By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Wars is a franchise that explicitly commented on Vietnam, the creator George Lucas specifying once the ewoks fighting against a technologically advanced force symbolized the Viet Cong. However, apart from Original series The episode “A Private Little War”, the science fiction franchise Rival Star Trek rarely approached Vietnam or its controversies. Everything has changed with The next generation The episode “The Hunned”, which confirmed Michael Piller, the showrunner was built around the theme of “How the company treats its veterans back”.
If you need a brief refreshment, “The Hunned” is an episode where the company is investigating a planet that wants to join the Federation, but the planet needs help to find a escaped prisoner named Roga Danar. It turns out that he is a former soldier reinforced by the planetary government to fight on their behalf, but he and other troops of this type were withdrawn from society after the war because they were too aggressive. Star Trek: The next generation Chef Honcho Piller confirmed that it was an allegory of the Vietnam War and the number of American citizens who treated soldiers of return which they considered too barbaric to return to normal society.
Interesting, this Star Trek: The next generation The episode offered a very different perspective on Vietnam than the episode of Tos “a private Little War”, which referred to Kirk with oblique the conflict with the line “Do you remember the brush wars of the 20th century on the Asian continent?” This episode featured Klingons arming a primitive tribe with advanced weapons and Kirk making the crazy decision to repair the situation by ensuring that the rival tribe is just as well armed. While Dr. McCoy opposes this idea, Kirk’s final decision is fascinating because it seems that the generally left spectacle explicitly approves America’s controversial participation in Vietnam.
Quick advance towards “The Hunted”, and you get an episode of subsequent Star Trek which still does not criticize Vietnam … At least, not the role played by the American government. Even if the planetary government of this episode is corrupt, the story serves mainly as criticism of American society and its reluctance to welcome the return of Vietnam soldiers, many of which were cursed and spitting when they expected to be treated as return heroes.
Picard ends the episode by telling the planet that he can apply to belonging to the Federation after understanding how to treat their veterans. These are essentially viewers that the future utopia of Star Trek can only be feasible after having found how to treat veterans in Vietnam and other wars once they return to society. It is obviously more than a little preacher, but what did you expect from the hippie franchise which consists in saving the world, an endangered whale at the same time?
By thinking about this episode of Star Trek, Michael Piller noted that Roga Danar (the former fugitive soldier who symbolized the veterans of Vietnam) “bringing the business on his knees is a little difficult to believe” but that he finally appreciated this episode. We must agree: “The Hunned” is the perfect example of an episode of preaching which did not let its message prevent the writer from delivering an hour of entertainment filled with action and introspection. And Danar is a killer character whom we would like to see again, perhaps headlining of his own spin-off film … the one who could, just couldFinally get the taste of Article 31 Out of our mouths.
