A few days ago, I saw the new Star Trek Movie Into Darkness. Of all the things that were in this movie, two opposing themes stuck with me. (WARNING: if you have not seen Into Darkness, then DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. I'm about to spoil the movie.)
The first theme that I noticed concerned the value of life. At many times, in many places, and in many ways, the filmmakers brought attention to the fact that life has worth. In the opening scene, Spock almost gave his life for the natives of a world that was about to be destroyed by a volcanic eruption. His comrades, in desperation, broke the prime directive so that they could beam him to safety. By so doing, they demonstrated that the many are sometimes willing to go to great lengths to save just one friend from trouble.
Later on, a Starfleet officer killed several of his superiors, and escaped to the planet Kronos. Captain Kirk was therefore ordered to hunt this man down and kill him (or rather, Kirk requested permission to go). When Spock heard about this order, however, he objected that it is entirely unjust to kill a man without a trial. Although Kirk at first argued with Spock over this point, he eventually relented and decided only to capture the man and bring him back to Earth for court martial.
In yet another instance, the Starfleet officer (who happened to be Khan) was about to be blasted to bits by special torpedoes. Khan, perhaps to the slight confusion of Kirk and Spock and Uhura, asked how many torpedoes they had. "72," they respond. Then, oddly enough, the villain laid down his weapon and surrendered. Only later was it revealed that these 72 torpedoes contained Khan's 72 fellow genetically altered humans. Khan had surrendered in order to save their lives.
Sometimes, the characters were willing even to preserve the lives of their enemies. When Khan demanded that Spock lower his shields so that he could beam out his 72 precious torpedoes, Spock complied. But he had armed the weapons before they were transported; the torpedoes exploded, heavily damaging Khan's starship. When Kirk had heard the news he objected to the massacre of Khan's crew. But Bones said, "Spock's cold, but he's not that cold." It turned out that the doctor had emptied the torpedoes before returning them to Khan.
Of course, there is one last story to tell concerning the value of life. At the end of the movie, Kirk saw that the only way to save the enterprise from a collision with Earth was to fix the warp core--but if he did, it was almost certain that he would die. And so with one last redeeming effort, Kirk gave his life to save his crew.
That was the first theme that I noticed. The second was very different. From early on, it was clear that this was also story about revenge. Kirk was eaten up by a desire to avenge himself on Khan, who had murdered Admiral Pike, the only father-figure Kirk had ever had. Kirk did decide to get Khan a proper trial, but he hated Khan ever after. Instead of murdering Khan, Kirk severely beat him up before taking him up to the Enterprise as his hostage.
Disappointingly, Spock also went down the path of revenge. After Kirk died, Spock hated Khan vehemently. He thought (illogically--hey, I thought Vulcans were logical!) that Khan had murdered Kirk--or rather, he blamed Kirk's death on Khan. (This was unreasonable of him. Kirk, and Kirk alone, had chosen to die.) When he had the chance, he went to beat the brains out of Khan, just as Kirk had done before him.
In conclusion, I find that these two themes, put together in the same movie, are quite contradictory. Even as they protected the lives of those around them, some of the characters ignored the fact that revenge goes against the sound principle that seemed to have been upheld through most of the movie, the principle that all life is valuable. The presence of this contradiction was only brought more to home during Kirk's speech at the end of the movie, where Kirk acted as though revenge was wrong (even though, for the last two hours, the filmmakers had been portraying revenge in a different light). What are we to make of this contradiction?
I hope this was thought provoking.
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