MOVIE NEWS – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount gives a typical Star Trek twist to the well-established Hitler-killing time travel dilemma, but the original series tried to tell this story once before. WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.

The moral and ethical dilemmas caused by the time travel story Star Trek: Strange New Worlds were almost dealt with 57 years ago. “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is a classic Star Trek time travel story that pays homage to two of the most beloved Star Trek: The Original Series films. Although the episode centers around Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh’s morally complex decision, which also has implications for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , earlier scenes in which La’an and alternate reality Captain James T Kirk (Paul Wesley) try to to fit into 21st century society, the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is cited.

As light and breezy as the scenes where Kirk and La’an steal clothes and have fun with the local chess fans, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3 presents La’an with an impossible moral dilemma. Infamous tyrant Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban) confronts La’an as a child, who is given the opportunity to kill the young man and save millions of lives. This is a variation on the classic debate over whether a time traveler could or should kill Hitler as a child. Although this is the first time that Star Trek has openly dealt with this well-known moral dilemma, it was previously raised in 1966.

An unused Star Trek: The Original Series storyline would have dealt with very similar themes to those raised by La’an Khan’s dilemma. A story outline in Gene Roddenberry’s archives focused on a possible episode in which a time experiment aboard Kirk’s USS Enterprise would accidentally bring Alois Schicklgruber to the 23rd century. Schicklgruber would eventually become the father of the infamous tyrant Adolf Hitler, and the crew of the Enterprise were torn over what to do with the young man. In an incredibly tasteless plot point, a Jewish Starfleet officer suggested that Schicklgruber be sterilized so that she could not have children.

Just over 20 years after the end of World War 2, it would be too early to examine the nature/nature debate through one of history’s greatest monsters. Fortunately, the episode never saw the light of day, although Star Trek: The Original Series explored World War 2 in the episode “Patterns of Force”, in which Kirk and Spock discover a planet under Nazi influence. “Patterns of Force” feels more like a war movie, much more suited to the genre-bending, episodic format of TOS in the 1960s, than a serious moral debate about killing Hitler.

In 1966, Star Trek’s decision to let Adolf Hitler be born would have struck a very harsh note to viewers for whom the Holocaust and World War 2 were moments in painfully recent history. While the moral debate is interesting, it was fundamentally bad for Star Trek then, and it’s still bad for Star Trek now. The revelation of the young Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds raises the same controversy, but without being tied to the real-life controversies of war crimes and genocide.

Since Khan’s first appearance in “Space Core,” Star Trek has never stopped regurgitating the trauma of the Eugenics Wars. This means that viewers can ponder the same ethical and moral implications of the “kill Hitler” story without seeing the crudeness of its execution on screen. By confronting La’an with his own problematic history and forcing him to let history take its course, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reworks a well-established argument without resorting to cheap and tasteless shock tactics.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is currently available in Hungary on Skyshowtime.

Source: ScreenRant