The Star Trek Short Film Blurring Time and Identity

Hey everyone! Got another essay for you—this time diving into a critical analysis of the recent Star Trek short film celebrating the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: Generations. This one left me with a lot to unpack—both positive and negative—and I couldn’t resist putting my thoughts into words. I might film this one at some point too, but wanted to get this out there to hear your thoughts! If you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve included a link to the film below.

THE SHORT - https://youtu.be/mgOZFny7F50?si=EQwgAjbW2oNwkQub

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Star Trek has always thrived on boldly navigating the tensions between the past, present, and future. Enter 765874: Unification, a poetic short film by the Roddenberry Archive celebrating Star Trek: Generations’ 30th anniversary.

For those unfamiliar, 765874 is the culmination of a multi-year project, with a series of evocative shorts building to this profoundly emotional moment. At its heart, it offers William Shatner’s Kirk a final, heartfelt goodbye to Leonard Nimoy’s Spock—bringing fans to tears. But 765874 is more than just a tribute. It’s provocative, layered, and deeply nostalgic, exploring time, identity, and legacy - a stunning homage to Star Trek’s vast mythos, touching everything from the original series to comics, Abrams’ films, and Discovery. But beneath that, it wrestles with Star Treks ethos of disrupting and reimagining time and identity. Yet this reflection comes with tension, raising questions about the line between honoring legacy and being trapped by it. For such a short piece, 765874 is remarkably complex, sparking conversations far beyond its runtime. 

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At its core, 765874: Unification celebrates temporality—something Star Trek has always been obsessed with. From the beginning, the franchise has explored time travel in nearly every way imaginable, weaving it into its DNA. But this short takes that fascination to a new, poetic level, centering on a version of Kirk appearing after his death on Verdian III in Star Trek Generations—reverberating through time.

If you're seeking a literal explanation, this short builds on foundations laid in previous entries in this short series, drawing on a deep cut from Star Trek: Early Voyages. In the comic, Yeoman Colt—originally a character from the franchise's first pilot—becomes a witness to the entire Star Trek timeline, traveling through time to observe its key moments. This short reimagines her as an observer of history, a chronicler of existence. It nods visually to Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s friend who gained god-like powers in Where No Man Has Gone Before—referencing his appearance in IDW’s Star Trek #400 - hinting at his influence as well.  There are also glimpses of Colt, this time in a uniform from the JJ Abrams’s films Kelvin timeline, implying it’s her from that universe - reflecting on displays from the last place to have Kirk’s dead body - Daystrom Institute, as seen in Picard Season 3 - as well as shots of the downed Enterprise-D on Veridian III - implying Kirk may have been resurrected. There is also callbacks to previous shorts, such as a shot of Spock mind melding with Colt, implying he may have set all this in motion in the first place.

But 765874: Unification isn’t interested in being tethered to literal - instead, it embraces a more poetic and philosophical approach to time and death. Time here isn’t linear; it’s recursive, overlapping, and transformative. Moments coexist, fold into one another, and reshape each other. The shorts producer has mentioned that they pulled from the concept of the afterlife from Star Trek writer Richard Matheson’s book What Dreams May Come for this sequence. It’s a meditation on how memories and legacies reverberate across generations—not just within the Star Trek universe, but within the lives of those who continue to engage with it.

Kirk, wearing his uniform at the moment of his death in Generations, appears in a garden, eventually finding himself among a crowd. This scene is packed with Star Trek references and deep cuts—You have Saavik, played by Robin Curtis, standing alongside Sorak, the son of Spock and Saavik—a character only hinted at in a deleted scene from Star Trek IV but made canon through tie-in material. (I have thoughts on the whole Spock-Saavik-Sorak situation, but that’s for another time - let's just say I’m glad it was never made official canon). 

But this garden feels more than a nostalgic gathering—it’s a moment of profound reflection, where Kirk looks back on life and the connections that shaped his friend Spock, as well as his own. Saavik and Sorak looked pained, knowing where Kirk is going and wishing they could come with him. But everyone here has come to see Kirk off on his journey to what’s next. It celebrates a core philosophy of Star Trek: that our relationships, the bonds we forge, and the people we love and grow with are what give life its meaning. For a man who once claimed he’d die alone [clip], this scene beautifully proves Kirk wrong. Or at least, he is not alone after death and his journey here is to make sure that doesn’t happen for someone else - as we’ll see. His journey doesn’t end in isolation but surrounded by echoes of the lives he’s touched—a powerful testament to Star Trek’s enduring truth: we are made whole through each other. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

Most strikingly, we see the alien Yor, a character briefly introduced in Star Trek: Discovery and mentioned as having crossed from the Kelvin timeline—the one created in the J.J. Abrams movies—into the Prime timeline. On the surface, his presence is surprising and, admittedly, a bit odd. In Discovery, Yor was little more than a clever Easter egg and has zero ties to Kirk’s character. But in this short, he takes on both a symbolic and functional role, adding depth and resonance to the story.

