"Subspace Rhapsody" and the Prime Directive of Movie Musicals
An exploration of how the recent "Subspace Rhapsody" episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is a textbook example of how to make a great cinematic musical
Robert Wise, the Academy Award-winning director of The Sound of Music and West Side Story, was asked what the secret was to making a great movie musical. 1
Wise’s answer…
The key to making a great movie musical is to have the singing and dancing naturally evolve out of the “normal” reality of the story and characters.
You also want to have each musical number deepening and expanding aspects of the narrative journey and the evolution of the characters.
The endings of the musical numbers should also organically integrate back into the non-musical dimensions of the storyworld at a newly evolved and richer level.
A recent episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds series does just that. This brilliant episode, titled Subspace Rhapsody, beautifully makes the singing and dancing not only part of the story but the foundation of the story.
The crew of the starship Enterprise encounters a subspace fold2 and accidentally trigger a phenomenon that causes them to start singing and dancing. The singing and dancing ends up causing them to reveal their hidden feelings and secrets which leads to complications, security risks and disruptions for the crew and then starts to spread to other parts of the quadrant.
The opening musical number below shows the first shift into the musical dimensions of the story and is a perfect lesson in what Bob Wise was talking about:
Another element of Bob’s movie musical Prime Directive3 is being exemplified here as well:
The emergence of dancing in the movie musical works best when it starts with small and gradual shifts in the physical movements of the camera and the actors, along with the movements of the characters emotions, building in emotional intensity and increasing in rhythmic and synchronous movement.
When done correctly these inner and outer movements should slowly evolve into a kind of synergistic cinematic dance.4 In this episode they do a beautiful job of this gradual emergence of the music becoming more cinematically embodied. In the above scene you can see the beginnings of this slow build of synergistic energy; from the subtle introduction gradually increasing rhythmic movements of the camera, the actors, and even the sound effects gradually become more and more integrated into the musical reality. This build continues weaving in and out of the following scenes eventually evolving into full on singing and dancing.
This episode’s masterful use of these movie musical expressive elements creates the perfect mix of synergistic musical and emotional-dramatic energy. This energy is deeply integrated with the Star Trek universe’s convention of layering philosophical, psychological, cultural and social thematic resonances and commentary into its storylines.5 The result is a masterful balance of lightness and depth that stimulates the mind, opens the heart and lifts the spirit.
This episode also touches me on a deeply personal level, having been personally mentored by Bob Wise. Bob directed the very first Star Trek movie and seeing the elements of his approach to movie musicals being used so beautifully in the Star Trek universe makes me feel like he’s smiling down on us from the great beyond.
And I have to say seeing a young Spock and Kirk and even Klingon’s singing and dancing is way more cool than I could have imagined.
LIVE LONG AND PROSPER…AND DANCE!
Notes
Robert Wise’s approach to movie musicals was shared directly by him through public lectures and personal communications with him during my studies at the American Film Institute and my personal mentorship with him.
In the Star Trek fictional universe, a subspace fold is a rift in the space-time continum that facilitates faster-than-light transit, in the form of interstellar travel or the transmission of information. Faster-than-light warp drive travel via subspace obeys different laws of physics.
The Prime Directive is the foundational guiding principle of the Star Trek universe. Here I am using creative license to use this label for Robert Wise’s guiding principles of what makes a great movie musical as it is applied to this Star Trek episode.
For those versed in Integral Theory the foundation of Wise’s approach is deeply integrally-informed as it focuses all aspects within an evolutionary framework and stresses the integration of the multiple dimensions of the cinematic reality being created.
This episode goes deep and wide exploring a myriad of topics and issues including the nature of human communication; the individual and collective impacts of keeping vs telling secrets and repressing vs expressing emotions; leadership and individual and collective action; the connection between music and our emotions; the transformation of personal paradigms; and even some quantum theory and acoustic theory thrown in for good measure. There is also some subtle resonances around the culture war as it explores the rifts in communication that can hamper community and how that rift can be transcended on both an individual and collective level.
The artwork at the top of this post, Ode to Subspace Rhapsody, is the result of a transformative art creation process I performed after being deeply touched by this episode. I was trying to capture the sense of synergistic cinematic energy that I experienced from the viewing experience using a still from the episode and experimenting with it using the Oilist AI art app.
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