Part II: With Few Words, Scenes that Say Plenty

Second Installment of Scenes with Few Words

'Star Trek : The Motion Picture'… Enterprise Flyby

My friends we’ve come home. Ten years in the wilderness, Robert Wise knew we needed and deserved more than a passing glance of the Enterprise. The silence running for a full four minutes and 48 seconds, there was no way that dry dock was going to allow us to embark without our eyes turning into a watery mess. Characteristically, Jim Kirk gave us the strength as the ole NCC emerges in the distance over his proud and wondrous glare.

But like all the moments when we thought we were seeing a rerun we had never seen before, our anticipation was in dire need of inertial dampers. Only we knew the reward was real this time, and when Kirk and Scotty don’t hesitate to emote their emotion, we felt free to do the same.

We still had to wait, though. Fortunately, the slower paced Jerry Goldsmith score, and fragmented glory of the Enterprise's broadside helped us temper an emotional outburst that wants to bring down house.

Our heart on permanent skip, we then got a full frontal tease that quickly faded in wait of an orbital Uturn. Or we hoped…

Those 10 long years flashed before us, and the glisten in Jim Kirk’s eyes, assured us that the time had finally come.

There it is. So close, we move in. The score now surrounds us, and if you had any doubt, the call letters have not changed.

The lights go up, and we get our first real view of the engines that power our journey. But before we engage, the docking consummates our love, and primes the human adventure we never stopped craving.

Speechless...

2001—"The Dawn of Man"

A desolate beginning that requires no words to show how close our species (or any) was to the end. The grunts and groans scream that we weren’t much above the wild boar on the evolutionary scale nor the food chain. At the same time, the opposable thumb meant little in the face of a predator, and the terrified screams go much further than any sense of community. So obviously the fallen get no quarter despite the strength in numbers.

But at least some serenity is found in the water whole secured. These predecessors are not so alone in the world, though, and the silence is again broken by a competing herd. Again without words, the language is clear. The only tool either group possesses is the ability to loudly emote, and whine without conflict resolution.

At the same time, terror only escalates as the silence returns with the uncertainty of nightfall, and sleep deprivation can’t do much to realize the latent cognitive abilities.

On the other hand, they are smart enough to notice a distinct change in their environment, and the chilling score signals a mystery. Still, all the lame brains got is a collective screech, and no extraterrestrial pyrotechnics are needed to elevate their angst.

Eventually sensing the safety, the group takes to the monolith, and unbeknownst to these Ewoks, the setting sun above signals a new age. Of course, change doesn’t come over night—or does it?

The subsistent foraging on for another day says no. But Moon-Watcher now sees the dawn as the monolith reappears over the rising sun/setting moon, and gives new meaning to skeletal remains. Also Sprach Zarathustra does the rest, and even if you don’t know the origins of the song, Kubrick knew exactly what he was doing.

“God is dead,” Nietzsche posed in the 19th Century. Strauss eventually ran with the provocation, and Kubrick proceeded on the composer’s coattails. The legendary filmmaker wanted viewers “to contemplate the vastness and possibility of the universe, and to bring forward the same questions that Nietzsche proposed in 1885 about God, about humankind, and about our existence here in the natural world,” wrote Marin Alsop of NPR.

Oh yeah, this is without words, so we got it, and fortunately for the dawn of man, our little friends did too.

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