It is frustrating, however, that there's an initially
important set-up of the story thread about Spock's tattling and an eerie
glimpse of the indigenous people on the primitive planet starting what appears
to be a Starship Enterprise-cult, but it's crowded out by the many other very active
plot strands in the picture, and never revisited. I suspect, however, that the
filmmakers did not forget about it -- this is movie #2 in a trilogy, and that
tends to be the film that leaves a few things in play for the follow-up. Consequences may arise in
the next movie.
And in any case, the inclusion of the Prime Directive, and warnings about its violation, in Star Trek Into Darkness has a great poetic resonance. First of all, the whistleblowers which Obama's DOJ has targeted all blew the whistle on violations, in one form of another, of what could be seen as the Prime Directive. Secondly, this rule was a cornerstone of the original TV series, and emerged from creator Roddenberry's disgust with the Vietnam War. Thus, if anyone ought to weigh in on America's military adventurism in the "War on Terror", and remind us that we really have no business interfering in the affairs of other nations, it's the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Glad to hear from them, and glad that they don't think everything got better when Bush left.
As Spock himself might remind us, true wisdom involves placing principles before personalities.
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