BackTrekking

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BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

It's the eternal debate, the championship bout for all the credits. . . Star Wars vs. Star Trek: which is better? One seems more suited to conflict; it's literally got "war" in its title. The other's name suggests perhaps a performance fleece and one of those water things you carry on your back with the straw that runs up your sleeve. Assuming you're not mispronouncing it as "track", that is. One conjures images of screaming fans under a sea of waving, day-glo lightsabers, the other a vision of William Shatner yelling at an assemblage of sad men in pointed ears. Put all my money on the 'wars, please.

The reality is somewhat more complicated. Trek incontrovertibly arrived first, beaming onto American TV screens on September 8th, 1966 (September 6th, if you were lucky enough to be Canadian). Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977, fizzling out of some theaters completely before returning several weeks later on a wave of word-of-mouth positivity. Both franchises are clearly indebted to earlier properties. Star Wars famously began life as George Lucas's desire to do a Flash Gordon-esque space adventure after he lost out on directing the genuine article. Star Trek was preceded by space travel shows and even genre-themed social commentary series, but draws most of its inspiration from Horatio Hornblower novels and Gulliver's Travels (weirdly). Star Trek influenced Star Wars, full stop. George Lucas has said as much, although it was probably within earshot of Gene Roddenberry and its greatest influence may have been Lucas saying "Well, I don't want to do *that*." Star Wars, in turn, influenced Star Trek by making $220 million in its initial box office run (almost $900 million in 2020 bucks). Screw Star Trek: Phase II; Trek was going back to theaters with the entire original cast intact and it was going to be gritty this time! Colors would be drab, the technology more crunchy, two people would be melted by the friendly transporter. Star Trek: The Motion Picture would go on to make $139 million after spending 5 times the budget of Star Wars, which would effectively end Roddenberry's involvement with the franchise until the development of The Next Generation 8 years later. He'd still hang around but be mostly ignored as Trek cinema continued to chase Star Wars and its ever-increasing returns. It wasn't until 1986, when Star Wars had left the cinematic field, that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home would earn $133 million, 6 times its budget, proving definitively that a Star Trek film can be a runaway success as long as George Lucas is counting money instead of making movies. So who wins? Which is superior: Star Wars or Star Trek? Well, the show isn't called BackWarsing . . . you figure it out.

On this episode, we talk about the Star Wars and Star Trek and what defines them, the surprising artistry of the original trilogy, the perfect casting of Star Wars, the series's light-touch spirituality, the magnetic momentum of the narrative, how TMP served as a template for future Trek films, the breathtaking mise-en-scene of V'ger, the film's theme of self-examination, and staying close to your roots. We also discuss the bone-headed changes of the Special Editions, whether or not we live on a TOS planet-of-the-week, how George Lucas is the biggest Star Wars fan, having too many chores to Antifa, laser sword-fighting a space wizard, editing Wookiepedia, vibe check on Vader, googling "the motion picture", turning Spock off and on again, neck pinch acting, V'ger's info was boring, and the etiquette of starship interaction.

Who's behind this Maclunkey?

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Theme: Disco Medusae Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

OK, now that the actual Holocaust is out of the way, we can try something much more idyllic but still a little bit sinister. In the early days of TV, before we had these "500 channels" with nothing on them (which seems like a bad business model), programs were much different than they were today. Times were simpler, characters were whiter, and everything wrapped up pretty neatly in 30 or 60 minutes (plus commercial breaks). There were daring private eyes, brilliant lawyers and cops, and cowboys cowboys cowboys, and all were morally impeachable. Sure, they'd make mistakes, they'd be tempted by evil, but they would always win out in the end because that's what TV was for: presenting morally enriching tales that featured just a hint of violence and sex. Drain all vice completely out of '60s TV and you get The Andy Griffith Show, an anodyne picture of rural America in the 20th century that's more fictional than the Federation of the 24th. Andy Taylor is the sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, a town where the deputy only has one bullet, all problems can be solved by home-cookin', and black people simply do not exist.

Fast-forward 300 years to a distant alien planet that is eerily similar to 20th century Earth (is that Floyd's barbershop?) where a deadly plague has wiped out everyone over the age of 18, leaving the children to frolic in the ruins. But these are no ordinary children; they, too, are the victims of the age-prolonging experiments that initially caused the plague, each of them growing slowly, inexorably toward puberty where they too will join the mountain of corpses that fills the old fishin' hole. Star Trek wasn't the first or arguably best show to employ genre thrills in the service of didactic storytelling (see "Twilight Zone, The") but it made a meal out of taking the TV conventions of the decades prior and putting an alien face on them, posing questions about social issues that were rarely as black-and-white as some of those alien faces. It wasn't by any means a blameless show, but it presented a world that was more diverse, more frightening, and more real than any of Aunt Bee's pickle-induced nightmares, and in doing so, blazed a trail for socially-conscious storytelling that would lead into the 21st century and beyond.