Symbolically, Yor represents the short’s refusal to be a love letter solely to old Star Trek. It could have easily ignored anything post-the show Star Trek: Enterprise - the last Star Trek entry before the modern era initated by JJ Abrams 2009 film, pandering to the nostalgia-fueled toxicity of fans who claim Star Trek “died” after that time. These voices often weaponize their love of the past to denounce modern iterations of the franchise, rejecting its progressiveness and inclusivity. Instead, the short actively pushes back against this exclusionary narrative. By including Yor, the short embraces the entire Star Trek legacy—its expansive, messy, multiversal history—not just the parts deemed acceptable by a vocal, gatekeeping minority. (Of course, that hasn’t stopped toxic fans from claiming such—but we’ll get to that.)

Functionally, Yor - coming as he does from another timeline - becomes a Charon-type figure - a ferryman or bridge to another world. He holds Kirk’s combadge from his grave in Generations, retrieved from there by Spock in another short - again implying Spock set this up. Yor opens a literal and metaphorical passage—guiding Kirk into a space between spaces where time bends, folds, and ripples. Kirk encounters different versions of himself across time and the franchise - not as static memories or simple nostalgic callbacks, but as a dynamic, living exploration of identity. He is both an observer and participant, reconciling who he was across the entirety of his life with who he has become. In this liminal realm, Kirk’s emotional journey towards his bond with Spock reshapes the boundaries of chronology. We even hear a line from Star Trek II said by Sharner.

This journey resonates deeply with queer understandings of time, where the past is not a fixed relic but an active force—shaping the present and building us toward imagined futures that we can create. When I talk about queerness here, I’m not using it simply as shorthand for a marginalized sexuality but as an expansive ethos, one that challenges the rigid linearity of time and identity. As queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz wrote, “The past is not yet past; it lingers in the present, demanding that we make a new and better future.” Queerness, in its most radical sense, bends time to engage with what came before—not as an anchor, but as a guide to possibility. For Muñoz, queerness wasn’t confined to labels like gay, straight, or bisexual; it was a desire to hope, to imagine a future where queerness as a marginalized identity might no longer be necessary—an egalitarian future that celebrates differences rather than erasing them. To be queer is to hold onto that hope, to strive toward the horizon of possibility. It’s a vision that feels remarkably akin to Star Trek’s ethos of infinite diversity in infinite combinations. 

For trans people, as an example, time is not a linear path but a recursive experience of becoming, where identities from the past, present, and future coexist in tension and transformation. As José Esteban Muñoz writes, “The here and now is a prison house. We must strive… to think and feel a then and there.” Trans identities resist the fixed narratives imposed by society, inhabiting a liminal space where who we are inside is othered from us at birth. Our future becomes a necessity to imagine—because without that act of dreaming, we risk dying in the closet. Yet, this imagined other self—the person we hope to become—influences who we are and shapes our journey. Another gender, another identity, made real through the act of hope and creation.

Queer experiences of time are acts of creation, carrying the weight of history forward while striving for “new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.” Star Trek as a franchise is always thinking and feeling of a hopeful “there and then” -epitomized by Kirk’s emotional journey to a different there and then to another universe 100 years in the past to see a dying friend. This liminal space literalizes this philosophy, giving Kirk the chance to step beyond the constraints of linear time and confront the totality of his being. It’s not merely a journey through time and space—it’s a reckoning with the self, a transformative act that queers the very concept of his temporality. Kirk’s traversal through his timeline becomes an act of profound self-recognition, breaking free from linearity to reflect the universal challenge of reconciling who we were with who we might become. This is no mere metaphysical metaphorical journey; it is a literal passage—to another world, perhaps even a graceful confrontation with death. But instead of finality, this journey takes Kirk somewhere unexpected: to Spock’s deathbed in the Kelvin timeline, a place of closure and connection across universes. The two almost speak but say nothing - nothing needs said between them, as they feel so deeply. They hold hands - echoing as they did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture after Spock entered V’Ger - where Spock tells Kirk of “this simple feeling” the two share between them. It’s a deeply emotional moment, reimagining time and death not as barriers but as opportunities: to connect, reverberate across life through feeling - to reconcile the unfinished, and to honor what Star Trek has always cherished most—the enduring bonds between its characters.

Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, while honored in the movie Star Trek Beyond after Nimoy’s real-life passing, died off-screen in the JJ Abrams created Kelvin universe - never reuniting with Kirk, his lifelong friend, in his original universe—a wound left unhealed since Kirk’s death without Spock in Generations. This short mends that wound. Kirk arrives at Spock’s side in another universe, bridging the unspoken divide between them. Even the photograph of the original TOS crew older Spock willed to Zachary Quinto’s Spock in Beyond after his death sits on a desk—a poignant reminder of how memories ripple across timelines, universes, and lives into the future even after we die.

It’s also very gay. Like, actually - not this whole metaphorical queerness as temporal juxtaposition way. Like gay gay. I joke, but Kirk/Spock shippers from back in the day are having an absolute field day. And rightfully so—Kirk/Spock fan fiction didn’t just shape Star Trek fandom; it laid the foundation for modern fan fiction and much of fan culture as we know it. While often dismissed or derided, this body of work is an essential part of Trek and cultural history, and this short feels like a poignant, probably unintentional, nod to it. But it's there because it's emotionally truthful to those characters and their bond - the very reason why many shippers saw a potential romantic tension in the first place. So many scenes throughout Trek history between these two characters - including the aforementioned The Motion Picutre moment - have been picked up on by shippers as potentially romantic. There’s a beautiful ambiguity reflected in this short —a connection that could be platonic, romantic, or both. Kirk, literally crossing death and universes to be with Spock at the end of his life, embodies a love that transcends categorization.

But ambiguity, while powerful, is often weaponized against queer readings of characters. Ambiguity is used to deny the possibility of an interpretations work that accepts it being there. We’ve seen this many times over the years - queer readings rejected by gatekeeping audience member or even creators of works of art to push out fans who read queerness into works. Star Trek creator Gene Rodddeberry himself did this in the 1970s with an infamous footnote in his novelization of The Motion Picture where he had Kirk deny any romantic feelings between him and Spock - rejecting a specific interpritatio of T’hy’la - a Vulcan word that has multiple meanings - including soulmate. But even then, many fans read the footnote as Kirk trying to hard to cover the truth - that he and Spock were in love. Just as T’hy’la as a word can have multiple interpretations platonic or romantic beyond just soulmate - only definitively implying a “strong bond” across each- the resiliency of art is that each reader has their own connection and interpretation based on their contexts even beyond the creators - surviving in thier heart despite intentions. It’s a beauty that show the power and strength of human capacity for exploring depth and meaning - a prism of variety. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

But this prism oft gets villified - used to try to attack and shut down - to claim homogenization into one “true” interpretation - oft by those who hold power in a status quo in our hierarchical present day world. I recently experienced this firsthand when Critical Drinker sent his followers to harass me for pointing out that people have read Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings as queer. His fans claimed this interpretation was “destroying” strong, loving, male platonic relationships during wartime - as if male love could only come in places of violence and only come in heterosexual forms- insisting that such readings must either be explicitly stated or dismissed outright. It’s a framing that comes up often to attack queer readings, as though the acknowledgment of queerness somehow invalidates other forms of love. To set them at odds with each other, when they are - as Munoz discusses - no such thing - simply different ways the same human love is expressed along a spectrum of caring. The power of Star Trek is that it accepts a future where humanity has accepted this beautiful spectrum of the human soul. It is that literalizaton of what Munoz described as the essence of queerness - a hope for a future where we are not queer as ostracized but see humanity as a full “we” beyond identitarian boundaries like gay or straight. Roddenberry himself articulated a similar idea in his TMP novelization - calling Treks humanity “new humans” who have bonded with each other collectively. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. 

While we need more literal and direct representations of marginalized sexualities and identities in media so we can share our experiences with specificity, that’s never really what Kirk and Spock have been. Their bond has always existed in a liminal quantum state - one this short captures emotionally, visually and metaphorically - and I think ending on this kind of love—undefined and transcendent—gives it a unique power that literal interpretations don’t have and reflects Munoz queerness and Roddenberrys “new humans”. It’s a love that says people transcend our petty boundaries, whether those boundaries are alternate universes, different elements of a fictional franchise that has existed for 60 years, or the labels we place on identity. A version of Munoz’s articulation of queerness as hope for a future beyond identitarian labels.

