The complete 1957 submarine warfare film “The Enemy Below.” Video source: DK Classics YouTube channel.
It's not plagiarism. It's an homage.
— Ancient writer's excuse
In 2004, Christopher Booker published The Seven Basic Plots, in which he argued that all stories can be boiled down to only seven types of plots that have been used to tell a story. (The book, in actuality, listed nine, but the last two were considered rare by him.)
If all stories are just variations on seven themes, then it's no surprise that writers will find themselves copying, borrowing, or otherwise in parallel with stories told before by other writers.
“Balance of Terror” was based on The Enemy Below, a World War II submarine warfare film released in December 1957 by 20th Century Fox for the Christmas holidays. The film was based on a 1956 novel by the same name, authored by Denys Rayner, a Royal Navy officer who commanded anti-submarine convoy escort groups in the Atlantic during World War II. The novel was about a duel between a British destroyer and a U-boat; the 20th Century Fox film changed the protagonist to a US warship, and changed certain key plot elements.
At some point, screenwriter Paul Schneider saw the film. I could locate no biography of Schneider to determine if he might have served in World War II but, having been born in 1923, it's certainly possible. After the war, it was very common for veterans to write scripts based on their wartime experiences.
Schneider wrote an episode of The Lieutenant, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek predecessor series about an officer in the US Marine Corps. For many who worked on Star Trek, The Lieutenant was their first encounter with Roddenberry — from the production office to directors, actors, and writers. Schneider wrote the teleplay for “Interlude,” in which Lt. William Tiberius Rice is paralyzed after a traffic accident. The episode was directed by Richard Donner, who went on to direct the 1978 Superman movie.
In researching These are the Voyages, Marc Cushman came across memos between Schneider, Roddenberry, and associate producer Robert Justman discussing the early drafts. Although he had written for television before, Schneider had never written a science fiction script. His first outline was far too long, although it contained many of the elements that would later appear in the shooting script. Roddenberry told Schneider to simplify the outline. It contained a lot of technical jargon, as had The Enemy Below, but that was too much for a passive audience watching a one-hour TV drama (50 minutes excluding commercials).
Decades later, the sequel series Star Trek: The Next Generation became infamous for its “technobabble,” mumbo-jumbo jargon so convoluted that entire volumes have been written to give some consistency to it all. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual was published in 1991 by Mike Okuda and Rick Sternbach, visual artists and technical advisers on the show, to help viewers play along.
But in these early days, Roddenberry wanted to keep it simple. Show, don't tell. This would lead to one glaring effects gaffe. In the episodes produced before “Balance of Terror,” we've only seen the starship fire phasers once — to destroy the buoy in “The Corbomite Maneuver.” We've yet to see photon torpedoes. In this episode, to heighten the submarine warfare analogy, when phasers are fired energy balls are unleashed, not beams of phased light. These energy balls eventually will become photon torpedoes.
Bob Justman fretted that the script could bankrupt the show. To this point, the produced episodes had minimal effects and few new sets. This script called for space battles emulating submarine warfare, as well as new sets for a space station office and the bridge of the enemy ship. A new starship model had to be built, the Romulan Warbird. Scenes would have to be filmed in post-production showing the Warbird flying through space firing its plasma torpedoes. To minimize costs, the team came up with the idea of the Romulan cloaking device — the ship is there but it can't be seen.
The Romulan Warbird fires its plasma torpedo at Outpost Four.
Another problem was how to depict the Romulans, the first rival power for our starship to encounter. The script described the Romulans as an offshoot of the Vulcans, which meant all Romulan crew members would have to look like Spock. Leonard Nimoy's ears and yellow-greenish makeup took long enough, but for a number of extras the production didn't have the time or the money. The solution was to have most crew members wear helmets, hiding their ears and hair.
Despite its broad canvas everyone, including NBC executives, was excited about the story and the rich character portrayals. Memos and drafts circulated to simplify the script and bring down the cost. As he had with other scripts, Roddenberry did the final draft edit himself.
The title “Balance of Terror” referred to a military philosophy popular at this time, which was that the US and the Soviet Union should each possess so many horrific nuclear weapons that it would be insane to fire on each other for fear of triggering Armageddon. Albert Wohlstetter of the Rand Corporation in 1958 published an article titled, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” in which he wrote:
If peace were founded firmly on mutual terror and mutual terror on symmetrical nuclear powers, this would be, as Churchill has said, “a melancholy paradox;” nonetheless a most comforting one.
The problem was that deterrence could not be maintained because one side or the other would strive to develop a new weapon which would give it the advantage.
