A Lesson on Strength From Star Trek Beyond

You may have heard it said that struggles and trials make a person stronger. Or perhaps you’ve jammed out with Kelly Clarkson, singing, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” With every conflict we face, we have an opportunity–a CHOICE–to grow. However, Star Trek Beyond presents a challenging question:

Is strength built from conflict or unity?

This post originally appeared on Anna’s 1st blog, Annamotion.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers! If you have not yet seen this movie, I advise you to postpone reading this post.

The theme of unity begins even before this movie. In Star Trek Into Darkness, Spock urges his crew to leave him behind in the volcano because it is the logical thing to do in order to follow their primary directive. Kirk, of course, refuses to leave his friend behind. In Star Trek Beyond, there is a similar scene between Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy. The injured Spock tries to explain to McCoy that the doctor’s chances for survival would significantly increase if he left him behind, but, likewise, McCoy refuses to leave him behind.

In contrast to Spock’s inspirational experiences with his unified friends and crew, Krall faced a very different experience. He had been left behind by Starfleet. In his solitude, his feelings of betrayal and hatred grew over decades. After taking over alien technology, he grew stronger as he fended for himself from that moment forward. This shaped his viewpoint of what makes a man strong.

Once you’ve seen the whole movie, you can understand it through a different lens. Looking back, we can see Krall’s first statement of confusion when he asks Uhura, “Your captain-why did you sacrifice yourself for him?” In a later conversation, Uhura confidently tells Krall that they will be rescued and escape because of the unity of their crew. Krall laughs and says that conflict is what makes people strong; unity makes people weak. He “proves” his point in action when an Enterprise crew member hands over Krall’s hidden weapon of mass destruction to save another crew member’s life.

At the end of the movie when Krall and Kirk fight for the millions of lives upon Starbase Yorktown, they have a conversation that reminds us of the differences between these two characters. Krall was born in a time of war; he was a military commander for years until Earth made peace with its enemies and, together, formed Starfleet who assigned him as captain of the Franklin. This same Starfleet left him for dead on an unknown planet. However, Kirk was born into a time of peace and a more developed Starfleet. Krall is willing to die for the sake of killing everyone in Yorktown and Kirk says it is “better to die saving lives than killing them.” Seeing Kirk’s bravery and virtue, Krall seems to have a moment of hesitation, but in the end he still chooses to continue his vengeful mission–a betrayed soldier’s last act of war in a battle only he was still fighting.

Krall was a strong opponent. It is true that his struggles, in some ways, indeed, strengthened him. But the unity of the Enterprise crew was even stronger.

In real life, unfortunately the unified don’t always win; however, there are two things that stand absolute:

1. the more people who are unified, the more strength there is as a whole

2. the stronger the unity, the stronger the group

Say one person comes from a dysfunctional family and a rough background, emerging stronger from the struggle. And another person comes from a supportive family and a fairly peaceful life. The former might be initially stronger as an individual, but the unity makes the latter strong in a different way. Though a person can be made stronger through solitude and struggle, that doesn’t mean they should continue as a loner nor should they intentionally seek out more conflict. We all still need each other and we should all seek unity, for the group is always stronger than the individual. “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken” (NLT, Ecclesiastes 4:12).

The natural conflicts we face can be used to strengthen us. There can even be purposeful, healthy conflict to bring about stronger unity. However, unity should never be sacrificed for the sake of making oneself “strong.”

Unity looks out for the interests of others and is even willing to make sacrifices to put another person first. True unity is mutual–goes both ways–and strengthens both individuals. Some unity attempts may begin one-sided; however, as far as it is up to you, do what you can to make peace and cultivate unity. If we all waited for the other person to reciprocate acts of unity, we’d probably never be unified. Make the first move and persistently keep up what you can to be united and inspire unity in others.

 

Want to check out my other lessons from film posts?

• Lessons from Spider-Man: Far From Home
• Lessons from Avengers: Endgame
• 3 Life Lessons from Shazam!
• 3 Life Lessons from Captain Marvel
• 9 Life Lessons from Wonder Woman
• Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Lesson
• 4 Life Lessons from Doctor Strange
• 6 Life Lessons We Can Learn from Captain America: Civil War
• 6 Life Lessons We Can Learn from Batman v Superman

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