On this episode, we discuss the rigid but airy structure of The Andy Griffith Show, the darker implications of Mayberry's sterile world and its effect on the '60s audience, immature depictions of neuroatypical characters, the complaints Star Trek received over the "gross" Miri, letting details slide so you can sell your audience on a big ask, the complicated gender politics of the episode, and the singularly unique Michael J. Pollard. We also discuss the original Blue Collar Comedy, naming your show after its star, how Hallmark movies are the fuel-air bombs of the culture war, keeping your kid out of showbiz, taking the "sub" out of "subtext", the positive version of Harrison Ford, masculine wiles, "Take a seat, Neelix," NARCANing Otis, quarantine snacks, Gooey Is all-in on "The 'Rents", and Kal attacks the Myth of the Sexy Kirk!

This is what it's all about, boys!

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Theme: Disco Medusae Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

The 20th century has been the host to an unbelievable number of genocides, across the continents of Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America and if you consider the last 50 years of the 19th century, too, you add some impressive work from North America and Australia, as well. Antarctica, thankfully, lags far behind in mass deaths. It’s foolish to believe that genocide is a modern invention, though modern weapons have certainly made it a more efficient process. But, the spread of telecommunications, journalism, and mass media has certainly made every genocide and act of atrocity more visible and more haunting. The horrors of the Holocaust stand out as almost medieval and are even more shocking when you consider that you can still email people who were victims of it. Immediately after the fall of Fortress Europe and the end of World War II, the effort began to bring the perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice, but that effort quickly became somewhat ambiguous. Many who were put on trial claimed to be “just following orders”, German citizens claimed to have no knowledge of the death camps, and the Allied authorities were more concerned with the looming Soviet menace than disrupting the lives of the Germans they would rely on to hold the line against communist encroachment.

That’s where “Judgment at Nuremberg” begins. It’s 1948 and the trials which were meant to bring truth and reconciliation to the German people and the world are quickly becoming a political liability. Former circuit judge Dan Haywood arrives from Maine ready to impartially dispense justice on war criminals, but he soon finds himself navigating a morass of resentful Germans and fearful witnesses. The opposite is true of 1975’s “The Man in the Glass Booth”, in which Mossad agents kidnap a wealthy American immigrant who was secretly Col. Adolf Dorff, the SS master of a notorious death camp during the war. He is brought to Jerusalem to stand trial, ala Eichmann, for his crimes against the Jewish people. Only trouble is, gee whiz, Dorff may actually be Arthur Goldman, a Jew and a Holocaust survivor who has taken his effort to combat Holocaust denial to the nth degree. Star Trek, which has never met a historical event it couldn’t allegorize, throws its own hat in the ring with “Duet”, a DS9 episode that features Aamin Marritza, a Cardassian impersonating *another* Cardassian, Gul Darhe’el, who was the commandant of the notoriously deadly Gallitep work camp. His purpose in doing so is presumably to call attention to the Bajoran massacre at the end of the Occupation, an event that unlike our real-world Holocaust has no concentration camp footage, no somber documentaries detailing the loss of life. It’s an event that is easily dismissed by many Cardassians and Marritza is willing to cast himself in the role of the villain in order to see his people’s crimes revealed.

On this episode, we discuss the complicated emotions present in these works, the multi-generational cast of prodigies that lent their talents to "Nuremberg", the open-ended mystery of the unhinged "Booth", the superlative work of Harris Yulin and Nana Visitor in "Duet", and how each reflects the unique views on the Holocaust from the eras in which they were made. We also discuss Young Sheldon books, judges judging judges, classic and modern acting styles, wacky '70s plays, bleeding feet symbolism, hanging with JC, boiling frogs, a lot of corona talk, empty wrestling arenas, dying over Bloodshot, gritty '80s punk Cardassians, stabby drunks, and our tech exchange takes a turn for the depressing!

We're not recording in our usual places due to quarantining, so the sound isn't perfect. Enjoy anyway!

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Theme: Disco Medusae Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

It's "Apocalypse Now"; what else do you need to know? It's possible that more ink has been spilled over this movie than the war it depicts, with documentaries like "Hearts of Darkness", stacks of books, and endless interviews with Francis Ford Coppola himself all revealing the same fact: this was a movie made recklessly by assholes. Or to quote Willard when faced Kurtz asks for an evaluation of his methods: "I don't see any method at all." That doesn't mean it's not an all-time classic, it just means you don't have to risk insanity, bankruptcy, heart attacks, or seven years of bad luck just to make art.

The chaos of "Apocalypse Now"'s production is obviously nothing compared to the chaos of the war in Vietnam or even the now historic chaos of the Belgian Congo, the subject of the 1902 novella, "Heart of Darkness", which "Apocalypse Now" was based on. The themes of Joseph Conrad's story of European colonialism are frightening recognizable in both the military interventionism of the 1960s and unceasing belief in American exceptionalism in the 21st century. Conrad's "based-on-real-experiences" story is concerned with vicious mercantilism while Apocalypse Now follows a proxy war where the fight against communism becomes increasingly abstract. But both works are a study of the universal evils of devaluing a populace and putting economic or political profit over human lives.

