Star Trek: Lower Decks Offers A Goofy Riff On A Legendary War Film (And A Legendary Filmmaker)

This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

"Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 5, episode 3, "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel," sees Lieutenant Boimler (Jack Quaid) assigned to a covert, potentially dangerous spy mission. He is to join Commander Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) and Lieutenant Commander Billups (Paul Scheer) on a mission to the Cosmic Duchess, an ultra-swanky, high-end resort-like cruise ship, floating gently through deep space. His assignment is to penetrate deep into the hotel to retrieve Admiral Milius (Toby Huss), a Starfleet officer who has gone AWOL thanks to "a touch of vacation madness." The writers of "Lower Decks" missed an opportunity in not saying that he had been infected with Paradise Syndrome.

The Cosmic Duchess, however, is such a massive ship that it incorporates artificial recreations of every possible vacation-ready biome. There's a tropical beach biome, a skiing resort biome, and a water park biome. Boimler, Ransom, and Billups have to delved ever-deeper into the resort worlds and the heart of darkness, hoping to find the Admiral's trail. They ultimately find him hiding out in a stone temple, surrounded by a cult of other rogue vacationers.

This "Lower Decks" plotline is, of course, akin to the story of Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War movie "Apocalypse Now," with an unmotivated Admiral standing in for the horrifying Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). "Apocalypse Now" was, in turn, based on Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella "Heart of Darkness," and all three of these stories involve an ambitious errand boy trekking down a fraught tropical river to retrieve a high-ranking yet highly unstable figure, all while teetering on the brink of disaster himself.

Of course, since "Lower Decks" is a comedy show, the "fraught tropical river" is, in fact, a Raging Waters-like river ride, while Boimler's boat is just an indigo-colored inner tube. Oh yes, and Admiral Milius is clearly named after John Milius, the legendary filmmaker who co-wrote "Apocalypse Now."

John Milius, to remind readers, was the screenwriter behind the 1970s classics "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," "Magnum Force," and "Jeremiah Johnson" (the film where the bearded Robert Redford .gif comes from). Starting in 1973, Milius also began directing, beginning with "Dillinger" and continuing through such greats as "Big Wednesday," "Conan the Barbarian," and "Red Dawn." It was appropriate for the writers of "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel" to name their Admiral character after Milius, seeing as they borrowed from his "Apocalypse Now" screenplay so heavily. Of course, it would have been just as appropriate to have named him Admiral Conrad. 

It's also worth noting that the "Heart of Darkness"/"Apocalypse Now" story is repurposed frequently. James Gray's 2019 sci-fi film "Ad Astra" was more or less a spacebound version of "Heart of Darkness," while the 2008 video game "Far Cry 2" is a playable version of the tale. Even the Animaniacs spoofed "Apocalypse Now" in the 1993 episode "Hearts of Twilight," a simultaneous sendup of Coppola's movie and George Hickenlooper's 1991 making-of documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse." That episode itself saw the Warner Siblings trekking deep into the Warner Bros. backlot to stop Mr. Director (Paul Rugg) from going over budget on his latest movie.

"Lower Decks" isn't quite as muscular as a John Milius movie — recall that he made the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle "Conan the Barbarian" — but it certainly knows its influences. And Boimler's wiry body proves to be an asset later in the episode, proving that wit and slipperiness are better than muscle.

In addition, the title of the "Lower Decks" episode in question is a reference to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," John Madden's successful 2011 film adaptation of Deborah Moggach's novel "These Foolish Things." The "Lower Decks" episode, however, doesn't allude to the story of that film, apart from its hotel setting.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.