In the closing moments of Star Trek Into Darkness, Capt. James T. Kirk eulogizes Admiral Christopher Pike, who died at the hands of Khan Noonien Singh. "There will always be those who mean to do us harm," Kirk says. "To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves." The stirring turn feels like a plea for humanity to end it endless wars. It also is the closest thing to politically-motivated the latest run of Star Trek films has ever gotten.

After decades of the Star Trek franchise setting the bar for sci-fi-as-political-metaphor, Darkness—along with 2009's Star Trek and this year's Star Trek Beyond—have delivered a lot of flash and action, but little in the way of a message or point-of-view. Rather than political queries, the new, J.J. Abrams-produced films seem more interested in answering the questions fans have long asked one another: What was young Kirk like? What would it be like if Spock had a girlfriend? Could we get more Khan?

Those are fun themes to explore, sure—and those movies have been lauded by critics and fans—but they also lack the heft Star Trek is known for. By placing a premium on broad entertainment value, the new Trek films have lost sight of delivering a specific view of the America of the day—both the way we view ourselves and how we interact with the world around us. Creator Gene Roddenberry's Trek was philosophy masquerading as space-theater; Abrams' Trek is just the opposite. The new films are fun, but they're also largely devoid of a centralized argument.

Perhaps it's unfair to attempt to parse a specific political message from Abrams' additions to the Trek world—or, rather, to insist that they have one. Whereas Roddenberry smuggled his message out by play-acting politics using aliens on foreign worlds, Abrams has explained that, for him, the most important thing is making movies both purists and average moviegoers can enjoy. "Embrace the elements that make it unique," he told the Los Angeles Times prior to the release of 2009's Star Trek, "but be sure the master you're serving is the making of the most entertaining movie possible."

Star Trek: A Blueprint for How to Govern

That's fine, but it's also kind of a shame considering that Roddenberry worked so hard to imbue Star Trek's early seasons with messages of fairness and tolerance. In an excerpt from Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman's The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years, he explains that although he promised a show "with the villain suffering a painful death" at the end, once Trek was on the air "we began infiltrating a few of our ideas." And those ideas, of course, became the model for how Trek would respond to the issues of the day throughout its 50-year run.

By placing a premium on broad entertainment value, the new Star Trek films have lost sight of delivering a specific political message, something that has always been essential to the franchise.

This makes sense considering the times from which the show emerged. Star Trek is nothing if not a product of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement—a time when the United States became a superpower in a newly aligned political landscape. The period provided a backdrop for Trek to comment on issues of race and class (Roddenberry's Enterprise crew had moved past sexism and racism, but they still encounter many species and planets plagued by it). It also allowed the series—and many of the franchise installments that came after it—to serve as a blueprint for how to exist as an empire in a fragmented world. While Star Wars fits Joseph Campbell's model for a hero's journey—a man rises from the dust, and with the help of mentors along the way, defeats a great and mighty evil—Star Trek is about a powerful organization trying to negotiate the most humane way to move through a combustible galaxy.