When rewriting the history of the characters of Kirk and Spock, Abrams is committed to providing a backstory that sets up the important relationship and friendship that will ultimately shape both of their lives dramatically. The focus on the emerging friendship between the future captain and first officer (and science officer) of the U.S.S. Enterprise was, for Abrams, the foundation of his film. Speaking about the film prior to its release, Abrams explained, “I never saw how Kirk and Spock became so connected. That’s what this movie does.”6 As a filmmaker, Abrams sought to explore the origins
of the familiar bond between the captain and his first officer. In doing so, he offers a narrative for understanding the bourgeoning friendship between Kirk and Spock that reflects principles elucidated by the ancient Greek phi- losopher Aristotle. For Aristotle, friendship constitutes a bond that is “most
necessary with a view to living.”7 Abrams demonstrates elements of this line
of thinking while portraying the development of the partnership that will define Kirk and Spock in the future.
The friendship between Kirk and Spock is well established in the canon of the Star Trek franchise. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock twice tells Kirk, “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” It is clear through- out that when Spock uses the term “friend” it is meant to carry significant weight. Spock Prime repeats this sentiment in Abrams’s film after saving the young Kirk from an alien creature on Delta Vega (the ice planet upon which he was marooned). However, the tension and competition that develop between the young Kirk and Spock in Abrams’s movie make Kirk doubtful that these two could ever have the deep respect and care for one another that are the hallmarks of true friendship. As Kirk responds to Spock Prime, “If you were Spock you would know that we’re not friends, at all. You hate me. You marooned me here for mutiny.”8 Interestingly, however, the hos-
tilities and conflicts between the young Kirk and Spock seem to be setting the foundation for a mutual respect that will later form between them. As Aristotle notes, “Such friendship requires time and familiarity . . . nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each.”9
The relationship between Kirk and Spock mirrors Aristotle’s understand- ing of the soul as being divided into two distinct parts, the rational and the nonrational. He argues that while the rational part of the soul is superior because it is based in reason, the nonrational part, defined by appetites and desires, “exists for the sake of the better or superior.”10 The nonrational part
of the soul is capable of being controlled via deliberative rationality, but it is important to the moral growth of the individual that both parts are properly cultivated. Aristotle suggests, “We call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.”11 While both Kirk and Spock have the
capacity for the development of excellence of the soul through self-mastery and the learning and practice of virtuous behavior, it is clear that prior to their friendship their lives are dominated by improperly balanced souls. That Abrams picks up on their lives when they are younger may account for such imbalance, as Aristotle suggests that no youth can be virtuous because they lack experience.
Abrams’s Kirk shares similarities with but is different from the admirable Captain James Tiberius Kirk of The Original Series. In the Abrams recast- ing, Kirk is rough and impetuous, lacking clear or deliberative thinking. In
Iowa, he is arrested as a youth for stealing his stepfather’s antique car, driving with reckless abandon, and ignoring the police. He is discovered by Cap- tain Pike after he gets into a fight with four Starfleet Academy cadets at a bar after drunkenly (albeit playfully) harassing Uhura, and while Pike tries to convince him to join Starfleet he describes Kirk as being a “genius-level repeat offender” whose “instinct to leap without looking” was one that was shared by Kirk’s father.
Kirk is a man controlled by appetite, which overwhelms his “off-the- chart” aptitude tests and rational self. Yet, despite his drunken shenanigans and run-ins with the law, Pike sees in Kirk—even if from wishful think- ing rather than clear insight—the same nobility of spirit he knew in Kirk’s father. To reach the youth, he makes an appeal to his noble sense of honor and virtue by reminding Kirk of his father’s heroism aboard the Kelvin. He tells Kirk, “You know, your father was captain of a starship for twelve min- utes. He saved eight hundred lives, including yours and your mother’s. I dare you to do better.” The words awaken in Kirk that desire to make something more of himself, something he simply cannot do outside the company of others who will challenge him to become great.
Similarly, Spock embodies another extreme. Trained in the Vulcan ways of logic and the suppression of emotion, Spock seemingly represents a life consisting entirely of rationality. On one level this commitment to logic and reason is consistent with Aristotle’s notion of rationality being the higher form of the soul. In book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle finds the life of contemplation, what he considers to be a God-like life, to be best. Spock’s father suggests as much to a preadolescent Spock after he has just gotten into a fight with three bullies who insulted his human mother, calling her a whore. His father offers him advice that echoes the wisdom of Aristotle: “Logic offers us serenity that humans seldom experience; the control of feel- ings so that they do not control you.”
However, Aristotle also recognizes that, as social creatures, human beings need social connections and community in order to live a flourishing life (what Aristotle labels “eudaimonia”). Spock’s half-human nature comes through strongly here. When he attempts to suppress emotion, he cuts him- self off from the care of others, which means denying the social part of human yearnings. This in turn leads to the repression of his happiness. He clearly cares for his mother, as witnessed in his emotional responses whenever she is negatively invoked by others, and he also cares romantically for Uhura. He seems to also desire acceptance from his father and his peers and takes
a considerable degree of pride in his accomplishments (as demonstrated in his displeasure with Kirk’s cheating to “beat” Spock’s Kobayashi Maru—the “unwinnable situation”—program at Starfleet Academy). Aristotle would argue that, when they are appropriate, Spock might be more fulfilled by experiencing such emotions. His emotional suppression causes Spock to seem at times tortured and confused. His self-denial actually seems to work against the well-being and happiness that, for Aristotle, represent the high- est possibility of life.12
As representations of the Aristotelian conception of the soul, Kirk and Spock complete one another. It is perhaps in this vein that Aristotle refers to friendship as a “second-self.” Both Kirk and Spock are capable in their own right of high-level rationality and passion, and both demonstrate these capacities in a number of ways. However, it is through the interactions they have with one another that they truly achieve a state of excellence in their actions and achieve a state of self-mastery. When Kirk tells Spock Prime that “coming back in time, changing history . . . that’s cheating,” the Vulcan responds, “A trick I learned from an old friend.” Spock Prime is made whole by his comradeship with Kirk Prime, just as the young Kirk and Spock even- tually complete one another through the virtue born from their impending friendship. As Spock Prime tells his younger, alternate self when explain- ing why he led Kirk to believe that the two Spocks could never meet, “You needed each other. I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together, of a friendship that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize.”
The friendship between Kirk and Spock is important from an Aristo- telian perspective because such friendship between two potentially great figures will ultimately produce in them virtuous behavior and right action. Not only does friendship provide meaning and depth to life, the care that develops between friends makes them strive to act honorably, courageously, truthfully, and with temperance because they want what is best for their friends and want to be viewed positively in return. As Aristotle writes, “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in vir- tue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves. . . . Those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends.” He goes on to describe how all friendship seeks the good, or happiness, and asserts that friendship is “based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in the virtue of the nature of the friends themselves.”13 Both Kirk and Spock
have incredible potential, but it is only through mutual respect and a rela- tionship between them as beings of equal worth and qualities that will allow them to fully realize all that is possible within each other. And for Aristotle, such actualization will yield a personal flourishing for each, which is what is truly best.