Great piece showing ST: Into Darkness parallels with recent US political history (SPOILERS!!)
(If you've been living in seclusion the last few months and don't want to know the plot lines of ST: Into Darkness, stop now...)
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Now is this Starfleet still based on the idealism of the 1960s America? No. With STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, the Darkness of the film isnt Khan. It isnt the Klingons or the Romulans, its the Darkness that has infected policy in STARFLEET. In other words, this is a metaphor for a Post-9/11 America. In JJs Verse, he has a Kirk that doesnt yet value the core beliefs of STARFLEET
Meanwhile, the rest of his crew
good souls like Spock and Scotty
They raise these issues with Kirk, but Kirk doesnt want to hear it. Hes us. Kirk has always been us. But just like Kirk, weve changed.
Vengeance has become something our Country seeks. Since 9/11 we have adjusted our core beliefs and laws to make things more convenient for a government that has been given a license to seek vengeance and protect us at all costs.
This STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is about the very basis of what a democracy should be built upon. To serve as a reminder of what STAR TREK really meant, what were supposed to be not on our BEST day but on our WORST.
How far STARFLEET has gone is so far, that for a bit
Khan and Kirk are united in a fight against a monster of a ship called VENGEANCE helmed by Peter Wellers Admiral Marcus the man in charge of Starfleet whose personal fear has hijacked this great institution. The invention of stealth, long-range photon torpedoes that can be fired from a great distance
sounds like DRONE technology. And when Spock and Scotty speak out against the use of that tech, thats a conversation that we as a people are currently having.
We as a people are better than who we are right now, if we stop and think about the toll our post-9/11 policies have taken upon the character of our great nation. Remember, Shatners Kirk
at the end of SPACE SEED, set Khan and his people to live upon a planet where they would have a chance to live their dream.
In this post-Vulcan Starfleet, Khan was found. The rest of his crew were kept on ICE and he was evaluated and used to nefarious ends by a perversion of our Government. You could go so far as to say Khan is Bin Laden, an enemy that we once used for our own purposes against a common enemy, the Russians/Klingons here. When that partnership ended, and suddenly Starfleet comes under attack, hes quickly assigned blame and eventually a mission is drawn up to assassinate him so he wont talk. What KHAN has to say is something that Peter Wellers Admiral can not allow to happen, because that story is a story that the people cant be allowed to hear.
This is a very political film. Moreso than I ever anticipated going in.
More.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/62477