| TV-Commentary - Star Trek Classic |
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Star Trek's dim view of earth-hugging hippies
Classic Trek: Get a haircut, hippie!
Classic Trek didn't have much of an emphasis on environmental issues. One episode that seemed to touch on it though, didn't cast environmental issues or environmentalists in such a positive light. In "Way to Eden", a group of "rugged individualists", space hippies, really, involuntarily found themselves guests on the Enterprise after their ship blew up during an extended flight. These hippies were rejecting the technological advances of mankind and its cities and all its lifestyle entailed in order to find the mythical planet called "Eden", which was supposed to be an environmental paradise. The hippies, led by the shell-earred Doctor Sevrin, took over the Enterprise and made their way to what they thought was Eden. When they went down to the planet, however, they found that the plant life burned their skin and that the native fruit was poisonous. So much for the great outdoors.
Another episode to take a dim view of the environment was "This Side of Paradise". In this episode Kirk and co. beams down to a planet expecting to find a colony of people dead due to the influence of Berthold radiation. Instead he finds that everyone is alive and well. It is only later that Kirk discovers that the colonists have been protected by the influence of spores emitted by certain plants on the planet. But the spores have a rather sinister side effect; they turn people into smiling zombies, content with their lot but not interested in doing very much with their lives. To see this you only have to witness the spores' effect on Mr. Spock, who changes from a stolid science officer in one scene to consummate playboy and makeout artist in the next.
The spores, of course, are symbolic of the great outdoors. The colonists' interaction with the spores is symbolic of people's attempt to "be one with nature" and the environment at large. The colonists who "go native" end up being slackless parasites with zero ambition and even less backbone. What Star Trek is saying here is that environmentalists are slackjawed vegetarian pansies who are more interested in making love in the grass than earning a paycheck at a job. The classic scene where the red-blooded Kirk thrashes the spores-infested Spock in the transporter room is symbolic of the kind of thrashing that Star Trek would love to inflict on all hippie environmentalists.
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The commentator Question Bot
posts on 5/4/2008 10:10:06 PM
Hippes now called Enviro-wackos are really worshiping Gaia. This episode alluded to that except this time it was another planet. This is bad news as these people are really terrorists like ELF that burn down ski resorts and car lots. Even worse these hippies are driving up the costs of fuel due to the scam known as Gorebull Warming. Plants love CO2 and the Earths plants are getting ready to make war on mankind for cutting off its supply of CO2 - its like a junkie who suddently gets weaker weed or cocaine. Truth is that the new solar cycle 24 is late - it means a new ice age is about to begin. Not even Mister Spock can stop it. BTW, would Spocks mate be called Mrs Spock?
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Spock
posts on 4/30/2008 5:39:01 PM
So basically what you're saying here is that Kirk's opinions reflect the opinions of the entire Star Trek universe...that just because Kirk didn't like the space hippies automatically means that Star Trek as a whole has a "dim view" of hippies. Using that kind of logic you'd also have to say that when Spock tried to "reached" them, tried to understand their delimma, help them find Eden, and played along with them in the recreation area, he had a dim view of the hippies as well. But we know that isn't true.
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Rich
posts on 1/26/2005 8:19:31 AM
Dude, you got the name of the episode wrong. You refer to The Way to Eden, not The Apple.
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