Persistence of Vision

West Columbia, South Carolina. 8:30 p.m., Thursday, September 8, 1966. A thirteen-year old girl sits crossed-legged on the floor in front of a console television set.

The next year, the show she was watching has been moved to Friday nights at 10:00, but she is still there.

Four years later, that girl is sitting with her boyfriend on the porch of his landlady's house, in front of a tiny television. The original show from 1966 has been canceled after three seasons, but is in reruns.

By 1987 the girl and her boyfriend have been married for 16 years. They have a son, five years old. They are all in front of their television, in Scottsdale, Arizona, watching the next incarnation of the original series from 1966.

Greensboro, North Carolina, 1993. The couple has another son, who is four years old. The family gathers in front of their TV to watch the third version of the original series.

1995. The fourth television series to be based on the original one, debuts. Needless to say, we watch.

In 2001, the fifth, and final manifestation of the series from 1966 airs. Guess who is in front of the TV.

Midnight, May 23, 2009. An IMAX theater in Westminster, Colorado. Need I say more?

In case you haven't guessed, the series in question is Star Trek. From the time I was 13 years old (actually, almost 13) I have loved Star Trek, and everything it stands for. And just what is that? Is it what many reviewers call its "optimistic view of the future?" Is it the fact that the series depicts humans and aliens living in harmony in a quasi-utopian society where any disease can be cured with the squirt of a hypo-spray? Is it the fantastic spaceships that travel at speeds beyond the speed of light? Is it the adjustable weapons, the phasers that can stun, but not (unless set to) kill? Is it the sci-fi transporters that beam its occupants from one point to another in the blink of an eye? Is it the babes in short skirts and the guys in tight pants?

Yes.

And no.

Star Trek is so much more than a space western. While it is, and was, according to its creator, Gene Roddenberry, a morality tale, just what morality does it depict?

Several reviews of the new Star Trek movie have concentrated on the bonding-arc aspect of the main characters, Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Checkov. True, this movie is a re-boot of the original series, and as such, necessarily needs to explore how these characters came together. How they came to function as a team. How they developed their deep friendships.

O.K.

And no.

The new movie is not about the "importance of friendship." Is it not about "bonding." It is not about "teamwork." While these are all themes that run through the series, and the movies, it is not their determining aspect. These themes are not what discriminates Star Trek from say, Thelma and Louise.

Star Trek always was, and continues to be, about the individual. About what it is to be one. About what it takes to be on the bridge of a starship. Or at the head of a corporation. Or at the top of one's game.

You have to earn it.

You have to work at it. You have to be a grown-up.

A scene in the new movie illustrates this well. The young James Kirk, who is depicted early in the movie as a fatherless, rudderless, punkish, enfant terrible, manages to come on board the Enterprise, despite being put on academic probation for, in essence, cheating on what we would call an entrance exam.

His new friend, Doctor McCoy, arranges the deceit. Once Kirk is there, however, events transpire so that he merits his place. Kirk has knowledge that others do not, and he acts on that knowledge. He manages to convince the captain (Pike) that he is correct in his interpretation of the facts.

Throughout the movie, Kirk continues to grow into the role of captain of a starship. We see him take action based on ideas. All the characters do.

Yes, they all become partners, friends, comrades. But they are bonded by their mutual respect for each other's convictions, integrity, and virtue. They are joined in the enterprise of becoming human, in the very best sense of the word.

Enterprise equals action, activity, endeavor, engagement, purpose, pursuit, ambition, boldness, daring, dash, gumption, industry, initiative, resourcefulness, readiness, zeal.

After all, the ship isn't named the U.S.S. Mediocrity, now is it?