Complaints about humanizing Spock

[Sharr Khan]

But its a show written by humans, for humans. That can't be a factor removed from how its supposed to be taken by the viewers.

Aliens in Trek have always been metaphors to one degree or another - Spock and his whole species typify this when ever they are shown. That is their story purpose, they do not exist Independent from that fact.

Almost every time Spock or some other lead Vulcan makes comments about their culture it has been delivered in a wink-nod manner. What Vulcan's say about themselves and what they actually are exist worlds apart from one another.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The writers of this movie had the audacity to actually base it on watching the TV series rather than asking fans what we consider "essential to Star Trek."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Goading Spock into attacking Kirk is pretty much a modified version of the scene from This side of Paradise. And I think Spock was all for chasing the Romulans back across the neutral zone in Balance of Terror.

Explicitly so, in fact. To use his own words: "And if the Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, then attack becomes even more imperative."

But its a show written by humans, for humans. That can't be a factor removed from how its supposed to be taken by the viewers.

Aliens in Trek have always been metaphors to one degree or another - Spock and his whole species typify this when ever they are shown. That is their story purpose, they do not exist Independent from that fact.

Almost every time Spock or some other lead Vulcan makes comments about their culture it has been delivered in a wink-nod manner. What Vulcan's say about themselves and what they actually are exist worlds apart from one another.

It may interest you to consider that calling Spock "a Vulcan" is not entirely accurate. He is, after all, half human, a fact which is a MAJOR part of his characterization. Most humans call him a Vulcan, because they recognize his alien traits; most Vulcans call him a human for the exact same reason.

 

[Sharr Khan]

It may interest you to consider that calling Spock "a Vulcan" is not entirely accurate. He is, after all, half human, a fact which is a MAJOR part of his characterization. Most humans call him a Vulcan, because they recognize his alien traits; most Vulcans call him a human for the exact same reason.

I think this is splitting hairs, and only becomes important when a storyline calls for it to become important. Functionally speaking, there is no difference between humans and Vulcans. Or are we back to Vulcans don't have emotions because of biological reasons?

Should I not call Worf Klingon? He was raised by humans after all. Again whatever Spock's humaness, I think its only a outside projection by his fellow countrymen and not a matter of substantial difference.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It may interest you to consider that calling Spock "a Vulcan" is not entirely accurate. He is, after all, half human, a fact which is a MAJOR part of his characterization. Most humans call him a Vulcan, because they recognize his alien traits; most Vulcans call him a human for the exact same reason.

I think this is splitting hairs, and only becomes important when a storyline calls for it to become important. Functionally speaking, there is no difference between humans and Vulcans. Or are we back to Vulcans don't have emotions because of biological reasons?

Functionally speaking, there is no difference between black people and white people and yet we've still had to sort out a lot of confusing sociological implications in having a half-black president.

Should I not call Worf Klingon? He was raised by humans after all.

But he's not a human, he's a full Klingon. The issue is more complicated for, say, K'Ehleyr, who is half human. Unlike Spock, she refuses to completely identify with either race, but also unlike Spock, never had to take shit from other Klingons about her human background.

Racial identification is a very shallow thing and involves appearances more than anything else. K'Ehleyr can pass for Klingon, but due to the predominance of her Klingon features can't pass for human, despite the fact that she belongs to both races. Tora Ziyal, on the other hand, can pass for a Cardassian pretty much anywhere except Cardassia. Spock seems to be in a similar but less contentious position, where many Vulcans find it hard to accept Spock as one of their own on account of his noticeably human features. Vulcans are logical people, of course, and are willing to forget his mixed background once he becomes a famous and respected officer and explorer.

Again whatever Spock's humaness, I think its only a outside projection by his fellow countrymen and not a matter of substantial difference.

Racial differences are ALWAYS an insubstantial projection, and sometimes applied totally arbitrarily. The thing is, whether the difference is imaginary or not, it still makes a difference to SPOCK, and this is an integral aspect of his character.

 

[Sharr Khan]

Functionally speaking, there is no difference between black people and white people and yet we've still had to sort out a lot of confusing sociological implications in having a half-black president.

Could just be me... but the only thing that matters are his polices and personal history. To be fixated on the racial stuff is a distraction. I'll stick with with, there's no functional difference. A thing that goes double for fictional characters who are written for, at the moment story convenience.

Racial differences are ALWAYS an insubstantial projection, and sometimes applied totally arbitrarily. The thing is, whether the difference is imaginary or not, it still makes a difference to SPOCK, and this is an integral aspect of his character.

I don't disagree. And we've seen Spock worth through his issues in various ways.

