Of Cetans, spans and sailing ships:

A Re-vision of the American Romance in Star Trek IV

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (ST IV), Leonard Nimoy, Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer complete the resurrection trilogy initiated by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (ST II). Spock sacrificed himself to guarantee the survival of the Enterprise, a decision justified with a quote from Charles Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities: "The good of the many outweigh the good of the one, or the few." The balance of the trilogy challenges this conventional definition of sacrifice so central to the romance tradition in terms drawn from the American literary tradition.	In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (ST III), Kirk and the bridge crew fly to the Genesis planet where they are forced to destroy the Enterprise before they can bring Spock's body back to Vulcan to be rejoined with his consciousness. "The good of the one outweighs the good of the few, or the many." In Star Trek IV, Nimoy, Bennett and Meyers shifts the focus from sacrifice to creation. Everyone contributes to the good of the many. Society cannot be transformed, or survive, without the combined efforts of all the individuals who contribute to its welfare. Public good and private virtue cannot be distinguished. The crew live and work together, public duty inseparable from private good. The film creates a literate re-interpretation of the American romance which draws upon the ideas and images incorporated in Moby Dick.

In the successive films deals reflect upon themes long-associated with the American romance - time, space and memory - to create a work which, in effect, extends the bounds of the romance tradition. The film offers an ironic redaction of Herman Melville's classic romance about whales, ships and the men who sail them, Moby Dick.

In Star Trek IV, Admiral Kirk and company penetrate the wilderness of their own past to rescue a pair of whales who may be able to effect the salvation of their world through communication with a seemingly hostile probe poised to destroy the planet. The whales, doomed to extinction in their own time, gain new life in a future made safe by their responses to the probe which had been sent to check upon the progress of only sentient species capable of communication during the Cenozoic Period.

The whales follow Spock into the future to gain salvation for their own kind and for society. The whales, like the Israelites, flee their own destruction to find life in a new land. These echoes of Exodus appear to be deliberate as do the ironic references to the story of Jonah. In a sharp contrast to the Old Testament tale, Admiral Kirk undertakes a journey into the past to seek the whales who, he hopes, can rescue his world with their song. In a neat inversion of the traditional tale, the whales are rescued from hunters to be brought back to the present in the belly of the ship.

The works of the Puritans often echo Old Testament texts such as Exodus. The work of Non-Conformists in England and American in the seventeenth and eighteenth century teem with references of Innocents who hazard the wild places in order to earn salvation for themselves and their posterity as did the Israelites. Puritan conversion narratives often made reference to the story of Jonah, the prophet, took passage on a ship in a vain attempt to escape responsibilities imposed upon him by his God. After the ship foundered in a storm, Jonah was swallowed by the whale who brought to his home so he might carry out the will of the Lord.

The American romance has debated the nature of salvation with fundamentalist fervor since its inception in the eighteenth century. The spiritual and physical dangers to characters who hazard the wilderness were often couched in phrases drawn from Non-Conformist classics such as Pilgrim's Progress. Literary romances, like the country had well into the nineteenth century. Arguments about free will and predestination add a are sublimated in stories in which characters endure physical and spiritual dangers in order to

Ismael, alone among the whalers, survived the destruction of the Pequod by holding onto	Salvation whether of self or has always been debated of self and society have formed a central formed always been examined in the romance. Melville had examined the relationship between self and posed questions about the sel questioned the hunting of the whale on human Salvation, self and Salvation, whether has always formed a central has always which gaining new life for thegain life The central image complex - whales, ships and bridges - reflects focuses wone uses images such as focusses upon the relationship between self and society as have works such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick. The relationshipSelf and society The central image complex Admiral Kirk and company penetrate the past to bring a pair of sof a pair of whales who hold the

affectionately known as the "whale movie,"

The vast plains and oceans of the New World inspired eighteenth century romancers

incorporate one of the central image complexes George Santayana's admonition that `Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.' Leonard Nimoy, Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer were instrumental in the creation of this vision of a future forced to seek salvation in its own past. American literature has often focussed upon the the fatal burden of the past, particularly in the romances such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Star Trek IV offers a contemporary re-telling of Moby Dik which incorporates the social ideas and literary images now so central to American literary tradition.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, written and directed by Nicholas Meyer, raised the spectre of anarchy and social discord explored in Charles Dickens's The Tale of Two Cities. Khan and his colonists threatened Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise much as the French mob menaced Sidney

