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The Saddest Scene in Star Trek…

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.

{ 2 comments… add one }
  • Robert Crawford May 28, 2022, 11:02 pm

    I am trying to come up with the name of the philosophy that little scene illustrates. I can not think of it. Can you help me out?

    And yes, that one scene made the movie. I think of that scene often, however, I con not remember much of the rest of the movie.

    • jottinge June 11, 2022, 9:00 am

      I don’t know. The closest I can come up with is scarcity: he can only make holes, and thus they hold a symbolic value to him that far exceeds their ACTUAL value.

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