Yet my overall observation of how, not just Spock but even full blooded Vulcans behave stands, that they've created a myth of "Totally logical and emotionless beings" which does not stand up to with how they actual are in fact.

 

[UFO]

While evidence for that has tended to pile up a little over time, probably due to the cynicism and plotting laziness of human writers, it would be unfair to suggest there is no truth to their improved logic and emotion suppression abilities

There is no truth, other than what the writers put into the story.

Which is why I followed the passage you quoted with: "For example Vulcan training prevented (Nu)Spock from reacting to the taunts of the other students on 35 previous occasions." which writers put in to the lastest movie no less.

And no one other than "human writers" has ever created a minute of Star Trek.

Now that is exactly the kind of human centric propaganda Vulcans have to put up with! Remember, history is written by the victors, and human writers have taken full advantage of the unfortunate lack of existence of Vulcans!

Yet my overall observation of how, not just Spock but even full blooded Vulcans behave stands, that they've created a myth of "Totally logical and emotionless beings" which does not stand up to with how they actual are in fact.

I take your point that Vulcans are often portrayed rather poorly (see above! ) but I am less sure they have created a myth* of being "Totally logical and emotionless beings". We saw in TMP that Kolinahr is intended to purge all remaining emotions from those who can complete it and only a few Vuclans can I believe, so that implies to me they are aware that their mass training is not perfect. I guess the confusion surrounding this issue is due to various authors making things up for the requirements of their own stories but with no overall plan.

Edit: * Although outsiders might get that impression.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Functionally speaking, there is no difference between black people and white people and yet we've still had to sort out a lot of confusing sociological implications in having a half-black president.

Could just be me... but the only thing that matters are his polices and personal history. To be fixated on the racial stuff is a distraction.

Indeed, and in the months before and after the election there were a great many people who managed to be distracted by it. Functional differences, or lack thereof, don't always matter. Especially when it comes to politics.

Racial differences are ALWAYS an insubstantial projection, and sometimes applied totally arbitrarily. The thing is, whether the difference is imaginary or not, it still makes a difference to SPOCK, and this is an integral aspect of his character.

I don't disagree. And we've seen Spock worth through his issues in various ways.

Yet my overall observation of how, not just Spock but even full blooded Vulcans behave stands, that they've created a myth of "Totally logical and emotionless beings" which does not stand up to with how they actual are in fact.

I totally agree, but that myth, like their emotional control, is a cultural artifact, not a biological one. Racial identity may be confusing and arbitrary, but CULTURAL identity is a function of upbringing. Spock was raised among Vulcans by a Vulcan father, but he still had a human mother with a huge amount of influence in his life. That influence is as much a part of his background as his human DNA.

 

[T'Girl]

The Narada seemed to be doomed already, but you have the Enterprise actively firing on it, essentially murdering everyone on board. This complete lack of ethics is troubling ...

The Narada had once before successfully traveled through a black hole "time tunnel ripoff" corridor during the movie, and Kirk did make a offer to remove the crew. Kirk main purpose (I believe) wasn't so much to murder the crew, as to destroy the Narada, who knew where it would have ended up, damaged yes, but still capabul of engaging all kind of horseplay.

Plus you need to take in to account that this is the same James Kirk who destroyed three defenseless Klingon ships in the KM simulater, he was willing to fire on a helpless ship to carry out his mission, or the mission as he saw it.

The Prime Kirk likely would have found a way of saving the Romulan crew AND destroying (or capturing) the Romulan ship, but as we all know ...

NERO: "James Kirk was a great man, but that was another life."

 

[The Castellan]

The Narada seemed to be doomed already, but you have the Enterprise actively firing on it, essentially murdering everyone on board. This complete lack of ethics is troubling ...

The Narada had once before successfully traveled through a black hole "time tunnel ripoff" corridor during the movie, and Kirk did make a offer to remove the crew. Kirk main purpose (I believe) wasn't so much to murder the crew, as to destroy the Narada, who knew where it would have ended up, damaged yes, but still capabul of engaging all kind of horseplay.

Plus you need to take in to account that this is the same James Kirk who destroyed three defenseless Klingon ships in the KM simulater, he was willing to fire on a helpless ship to carry out his mission, or the mission as he saw it.

The Prime Kirk likely would have found a way of saving the Romulan crew AND destroying (or capturing) the Romulan ship, but as we all know ...

NERO: "James Kirk was a great man, but that was another life."

Well said. JJ Kirk is just another 'bad boy who gets lucky'.

And those times in TOS when Spock got all emotional....quite a few were due to outside influences....like disease or being drugged or something.