Carton and Charles Darney. Dickens had been influenced by Carlyle's History of the French Revolution, but had drawn his inspiration from a melodrama by Wilkie Collins. Nicholas Meyer drew upon the dramatic elements in Dickens's work in constructing his film. In addition, Spock gives Kirk a nineteenth century edition of A Tale of Two Cities for his birthday at the beginning of the film.

Star Trek II reflects the social and political conservatism which characterized British society in the nineteenth century. Dickens used on the distinction between private life and public duty as did many of his contemporaries. In the film, Spock gives his life to save Kirk, his family and his ship in a gesture reminiscent of Sidney Carton's sacrifice. "The good of the many outweigh the good of the few, or the one," he reminds Kirk just before he dies.

The crew travel back to the past to rescue a species

Moby Dick establishes a form, style and an image complex which has had a profound impact on contemporary literature. Melville reflects the popular religious writing, subversive literature and romantic adventure of his own period. Tracts. sermons, newpaper articles all have an impact on his prose. The colloquial style and audacious form of Moby Dick can be traced, in part, to the popular works which infuse a vitality during the American Renaissance.

In Moby Dick, Melville, creates a portrait of a society in flux. His use of everyday language and contemporary popular materials made it possible to define the literary democracy capable of reforming the staid, polite novels of his time. He stresses the fictionality of his fiction when he shifts back and forth between the story of the crew of the Pequod and the cetology chapters. His prose style changes from a brisk novelistic style, spiced with colloquial idioms to a proper restrained prose identified with the popular journals of the day.

In the American romance, the past shapes the present. In this film, change can be accomplished by an individual who understands the way in which memory and communication sustain a community over time. Time becomes a primary image, articulated by the movement of the characters to and from the twentieth century.

The characters move through time to rescue their world from destruction determined by the acts of their ancestors. Whales, the only creatures capable of communicating with an alien probe, had been rendered extinct by the twenty-first century. The probe cannot, or will not communicate with people which forces the crew to go back to the twentieth century to bring a whale into their own time.

The characters travel to the twentieth century San Franciso to bring whales, long extinct in their own era, to communicate with a probe wreaking havoc on the earth. The probe had visited earth only in the distant past when whales were the only species of life to whom it could communicate. Unable to communicate with them, the probe assumes all intelligent lifeforms have vanished from the earth and sets about terraforming its surface to accomodate aquan species.

The creators of the film tied the past to the present with a primary image complex drawn from American literary tradition. In Moby Dick, Herman Melville focussed upon th

e men who went down to the sea in ships to hunt the whales. Bennett, Meyer and Nimoy, invert Ahab's quest. The starship crew travel, not to the ends of the earth, but to the ends of time. There, they hunt the whales to insure the survival of their own species and that of the whales.

The crew of the Admiral Kirk's U. S. S. Bounty, like that of Captain Ahab's Pequod, consists of a racial and ethnic mix of people. The self-conscious adherence to rank and ethnic hierarchy has been abandoned on the Bounty. The crewmembers undertake their voyage into the past only after a vote, and discuss their plans at every juncture. The traditional command structure supports the authority of Captain Ahab even after he has displayed signs of madness. Crewmembers of the Pequod must be cut loose if they fall overboard while hunting the whale, in contrast, the crew of the Bounty endanger their mission to rescue Chekov, a crewmember injured in the course of his duties.

In Moby Dick, Melville questioned the economic imperialism which fueled the whale hunts. The cetology chapters establish the presence of the whales as a specific species, treating them in a pseudo-anthropological fashion so popular in contemporary journals which implicitly identified the whales with the primitive tribes being decimated by slave hunters, whose customs and attitudes were as indicipherable to European chroniclers. In ST IV: The Voyage Home, the creators challenge the assumptions underlying the whale hunts. They argue that the short term advantages of destroying a natural resource can be outweighed by unforseen effects over the long term. This socio-economic argument is linked with a more modern view of non-technological societies. They communicate with the whales, explain the fate of the whales in their time and enlist their help in reversing the ecological disaster which has befallen earth in their absence.

