This text incorporates spoilers for the most recent episode of “Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds.”
Within the newest episode of “Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” (titled “What Is Starfleet?”), a younger civilian named Beto Ortegas (Mynor Lüken), the brother of the hotshot pilot Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), has determined to make a documentary movie about day by day operations on the united statesS. Enterprise and the way the ship’s Starfleet officers perform a typical mission. Beto has an agenda, nevertheless. He does not wish to merely vaunt Starfleet; he needs to confront it. He sees Starfleet as an aggressive navy group that is extra dedicated to battle and violence than peace and diplomacy, regardless of its claims on the contrary.
Beto’s suspicions show to be disappointingly true in terms of the Enterprise’s present mission. The Federation has, fairly bafflingly, taken sides in a warfare between two non-Federation worlds and has agreed to assist the aggressors, the Lutani, of their efforts to overthrow their foes. In consequence, the Enterprise has been despatched to retrieve a space-dwelling, starship-sized alien that has been specifically bred to function a damaging weapon. Captain Pike (Anson Mount) sees that the alien goes to be a weapon and continues with the mission anyway. There are a number of occasions when Pike talks about how he and his crew must comply with orders, stating that the true nature of their mission is classed. Solely by impartial investigation and a cautious ethical re-wiring do Pike and his officers start to query the ethics of delivering an enslaved killer alien to the aggressors of a murderous warfare.
Notably, it is by no means revealed how Starfleet grew to become so deeply concerned in a warfare effort to start with. The “Star Trek” franchise has all the time famously been a property dedicated to pacifism, not violence. Conflict is the last word ethical failure within the “Star Trek” universe, and Starfleet usually solely turns into concerned in an armed battle when actually all different choices have been exhausted.
However there could also be one thing bigger at play right here. Maybe the writers behind “What Is Starfleet?” are attempting to make a touch upon the best way the “Star Trek” franchise has turn into distressingly violent because it started a brand new life on Paramount+.
Streaming-era Star Trek has turn into too action-oriented
From 2005 to 2017, there was no new “Star Trek” on tv. “Star Trek: Enterprise” had been canceled, and the franchise had been rebooted on the massive display by J.J. Abrams. The latter re-cast characters from “Star Trek: The Authentic Sequence” as youthful, sexier, alternate universe variations of themselves and, most notably, he ramped up the motion and violence. In doing so, he remodeled “Star Trek” from a nerdy franchise about diplomats and explorers right into a high-octane shoot-’em-up. Audiences ate it up, and Abrams’ 2009 film “Star Trek” grew to become a giant monetary success.
One of many movie’s writers, Alex Kurtzman, was additionally behind the screenplays for action-packed Michael Bay motion pictures like “The Island” and “Transformers,” so the tonal shift was vital. Kurtzman specialised in writing slick motion sequences, whereas the “Star Trek” franchise was, previous to that, usually fairly stodgy and mental. Regardless, Kurtzman went on to co-write the 2013 sequel “Star Trek Into Darkness” earlier than being put in control of all issues “Star Trek” when the property returned to TV in 2017 on the CBS All Entry streaming service (which has since been renamed Paramount+). That very same 12 months, he co-created “Star Trek: Discovery,” adopted rapidly by “Star Trek: Picard” and a number of other different exhibits.
These new collection did not simply look totally different from basic “Star Trek” exhibits, however they felt totally different as nicely. They embraced a way more aggressive tone, with the primary season of “Discovery” dealing instantly with the warfare between the Federation and the Klingons. There have been additionally extra scenes of hand-to-hand fight, phaser shoot-outs, and starship battles, with the protagonists of “Discovery” and “Picard” murdering others recurrently. Fan websites have compiled the variety of individuals slain by “Discovery” lead Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Inexperienced), together with her kill rely sitting at a whopping 58 throughout simply 65 episodes.
Violence was the brand new ethos of the “Star Trek” franchise, and old-school Trekkies like myself bristled. There was simply an excessive amount of demise for a property that had beforehand been dedicated to peace.
Unusual New Worlds interrogates trendy Star Trek’s violence downside
That is the place “What Is Starfleet?” is available in. It appeared that the episode’s writers, Kathryn Lyn and Alan B. McElroy, had been enthusiastic about interrogating the violence of post-2017 “Star Trek” tv. The title of the episode may as nicely have been “What’s ‘Star Trek?'” it depicts Starfleet (re: the “Star Trek” franchise) as having been given a mandate of violence. I sense that Kurtzman enjoys motion tales greater than sci-fi ones, a suspicion that performs out repeatedly in each “Discovery” and its spin-off film “Star Trek: Part 31.” He may need even inspired his writers to incorporate extra gunfights, flippant one-liners, and in any other case conventional motion nonsense.
“What Is Starfleet?” pauses to ask each the characters on “Unusual New Worlds” and the viewers watching what we’re doing right here. Is Starfleet (and, by extension, the “Star Trek” franchise) dedicated to warfare efforts now? Is it actually our mission to ship a badass super-alien right into a warfare zone? Or ought to we possibly pause and query what we’re doing right here? Is our mission considered one of wartime victory, or is it extra delicate than that?
“What Is Starfleet?” ends with varied characters praising the titular group as the most effective instance of power of character. Starfleet is not about its missions, as these might be — irrespective of how good its intentions — primarily based on misguided ideas, neither is it about navy energy. Somewhat, it is a conglomerate of the moral powers of everybody within it. And, by extension, the “Star Trek” franchise is in regards to the ethics of its characters. “Star Trek” is not a violent property, this episode seems to posit, however a peaceable one. The present’s creatives wanted to pause and rethink their actions simply as a lot because the fictional members of the Enterprise’s crew. It is a highly effective reckoning certainly.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” start streaming Thursdays on Paramount+.