The title of the short, Unification, echoes deeply within Star Trek’s legacy, drawing from three iconic episodes centered on Spock’s efforts to reunite the fractured Romulan and Vulcan cultures—a mission that, as Star Trek: Discovery reveals, succeeds centuries after his death. Yet this unification was more than political; it reflected Spock’s lifelong journey to reconcile emotion and logic, a tension he ultimately resolved within himself. This balance, paradoxically passed to his alternate-universe younger self in Star Trek (2009), embodies the queer temporality José Esteban Muñoz speaks of—where the past, present, and future overlap, shaping identity across time. Spock’s journey, like queerness itself, defies linearity, creating bridges between what was, what is, and what might yet be. This exploration of Spock’s journey seamlessly extends to his connection with Kirk. As old Spock said to young Spock - don’t overthink the labels - “[2009 clip] “do what feels right”.

Unification doesn’t make Kirk and Spock’s connection overtly sexual or romantic—though they do hold hands, and we all know how Vulcans have sex—but it embodies Star Trek’s hopeful queer ethos. Their bond defies the constraints of time, space, identity, and even death. It’s not about defining love in rigid terms; it’s about recognizing its transformative, universal power. That liminality—resisting neat categories—is what makes this moment so profoundly human and so profoundly queer. They are each other's T'hy'la. It reflects Star Trek’s enduring hope for a future where such bonds, rooted in understanding and connection, transcend labels and limitations, inviting us to dream of a better world built on infinite possibilities. This is Trek at its best—philosophical, thoughtful, and unafraid to lean into its emotional ethos of connection being the true undiscovered country. 

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There’s another aspect of this short that I want to touch on. When it first came out, many assumed it was made using digital recreations of the actors—and it’s easy to see why. There’s an uncanny, almost plasticky quality to some of the characters’ appearances, reminiscent of the necromantic sheen we’ve seen in films like Alien: Romulus. It carries an unsettling, ghoulish undertone that you know these are not the actual actors Shatner and Nimoy which makes the performances feel less human.

In truth, what you see on screen is mostly physical prosthetics mixed with real-time CGI. Which is WILD and cool - if still not 100% there so as to not be distracting. The incredible Sam Witwer wore the prosthetics and performed as Kirk, while Lawrence Sellek plays Spock. What’s more, this project embodies a principle Witwer has passionately advocated for: including actors in the creative process behind technical aspects. In a recent interview with the wonderful Sean Ferrick of TrekCulture, Witwer shared how he has argued on unnamed projects to have a creative voice in shaping these technical processes that led to Unification’s ability to have this version of Kirk and Spock together. While he admitted he didn’t win every argument, his advocacy was about ensuring the artist’s perspective is integral to the conversation, not just the technician’s. And that, to me, is vital.

If you’ve watched my video on generative art from a few weeks ago, you’ll know one of my biggest concerns is how technical tools are increasingly being used to strip creativity from the artistic process. Corporate dictates push for art to become about outcome—tools designed not to enhance or enable artists but to churn out a regurgitated, market-ready “finished product” - not the process of making or expressing and the context and power that gives to the art. Generative machine learning exemplifies this problem: a tool with potential ethical use cases that could integrate into the creative process, but one that corporations weaponize to plagiarize, exclude marginalized artists, and repackage and resell acting, writing, and visual choices devoid of context or personal artistic intent. The difference is stark: tools should empower artists to express themselves, not replace them with a facsimile of creativity dictated by profit motives.

Sam Witwer’s portrayal of Kirk is a standout example of this respect. Every inflection, every expression, has been fine-tuned through rigorous study of Shatner’s original work. Witwer’s dedication feels like a love letter to Kirk’s legacy, transforming digital and practical tools into something that works in concert with the actor - not despite it. It reminds us that acting is a craft—a deeply personal, deeply felt creation. It’s reminiscent of the incredible creature prosthetic work of actors like Star Trek: Discovery’s Doug Jones, whose meticulous craft and dedication transform every character he performs into a singular, unforgettable being.

And yet, I can’t shake a sense of unease, and it comes down to one question: what is the purpose of all this craft? Despite its incredible artistry, I wonder if Unification inadvertently serve the very ends it sought to avoid. By having Witwer portray Shatner’s Kirk instead of relying on machine learning to generate the performance, does it not still fall into the trap of replication over innovation? The craft is undeniable and preferable, but if its ultimate goal is mimicry rather than reinterpretation, it risks reinforcing the same hollow nostalgia it aims to transcend.

