http://www.newsweek.com/id/195082 - Cover

http://www.newsweek.com/id/195083 - Mlodinow essay

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COVER: TO BOLDLY GO … HOW 'STAR TREK' TAUGHT US TO DREAM BIG

MR. SPOCK PLOT GIVES NEW STAR TREK MOVIE IMPACT; SPOCK'S COOL NATURE

FEELS MORE FASCINATING AND TOPICAL THAN EVER;

HIS COMPLICATED RACIAL BACKSTORY IS SPUN OUT IN DETAIL

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FORMER TREK WRITER ON RODDENBERRY: 'GENE LIKED TO SPEAK IN DETAIL ABOUT

LIFE IN THE 24TH CENTURY… HE WOULD REMIND US OF SIMPLE THINGS,

LIKE THE FACT THAT VULCANS DON'T SMILE'

      New York—In the new "Star Trek" movie, the 11th movie in the franchise that opens next week, it's the Mr. Spock plot strands that give the new movie its best shot at once again commanding the zeitgeist, writes Contributor Steve Daly in the current issue of Newsweek.  Daly's essay is part of the

May 4 cover, "To Boldly Go … How 'Star Trek' Taught Us to Dream Big" (on newsstands Monday, April 27), and opens the 2009 summer movie preview.

Daly writes that Spock's cool, analytical nature "feels more fascinating and topical than ever now that we've put a sort of Vulcan in the White House. All through the election campaign, columnists compared President Obama's unflappably logical demeanor and prominent ears with Mr. Spock's. But as Spock's complicated racial backstory is spun out in detail in the new 'Trek'—right back into

childhood—the Obama parallels keep deepening. Like Obama, Spock is the product of a mixed marriage (actually, an interstellar mixed marriage), and he suffers blunt manifestations of prejudice as a result."

As played by Zachary Quinto, the young Spock loves his human mother, but longs to assimilate completely into his Vulcan father Sarek's ways, eschewing messy emotions the way all Vulcans do, Daly writes. "Young Spock is constantly being told by Vulcans and humans alike that he's either seething with inappropriate emotions—indeed, he takes Kirk by the throat at one point—or that he's

not emotional enough and shouldn't be so repressed." If Obama checks out the movie, "I can imagine he might feel a special empathy for Spock's position, given the chattering class's insistence that he needs to show more emotion, too." 

Also in the cover package, former "Star Trek" writer Leonard Mlodinow writes about creator Gene Roddenberry's role in the television sequels and why he thinks the franchise has held up as long as it has. Roddenberry, while the dominant force behind the original series, had relatively little influence on the films beyond the first, after which the studio demoted him to a "consultant" role.And though he was again deeply involved in creating "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the show floundered in its first year.  Mlodinow joined the show in the second year, and Roddenberry by then had handed off most of the day-to-day operation.

"We saw Gene only occasionally," Mlodinow writes. "We were told that when we did see him, we had to take whatever advice he gave us, whatever we thought of it. Gene liked to speak in great detail about life in the 24th century, the era in which our series took place. He spoke with more certainty about the future than I had about the present, a certainty that I suppose comes from knowing

that all over the world attorneys and models and kids like I used to be have studied your every word. Sometimes he would remind us of simple things, like the fact that Vulcans don't smile. Other times he'd explain how human nature will have evolved, that personal acrimony will have been conquered, so there could be no conflict among the crew. Some writers tried to sneak in a little conflict anyway, so you didn't have to depend on heavily armed two-headed aliens."

"As for me, I was pretty sure that unless lobotomies had become routine neonatal procedures, people would be as nasty to each other in the 24th century as they are today. I would have bet Gene on that, except I was pretty sure I wouldn't be around to collect. By the time the next 'Star Trek' series, 'Deep Space Nine,'  was created, neither was he." Roddenberry died in 1991. 

# # # (Read cover story at www.Newsweek.com)