Analysis: Star Trek

A week late, but I did get to see Star Trek this weekend — and like so many of the reviews have said, it is a terrific movie. I’ve got several observations so:

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

If you don’t want to learn some of the story’s key plot points:

DON’T READ ANY FURTHER!!!!!

STRONG EMOTIONAL CORE

First, the script has a strong plot that is both big enough for a Star Trek movie and to engage viewers mentally with various alternate time permutations. There are plenty of plot twists — more on that later — but what I was really impressed with is how much attention director J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman gave to creating a strong emotional core for the story’s two primary characters James Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto).

The movie begins with a sequence that introduces the story’s Nemesis (Nero) and first officer George Kirk of the USS Kelvin. Kirk, who suddenly has been handed over control of the Kelvin, responds to an attack on his ship by Nero, struggling to save the lives of as many crew members as he can — including that of his pregnant wife. As Kirk sets the Kelvin on a collision course with Nero’s massive ship, the Nerada, Kirk hears his wife in her escape medical ship give birth to a son who they name “Jim” just moments before Kirk dies. He was captain of the Kelvin for a mere 12 minutes — and in that brief time managed to save the lives of 800 people. The shadow of George Kirk, both his heroism and his destiny with death, rests heavy on James T. Kirk as a young adult. Eventually, he joins Starfleet training to follow in his father’s footsteps.

With the story’s Protagonist, we have a powerful, almost mythological set of backstory elements — father’s heroism, father’s death, son’s birth amidst this drama, son grows up with an absent father, but the father’s legacy nonetheless. That’s a lot of emotional baggage and poses a question that looms throughout the rest of James Kirk’s journey: Can he measure up to his father’s legacy?

Later in the story, when Vulcan comes under attack by Nero and his crew, threatening to cause the planet to disappear into a black hole, Spock races to the planet’s surface to rescue a handful of Vulcan leaders, including his Vulcan father (Ambassador Sarek) and his human mother (Amanda Grayson). Moments before Spock and those he rescued are transported onto the USS Enterprise, Spock witnesses his mother being swept away to her death.

So, too, another layer of emotional weight laid upon one of the story’s most crucial characters. And also deeply mythological: Son failing to save his own mother’s life. This loss is amplified by the fact that Spock’s Internal World journey is a battle to bring into harmony his Vulcan logic and human emotions. Without his mother there to provide a living counterbalance to his Vulcan instincts, Spock faces his own big existential question: Will Spock find a balance between emotion and logic?

And so it is that Kirk and Spock are joined at the psychological hip: Both having lost a parent in larger-than-life circumstances; both living under the shadow of those deaths; both deaths caused by the story’s Nemesis Nero. The larger point of these choices re these two pivotal characters is not only that they are key factors in shaping who Kirk and Spock become; their loss of a parental figure creates audience empathy. That combined with each of their ‘existential’ questions — Will Kirk live up to his father’s legacy / Will Spock find a balance between emotion and logic — creates a powerful pull for the viewer into the emotional world of the story.

PRIMARY CHARACTER ARCHETYPES

Protagonist — Kirk
Nemesis — Nero
Attractor — Spock
Mentor — Spock prime / Capt. Pike
Trickster — USS Enterprise crew members (McCoy / Uhura / Scotty / Sulu / Chekov)

Kirk is the Protagonist because the story is framed through his life-experience. Plus he drives most of the action. And in the end, it is he vs. Nero in the Final Struggle.

Nero is clearly the story’s Nemesis.

The Attractor — that character tied most intimately with the Protagonist’s emotional development (heart) — is Spock. This is more than simply being about how Kirk eventually bonds with Spock; as Spock’s emotional journey involves bringing into harmony his emotions with his logic, Kirk needs to discover the value and role of thoughtfulness over merely reacting to any given situation. In other words, Kirk and Spock represent necessary counterbalances to each other, Kirk’s passion a reminder to Spock of the importance of human emotion, Spock’s logic a reminder to Kirk of the role of rationality.

Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) serves as the story’s primary Mentor character, leading the way for Kirk to envision what his future — specifically in relation to Spock — will be. Not only that, Spock Prime provides an enormous amount of critical information, details without which neither Kirk nor Scotty could pull off what they do. Capt. Pike also performs an obvious Mentor function, acting as a surrogate father figure to challenge young Kirk to join Starfleet training.

The Trickster’s function is to test the Protagonist and each of the secondary members of the USS Enterprise crew do that with Kirk. McCoy is a sometimes ally (helping Kirk get aboard the USS Enterprise), sometimes enemy (challenging Kirk’s plan of action). Uhura shifts from possible love interest to (major reveal) Spock’s lover, presumably a test to Kirk’s ego (he does come off as very much a womanizer in the movie). Sulu helps Kirk when they battle to destroy the Narada’s drill platform, but then falls off, forcing Kirk to leap off and save Sulu’s life. Chekov’s accent represents an ongoing challenge in terms of his ability to be understood, and yet his video-game playing prowess helps save the day. Finally Scotty manages to pull off amazing transporting feats, and yet when he tells Kirk and Spock that he’ll beam them aboard the Narada in a quiet place where no one will see them, quite the opposite turns out to be true, as our heroes are beamed down in the middle of the Captain’s deck, surrounded by Nero and his men.

