Lightning Stroke Twice on Kirk and Picard: Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations* 1

현대영어영문학 제60권 3호 Modern Studies in English Language & Literature (2016년 8월) 111-28 http://dx.doi.org/10.17754/MESK.60.3.111 Lightning Stroke Twice on Kirk and Picard: Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations* 1 Lee, Geon-Geun (Chosun University) Lee, Geon-geun. “Lightning Stroke Twice on Kirk and Picard: Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations.” Modern Studies in English Language & Literature 60.3 (2016): 111-28. An American sci-fi series, Star Trek would have ended with its Original Series nearly in the middle of the whole history. However, despite the concern over weariness from the long-lasting Star Trek effect, Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations, the first movie of the Next Generation received great reviews from the critics and audiences, leading to producing five more films up to now. The reason for the success is mostly on its consistent ideas, not to mention the development of motion-picture arts. This article aims at introducing the crucial themes of the six works of the Original Series one by one and discussing the common philosophy that the captains of the two series, Kirk and Picard, share in this film with the help of Schopenhauer’s will-oriented metaphysics. Through this analysis, the original themes, such as the sympathy with machines, the double-sidedness of logicality and illogicality, non-teleology, and pacifism are developed soundly to the next cinematic generation as the warning against the excessive will of life and narcissism, and the emphasis of self-sacrifice for humans. (Chosun University) Key Words: Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations, Original Series, the Next Generation, Schopenhauer, logicality and illogicality I The Star Trek series including TV, films, and games are worthy of studying as a cultural phenomenon as well as a unique entertainment product around the world, not to mention the mainland America, in that * Some parts of this paper were presented at the Spring Conference of the Modern English Society of Korea that was held at Hannam University on May 21, 2016. 112 Lee, Geon-Geun their popularity has continued for half a century since 1966. Indeed, it is remarkable that these commercial film series have survived the vast diversity and changeability of which the modern film fictions are distinctive, attracting the audience ceaselessly, and leading to the topic of many film theories and even doctoral theses.1 However, most of the Korean research papers are no less neglectful of the real analysis of the texts themselves, furthermore, in the critical stance against the films: American chauvinism, racism, and commercialism.2 Meanwhile, the Original Series of Star Trek were produced at the Paramount Studio and went on the air as a TV show on NBC from 1966 to 1974. After this period, the films started from Star Trek Ⅰ: The Motion Picture (henceforth Motion) in 1979 and ended up with Star Trek Ⅵ: The Undiscovered Country in 1991. In the process, the second series named The Next Generations showed themselves as a TV drama in 1987 prior to Star Trek Ⅴ: The Final Frontier (1989) of the Original Series, and then came on as the second film series with Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations (1994), continuing up to Star Trek Ⅹ: Nemesis (2002) with their four works. 1 The examples of the doctoral theses are de Gaia, Susan Jean. Unity and Diversity: Star Trek's Vision of Transcendence. U of Southern California, 2003; Faber, Liz W. From “Star Trek” to Siri: (Dis)embodied Gender and the Acousmatic Computer in Science Fiction Film and Television. Southern Illinois U at Carbondale Mass Communication and Media Arts, 2013; Olivier, Gwendolyn Marie. A Critical Examination of the Mythological and Symbolic Elements of Two Modern Science Fiction Series: Star Trek and Doctor Who. Louisiana State University, 1987; Leslie, Christopher S. Social Science Fiction. City University of New York English, 2007; and Salinas, Chema. Trickster Dialogics: A Method For Articulating Cultural Archetypes From ‘Q’ To Performance Art. Arizona State University Communication Studies. 2 Hwang, Joon-Ho. “Star Trek and the Myth of the National Identity of the United States.” In/Outside 27 (2009): 245-72; Jun, Joon-Taek. “American Popular Films Cite Hamlet: The Limits of Appropriation from Star Trek Ⅵ to The Superman Returns.” Shakespeare Review 43.2 (2007): 349-74; and Kim, Ki-Tai. “Gene Roddenberry`s Utopia: Star Trek and White Hegemony.” The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature 56.3 (2014): 21-38. Lightning Stroke Twice on Kirk and Picard: Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations 113 Notably, in Generations, Kirk, and Picard, the heroes of the two series achieved the succession process: Kirk dies while saving the solar system including the Earth, and Picard inherits the challenge spirit and humanism of the Original Series. In fact, this story was looked upon as miraculous because