The Federation of Star Trek is supposed to be above these kinds of problems. After all, no money means no economy (at least one we can recognize) and no economy means no economic exploitation. However, the self-professed enlightenment of many a Starfleet officer has a tendency to melt away when vital resources like dilithium or unobtanium or territory are threatened. In "The Wounded", a Kurtz-like Starfleet captain named Maxwell is convinced that the Cardassians are using cargo ships to ferry war supplies, and he begins a one-man war on Cardassia that the "bureaucrats" have no stomach for. The Enterprise is given a mission to terminate his command and O'Brien, a man who has seen the same horrors of war that Maxwell has, must be the one to confront his former captain. On this episode, we discuss the tortured process of making the film, the enduring resonance of "Heart of Darkness", the Scramble for Africa, world-class f*ckface Leopold II, the societal inability to countenance atrocity, the serendipitous creation of many of the film's great scenes, the value of creative limits and obstacles, cuisine exchange, trusting Michael Bay, a disappointing hypothetical 4th season of TOS, Martin Sheen freaking out TSA employees, and never getting out of the boat unless you're going all the way.

It's just guys being dudes!

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BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

You already know the story. There's a scorpion that needs a ride and a frog willing to oblige. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog and they both start to drown, but they also have enough time for one last exchange:

Frog: Why would you sting me? You've killed us both!

Scorpion: I can't help it; it's in my nature.

Are we all slaves to our nature? Or does that only apply to arachnids who need to bum a lift somewhere? That's the question debated by the two pieces of media we're looking at today. "The Crying Game" is a 1992 film about LGBTQ culture in '90s London that was directed by a straight man and features a nominally straight male protagonist. "Scorpion" is about a peaceful exploration ship that is making its way home by facilitating a war between two of the galaxy's greatest foes. Being "true to yourself" is difficult when you're not sure who you really are, and none of us can ever be sure that we're actually the frog and not the scorpion.

On this episode, we talk about the ethics of interventionism, the necessity of writing "bad" characters, collectivism vs. individuality, making the tough decisions, subverting expectations, fluid space, Leo da V, we confess our professional shortcomings, another Pop-In(tm) about Sonic the Hedgehog, Kal tells his Crying Game story, and DAVE!

Their DNA level is OVER 100!

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Theme: Disco Medusae Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

Some episodes of Trek are so iconic, they define what a generation considers to be "Star Trek". TOS had "The Trouble With Tribbles", "The Naked Time", "Arena", and more. TNG has "The Best of Both Worlds", "The Measure of a Man", "The Inner Light", and of course "Darmok".

"Darmok" features an alien race that communicates by cultural allusion who kidnap Captain Picard to a desert planet where he must partake in a symbolic hunting ritual to further the comity of their two species. Let's see Battlestar Galactica do that. Plus, it's quintessentially TNG; if Captain Kirk had to fight an electric triceratops, he'd have drop-kicked it on arrival and then lectured Paul Winfield about respecting the Federation's sovereignty. This is a plot that could only work with Jean-Luc Picard in the lead, throwing himself fully into trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, because it would mean a net gain of understanding in the universe. Hilariously, his mission to understand Dathon and the Children of Tama nearly fails at the outset simply because he refuses a proferred knife, assuming it to be a token of hostility. Classic JL.

"Darmok" may be one of the most famous examples of the classic "man and blank are stranded together and must ally or perish", but there's another nearly forgotten version of the tale that contains just as much warmth and optimism as Trek's take. "Enemy Mine" is a nearly forgotten film and, at first glance, it's not hard to see why: outdated special effects, corny dialogue, and a climax lifted straight out of an '80s action film. But, what promises to be a clash between stellar enemies becomes a tale of survival, friendship, and family, where our heroes must overcome not only linguistic separation but biology and societal programming, as well. Just keep Mickey Mouse's name out your mouth.

On this episode, we talk about the inconvenient persistence of tribalism, the misleading marketing campaign behind Enemy Mine and the film's troubled production, Louis Gossett Jr.'s skill in bringing Jerry to life, the peerless talents of Patrick Stewart and Paul Winfield, the complications of the Tamarian language, the film's surprisingly progressive take on intersexuality, and the importance of history and myth in bringing people together. We also discuss Robert Duncan McNeill's unrealized movie stardom, Dennis Quaid as the Chris Pratt of the '80s, glass bubble-based technology, magical negro aliens, googling "darmok", the point of an XO, autotune for words, a little Picard talk, a quick Pop-In(tm), Kal tells his Paul Winfield story, and our dice are trying to kill the show!

LOL Gilgamesh

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Theme: Disco Medusae Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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