In the next JJ Trek film ~cringes at that thought~, I can picture Spock wearing all black, and cutting himself in his quarters when off duty. And somehow, JJ's gonna find a way to put those god damned annoying lens flares in Spock's low lit quarters.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well said. JJ Kirk is just another 'bad boy who gets lucky'.:

A "genius-level bad boy" who does what no one else can in the situation, of course, and saves Earth.

Can't wait for the next movie with this Kirk.

 

[UFO]

Well said. JJ Kirk is just another 'bad boy who gets lucky'.:

A "genius-level bad boy" who does what no one else can in the situation, of course, and saves Earth.

Can't wait for the next movie with this Kirk.

I guess you're hoping he might even do something that will actually justify the title. In the last movie the only thing that came close was "beating" the Kobayashi Maru test by a method he couldn't use in "reality". Had he got his way originally he would likely have got everyone killed in a futile attempt to stop Nero. "Luckily" when Spock threw him off the ship he met SpockP and Scotty who set him up to become captain and gave him the technology to win the day. Yeah, bring on more "genius-level" luck!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I guess you're hoping he might even do something that will actually justify the title.

I'm hoping I'll enjoy the next movie, and Chris Pine as Kirk, as much as I did this one.

It's better that you don't try to guess what other people are thinking.

 

[Devon]

Well said. JJ Kirk is just another 'bad boy who gets lucky'.

That could qualify for both Kirks.

And those times in TOS when Spock got all emotional....quite a few were due to outside influences....like disease or being drugged or something.

And quite a few weren't.

I can picture Spock wearing all black, and cutting himself in his quarters when off duty. And somehow, JJ's gonna find a way to put those god damned annoying lens flares in Spock's low lit quarters.

No.

 

[Sharr Khan]

I totally agree, but that myth, like their emotional control, is a cultural artifact, not a biological one. Racial identity may be confusing and arbitrary, but CULTURAL identity is a function of upbringing. Spock was raised among Vulcans by a Vulcan father, but he still had a human mother with a huge amount of influence in his life. That influence is as much a part of his background as his human DNA.

newtype_alpha, I think we're on the same page, just expressing things in a different manner.

My biggest gripe with many Trekkers is they fail to notice that Vulcan's aren't logical because of biology but rather its a cultural choice.

I take your point that Vulcans are often portrayed rather poorly (see above! ) but I am less sure they have created a myth* of being "Totally logical and emotionless beings". We saw in TMP that Kolinahr is intended to purge all remaining emotions from those who can complete it and only a few Vuclans can I believe, so that implies to me they are aware that their mass training is not perfect. I guess the confusion surrounding this issue is due to various authors making things up for the requirements of their own stories but with no overall plan.

UFO, I'm skeptical that even Kolinahr could purge all emotion, as emotions are inherent just as they are to we human beings. Nothing short of becoming Data could effectively reach that end and this is yet another tool that bolsters the myth of "perfectly logical beings".

 

[Anticitizen]

I think that it's a question of motivation. Sure, emotions are inherent, and can't be truly eliminated short of invasive brain reconfiguration of some sort. The idea is that one could reach a sort of mastery, and choose to act and make decisions by way of a logical set of principles that are consciously determined and thus ignore or supercede emotionally-driven motivations, rather than acting on the whim and fancy of a flurry of personal feelings and wild passions. Spock 'failed' Kolinahr because he was unable or unwilling to choose to fully ignore or suppress those desires/motivations/etc. I would imagine that a Kohlinahr master is subject to the same level of 'feeling' as anyone else; it's a matter of being a disciplined master that can act in spite of those feelings rather than being subject to them.

 

[Nerys Myk]

And those times in TOS when Spock got all emotional....quite a few were due to outside influences....like disease or being drugged or something.

And this time it was losing his mother and homeworld. Point is, Spock losing control and beating up Kirk is Trek Trope. The reason is irrelevent. Heck, Spock losing control in and of itself is a Trek Trope. Spock is a lot more complex than the unemotional and always logical version that fans have lodged in their minds.

 

[Anticitizen]

No, it's fundamentally different this time around. In TOS, the 'outside influences' were always biological, chemical, parasitic, or Medusian in nature - they literally interfered with his biochemical processes in some way. This movie portrayed Spock as a man mastered by his emotions - from his childhood fistfight, to his entanglements with Uhura, his contention with Kirk over the Kobyashi Maru and the later altercations aboard Enterprise, etc. In 'Journey to Babel', Spock's discipline overrode any personal desire to save his own father's life, which is huge - he was willing to let his father die, simply because he was the best qualified guy to be in command, rather than turn command over to Scotty (or whoever) who *might* do a fine job in his stead.

