To The Undiscovered Country--The Future

*spoliers*

"I won't be held responsible for the outbreak of full-scale war while we're on the threshold of universal peace."

Trek movies have a certain tendency towards self-glorification, but this one is a little different. Here, Kirk and the rest of the heros of the Original Series are finding themselves staring into the abyss, in a way--not only of the end of their careers, and the end of the world (and the wars) they knew, but even of the end of their glory, and even of their good name, as Kirk finds he must not only free himself from a Klingon prison, but also find a way to escape from villification, and the burden of responsiblity of the death of an innocent man, a Klingon peace-maker, whose assassination he must prove himself innocent of.

"Captain, don't let it end this way." Were his last words.

And it is clear that the world is changing, as old antagonisms become obsolete, new alliances struggle to be born, and conspiracies are hatched by those who cannot let go of the past. The wars between empires might be over (for now), but now looms the battle against the enemy within...and the question of how to treat yesterday's foe.

And how to adapt...how to adapt? Has the older generation outlived its usefulness? It is, at least, at a disadvantage, as their experience begins to become a liability rather than an asset. "If there is to be a brave new world, our generation will have the hardest time living in it."

Sometimes Star Trek can be a little campy, with the endless pedantic Shakespeare-worship, but it does have its advantages. "The Undiscovered Country" deals with, you know, The Changing of the Guard, and all that, without the sort of endless academic philosophical revenge vs. forgiveness blah-blah you'd get in some non-fiction book, or even the gritty realism of a more down-to-earth End of the Cold War flick, like, "Lord of War". Star Trek might be less dramatically unique than that, and sometimes a bit less real too, and all that, but it's also easier to watch. Because you can take the themes, and all that, or you can leave them. If you just watch it for the search for the assassin--"What *are* we looking for?" "Two pairs of gravity boots"--or if all you remember is the Siberian vibe of the Klingon prison planet--"Work well, and you will be treated well. Work badly, and you will die"--well, you'll still have fun, and maybe you'll even have a little fun learning something, even if you won't necessarily be a Lord of Nonfiction Blah-Blah. But who'd really want that anyway....

And it is comforting that in the end, despite all the peril and wrenching changes, we end up with something recognizable at the end.

"Some people think the future means the end of history. Well, we haven't run out of history quite yet."

(9/10)