May

8

Where No One Has Gone Before.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

May 8, 2008 |

A new Star Trek film has a lot of fans excited. It’s been called a “reboot”, a way to inject new life into a franchise many of us grew up with, but there are concerns as well. While some shows like Battlestar Galactica are willing to confront contemporary issues with philosophical ambiguity, trying to examine them from all sides, shows like 24 are more cartoonish. The don’t just justify torture but glorify it, presenting unrealistic scenarios in which torture is not only effective but the only means to save lives. Star Trek’s belief in the fundamental goodness of humanity stands in sharp contrast to a lot of contemporary entertainment. While Rodenberry’s legacy is complicated, the positive elements of Star Trek were appropriated by fans and have, through four spin-offs and ten films (and counting) been expanded, and it remains the job of fans to hold Star Trek true to its highest ideals. An organization called Trekkies Against Torture has created a petition to make sure that producer J.J. Abrams understands that, in spite of his desire to put a high “action element” in the new film, torture has no place in Star Trek. It’s a statement that shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s worth noting that, even when it premiered, Star Trek was something of an anomaly.

Before the 20th Century had hit the midpoint three very different writers had given us three dark visions of the future. The earliest, Yevegeny Zamyatin’s We, was published in 1927 after the Russian Revolution. Opposed to censorship, Zamyatin would find his own works censored, and left the Soviet Union when Stalin was in power. Five years later came Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Like Zamyatin’s, Huxley’s novel was about a future in which the human race is stagnating in a supposedly perfect world that is unfulfilling, but sustained largely by peer-pressure and, in extreme cases, the intervention of shadowy dictators. In 1948, George Orwell’s 1984 was published. Orwell’s vision was distinctly darker than the previous two. Violence, in the world of 1984, was entertainment, and torture, in the book’s conclusion, was not a way to gain information. It was a means of control.

I chose these three books for several reason. They’ve survived, and they’ve entered the mainstream. While not “hard” science fiction, or even necessarily intended as speculative fiction, the dystopian visions of Zamyatin, Huxley, and Orwell were intended as criticisms of contemporary ideas and also warnings of what the future could be.

Although Star Trek was a television show, Roddenberry understood that television reached people in the way that novels had before, perhaps reached an even wider audience. And he chose to present a utopian vision. With the Cold War at its height and civil rights still a sensitive issue, with the war in Vietnam raging and the American public deeply divided, Roddenberry’s vision of a future where racism and poverty have been eliminated, where war is never an acceptable outcome, and where diplomacy was valued over violence was amazingly gutsy. It’s needed now just as much as it was then. It’s important that Gene Roddenberry’s vision, a vision that, as the news section of the Trekkies Against Torture web site notes, is shared by many of the actors who participated in bringing Star Trek to life. The organization is also representative of Star Trek’s fans as a group who, as original series producer Bob Justman noted, seized on the optimism of the series, expanding it and making sure the spinoffs and films remained true to what was best about the original series. J.J. Abrams has already stated that the new film is not made to appeal to fans of Star Trek. This doesn’t mean, though, that he’s necessarily given up on what’s given Star Trek its appeal for more than forty years. He’s said the new film is “being true to what’s come before, honoring it,” which means, of course, honoring the present and future as well.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Paul Paz y Mino on May 8, 2008 2:35 am

    Thanks for your posting. It should be noted that pop culture which promotes torture, like 24, has had a direct effect on the political discourse in the US. This very real effect on the practices and policies of our government is a big part of the campaign to keep the glorification of torture out of Star Trek. That is to say, this is bigger than just keeping Trek free of torture, but promoting human rights in the real world at the same time. That is why the site also links to ongoing campaigns against torture.

  2. Christopher Waldrop on May 8, 2008 8:26 am

    And thank you for adding that. I apologize if it wasn’t clear, but that’s something I was getting at: by providing us a positive vision of the future, where human rights are respected Star Trek prompts us to work to make the world we live in a better place.

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