Star Trek, as a series, has a lot of really sad implications in parts – the wreckage of Captain Pike, for example, and worlds committed to remembrance of tragedies past. But the saddest of all of them to me right now is the cold open of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
The movie was not received well, and I don’t really remember it fondly myself, but the opening still bothers me.
In it, an alien – whose name is J’Onn, although from where that name comes I could not tell you yet – is digging a hole with a primitive auger of some kind in a field of dirt, dust rolling through the wind.
A rider approaches. J’Onn slowly and ungracefully scrambles for his weapon, leaning against a sparse and dead tree, and defies the rider.
The rider approaches, and says, “I thought weapons were forbidden on this planet. … Besides, I can’t believe you’d kill me for a field of empty holes.”
And here, J’Onn breaks my heart:
“All I have.”
This movie may not have done well at the box office, and historically it might be seen as one of the lesser Star Trek offerings, but that opening scene justifies its existence.