Paul Wesley's incarnation of James T. Kirk

It's just a cool looking maneuver the SFx team came up with that viewers would understand. Plus, they got to show Kirk upside down for the lolz. You're overthinking it.

 

What should a tactically savvy Kirk have done?

He knew the Romulan ship was behind him. He knew Enterprise was coming toward him. He knew it was unlikely that he would get behind the Romulans. He probably did not know the range of the plasma weapon. He could have turned 90 degrees and kept uo speed: that might have allowed more of his weapons face the Romulans while making him harder to hit.

The better option would be to use the pursuit to draw out the Romulans. Keep up evasive maneuvers , but generally move in the direction of Enterprise. Enterprise could then blast the fuck out of the Romulans from above. Episode over.

 

It was supported by dialogue.

(Show > tell.)

 

He just said do the attack pattern Tiberius and get behind them. He didn't say do an Immelman. There was no specific language about the method of how to get behind them. The SFx team just put a cool looking maneuver that would do that. I'm sure there was no real thought about combat tactics. But whatever floats your boat.

 

I am using Immelmann to explain the maneuver in the real world, it's uses and weaknesses. The dialogue states that Kirk want to get behind the Romulan ship. The Sfx support this notion by having him to a loop. During that time the Romulans get off numerous shots at the Farragut, as one might expect ITRW. Finally, the Romulans get off a point blank shot with the plasma weapon because the distance was short.

 

Right, I get what you're saying. And I'm just saying the SFx team put in a loop because it looked cool, it feels intuitive to the viewers, and they could have a laugh and show Kirk upside down. Yeah, upside down in space.

They weren't trying to make tactical statement about it. They could've shown any maneuver and the outcome would've been the same because that's what is written in the script!

 

"Get behind them" is the key statement that unites the dialogue to the sfx. True, Farragut did not have to go up. Looping left, right or down would have been better, but still poor choices. The silhouette may have been smaller than looping up, but it still would have allowed the Romulans more opportunities, including the plasma weapon at point blank range.

 

"Did anyone ever dare to knock that Everyready battery off your shoulder. I was talking to my wife the other day about alkaline batteries versus the regular kind . . . "

 

[*Laughs in Jack Cassidy*]

 

I agree. Spock referring to himself as Number One and then passing the explaining duties onto Uhura. I don’t know if hostility was the intent but I certainly sensed it.

 

I personally quite like the new incarnation of Kirk. Obviously, things will change and I am fine with it as long as it is a reasonable change.

 

I'm one of the ones who wasn't particularly impressed with Wesley's version of Kirk. But I just happened to catch this video clip of Shatner's appearance on Ed Sullivan around 10 years before he played Kirk, and I'm a bit shocked to see that there's a definite resemblance!

 

I think that this version of Kirk being different from TOS Kirk is intentional. This is a Kirk who had different experiences, making him a different person. Since we're going to meet Kirk again in season 2 and one is on his way to becoming TOS Kirk, we'll see something closer to him.

 

I watched the episode now and I still thought he was good.

 

I thought he was good and look forward to seeing more of him. Hopefully if he sticks around for a while we get to see how he and Spock became friends.

 

As much fun as it is to see Prime Kirk being played by Paul, I would for them to do a mirror universe episode (just a stand alone) to show the events of how Mirror Kirk assassinated Mirror Pike.

 

He was so unlike Shatner - didn't look like him, sound like him, act like him - that I was jarring. It spoiled for me what was a pretty damn good episode in a lot of ways.

The whole modern nonsense of "well every actor should put their stamp on it" is just that. Kirk has been around for 60 years. Everyone's heard him, seen him, familiar with him. To all intents and purposes, he's a historical figure.

Cast Dame Judi Dench as Nelson Mandela in a serious biopic and tell me it's fine that she sounds and looks nothing like him, because she's "putting her own stamp on him", "not wanting to do a Mandela impression". It's preposterous, particularly when the show is deliberately cashing in on the original character AND telling us that this is the same man. They haven't even tried to make him look or sound the same.

Ditto the pointless changes to the ship, the uniform, etc etc. Trek did a fantastic job for the best part of 40 years maintaining a pretty consistent history, including look and feel. And that can be great without fiddling: the Constitution -class Defiant in In A Mirror Darkly was almost four decades after the start of TOS and it looked GREAT.

The modern arrogance of creatives that they can sell a product people buy but completely rewrite it is breathtaking.

"We've just bought the rights to Oreos. They're now custard filling and shortcake biscuits, but we'll call them Oreos and if you can't accept the change, you're just picky. It's our right to be creative "

 

If Kirk were a historic figure like Mandela then I could understand. Kirk is a fictional character and the rest is mutable, interpretation of a fictional world.

The rest is the usual ideas that I find so frustrating. Star Trek looks good...and dated. I love TOS but I don't believe that the Enterprise is a futuristic spaceship any more. Sorry, I don't. And SNW does small steps to help with that but it still doesn't fully work.

And finally, this isn't Oreos or whatever other analogy is going to postulated. This is Wesley interpreting Kirk in an alternate timeline who is slightly different. What he does in Season 2 will also be slightly different. He will not be doing a Shatner impersonation, any more than Pine did.

It 100% is their right. And we can not buy it. That's our right as consumers.

People don't like SNW, or aspects of it like myself, should stop buying it. Seriously. I'm not watching Season 2. I encourage you to vote with your dollars and do the same.

 

Wesley was playing a 10 years younger Kirk. Here is Shatner 10 years younger. Near spitting image.

 

No, simply no.

James T. Kirk is most definitely not a historical figure.
And Star Trek episodes are not *Thermian singsong delivery* " historical documents. "
Star Trek is fiction. The universe and characters it portrays are imaginary.
At most, Jim Kirk is a figure of modern folklore.
And characters in folk retellings are subject to reinterpretation and reexamination.
Ellie Norwood's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes differs from Arthur Wontner's, who differs from Basil Rathbone's, who differs from Peter Cushing's, who differs from John Neville, who differs from Douglas Wilmer, who differs from Christopher Plummer, who differs from Nicol Williamson, who differs from Jeremy Brett, who differs from Robert Downey, Jr., who differs from Benidorm Cabbagepatch, all of whom differ in significant respectds from Arthur Conan Doyle's literary version while sharing similarities with him.

We're talking about creative dramatic arts, not documentary arts.