Melville challenges the hierarchical views of race held by those who argue in favor of slavery and the colonial enterprise. Such attitudes are institutionalized in the right of native New This book, like many romances written during and after the American Renaissance, focusses on the relationship of the hero with the Other. In the traditional romance, the Other, a person from a racial or sexual minority group, shows a willingness to sacrifice themself to preserve the community which depends on the hero, or the hero himself. These works often focus on a rite of passage as does Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick. The natural nobility of the Savage Other reflects and reinforces the civilized virtues of the hero. Ismael meets Queequeeg, the harpooner from the South Sea Islands, in Nantucket. Together, they share lodgings and sign aboard the Pequod. Queequeeg initiates Ismael into the customs of life aboard the ship and Ismael survives the final shipwreck by clinging to his coffin.

In Star Trek IV Kirk and Spock have inverted the role of the hero and the Other. Spock died to save the Enterprise in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. With his death, he redeemed the ship and saved Admiral Kirk's life. This traditional conclusion was countermanded in the next film, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. In that film, the admiral and his command crew brought his body to Vulcan in defiance of Star Fleet's commands, and saw him returned to life by the intervention of a priestess-elder. In the fourth film, Spock takes the part of the neophyte, the hero whose re-entrance into society is guided by the Other, Kirk. Hero and Other, the roles are reversed and in the process re-defined. Neither is subordinate, neither can be reduced to a coded reference based on race or nationality.

They also question the role of authority in the traditional romance. Captain Ahab and Mr. Starbuck command the vessal, their unquestioned authority stemmed from their contract with the owners and was buttressed by their New England origins. In ST IV, the traditional command structure has been replaced by a democratic mutiny. Admiral Kirk and his command crew have violated their Star Fleet oath in rescuing their comrade for which they must face charges. On their way back to San Francisco, they make a three-hundred year detour to save the world. Most still are dressed in the civilian clothes, they wore on the night they left earth to look for Spock. Shorn of the outward signs of rank, they vote to undertake the quest for the whales, a task undertaken at Kirk's direction, but not under his orders.

Kirk is a hero, not because he is an American, or a white male, but because he They have already inverted the traditional

one of the first to unite whales, bridge/ships and The crew leave the San Francisco to travel back to twentieth century San Franciso. They land in Golden Gate park using a cloaking device to remain hidden. giving a fright to a the drew upon a primary image complex - whales, bridges/ship and the sea - long identified with American poetic first employed by Herman Melville in Moby Dick and a

This image complex has played a major role in the work of successive American poets from Walt Whitman through Wallace Stevens. The final sequence of the film recalls the conclusion of Hart Crane's The Bridge. The crew has crashlanded in San Francisco Bay after transporting the whales, a species long extinct in the twenty-third century, to save earth. They wait in the water under the Golden Gate Bridge Walt Whitman elaborated upon this image complex in Leaves of Grass. The mothering sea sustains him throughout the early poemsWhitman drew upon this image complex throughout his life as in Brooklyn Bridge used the complex in part or in its entirety throughout its entireThe entire complex or elements drew upon associated with the work done during the American Renaissance.

Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass poetry of Walt Whitman which influenced and Hart Crane.

drawn from American literary tradition,. centexamines themes central to the American romance tradition, particularly the way in which memory and communication sustain a community in time. and community becomeThe film employs an image complex associated with focusses upon memory, communication, and community which have been major themes in the American romance form the basis of this film.	They are forced to penetrate the past in order to guarantee the survival of their own future. A satellite broadcasts an indecipherable message as it re-shapes the climactic conditions of the Earth's weather. Only Spock realizes that this message is directed at a species eliminated along with a memory of their mode of communication, song.

The filmmakers draw upon ideas and images associated with this tradition. They are establishing a dialogue with have created a film which defines itself in opposition to this tradition which dominates American literary history.

