FWIW, the Chakoteya transcript site also has the line that way:
http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie2.html
That's weird, since I thought that the Star Trek Script Search site drew their transcripts from the Chakoteya site, and STSS has it the other way.
It’s a complicated scene with a nuanced performance by Shatner. I appreciate the multiple interpretations that can be made.
Agreed. Shatner is really good in TWOK, partly because Meyer really knew how to direct him (largely by tiring him out with multiple takes, it seems).
Interesting that David knew his mother dated a Starfleet officer, but didn't seem to remember his name
I don't read that as David not knowing his name, just him not using it.
Yes, I agree. David was just being a jerk in that scene and not using Kirk's name on purpose. But it's mainly written that way so we can have the reveal that Carol Marcus used to have a thing with Kirk back in the day.
And then, down in the caves, Kirk and David don't recognize each other at first, mostly because of the circumstances.
Doesn't David look right at Kirk, recognize him, and sneer, "You" right before he swings at Kirk with his knife? David also obviously recognizes Kirk's name when the mind-controlled Chekov says that Admiral Kirk gave the order for Starfleet to seize Genesis. I'd say it's probable that he met Kirk when he was a child, and Kirk didn't leave the greatest impression with young David.
I can't really buy that. If you reunite with an old girlfriend and discover that she's a single mother with a son of a certain age, you do the math.
Hell yeah you do!
Plus, again, Carol just doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would keep that kind of information from Jim. She's independent-minded, but not duplicitous.
I agree. Carol has to be a good person, as it's unlikely that Kirk would fall in love with a bitch (Janice Lester notwithstanding).
Perhaps Kirk wanted to visit to see his son, even if he wasn't going to reveal the fact that he was his father, and Carol didn't want that?
Sounds like a likely (no-win) scenario to me.
In the movie novelizations, one thread that's brought up is that David's death in TSFS is exactly the kind of thing Carol dreaded would occur if David ever did explore Kirk's world.
In DC's
Star Trek #9, Carol is downright
pissed at Kirk when she finds out about David's death. She moves past her anger and more into the "acceptance" phase of grief by the issue's end, though. And they put up a memorial to David in the still-stable Genesis Cave, which I thought was a really nice touch.
I think that McCoy may have known about David .. "It never rains, but it pours." This remark suggests that he at least knew about the relationship with Carol, and the breakup.
I always took it as meaning McCoy knew about Kirk's former relationship with Carol.
I feel like McCoy likely didn't know about David and certainly didn't know that Kirk's split with Carol was as bad as it was. He just thought that Carol's call was an old flame of Kirk's contacting him out of the blue again. I doubt that he'd have been so flippant with Kirk if he'd known the full story.
By the way, Kirk's shocked tone when he tells Spock about David is what made me think Kirk had only just found out. Hilariously, Spock's bored sounding "fascinating" implies he figured it out himself years ago.
I think it implies that Nimoy was tired and/or bored as hell and just wanted to get out of those damn ears and back to his trailer already. IIRC, that was the very last scene shot for TWOK, and IMO, it shows.
My conclusion is that the most probable and natural outline of Kirk's career is that after being commissioned an ensign Kirk served on the Republic under Captain Garrovick and then transferred to the Farragut along with Captain Garrovick - Kirk said Garrovik was Kirk's commanding officer from the time Kirk left the Academy until Garrovick was killed. Kirk was a lieutenant, apparently under Garrovick, 13 years before the second season according "A Private little War" and eleven years before the second season according to "Obsession".
It is my belief that the most natural and probable outline of Kirk's career would have his teaching at Starfleet Academy sometime after the Farragut disaster and before Kirk returned to space and got rapidly promoted to captain. So if David Marcus was born during this period it would be chronologically possible for him to be old enough to be a PHD in WOK, but the chronology would be tight.
This is pretty much how I picture it, too. And as has been pointed out in other threads here on the BBS, David was very likely a child prodigy of some kind. Think of him as the Doogie Howser of Terraforming.
