Why does Kirk retire?

[wayoung]

Kirk would be unhappy doing bureaucratic work, maybe less so teaching.

Kir is unhappy doing anything. He complained about commanding a starship at least as often as he complained about not commanding a starship, probably more. He is/was/will be an unhappy dude, it's just hidden behind the ultra confident swagger, as shown multiple times in TOS.
He's lonely, blaming his position of Captain for his loneliness. It's probably why he formed such an emotional connection to an inanimate object to begin with. Why he was "a stack of books with legs" in the academy. Why he was willing to stay away from Carol and David. Why he has such a need for extreme adventure, to feel alive and give his life meaning and purpose. Because without it he had to face his own depression.

Kirk needs a prescription for SSRI's and weekly counselling sessions more than command of a starship. The latter is merely distraction.

 

[Leviathan]

#1 reason for retirement: Politics.

 

[Ronald Held]

#1 reason for retirement: Politics.

Sure if he were attached to SFC the paperwork and politics would be intolerant for him. If he is least unhappy in command of a ship, and has none, then why stay?

 

[Timo]

Didn't Generations also imply that he had a short retirement between TMP and TWOK?

The implication was in the form of Kirk speaking of "returning". This can be taken two ways: either Kirk did go away and then return - or then he never took any sort of leave but instead returned to work as usual.

Since it's all about Kirk pondering how to deal with his bedmate after an apparently enjoyable cabin weekend, the "This time I'll not tell her I'm going back to the office" line might well be taken to mean he had been at said office the previous Friday, and in the real universe had kept up that pattern until TUC.

As for the TUC retirement, it was a done deal at the beginning of that movie already. That is, McCoy speaks of a retirement party for "us" - although Scotty then pipes in by saying it would "suit him" fine, as if the idea just occurred to him...

At the end of the movie, Uhura tells Starfleet wants the heroes to return for decommissioning. She's apparently not speaking of the ship, as Kirk soon thereafter dictates a log where he believes the ship will sail on under a new crew. "Decommission" is a funny word for retirement, but might be apt for dishonorable discharge, or perhaps for some in-between, not-quite-voluntary means of kicking out the old fools (since Kirk in GEN clearly hasn't been dishonorably discharged).

Kirk isn't at the TAS-canonized mandatory retirement age of 75 yet. But the "us" doing the retiring aren't of identical ages anyway. Or at least the suggestion is that Kirk, McCoy and Spock are to retire, and just possibly Scotty as well - but Uhura and Chekov aren't included in the deal in any TUC-apparent fashion. The Big Three retiring all at once, at random points of their careers, might suggest the reasons are unrelated to

a) age
b) rank or
c) personal affairs

but might be related to

d) the upcoming fate of the ship, with all being told that it's time to give room for a new command crew, and seeing this as a perfect excuse to retire en masse, even if each individual could still personally continue a career in Starfleet, or
e) some other endeavor the three have decided to share, giving up Starfleet in favor of this endeavor (of which we later hear nothing)
f) a command from on high for the three to scram, although why such a command would be coming back when the Klingon crisis is still at its height and Starfleet loves Kirk as an anti-Klingon symbol is unclear

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Paradise City]

He's about as old as Picard is in the 2nd season I believe. There could be a convention -- even on the level of a mere social expectation -- to retire at a certain age that's not applicable in the 24th century.

 

[Phoenix219]

Why does a pro athlete who loves his sport retire? Because he knows he's not on top of his game anymore and he want's to free up a spot for someone coming up. Mario Andretti was still winning races when he retired in his early 50s, but he just knew it was time. Of course, over 20 years later, Andretti still drives fans around in the 2-seater and, when he drives his old racecars at vintage events, he often sets comparable lap times to current drivers in modern equipment. So, he may not be what he was, but he hasn't lost much in old age. If they hadn't wasted Kirk's death on Generations, we might still be seeing old Kirk, occasionally shrugging off retirement to handle some emergency or first contact or something.
Even people who love their work eventually grow weary of doing it every day, but enjoy occasionally stretching their legs.

I think that decision / that movie is what soured me on TNG permanently. I don't think I ever forgave them.... for the death of Kirk. He could have ironically breathed new life into the (cinemantic franchise).... being able to mix and match Kirk and Spock with literally any combination of TNG/DS9/VOY characters for big budget movie adventures would have been amazing. The TNG movies were like big budget episodes, rather then actually taking advantage of the fact that these are multi million dollar movie extravaganzas that should be shooting for something bigger and beyond. There was no reason to draw a line in the sand between TOS and TNG movies. They should have just been Star Trek Franchise Movies. Shatner is still going strong; He could have continued playing Kirk, no doubt about it.

I, for one, would have applauded to see Kirk pull a TMP and wrest control of the Enterprise-E, and how the 24th century would have reacted. It would have been pure gold.

 

[Paradise City]

I would've rather they left Kirk's fate unstated. But realistically they were never going to be able resist trying to conclude the character in some way.

And my primary objection is that, well, Spot the cat gets more attention than Kirk. There's blubbering over Spot the blasted Cat whereas noone gives a jolly hoot that this titanic historical character who kicked off the whole Enterprise craze just perished on their watch. Even a few brief scenes of a state funeral or something would've done the trick.