most experts at that time, including its creator Gene Roddenberry, did not think that the extension of these sci-fi film series was possible with all the twenty-eight years of running the same structure: the Enterprise spaceship, warp-speed drive, fighting with evil aliens, which deserves to be analogous with the probability of being struck by lightning twice at one sitting. The new generation was more famous and not worse than its predecessor in the box-office and critical review, opening the way to the third generation of the 21st century, causing me to write this paper. To the development of the technique of film construction is this success said to be ascribed, but it is more significant that their consistently maintained ideas have been transferred to the follow-ups for more than fifty years, at least the next cinematic generation. Interestingly, such attitudes can be understood in Schopenhauerian fashion that the intellect is just phenomenal and restricts the will, which is assumed as the elementary factor in human life. This article aims at discussing the common philosophy Kirk and Picard share by observing the text of Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations as a bridge between the first and second series with the help of Schopenhauer’s philosophy after introducing the crucial themes of the Original Series. Through this analysis, it is revealed that the will as a broad aspect of feeling influences the human life more than the reason that is based mostly on the logic and calculation of gains and losses. Moreover, the pursuit of the excessive will should be controlled with sympathy with the sufferings of other entities, similar to Schopenhauer’s view in his will-oriented metaphysics. Additionally, this fact is meaningful to answering the question of what has caused Star Trek series to live long 114 Lee, Geon-Geun and prosper for such a long time, worthy of teaching a useful lesson to other countries’ movie industries. II Star Trek has a dramatic story. The works as a TV show, before the tremendous success of the film series, did not start as a great hit. From 1966 to 1969, Star Trek received such poor ratings that NBC (National Broadcasting Company) would have pulled the plug. Only after some local television stations in the U. S. began re-running them outside of prime time, Star Trek series attracted significant attention from the American audiences, leading to the launching of its film debut, Motion in 1979. That is, it took virtually more than ten years for these sci-fi series to be recognized as a vast cultural phenomenon. To this fact, TV executive producer Herbert Solow said this: It’s important to understand that. Star Trek was not created or developed as a critical study of truth, life’s fundamental principles, or concepts of reasoned doctrines. We just wanted a hit series. The basic Star Trek philosophy was developed by its producers and writers during its production. However, a profound and metaphysical overlay was superimposed over the years as popularity begat popularity and viewers saw and defined a subjective something that validated and increased their appreciation of the show. (Solow and Justman 431) Indeed, the five TV series (The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise) focused on their functions as a trans-media by satisfying and delivering the viewers’ sympathy and public interest until 2005. Lightning Stroke Twice on Kirk and Picard: Star Trek Ⅶ: Generations 115 On the contrary, the films of Star Trek kept up their historical and critical values and held on to their unique ideas so much and long as to appeal to media study researchers and students. Now, I introduce the particular themes of the Original Series transferred to Star Trek Ⅶ, Generations. First, the first film Motion struggles to redefine the right relationship between human beings and machines by personifying a three-hundred-year-old probe V’Ger, which turns out to be Voyager Six launched by NASA. Commander Decker finds out, “[This machine] was designed to collect data and transmit them back to Earth, and disappeared into a black hole” (Motion). After learning all the information with the help of its similar inhabitants, V’Ger wishes to be connected to its creator, humans. However, owing to the time gap of three hundred years, its signal has not been responded by humans. V’Ger, a sort of machine kid, demands that a human body reconnect the disconnected electric wire as an act of reconciliation or relief and threatens to destroy the Earth by its impressive power. At this threat, Deck sacrifices his body to save the others and also stay with Ilia, a doppelganger of his woman by letting himself another machine. Spock, with all his heartless Vulcan blood, weeps at V’Ger’s loneliness and agony after finding out this fact: “the symbolic message might be that Voyager realizes the limit of the universe and others’ existence through its experience and feels it should touch its creator so that it can know who it really is” (Lee, Initiation 107).

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