Star Trek Thoughts: Patterns of Force
Jul. 12th, 2014 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerEven after getting Blu-Ray sets of the entire "Original Series," I still intended to be picky about what Star Trek episodes I watched. There were a few episodes on which I seemed sort of divided about whether to watch or not, though. I've somehow formed the impression "Patterns of Force" has become one of the "controversial" episodes through being "the Nazi planet episode." When I decided I'd watch it anyway and form my own opinions, I could suppose one thought about it way back in production was that it was another chance to "film on the back lot," draw the costumes from wardrobe, and save money. With that, though, I could wonder whether the series was "playing with fire" in invoking historical realities too big and troubling for the usual game of Kirk and Spock solving everything in an hour's time, whether the setup of "a well-meaning historian supposed fascism could be kept benign to motivate a troubled planet," in permitting the "good" kind of interference (once again), somehow allowed for a misleadingly safe "one of a kind" distancing, whether the iconography on display was once more being employed to catch eyes but have full consequences missed. It might also just be that Kirk bluffing his way around in a black uniform with red armband troubles in a way that, say, The Guns of Navarone might not (although there I'm going by hearsay...) I did, though, happen to think the gulf of time implied between World War II and Star Trek's future could have meant something "within" the story, although I'm not quite sure what's said in the episode allows for that interpretation.
After all of that, however, I did know too this is the one episode where Leonard Nimoy (also) appears with his shirt off; I suppose his yellowish "Spock" makeup (which somehow sits on a fine line for me between "maybe it had to stand out for the color sets back then," in the same way as the red paint on the Enterprise sets, and "it just is what Spock is") had something to do with that. I also knew this in its context has been invoked in the "Kirk/Spock" movement, and in knowing that ahead of time I suppose it didn't catch me off guard the way all of a sudden thinking other moments must have figured that way have. A bit later on, though, I did realise this was an episode where Kirk didn't have to romance the female guest star to get things wrapped up, something that's changed over the years into the perception of Kirk as "insatiable womanizer."
I did eventually find myself thinking of "A Piece of the Action," another episode that managed to film on the back lot by invoking a planet that had begun imitating twentieth century Earth; in its case, though, "Chicago gangsters" seem less fraught with meaning and everything wound up enough of a joke that the episode was included on the second "Best of The Original Series" DVD as if to complement "The Trouble With Tribbles" being on the first such disc. I also had a thoroughly personal reaction in noticing the threatened planet of the episode was named "Zeon." While this was of course meant to hammer the historical analogy home, I did start thinking of the antagonists of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime for all that "Zeon" is pronounced differently there. It also happens that over the years some comparisons have been made between the animated Zeon and the Nazis, although there are certainly fans who'll be quick to take offence to them.
After all of that, however, I did know too this is the one episode where Leonard Nimoy (also) appears with his shirt off; I suppose his yellowish "Spock" makeup (which somehow sits on a fine line for me between "maybe it had to stand out for the color sets back then," in the same way as the red paint on the Enterprise sets, and "it just is what Spock is") had something to do with that. I also knew this in its context has been invoked in the "Kirk/Spock" movement, and in knowing that ahead of time I suppose it didn't catch me off guard the way all of a sudden thinking other moments must have figured that way have. A bit later on, though, I did realise this was an episode where Kirk didn't have to romance the female guest star to get things wrapped up, something that's changed over the years into the perception of Kirk as "insatiable womanizer."
I did eventually find myself thinking of "A Piece of the Action," another episode that managed to film on the back lot by invoking a planet that had begun imitating twentieth century Earth; in its case, though, "Chicago gangsters" seem less fraught with meaning and everything wound up enough of a joke that the episode was included on the second "Best of The Original Series" DVD as if to complement "The Trouble With Tribbles" being on the first such disc. I also had a thoroughly personal reaction in noticing the threatened planet of the episode was named "Zeon." While this was of course meant to hammer the historical analogy home, I did start thinking of the antagonists of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime for all that "Zeon" is pronounced differently there. It also happens that over the years some comparisons have been made between the animated Zeon and the Nazis, although there are certainly fans who'll be quick to take offence to them.