The primary difference is that ST09 showed us only the emotionally-driven Spock. In fact, the only indications of his TOS characterization were window-dressing: he spoke in a metered, even voice, and threw around the word 'logical' a few times. TOS Spock was interesting and compelling because of the choices Spock had to face in maintaining his discipline, and the problems they caused/solved - hence episodes like Amok Time, This Side of Paradise, etc, because they illustrate those challenges. ST09 threw that out the window and chose to address his discipline as the problem itself.

I could make the same criticism about most of the characters in the movie - they took the 'window-dressings' of the characters, but excised the heart and motivations of each of them, and replaced them with baser fillings.

For instance, no longer do the crew just simply want To Boldly Go, for exploration's sake: Kirk is now challenged into living up to his father's legacy, Spock is joining Starfleet in order to give the middle finger to the racist Vulcan Science Academy, McCoy's running from his divorce, etc. It reminds me of that godawful remake of 'The Time Machine' that came out last decade. In the original story, 'The Narrator' builds a time machine and plunges into the future out of sheer human curiosity, to behold new wonders, etc. To Boldly Go, and all that. In the horrid remake, they created some insane backstory - the main character's fiance died tragically in a horse and buggy accident or someshit, and the guy builds a time machine in order to save her, but can't, because 'Dessssssstiny!' says she will die anyway, or whatever, so he says 'screw it' and goes into the future instead. See the difference? The original story holds loftier ideals; as Kirk put it, we climb this mountain because it's there; we launch scientific probes into deep space to find out what's out there. The screenwriters in both The Time Machine remake and ST09 decided that such lofty goals aren't audience-relatable, and thus changed their goals to something significantly more friggin' retarded.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

No, it's fundamentally different this time around. In TOS, the 'outside influences' were always biological, chemical, parasitic, or Medusian in nature - they literally interfered with his biochemical processes in some way.

'They're called "plot devices." It's a means to accomplish with a single element what should otherwise take several minutes worth of character development and/or crisis (as in, for example, The Galileo Seven).

This movie portrayed Spock as a man mastered by his emotions - from his childhood fistfight

TAS.

to his entanglements with Uhura

All Our Yesterdays, although The Enterprise Incident is probably a better example.

his contention with Kirk over the Kobyashi Maru

Galileo Seven, again.

In 'Journey to Babel', Spock's discipline overrode any personal desire to save his own father's life, which is huge

And also SUPREMELY illogical, considering Sarek's importance to Federation politics. As in a great many other cases--especially those dealing with Nurse Chapel--Spock has a tendency overcompensate in the face of strong emotion by doing the exact opposite of what his emotions are telling him to do, even if that opposite movement is itself illogical.

TOS Spock was interesting and compelling because of the choices Spock had to face in maintaining his discipline, and the problems they caused/solved - hence episodes like Amok Time, This Side of Paradise, etc, because they illustrate those challenges. ST09 threw that out the window and chose to address his discipline as the problem itself.

I couldn't help but notice you left out "This Way to Eden." I'm starting to think you've got some kind of agenda, Herbert.

I could make the same criticism about most of the characters in the movie - they took the 'window-dressings' of the characters, but excised the heart and motivations of each of them, and replaced them with baser fillings.

For instance, no longer do the crew just simply want To Boldly Go, for exploration's sake: Kirk is now challenged into living up to his father's legacy, Spock is joining Starfleet in order to give the middle finger to the racist Vulcan Science Academy, McCoy's running from his divorce, etc.

Did TOS ever actually explain to us why Kirk joined Starfleet in the first place? Or McCoy, for that matter? Hell, we weren't even sure what planet he was from until TVH.

I'm now convinced you're not being honest with us, Herbert. You've definitely got an agenda.

 

[F. King Daniel]

What STXI Spock went through (six billion Vulcans killed, his planet destroyed, mother murdered) was several orders of magnitude worse than the worst thing TOS Spock endured.

Yes, TOS Spock always had an excuse when he lost his shit (pon farr, drugs etc), but after what STXI Spock want through, and considering he's younger than the Spock we saw throughout TOS (bar "The Cage" - and look how he acts there), I think it's perfectly understandable.

I mean, if all that isn't enough to make the guy snap, what would be??


Complaining that a two-hour film doesn't have the depth of character development of 79 episodes of TOS and the first six movies (lets throw in the hundreds of novels filling in every detail of the whole crew's backstories while we're here) is somewhat missing the point of a standalone two hour film.