Taking Something Away From the Man

Real Steel is the tale of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a washed-up boxer in over his head in the world of robot boxing.

Fuelled by the demand to watch two participants entirely obliterate each other to the death, robot boxing has seen automatons replace human fighters. Think of it as Bloodsport as waged by droids.

Kenton's life is that of mounting defeats and ever-increasing debt until he swings a shady deal for custody of his son Max (Dakota Goyo) with the boy's wealthy uncle. Max eventually helps Charlie stage a whirlwind comeback to a championship match with the robot boxing world champion, a robot by the name of Zeus.

In the world of Real Steel, human boxers no longer compete. Outpaced by the rise of Mixed Martial Arts and eventually cast aside entirely in favour of robots, the risk once accepted by human fighters is now shunted onto these robots.

In a perfect world, something like that would be great... for everyone but the fighters themselves.

People who frequently watch science fiction films have probably seen Star Trek: Insurrection, wherein the crew of the USS Enterprise travel to a planet populated by the Ba'Ku. They are believed to be a primitive society who has never developed the technology necessary to travel through space, but in actuality are an advanced society that has chosen to live in nearly Ahmish fashion.

One of the Ba'Ku, Sojef (Daniel Hugh Kelly), tells the crew that "we believe that when you make a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man."

There is something to be said for this. But when applied to basic, day-to-day, menial tasks, that is one thing. When applied to longer-term pursuits, it's entirely another.

In Real Steel, robot boxers such as Atom, Zeus and Midas are controlled by humans, but the operators are reduced to the level of software. They operate the fighter, but never themselves fight. Theoretically, they experience all the thrill of fighting without ever actually having to take a punch.

But unlike with human righters, the operator is entirely interchangable. The operator may be able to pilot their fighter to victory, but never really win themselves. They may pilot their fighter to a championship, but never really become the champion.

The operators are at very little risk. As the film shows -- although it doesn't depict a Robot Jox-esque disaster (or, for that matter, a Reno Airraces-esque disaster) -- the operators and their spectators do face the risk of being injured by flying debris.

But they aren't at risk of being harmed by another fighter. They never have to take the punch, they never have to be knocked out. They'll never experience a concussion, never be afflicted by post-concussion syndrome.

Which is nice. But is it worth surrendering the opportunity to enjoy their successes for themselves, in their own name?

Those who would gleefully ban boxing, MMA fighting, air racing, or any other hazardous sport in favour of some kind of remote-controlled alternative would almost certainly believe it is.

As the example of Charlie Kenton suggests, the competitors themselves probably wouldn't be so keen. And while the film predictably concludes with Kenton celebrating having led his robot to a triumph of sorts, it's fair to speculate on whether his satisfaction would last, or if it would be eclipsed by the opportunity to step into the ring and win a championship with his own fists.

If humanity starts building machines to pursue human excellence, people like Charlie Kenton would be denied the opportunity to achieve it for themselves.

Humans denied the opportunity to pursue human excellence: it's as chilling an idea in a fictional world as it is in the real world.

Zionism in Space

The 2009 version of Star Trek, directed and produced by JJ Abrams, shocked many long time Trek fans by destroying the planet Vulcan.

Shortly after the unthinkable act, actually perpetrated by a time-travelling Romulan seeking to take revenge for the destruction of his world, Spock (Zachary Quinto) speculates that only a few thousand Vulcans may have survived the destruction of the planet.

His race has immediately become an endangered species.

As mentioned previously, the allusion to the Holocaust is plainly evident. And if the 2009 Star Trek film is interesting in its allegorical treatment of the Holocaust, it may prove to be outright provocative in its allegorical treatment of Zionism.

Interestingly enough, the Zionist theme of the film's ending -- in which the elder Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has located a distant world for the remaining Vulcans to settle on -- seem to seldom be the subject of any commentary on the film.

In many respects, this seems unfortunate. If there remain many venues in which controversies such as the Israel/Palestine controversy can be discussed at least relatively safely, it should be the way that we represent such controversies in fiction.

One could -- and likely should -- wonder how the story would unfold if the planet in question turned out to be populated or, moreover, if another alien race turned up to stake a previous claim on it.