This is where “Balance of Terror” diverges from The Enemy Below. In the World War II film, both the US naval captain and the German submarine commander are well aware of the other's technological capabilities. In the Star Trek episode, no one has seen a Romulan warship in a hundred years. No one knows what a Romulan looks like. When we do encounter the Romulans, the technological balance is asymmetrical — the Enterprise has warp drive, but the Warbird has a cloaking device and a new wonder weapon, the plasma torpedo. In Season Three, “The Enterprise Incident” will be about a Starfleet scheme to steal the cloaking device technology, to restore the balance of terror. But in this episode, the plasma torpedo has upset the balance of terror. The presumed deterrence no longer works because the Romulans have the 23rd Century equivalent of the hydrogen bomb, while the Earth alliance does not.
The other problem with the balance-of-terror theory is that it assumes all players are rational actors. The Romulan praetor has ordered the Warbird to probe and cross the neutral zone to test Earth strength and resolve. We haven't seen them in a hundred years. They haven't seen us either. Romulan spies could be in our midst, but do we really know for sure? The praetor is a rational actor, not a 1945 Hitler bent on immolation of a Germany he believes has betrayed him. That's a story idea Star Trek has yet to tell.
Let's revisit the episode now and tell its story.
Phaser specialist Lt. Robert Tomlinson is about to marry phaser gunner Lt. Angela Martine. (Tomlinson is her superior officer …) Presiding over the ceremony is Captain Kirk. The wedding chapel, according to Marc Cushman, is a redress of the briefing room. The ceremony is non-denominational and secular; Kirk says that the ceremony is “in accordance with our laws and our many beliefs.”
From the bridge, Spock informs Kirk that two “Earth outposts” (the term “Federation” has not yet been introduced) have gone silent. The Enterprise is headed towards Outpost Four, hopefully ahead of whatever is wrong. The ceremony is interrupted by a red alert; Outpost Four is under attack by an unknown vessel.
Under the terms of the peace treaty negotiated via subspace a hundred years ago, crossing the neutral zone would be considered an act of war. Kirk informs the crew that, to prevent war, the outposts and the Enterprise are expendable.
The navigator, Lt. Stiles, tells Kirk that his ancestors were in the first war with the Romulans. “There was a Captain Stiles in the Space Service then.” The term “Starfleet” has not yet been introduced either.
To underscore the submarine warfare analogy, we're shown the phaser control room, which is a redress of Engineering. Phasers in this episode are fired manually from this room after an order from the bridge, which seems unnecessarily complicated, but that's how it was written to emulate The Enemy Below. In the film, both captains give orders via intercom to their torpedo rooms.
The Outpost Four commander advises that Outposts Two, Three, and Eight have been destroyed. He transmits an image of the attacking ship as it decloaks. Outpost Four joins the casualty list, then the attacker disappears.
Spock picks up a blip on the space radar. The enemy is on a direct course for the neutral zone.
Kirk orders a strategy used by US Navy Captain Murrell in The Enemy Below — match the moves of the enemy vessel to appear as a sensor echo.
Stiles mouths off at Kirk, warning that Romulan spies could be aboard the Enterprise. Sulu agrees. Uhura intercepts a Romulan transmission; Spock taps in to pick up visual images from their bridge. For the first time, we see Romulans. The commander looks just like … Spock's dad. Well, not yet, anyway, but he's the same actor, Mark Lenard. Having just suggested that Romulans spies could be aboard, Stiles stares down Spock.
Mark Lenard in his first Star Trek role, as a Romulan commander.
Although Sulu doesn't comment, for George Takei this must have echoed his childhood. He and his family were interned during World War II for being Japanese-Americans. They too looked like the enemy. Kirk warns Stiles to leave his bigotry in his quarters.
On the Romulan bridge, the Romulan commander and his first officer discuss the consequences of their actions. Sarek, er, Commander refers to “Earth outpost,” “Earth men,” “Earth commander.” Again, no Federation, no Starfleet.
A personal aside … I've always found the notion of “space Romans” a bit hokey. The Romulans wear Roman-inspired tunics. The second-in-command is called “Centurion,” an officer rank in the Roman army. An ambitious junior officer is named “Decius.” The home worlds are Romulus and Remus, who in mythology were the twin brothers who founded Rome. (A star chart shows Romulus and Romii, a continuity error.) Why would a Vulcan diaspora model itself after an ancient Earth Mediterranean culture?! But if Schneider's intention was to emulate Nazi Germany in The Enemy Below, then there's some sense to it in that Hitler admired ancient Rome so much that the Nazis emulated Roman symbols and architecture. If Nazi Germany was the Third Reich, the first was the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which began circa 800 AD, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
What's in a name? Remus is called Romii on this neutral zone map.
Anyway … The Romulan commander is as disillusioned with his government's leadership as was the German submarine captain von Stolberg, who detests Hitler and the Nazi regime. Both serve out of a sense of duty to their country, not to its politics. We the viewer feel empathy for both, although we hope they lose.
