impact of the target audience at the time.
And I will just mention again, I never had a real problem with the idea of "parallel cultures" as much as the perfectly duplicated cultures. For example, Patterns of Force used exact Nazi stuff but it was John Gill's fault, A Piece of the Action used Untouchables/Chicago stuff but it was the fault of the book, there's no "thing or person" in Omega Glory and that's my whole criticism, and the more I repeat it the less valid it sounds even to myself. So there wasn't anything, there could have been in the past. I just would have like something very small, like the box they got it out of looked like it could have been part of a locker from a space capsule.
And using BillJ's lost explorer in a time warp theory, it's not even bad, I just wish the show bothered to do it itself. Maybe it was Voyager 9, or Nomad's brother, even.
We, as Star Trek fans, can make all kinds of cool explanations, I just wish the show itself did.
Same thing here! I suppose the fact I didn't touch to Physics since High School and studied in History and now Political Science has an impact. I care more about "human" sense than "physical" sense. On the other hand, the story isn't about the "physical" thing, but the human one.Actually, people like Bill J and some others make me want to like this one, there's so much good in it, it's kind of like raining on my own parade to not like it because I can't quite accept the Absolutely Identical flag and Constitution that breaks it for me. It's just a matter of acceptance. Warp drive, transporters, artifical gravity are all things we just accept, but I have a hard time with identical documents.
Even there, I'm not so demanding about TOS. As I think I already said, I buy the parallel Jesus in Bread and Circus. Why? Probably because they don't even call him Jesus, they're just talking about a son of a single god. So it's the idea of a monotheist religion which can shake up the established order.
It would have still been too much with the Union Jack with the Magna Carta or the French Tricolour with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Maurice, in this thread the very thing you are arguing was not an issue...was a member's issue:
Corylea is not isolated in seemingly anti-American representation in the episode. As noted earlier, external gripes fueled many a criticism of this one element of TOG--not the handling of the parallel earth plot at all. Over the decades--particularly since the 80's, there is the misconception that TOS was produced / presented (or "supposed" to be) in the same way as their latter-franchise perceptions of the fictional Federeration.
That was not the production years environment of TOS, so to assail TOG daring to offer the idea that the U.S. had some influence in the far future is the end result of a politically motivated hang-up. Said hang-up is saying "how dare you say America still shaped anything on some alien world" --of course, completely missing the meaning of an episode shot in 1967.
If it had, I doubt we'd be here talking about it fifty years later. That it left so much unexplained is part of its charm.
Indeed. "Omega Glory" doesn't really require an explanation once you view it as part of Star Trek's final season, because by that time you have already learned to think in terms of time travel, individuals hell-bent on ruling over primitives by introducing them to dangerous Earth ideas, and the best-laid plans of Klingons and men always going awry in the worst possible way.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
It's not so much "favoritism" as simply speaking to one's audience in an understandable manner. These are commercial tv programs aimed at the "average American viewer." Not an anti-American political critic of America. Obviously maybe if Star Trek was produced and broadcast in North Vietnam to a North Vietnamese audience in the 1960's, I imagine they probably would NOT have used the references to American historical documents to make the points the episode were trying to make. Maybe they would have used something from Vietnam's past. I lack knowledge of Vietnamese history so I can't say, but it wouldn't have "offended me" at all, watching an S.F. show from 1960's N. Vietnam, if their points of reference were completely different.
Of course. Context is critical. These episodes were made in the mid 60's during the Cold War.
The narrative of Omega Glory could have had Kirk pulling out the Rigel 7 Declaration of Rights for All Sentient Life Forms from 2150. I mean we've all heard of that right, and a 1960's American T.V. audience would clearly get the reference to that document, right?
And then when Kirk started reading from it in the original Rigel 7 patois in which it was written, OF COURSE the conclusion to the episode would have made perfect sense and wouldn't have lost its audience.
I guess some critics are SO FOCUSED on "politics" in a "meta" sense (i.e. external to the in-universe world of the episode) that that's all that matters?
Actually I believe there is dialog in Omega glory where Kirk DOES at least make reference to similar freedom principles from other worlds, but of course, the "politi-critics" ignore this, because taking the narrative in its context doesn't fit their politicized agendas.
OK I found something on the web which purports to be from the actual script:
*****
(Cloud William sinks to his knees.)
KIRK: Now, Cloud William.
CLOUD: You are a great God servant. We are your slaves.
KIRK; Get up. Face me.
CLOUD: When you would not say the holy words, of the Ee'd Plebnista, I doubted you.
KIRK: I did not recognise those words, you said them so badly, Without meaning.
ELDER: No! No! Only the eyes of a chief may see the Ee'd Plebnista.
KIRK: This was not written for chiefs. (general consternation) Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying We the People. That which you call Ee'd Plebnista was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.' These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!
CLOUD: The Kohms?
KIRK: They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing! Do you understand?
CLOUD: I do not fully understand, one named Kirk. But the holy words will be obeyed. I swear it.
(Kirk leaves the Yangs to gaze at the old papers with new eyes.)
SPOCK: There's no question about his guilt, Captain, but does our involvement here also constitute a violation of the Prime Directive?
KIRK: We merely showed them the meaning of what they were fighting for. Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words. Gentlemen, the fighting is over here. I suggest we leave them to discover their history and their liberty.
(Kirk takes one last look at the flag before leaving.)
******************
So, if you actually look at the INTENT of what this is trying to say, it is actually a very RADICAL political statement of the times. It is an ANTI-cold war message concealed in a somewhat klunky s.f. script.
Kirk actually is saying that the COMMUNISTS have the SAME rights to freedom as the YANKEES.
That FREEDOM should be UNIVERSAL.
A very subversive political message, for the times, and not one I take any issue with.
At all.
And yet there's nothing in the episode that specifically disproves it being a lost colony thrown through a time warp.
I hate using time travel as a crutch for anything that isn't explained.
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