While there are numerous historical claims to the land that contentiously incorporates modern-day Israel, these historical claims pale by comparison to the importance that conflict over that land be settled peacefully today. The Palestinians certainly have the most recent claim to most of mordern-day Israel, having so recently occupied it.

By the same token, however, the oldest historical and archaeological evidence available also suggests that the Israeli claim to that land may be the oldest.

In a future Trek film, the Vulcans could find the allegorical table essentially turned on them: occupying the planet in question, only to find that another group has an older -- and just as legitimate -- claim to it.

Moreover, those familiar with the Star Trek universe could easily surmise that Vulcans, prone to making the most coldly logical decision available to their capacities (which can just as often be clouded by their actually-irrational disdain for people who decline to live up to their logical standard), would respond by whatever means they deemed necessary -- including violence that could prove to be as brutal as necessary.

Whether or not JJ Abrams and his associates are brave enough to actually take Star Trek in such a direction won't been seen for a good while yet -- the next film doesn't begin pre-production until the new year.

But in the face of a more blatantly Zionist theme in the new film, we could glean new insights into precisely what we really think about this simmering issue in the Middle East.

To Boldly Commit Genocide...

Warning: the following post contains significant spoilers about the film Star Trek. Those still interested in seeing this film should consider themselves forewarned.


Dark historical overtones at heart of Star Trek film

Franchise re-boots are all the range recently, with film franchises like Batman scoring big hits at the box office in the wake of previous disappointing film releases.

It's in this particular vein that it should be less than surprising that Paramount films would re-boot Star Trek. What should be even less surprising -- to those intimately familiar with the franchise -- is that JJ Abrams, the man behind the Trek re-boot, would fashion a Star Trek that resembles human history a little more closely than Gene Roddenberry's original series.

Yet the film retains the general theme of Roddenberry's original -- the triumph of the human spirit.

The film daringly and decisively re-shapes the Star Trek universe when Nero (Eric Bana), a revenge-seeking Romulan, destroys the planet Vulcan -- one of the backbones of the United Federation of Planets -- in order to take revenge on Ambassador Spock for failing to save planet Romulus.

Spock -- who appears both in younger and older forms (played by Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy, respectively) -- speculates that as few as 10,000 Vulcans may have survived the destruction of the planet.

Genocide is a theme that Star Trek has previously addressed, but rarely in terms so horrifically similar to human history.

As those intimately familiar with Star Trek are doubtlessly aware, Vulcans and Romulans look very similar to one another for important reason -- they share a common heritage on the planet Vulcan. As revealed in the Next Generation episode "Unification" -- in which Spock is targeted by Romulan assassins for his efforts to reveal this common heritage to citizens of the Romulan Star Empire -- Romulans were Vulcans who left the planet to follow a different path, and forge a militaristic empire.

It's in this vein, considering that Vulcans and Romulans are actually the same species, that the destruction of Vulcan isn't merely a genocide -- it's actually a fratricide as well.

Naturally, this will beg comparisons to Adolph Hitler -- who is believed by many to have had a Jewish heritage -- and to the genocide in Rwanda, where Hutus and Tutsis were not only virtually indistinguishable to most visitors to that country, but had on many occasions inter-married, making it incredibly likely that many of those participating in the Rwandan genocide were actually killing their own family members.

As Bruce Wilshire theorizes, many genocides are motivated by a mortal terror -- the belief that the existence of an ethnic rival poses a threat to the survival of one's own ethnicity or race.

Nero seems to embody this particular motivation, as he intends to continue on to destroy every Federation planet -- including Earth -- believing that is the only way he can ensure the survival of Romulus.

(Then again, considering that Romulus was destroyed when its sun went supernova, one can certainly find fault in the reasoning of this particular madman.)

Human history is full of all kinds of instances in which genocidal leaders went to shocking lengths in order to defend otherwise inconsequential ethnic differences. Wherever the Star Trek franchise may now go, one can imagine that it will very closely resemble human history.

Some may question if this remains true to Gene Roddenberry's original optimistic vision of human history, and its message that the human triumph can triumph over petty greed and racism.

By the same token, however, one would have to agree that a triumph without a challenge is hardly a triumph at all.