Talented actors like Sam Witwer, though immensely skilled and recognized beyond Star Trek, here are confined to recreating versions of characters already etched into history, leaving little room to infuse their own voices into the roles or truly shine as themselves. As a film director, I adore working with actors—their choices, their passion, their love for their characters. Seeing Leonard Nimoy in the 2009 Star Trek film moved me to tears there because he chose to revisit the role. You could feel his connection, his love, his ownership of the character he played for literally 43 years at that point. That’s what excites me most: watching an actor infuse their personal passion into their performance, making a role distinctly their own. When an actor is genuinely invested, when they’re having fun or feel a deep connection, it radiates off the screen. You can see it. Conversely, when they’re just going through the motions, when the spark isn’t there, it’s painfully obvious.

This feels missing in performances built around recreating someone else’s work - especially when hidden under makeup to make them look like another actor that already existed. Actors like Sam Witwer are immensely talented, but when their job is to mimic rather than interpret, the opportunity to make a character their own disappears, replaced by a need to conform to what’s already been done. That’s what I love so much about the variations we’ve seen in Star Trek—the differences between Ethan Peck, Zachary Quinto, and Leonard Nimoy’s Spocks, or Chris Pine, William Shatner, and Paul Wesley’s Kirks. Each actor brought something unique to the role, reimagining these iconic characters while staying true to their essence. It’s those individual choices, the reinterpretations that only they could offer, that keep these characters alive and evolving. Patrick Stewart’s performance of Hamlet is not the same as David Tennants Hamlet - nor should it be. Mimicry, no matter how skillful, can’t capture that magic—to attempt to do so risks turning a vibrant legacy into a static reflection of the past - a past that becomes that achor rather than propellant force- and it risks us losing the ability to celebrate the actors we have today - who are lost recreating the past- and cuts us off from building a future. 

Let me ask you this: do you remember the name of the actor who portrayed Tarkin in Rogue One? Or Rook in Alien: Covenant? And I’m not talking about Peter Cushing or Ian Holm—I mean the actors who performed their digital doubles. Chances are, you don’t. Similarly, if Witwer didn’t already have a significant career outside of Unification, would you even know it was him as Kirk? Isn’t this the exact thing that SAG-AFTRA had a strike over?

Even beyond the stellar performances, Unification risks turning Star Trek into a closed loop—less a vision of the future and more a museum of its past. As I said before, it leans heavily on references that have a deeper meaning for Kirk, but some feel less like emotional resonance and more like shallow callbacks for the audience. Take, for instance, the character credited as “Crusher” in the garden scene. Is this Wesley Crusher? Fans know and love him, but he has no connection to Kirk. Why him and not Leonard McCoy, Kirk and Spock’s other best friend? If this is a literal resurrection or a metaphorical afterlife, McCoy’s absence feels glaring—especially since even if this was in the literal future after Kirk’s death, McCoy could still be alive in the timeline after Kirk’s death in the movies given his appearance as older McCoy in Thr Next Generations pilot. Perhaps the actor’s estate declined involvement, but a visual nod to McCoy could have filled the gap. As it stands, even Crusher isn’t played by Wil Wheaton, making his inclusion feel like a hollow gesture rather than a meaningful tribute. Further, much of this short relies on deep-cut fan knowledge, making it incomprehensible to anyone watching it on its own. Even for some Trekkies, the prominent inclusion of Yor and Sorik feels more distracting than enticing, their significance buried in obscurity.

This trend is more than just an isolated choice; it’s emblematic of the franchise’s growing reliance on nostalgia. The third season of Picard, for example, became a fond farewell to The Next Generation, offering a warm hug from old friends but failing to boldly go anywhere new. Even Strange New Worlds, though less guilty, often lingers in the shadows of the 1960s by reinforcing past narratives, as with Spock and Nurse Chapel. What could have been reimagined instead deepens a dated trope—a woman defined by unrequited longing, her story orbiting his. It’s a nostalgic echo when we need a bold new song. Discovery, while often more forward-facing, isn’t immune to nostalgia. Its series finale, for example, takes a whole narrative beat to—spoiler—reveal David Cronenberg’s Kovich as a time traveler character from Star Trek: Enterprise. The twist adds nothing to Discovery’s narrative, serving only as a hollow Easter egg that distracts from the story, a reference that should have stayed in the background.

