I rewatched Star Trek (2009) last night. It was on Channel Four, and it was a cool watch which was nowhere near as bad as I remembered. I don’t intend to write any kind of full review today, other than to note something which I found striking and slightly painful. In the 2009 reboot, as in the original Star Trek series, we see the characters Sulu and Checkov on the bridge of the enterprise. Of course when Star Trek firs aired this was a very powerful statement: Back in the sixties the Cold War was at its height, with America and Russia preparing to blow each other to kingdom come at a moment’s notice; and America had been at war with Japan only twenty years or so before. Thus to have both Russian and Japanese characters appear in an American vision of the future made a very powerful statement about reconciliation and progress. This was a future where mankind had cast aside its differences and rivalries and worked together to explore the galaxy.

Yet today that future seems more distant than ever. Thanks to the piece of orange shit currently inhabiting the White House, the belief that the Cold War had ended seems painfully naive. Any progress towards harmony has been dashed away by an egotistical moron concerned only with his appearance. Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future was wonderfully progressive; alas that he didn’t reckon on humanity’s inevitable tendency to tear itself apart.