As the Warbird approaches the neutral zone, Kirk sees an opportunity. The Warbird changes course to pass through a comet tail; although cloaked, the enemy vessel will leave a trail. But it's a trap; as in The Enemy Below, the enemy captain is far more experienced. The Romulan commander knows the tail will obscure the Enterprise sensors so the Warbird can change course and ambush the Earth ship. Having lost the quarry, Enterprise fires blind. (“Phasers” but they're what will eventually become photon torpedoes.) The battle begins.
Another aside … The Enterprise has warp drive (faster than light) while the Warbird has only impulse engines (not much different from Earth 21st Century rocket chemical propulsion). This should be no contest. But we're emulating a battle between a World War II US Navy destroyer and a German U-boat submarine, so it is what it is.
The Romulans don't have warp, but their plasma torpedo does. (How does that work?! Best not to ask. Show, don't tell.) As the torpedo is about to hit the Enterprise, Yeoman Rand and Captain Kirk embrace. I have to wonder if this scene was the inspiration behind a passage in the third revision of the Star Trek writers guide written after the first season by D.C. Fontana.
The test posed by the April 1967 edition of the Star Trek Writers Guide.
The above test is posed on the “Star Trek Format” page of the writers guide. It sounds a lot like the embrace between Kirk and Rand. Fontana wrote that the scene was “unbelievable.”
Why the correct answer? Simply because we've learned during a full season of making visual science fiction that believability of characters, their actions and reactions, is our greatest need and is the most important angle factor.
As an analogy, Fontana suggested a US Navy cruiser in waters off Vietnam. As a suicide attack approaches, the captain wouldn't hug a WAVE (the women's branch of the US Naval Reserve during World War II) if she happened to be aboard.
I'll point out a more practical reason — the Yeoman Rand character was eliminated halfway through the first season. But we're not there yet.
As the battle rages, the Romulan Centurion officer is fatally injured. The commander tends to him until he dies. This is another borrow from The Enemy Below. Von Stolberg's executive officer is also fatally injured; the captain refuses to abandon ship without him.
Kirk continues the chase into the neutral zone, assuming responsibility for the consequences. Both ships are badly damaged. Enterprise suffers twenty-two casualties, none of them fatal, but phaser control has only one crew member left — Tomlinson, the bridegroom. Stiles volunteers to help and leaves the bridge. Uhura replaces him at Navigation, not the first time we've seen her at this station; the camera lingers on the Asian and the African at the console. After Spock checks on the phaser room, a coolant leak begins. Spocks rescues Stiles, but Tomlinson dies, the lone casualty from the Romulan encounter.
Uhura at navigation, Sulu at the helm.
If you're keeping score … Tomlinson is the sixth crew member to die (not counting the two pilots). We've yet to lose a redshirt.
Kirk offers to take aboard the surviving Romulans, but their commander declines. In The Enemy Below, both ships were lost. The US destroyer had lifeboats but the U-boat did not. The Americans overloaded their lifeboats with the surviving Germans — the white and black pawns looked out for each other, control of the chess game way above their stature. The Romulan commander tells Kirk, “It is not our way.” Acknowledging they are also just pieces in the grand chess game, the commander adds, “In a different reality, I could have called you friend.” He then self-destructs the Warbird.
In real life, it seems that the Warbird model was destroyed as well. According to Memory Alpha, it's believed that the Warbird model maker destroyed it after a dispute with the propmakers union. That's why, in the third season episode “The Enterprise Incident,” the Romulans are now flying Klingon warships — the Warbird model no longer existed.
If anyone at 20th Century Fox took umbrage at this “homage” to The Enemy Below, there's no evidence of it. I could find no newspaper articles linking the two, although the 1957 film was playing on television around the same time as when this episode aired.
Star Trek borrowed from itself at least twice in future storytelling. Submarine warfare-style scenes occurred in two films, The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country. You can probably think of more examples, not just in the Star Trek universe but in other franchises.
Where does homage end and plagiarism begin?
If we return to Christopher Booker's seven basic plots, both the 1957 film and the 1966 episode fall into the category of “overcoming the monster.” To quote from Glen C. Strathy's article, overcoming the monster is “in which the hero must venture to the lair of a monster which is threatening the community, destroy it, and escape (often with a treasure).”
These are storytelling archetypes, but in this case we can find specific parallels. That said, Roddenberry and Schneider might argue that the beats in their episode are the logical progression of storytelling. Strathy wrote that Booker noted all seven basic plots follow a similar pattern:
- Anticipation
- Dream
- Frustration
- Nightmare
- Miraculous Escape/Redemption
If 20th Century Fox was at all concerned, most likely the studio executives shrugged and realized that, in the pressure of producing weekly TV shows, everyone borrows from everyone else. Maybe one day Fox will borrow from Star Trek …
A clip from the Fox TV series, “The Orville.” Video source: The Orville YouTube channel.
Sources:
Mark Cushman, These are the Voyages: TOS Season One (San Diego: Jacobs/Brown Press, 2013).