Thursday, March 18, 2021

Hit it With a Rock (humorous "Star Trek" post)

One of my favorite Star Trek The Original Series episodes is called "A Private Little War." It's a thoughtful episode penned as a commentary on the Vietnam War, which was ongoing at that time. The plot involves the Enterprise visiting a planet where Kirk befriended a local tribal chieftain years ago as a younger officer on a survey mission. Kirk reconnects with his old friend Tyree and finds that Tyree's tribe, the Hill People (no, Michael Meyers is not in this) is now in armed conflict with another tribe, the Village People (okay, I know how that sounds, just roll with it, this episode came first) who inexplicably are wielding primitive firearms several centuries more advanced than the rest of the planet's technology. It turns out the Klingons have been arming the rival group, and Tyree's wife, Nona, a tribal medicine woman, attempts to coerce Kirk into giving their less technologically advanced tribe phasers to defend themselves.

The reason this episode is  hilarious is that, for an episode about an arms race wherein a Stone Age tribe is trying to get their hands on phasers because their neighbors suddenly went from the Bronze Age to wielding Klingon-built flintlocks, a lot of people get hit by rocks.

Need to take out the guard but can't use phasers because you're disguised as natives on a primitive planet? Hit 'em with a rock.

Captive not cooperating? Hit 'em with a rock.

They even shoot rocks with phasers to provide heat for a comatose Spock who is suffering a venomous wound from one of the planet's animal life forms.

So, in summary, the episode is an allegory for a lot of Cold War politics: Vietnam, other colonial wars, mutually assured destruction, arms races. It's an episode about weapons, in which A lot of people get hit with rocks. And the whole time, they're talking about guns. While hitting each other with rocks.

I'm not sure if this was intentional, like the episode's Vietnam War allegory (which was ongoing and highly controversial at the time this episode aired), but it makes for some decent MST3King.