 

[Timo]

It seems only Picard ever knew that Kirk had paid a visit to the 24th century. And he wasn't telling.

I mean, he even left Kirk's badge on top of a small memorial pile of rocks, rather than taking it back to civilization. Heaven knows what he did to the body, which was way too difficult for him to drag up from where it fell...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I would've rather they left Kirk's fate unstated. But realistically they were never going to be able resist trying to conclude the character in some way.

And my primary objection is that, well, Spot the cat gets more attention than Kirk. There's blubbering over Spot the blasted Cat whereas noone gives a jolly hoot that this titanic historical character who kicked off the whole Enterprise craze just perished on their watch. Even a few brief scenes of a state funeral or something would've done the trick.

Agreed x1000. I couldn't believe the filmmakers were expecting me to get more worked up about Data finding his damn cat than the death of Captain Kirk. One of many mistakes that GEN made.

 

[J.T.B.]

And my primary objection is that, well, Spot the cat gets more attention than Kirk. There's blubbering over Spot the blasted Cat whereas noone gives a jolly hoot that this titanic historical character who kicked off the whole Enterprise craze just perished on their watch. Even a few brief scenes of a state funeral or something would've done the trick.

Yeah. For a lot of things, there is a time when they are just "old" and their value is low, and a time when they become "vintage" and their value goes up again. It always seemed to me that Generations came along when TOS was valued pretty low and its legacy was basically "disposed of" as cheaply as possible. This always rubbed me the wrong way but such was the business climate of the time.

 

[Phoenix219]

The last TOS movie was still pretty new and shiny itself, when Generations came out. It hadn't been gone long enough for anyone to miss or appreciate Shatner as Kirk.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

I think he retired because he basically had to. Starfleet had been making it clear they weren't interested in him continuing to command starships, even around the time of TMP. Every command he had after the five year mission was basically by force or dire circumstances (with FF being the exception, when he was demoted). He was old, he'd served his time, and younger captains were taking those seats. Even in the military today there's forced retirement, and though Starfleet doesn't seem to have that, they basically forced him into it by making him an Admiral, which was never Kirk's thing.

In Generations when he tells Picard "Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship," I think he's speaking from experience and he's telling Picard not to give in to Starfleet's pressure. Once Kirk let himself get promoted to Admiral, he never really got his command back.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yeah. For a lot of things, there is a time when they are just "old" and their value is low, and a time when they become "vintage" and their value goes up again. It always seemed to me that Generations came along when TOS was valued pretty low and its legacy was basically "disposed of" as cheaply as possible. This always rubbed me the wrong way but such was the business climate of the time.

I think that was more of a reflection of Rick Berman's attitude towards TOS than the audience's.

 

[Romulan Loyalist]

Don't forget the idiotic continuity mess up between Relics - and GEN... Scotty saw Kirk "die" on the Enterprise B, YET he thought Riker was sent by Jim Kirk to find him...

I loved GEN for seeing both Kirk, (TOS movies seemed better than the series itself) and Picard together, but the writers completely screwed up the entire thing with Relics happening prior to GEN.. As for retirement, 2263 is his given final retirement.. Why he would retire? All the above posts are all probably part of the reason.. There was only so much he could get away with anymore..

Perfect example of how Starfleet changed, is the interactions between Scotty and the Enterprise-D crew.. Spit and polished, Regulations - much less of the informal atmosphere from the earlier TOS movie crew era. Kirk would have lost his mind - or gotten another court martial or two.

 

[TheSubCommander]

I chalk Scotty's statements from Relics off as transporter psychosis. Who knows what kind of dreaming and hallucinations goes on in that state. Scotty could have been remembering a hallucination.

I would've rather they left Kirk's fate unstated. But realistically they were never going to be able resist trying to conclude the character in some way.

And my primary objection is that, well, Spot the cat gets more attention than Kirk. There's blubbering over Spot the blasted Cat whereas noone gives a jolly hoot that this titanic historical character who kicked off the whole Enterprise craze just perished on their watch. Even a few brief scenes of a state funeral or something would've done the trick.

Yeah, I think the best way to have handled Kirk was an ambiguous ending. THey could have done a 100 things, but I think the easiest would have been Kirk getting sucked back into the Nexus somehow, but some explosion left his fate actually getting to the nexus before being killed ambiguous and up to the viewer.

 

[Ronald Held]

I thought Scott was not really not 100% after he came out of the transporter

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Who can say whether that's what the writers intended? In any case, that works.

 

[Phoenix219]

Who can say whether that's what the writers intended? In any case, that works.

Well Relics came out before Generations, so at that point, Kirk's fate WAS vague and undetermined.

 

[Romulan Loyalist]

But regardless of Scotty being delusional, or vague retirement, the death of Kirk on the Enterprise-B would have been huge.. not something Scotty would have been delusional about. Highly doubt he was conscious during his transporter residence.

It was a major continuity error not caught by the Generations writers.. sloppy IMHO lol

 

[wayoung]

I don't think it's much sloppy as it is that the writers didn't want the entire plot line of their movie constrained by a single throw away line from a single stand alone episode. Sometimes small insignificant fanservice can block potential future storylines and the writers/producers/director has to decide what's more important : that one line from years ago done to please a few fans, or their current major motion picture.

They always choose the later, and rightfully so.

Marvel fans are having this same argument about Dr. Strange right now.