The film focusses upon the efforts of the Bridge Crew of the Enterprise to save the Earth by bringing a pair of whales capable of communicating with the probe into their own time. Whales are asked to insure the salvation of the species responsible for their extinction. The whales mediate the fate of a species which has destroyed, but not necessarily superceded them. In this film, they reflect the role reserved for Spock in the Star Trek universe. Spock has also been portrayed as the Outsider, the unknowable Other, who acts to insure the survival of a community to which they owe no fealty and thus affirms their own right to a place in that community. Queequeeg helps insure the survival of Ismael in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, as does Chingachcook and Hawkeye in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.

In Moby Dick, Melville questioned the mercantile and social forces which found expression in the whaling industry.

th Few studies focussed upon In the past, critics have often focussed amointerpretations of the novel have focussed upon the tradpersonal relationship between Queequeeg has been renders faithful service to Captain Ahab rescues Ismael while servin attempts to serves Captain sacrifices himself no th a community act to savassert their right to recognition through the riskby risking their own lives for an unito protect the risk themselves to save the sOther assume a central The film challengesexplores the double nature of The whales, fact and fiction, contemporary ecological concerns for their preservation as a species are stated in terms which consciously reflect the style and substance of works such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick which form an integral part of the American romance tradition and question assumption intrinsic to such works. Star Trek IV challenges assumptions central to the American romance tradition

The primary image complex - whales, bridge and/or ships and the sea -

who had had his memory of Earth's history himself newly-resurrected, remembers that

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (ST II), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (ST II), and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (ST IV)

form a trilogy which examines the assumptions underlying the the literary vision of sacrifice central to the American romance tradition and challenges its validity. The sacrifice of the Other to insure the survival of the hero has been a primary motif in the American romance, exemplified by James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. In the Cavalry trilogy, John Ford raised questions about the mythologizing of history and the heroic vision of sacrifice he himself never fully explored. Those who made the Star Trek trilogy have simplified the terms of the debate by limiting themselves to the literary romance tradtion.

John Ford realized Romanticism had a profound influence on the development of American literature and history. John Parkman set out to write romantic history inspired by Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and Carlyle's History of the French Revolution. Western history consciously adhered to the tradition of romantic nationalism. In Fort Apache, Ford revised the Custer legend to reflect the views of historians seeking to correct distortions of fact and interpretation. In their opinion, Custer overestimated his own abilities which led him to underestimate his opponent, Sitting Bull. This error cost him his own life as well as those of his men. Fort Apache affirms the sacrificial ideal so central to American Romantic tradition in history and romance tradition. Ford challenges the myth, but not the mythic nature of American history. The Star Trek trilogy films focus upon characters created by Gene Roddenberry for the Star Trek (ST) television series (NBC 1966-69).

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, John Ford explores the ambiguity inherent in the ideal of sacrificial substitution. Once more, he concludes sacrifice to be a necessary fiction central to the the American romance which has shaped our view of the past. Yet, even Ford could see that the needs of history might conflict not only with the needs of the individual, but the greater good of the community. The sacrifice of the Other, the Outsider, had been a central theme in the American romance from Melville through Hemingway echoed in the works of the romantic historians. The Other is traditionally set apart by race, sex or physical difference. In Liberty Valance, John Wayne's character was distinguished by his deviation from cultural norms, a situation which called into question the validity and even the desirability of a sacrificial ideal. If communal order could be maintained only by the suppression of difference, which was a death of the self, if not an actual end to life, than all options would be foreclosed eliminating the possibility of change, even fruitful development.

Authorship, a difficult question in film, becomes complex beyond imagination in television. developed which draws upon the melodramatic

Linear in form, its structure is not defined by its linearity. with Although there have been a number of trilogies created The trilogy reflects upon the ideological and artistic implications of the Anglo-American literary tradition which they have inherited. The films draw upon contrasting elements in nineteenth and early twentieth century literature. While there are elements drawn from American literature, the first film in the trilogy Star Trek II is based upon British Victorian novels while Star Trek IV reflects nineteenth century American novels and American poetry.

Sacrifice and death have been an essential part of the romance tradition since its inception, however willed ignorance and the sacrifice of the Other have been a crucial