Sunday, June 09, 2013

Star Blazers Episode #13


The 1970s animated series Star Blazers has really hit its storytelling stride, at least if my perception  of the last few episodes is correct.  

This week's installment concerns the capture of a Gamilon pilot -- "the first ever captured" -- and the anger and hostility that the alien provokes in Derek Wildstar.

The blue-skinned Gamilon captive "looks harmless," but Wildstar nurses a grudge against him, and his race.  


We see why in an emotional,sustained flashback.  In this sequence, we see Derek as a boy, and meet his brother Alex, a pilot.  Life seems pretty good for the Wildstars, but then, out of nowhere, the planet bombs rain down. 


We see these weapons of mass destruction decimate London and other great cities, and watch as Derek's family is forced to evacuate to a survival center, and then, finally, petition to move to an underground metropolis.  Lastly, we watch as Derek's loving parents die in a Gamilon strike, leaving the young Wildstar completely alone. He has no home, and no family left...

The scene with the death of Derek's parents is pretty strong stuff.  One moment, his parents are standing under the tree where Derek's father proposed marriage to his mother. The next moment, we see that very tree destroyed, with ruins all about.  The Wildstar family tree is literally and metaphorically destroyed, and it's an emotional wallop.



But -- and this is important -- Derek doesn't kill the Gamilon pilot when he has the chance to do so.  

Instead, he looks at the alien's face and sees, roughly a (blue) mirror of his own. 


Derek realizes that the pilot is not that different from him, in the grand scheme of things.  The Star Force then makes the right choice, and frees the pilot from captivity, especially since his mind has been wiped and he has no knowledge of his people, their actions, or even the missions he has flown.   The so-called "great victory" for the Argo was not capturing the Gamilon, but in showing him their essential decency, their great humanity.

How we treat prisoners of war is a huge controversy today in real life, and Star Blazers re-affirms the idea that we cannot act like savages simply because we have been grievously wronged.  If the values we trumpet are more than mere words, then we have to be better, and more civilized than our enemies.  We must take the high road, even though the high road is more difficult.

I love that Star Blazers gets that idea, and reiterates it in such an emotional, direct context. 

Only 305 days left to save Earth!

2 comments:

  1. John excellent review of Star Blazers Episode #13. War time abuse of prisoners[POWs] has always existed since the beginning of human history. In the modern age, e.g., World War II had POWs often quoting the Geneva Conventions to rightfully protect them. Sadly, not all sides in a war treat the POWs correctly. When we study the history of wars and POWS there are always sides that do not follow any rules.

    As a boy in '79, when I saw young boy Derek Wildstar experience the death of his parents it greatly emotionally impacted me. Simply, I had not thought about how painful it would have been to lose my parents as a boy. Star Blazers definitely knew how to make a child think about real life issues.

    SGB

    ReplyDelete
  2. I never had a chance to see this series, but your reviews have really increased my curiosity. I'm going to have to seek this series out. Thanks for posting these!

    ReplyDelete

My Father's Journal, Epilogue: "My Cancer"

My friends, we have reached the final entry in my father’s journal of his battle with cancer.     I want to thank all the readers who have c...