Star Trek: The Original Series remains one of the most iconic pieces of science fiction to ever be produced. Sure, the sets are dated and some of the ideas aren't the best. It's a show of it's time for about 60% of the episodes. Yet, those remaining episodes, roughly 40% of episodes are sacred viewing. Few of which are in held as high esteem as "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield".
In the episode, the Enterprise stumbles upon two sides of a war. A man with a black and white face, and his enemy, a man with a white and black face. Nearly identical in every way but the colors of their face are swapped. Due to this, a war breaks out. With neither side wanting the "other" to be the dominant side.
It leads the two aliens of the episode, Bele and Lokai to come into contact with James Kirk and his crew. He takes them back to their planet, Cheron, only to discover that due to their bigotry and hatred of one another for a minor difference, their entire world has been destroyed. They remain the last two people of their race.
Bele and Lokai were played brilliantly by Frank Gorshin (The Riddler in the Batman series of the 1960s) and Lou Antonio (an actor turned director). Their performances were heralded for the emotion and weight they brought to their performance. Their message was clear; racism was not a path to peace. The ending, the obliteration of every one of Cheron's denizens, hammered home the point that hate leads to war, and war leads to death. Even annihilation. You'd think an ending that good would remain pure.
Nope, Section 31 has arrived like a cartoon, mustachioed villain to mess things up. In the latest trailer for its film, Section 31 reveals that a Cheron native is still in fact, alive. Living and working for Michelle Yeoh/s Philippa Georgiou. The reveal will likely serve little else than a callback to a classic Star Trek episode, but its impact will be boundless.
Undoing the end of one of the most celebrated episodes in Trek canon and for what? A throw-away Easter Egg? Have we fallen this far? We are now undoing canon because some director or writer want to write in a cheap cameo.
This new era of Star Trek has been rough, since the arrival of Discovery and the desire to make everything dark and twisted. Fans stuck through because we're loyal. Yet, if you start ripping apart the fabric of our fandom for the sake of cheap pops like this, then you're going to lose the fandom.
The essence of Star Trek is the fact it has remained a pillar through the years and forgetting about that and dismissing it is a surefire way to make sure you have no fans left. We love our history. We love that this story spans 60 literal years and several hundred fictional ones. To erase what came before to fit your view is to tell the fans that what happened wasn't good enough.
And that never goes well.