Star Trek is finally treating Spock like a human being
09.08.2023 - 14:43
/ polygon.com
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Debate is a time-honored tradition for Star Trek fans. Was Janeway right about Tuvix? (Yes.) Is Star Trek: Discovery ruining the franchise with all that crying? (No, it’s great; get in touch with your feelings.) Who’s the best captain in Starfleet? (The greatest captain is Picard. But the best captain is Sisko.)
What’s not debatable is that Spock is the most important person in the history of the Federation. A mixed-species science officer turned diplomat turned timeline traveler, Spock’s impact boasts an unrivaled longevity within the Star Trek franchise, born from a combination of dramatic necessity and fan appeasement.
And it’s a good thing he’s stuck around, because Star Trek is finally ready for him. Beleaguered as Star Trek: Discovery’s journey has been from first season to final, it has shepherded the franchise into a new stage of Star Trek’s endless stumble toward utopia. And Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has shown that Star Trek can at long last allow its most famous alien crewmember to be just as relatable as his human colleagues.
“The Great Spock” is how Spock is known within the Federation just a decade after his death, and for good reason. He was a foster brother to Captain Michael Burnham, who would reunite the Federation in the far future. He was second-in-command to the legendary Kirk, and instrumental to ending the cold war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire and reunifying Vulcan and Romulus. And then, in the Kelvin timeline, he ensured the success of Kirk’s enterprise in a whole ’nother universe.
And while this extravagant series of canon events is the fault of decades of Star Trek writers and directors working in tandem, you can’t really blame them. For one thing, Leonard Nimoy inarguably had the range, in a way that set him apart from most of the original cast of the original Star Trek.
This is not a slam on the rest of the TOS cast. The world of midcentury cinematic sci-fi was by necessity one of broad emotion, wide eyes, and huge physical gestures. An earnest dramatic bombast that filled the gap between plywood sets, body paint, acres of lamé, trick camera work, and crude latex masks and the audience’s immersion.
But starting almost immediately upon TOS’ cancellation in 1969, the tone of sci-fi cinema and television evolved like Tom Paris at warp 10 (that is, it quickly became almost unrecognizable). Boundary-pushing films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, along with adventures like Star Wars and full-blown dramatic horror like Alien, conditioned audiences to expect more subtlety and immersion from the genre (William Shatner and Ricardo Montalbán’s scenery chewing in Wrath of Khan notwithstanding).
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