STORY’S PLOTLINE

Act 1
Opening: The Kelvin incident and young Kirk in Iowa /Young Spock introduction

The Hook: Kirk joins Starfleet training

The Lock: The incident on Vulcan causes Pike to use Starfleet trainees as the crew of USS Enterprise, setting them on a trajectory to intersect with Nero and his giant ship, the Nerada

Act 2
First Major Test: Vulcan destroyed

Transition: Spock kicks Kirk off the USS Enterprise

Second Major Test: Kirk has to believe Spock Prime

All is Lost: Kirk pushes Spock to anger / relinquishes the ship to Kirk / Kirk sets Enterprise on seemingly hopeless course toward Narada

Act 3
On the Defensive: Nero’s men start drilling Earth

On the Offensive: Kirk fights his way to Pike on Narada / Spock uses Jellyfish to destroy drilling platform

Final Struggle: Kirk vs. Nero / Kirk, Spock and Pike beamed back to Enterprise before Jellyfish collides into Nerada / barely survive Nerada black hole

Denouement: Kirk established as Capatin of USS Enterprise / Spock as his first officer

ONE HUGE COINCIDENCE

As I’ve noted previously, conventional wisdom is that a writer is allowed one coincidence per script. In Star Trek, there is an enormous coincidence: When Spock has Kirk sent off the Enterprise, his space pod just happens to land in the near vicinity of Spock Prime. Given the alternate time realities of the mains storyline, I suppose you could argue that their meeting is somehow ‘fated,’ but I think the screenwriters opted for the choice with this in mind: If we are going to have a coincidence, might as well make it a really big freaking one!

COMPLICATIONS, ROADBLOCKS, AND REVERSALS

Pixar has done such a great job in this area the last decade, providing in each of their movies a seemingly endless set of twists and turns, both small and large, to make sure the events of the plot really test the Protagonist — and amp up the fun, too — that I’ve really become attuned to this when I watch movies nowadays. And in Star Trek, the filmmakers don’t disappoint . The Really Big Coincidence — Kirk just happening to land on a planet where Spock Prime just happens to be living — gets set up with a Really Big Reversal: Spock sends Kirk off the Enterprise. And that’s just one of several notable complications, roadblocks, and reversals including:

* Kirk passes the Kobayashi Maru test, but then has to defend himself at a Starfleet committee meeting.

* That complication in turn leads to Kirk not being assigned to a starship when the distress call comes in from the planet Vulcan.

* McCoy helps Kirk overcome that roadblock by injecting him with a vaccine that makes Kirk temporarily ill, thus enabling McCoy to bring Kirk aboard the Enterprise, but that leads to a series of medical mishaps and complications, including Kirk having a set of swollen hands.

* Later when Kirk, Sulu, and Chief Engineer Olsen go into an orbital skydive to land on and destroy the Nerada’s drilling platform on the planet Vulcan, Olsen is killed in the dive — and the explosive charges they had planned to use on the drilling beam are incinerated.

* During the ensuing fight, there are plenty of complications, most notable when Sulu is sent hurtling off the drilling platform, necessitating Kirk’s near suicidal rescue jump.

On and on the complications, roadblocks, and reversals go, including small ones that take seemingly mundane moments and give them some vitality, such as when Kirk and Scotty “transwarp beam” aboard the Enterprise, Scotty gets sucked into a tube structure, forcing Kirk to override a computer to save Scotty from death-by-rotating-blades.

EVERY SCENE COUNTS

Another thing to note is how every scene is tied directly to the plot and there are no non-essential beats. For example, Kirk and Gaila are involved in sexual foreplay when Uhura enters the dorm room. Seemingly a scene to titillate the audience, a bit of sex and Kirk gets to ogle Uhura as she undresses, right? Wrong! Uhura tells Gaila about a message she’s decoded about a giant spaceship destroying Klingon warships. That information, which Kirk overhears, becomes a key part of Kirk’s hypothesis about the trap into which the Enterprise (and other Starfleet ships) are being led.

SUMMARY

It’s an entertaining, smart script that pulls off a massive feat — re-introducing (and re-energizing) all of the Star Trek characters within the context of a compelling story — and provides just enough plot stuff (alternate timelines) to engage the viewer’s mind and just enough emotional elements (Kirk and Spock) to engage the viewer’s heart.

Speaking of alternate timelines, that is perhaps the smartest — and most creative — choice of all by director Abrams, and screenwriters Orci & Kurtzman. As Abrams notes in this MTV feature:

“One of the reasons we wanted to break with the original ‘Star Trek’ timeline was it felt restrictive,” Abrams said of the plot device that could conceivably fuel the venerable series for another five decades. “The idea, now that we are in an independent timeline, allows us to use any of the ingredients from the past — or come up with brand-new ones — to make potential stories.”

Now they’re free to take Star Trek wherever they want. Wonderful movie. Excellent script.

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