This over-reliance on nostalgia is not just a Star Trek problem; it plagues other franchises like Star Wars, where the well of nostalgia is already running dry. More troublingly, it reflects a cultural crisis—a fixation on idealized visions of the past that we press onto the present in a desperate attempt to “make things great again” - erasing the possibility of imagined futures. It’s the antithesis of the queer ethos I spoke of earlier: a glance to the past not to cling to it, but to learn from our scars, joys, and mistakes so that we can build a future beyond them—a future that dares to dream bigger. That’s what Star Trek has always been about. We need to, as queerness asks us to - continue to dream of a better “there and then”.

Nostalgia has become a weapon. We see it in toxic fandoms exemplified by voices like Nerdrotic, who have called Unification “the end of real Star Trek” - the swan song of what he labels the only “true” Star Trek. His critique of modern Star Trek isn’t rooted in a genuine desire for innovation but in a defense of a homogenized, idealized past. He vilifies efforts like Discovery for daring to showcase inclusive, authentic representation and experimenting with new eras and filmmaking techniques. Yes, Discovery had its flaws as every Trek show does—occasional reliance on nostalgia, relentless universe-ending stakes, and plot choices even I struggled with—but it also pushed Star Trek closer to its core ideals: radical inclusion and the courage to try something new. Toxic fans like Nerdrotic exploit those flaws to obscure their real issue: fear of a future that outgrows their limited imagination. They don’t hate Discovery because it failed to meet their ever-shifting goalposts of “good storytelling.” They hate it because its inclusivity dismantles their white supremacist nostalgia for a Star Trek that sometimes reflected the status quo: the white man in command, embodying unchecked power and everyone else tokenized to the side. What they miss—perhaps deliberately—is the essence of Star Trek: not perfection, but striving. Flawed, messy, yet always reaching for a better, more hopeful future. It’s that striving they refuse to see, even though it’s the very heart of what makes Star Trek endure.

Star Trek has never been perfect—its history is laced with tokenization, sexism, racism, homophobia, and the mistreatment of artists both behind and in front of the camera. Yet, it always dared to imagine a better future, even when it fell short. Unification asks whether the franchise still strives for that future or is retreating into its past, like a memory endlessly replayed—each time recalling only the memory before, until all that’s left is the echo of an echo, hollow and fading.

Do we really want the triumph of the echo over the voice? Each resurrection of a faded echo not only risks erasing art’s immediacy but opens the door for capitalists to strip creativity of its humanity, replacing it with replication. Worse, it gives fascism a powerful tool: weaponized nostalgia, a trap to pull us ever backward.

Can Star Trek still dare to dream bigger, to push us forward? Or is it at risk of forgetting how to dream at all? We need something new—not just a reflection of what was, but a challenge to what could be. To glance back only to understand, then boldly go—to inspire, to imagine, to dream forward.

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At its core, what makes Unification successful is its specific context: it’s a small side project by the Roddenberry Archive, created with deep love and reverence for Star Trek’s legacy, offering a fitting conclusion for two beloved characters. But it needs to remain just that—a conclusion. The reason so many cried watching this wasn’t because of its references but in its ability to provide closure for THESE versions of Kirk and Spock, two characters, and need I say - close friends of ours - whose profound relationship never had the loving ending it deserved. Now they have it. Now we can celebrate what we had, grieve, and move on.

That said, there is so much to learn from Unification. Its poetic filmmaking, thoughtful and precise visuals—rich with depth rather than chosen simply for mere aesthetic appeal—and incredible technical achievements are awe-inspiring. These tools are used to create something emotionally resonant and visually profound. My hope is that these are the lessons taken from it—the artistry, craft, and innovation—not the nostalgic impulse they ultimately serve.

Star Trek’s greatest strength has always been its ability to look forward, to dream boldly of a better future. Celebrating the past is important, but we must ensure it doesn’t become a trap, confining the franchise to what once was. If projects like Unification became the blueprint for Star Trek’s future, it could signal a retreat into nostalgia—a reflection of our broader cultural trend that clings to a glorified past instead of embracing the unknown.

Star Trek must always reach for the next star, the next horizon, the next self inside of the other that we can discover along the way. That’s its queer ethos: glancing back to understand our scars, our mistakes, our hopes, our joys - but always moving forward. To seek out new life—not just among the stars, but within ourselves and each other. To boldly go where we haven’t gone before.