I'm a billion years late, I know. But I have some of my own thoughts that I needed to share.
This was partially inspired by a post I came across recently that talked about how Spirk wouldn’t get together in TOS because of the militarism, etc. (if someone knows about that post, PLEASE tag that person/help me find them, I’ve been looking but I cannot seem to find it! I know this is a pretty vague description, but I’m hoping someone will know what I’m talking about lol)
I’ve been doing a lot of analysis/writings on K/S, and here I go again with another one:
The Unification short film, if we are watching it through the lens of queerness, feels like an acceptance. Throughout Star Trek’s run, queer people went through cycles of abuse and secrecy (I’m talking specifically about the United States). The AIDS crisis, the Red/Lavender Scares, the rise of the religious right and Christian nationalism with Nixon and Reagan.
But there is one major component that I feel should take front and center: Starfleet has many militaristic elements baked into it, especially within The Original Series. The general disillusionment that queer people could not serve in the military weighs heavy on the show. The writing focused on issues like civil and women’s rights, environmentalism and colonialism, but gay rights was not truly considered or brought up behind the scenes until the show met its end.
In canon, both Kirk and Spock’s deaths are tragic. In Generations, Kirk dies alone, rather anticlimactically. In between Into Darkness and Beyond was the time of Leonard Nimoy’s unfortunate passing, so his death was off-screen and minimal.
Unification is like an apology, an exhale. The end of the journey where two characters were coded and written in secrets. Now, they get to watch the sunrise on a new day, a day where they can be together. Tragedy is not their death, only in the time they spent apart. For when they move on, they now do so together.
Their characters have been around so long and given various amounts of mischaracterizations, writing treatments, and been through so many eras of discourse that the film takes a step back and brings them together to take a pause. They can hold onto one another and watch the sunrise.
I don’t know, this is just my interpretation. I know there’s a lot of different thoughts about it, and that I’m like two years late, but I just needed to talk about it.
