6/13/2023 0 Comments Mind meld memeIt ranks as one of the best because, as the late Margaret Wander Bonnano noted in her classic Star Trek novel Strangers from the Sky, it was the first time we saw Spock mind meld with Kirk. Spock uses the Vulcan mind meld to make his fellow Enterprise landing party members absolutely certain the bullets “Wyatt Earp” and his gang are shooting at the Melkotians’ “OK Corral” aren’t real. The scene became such an iconic Star Trek moment, Hallmark even turned it into a Christmas ornament in 2014! Spock Mind Melds with Kirk in “Spectre of the Gun” His wide eyes and high voice as he speaks the Horta’s lament for her murdered children make the moment truly heartbreaking. But Leonard Nimoy proved his mastery of his craft when he was able to make viewers believe Spock was psychically communing with the creature. In a lesser actor’s hands, Spock’s meeting of the minds with the Horta would be nothing but laughable. Spock Mind Melds with the Horta in “The Devil in the Dark” The low point was the last mind meld Nimoy ever acted: Spock Prime’s hasty and unceremonious “infodump” meld to show Kirk, and the audience, his history with Nero in Star Trek (2009).īut “Memento Mori” gives me hope Star Trek can still deliver dramatic and meaningful mind meld scenes-scenes like the three best mind melds we ever saw Spock perform. It was hard for Star Trek writers to keep away from such a dramatic plot device, and mind melds became increasingly routine and undramatic. Nimoy himself lamented in his autobiography I Am Spock (1995) that “the more Spock utilized the mind meld, the less dangerous it seemed to become” (p. (Intriguingly, Spock also told McCoy he had “never used on a human.” Did Strange New Worlds pull off a mind meld retcon? Or did Spock, who we know to be a master secret-keeper, keep his meld with La’an-who is still human, albeit genetically augmented-confidential? I’d like to believe the latter.) Van Gelder, with whom he melds, “It could be dangerous.” And in that episode, too, Spock pushes back: “It’s a hidden, personal thing to the Vulcan people,” Spock tells McCoy, “part of our private lives.” He also warns Dr. McCoy-is gently but firmly pressuring Spock to perform the meld in a moment of extreme need. In that episode, too, another character-in this case, Dr. The episode handles the meld almost as delicately as did “Dagger of the Mind” 56 years ago when it introduced the Vulcan joining of minds into Star Trek mythos. Resurfacing hidden memories can be painful, even dangerous.” And Spock cautions La’an, “The mind meld is not a shortcut for dealing with mental trauma. La’an tells Spock,”I’ve heard what Vulcans can do,” implying the mind meld is only hearsay or rumor, perhaps even legend, among non-Vulcans. To the credit of “Memento Mori,” it does not treat the mind meld casually. In its fourth episode, “Memento Mori,” La’an Noonien-Singh asks Spock to help her recover long-suppressed memories of her devastating childhood encounter with the Gorn. It didn’t take Star Trek: Strange New Worlds long to work in the Vulcan mind meld as a plot device. Mind meld dignity could be restored in Strange New Worlds.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |