Released: 2 May 2013
Synopsis: Starfleet Admiral Marcus intents on expanding the organization’s military capabilities, and revives a man from the past, Khan Noonien Singh, to help him in these efforts.
This film can be seen as offering a variety of illustrations of what Carl (C. G.) Jung would term inflation, the conscious ego’s identification with a god-like archetype.
Star Trek Into Darkness begins on the planet Nibiru, with Captain James Tiberius Kirk and Dr. Leonard (Bones) McCoy being chased by a group of indigenous individuals. Meanwhile, First Officer Spock, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, and Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, prepare Spock to implant an explosive device into a volcano to prevent it from wiping out the planet’s population. In order to extricate Spock from the volcano, the USS Enterprise is forced to rise from the bottom of the ocean, where she had been hidden, and is seen by the indigenous people. Later, Kirk and Spock are called before Admiral Christopher Pike for breaking the Prime Directive. Pike takes back command from Kirk, naming him First Officer, but then an emergency meeting is called by Starfleet Command. Pike is killed in an attack by an individual identified as John Harris, but who is actually Khan Noonien Singh. This puts Kirk back in command of the Enterprise. Later, after Khan surrenders into Kirk’s custody later in the film, he tells Kirk that Admiral Alexander Marcus revived him from his stasis chamber, where he had been kept for 300 years, because he needed his warrior’s mind to create weapons to defeat the Klingon Empire in a war he plans to provoke. When Kirk asks him why Marcus would ask him for help, Khan merely answers because he is better. When Kirk asks him at what, Khan answers, everything. However, Kirk and the Enterprise crew prevent Marcus from starting a war with the Klingons, and Khan kills him with his own hands. The Enterprise also escapes destruction by Khan, who ends the film back in a stasis chamber.
In this film, there are several examples of inflation. Inflation, being necessary to some extent, to motivate the conscious ego into action. This includes to begin the process of individuation, the way in which the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of material into itself. This can be seen as represented by the opening event that starts the action. Kirk believes that he knows better than Starfleet, and goes against the Prime Directive to rescue Spock. In doing this Kirk was inflated by his position of command, and when called before Pike was disciplined for it. Which caused deflation when he was demoted. However, Marcus and Khan have no such episode of humiliation or humility. Their actions can be compared to when the ego identifies too strongly with the god-like power of an archetype. When this happens, the ego becomes one-sided which is a recipe for disaster. Here this is evidenced in Marcus being killed by Khan, who is then once again sent back into a stasis chamber.
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