Maybe that's what you meant to say, but what you actually wrote -- this is a direct copy-and-paste from your post -- was "an emotional 1/2 Vulcan brother." I can't read your mind, only your words.
Okay apologies my grammar was a little off, I should have wrote a an emotional Vulcan 1/2 brother. But I don't think what I wrote was that confusing, other posters seemed to understand what I meant. Still my mistake!
It was contrived, sure, but I feel Luckinbill was effective enough and sympathetic enough that he sold it. Maybe a different actor wouldn't have, but he did, at least for me.
Like I said I don't mind the actor and I think he did what he could with not a very good script. But the whole notion of Spock just suddenly having this brother showing up didn't work for me.
I also read that DC Fontana (who came up with the idea of Sarek, Amanda, etc) also wasn't happy with suddenly adding a new member to Spock's family.
What can I say I am not a fan of the "long lost family member" storyline, especially not for such an established and iconic character like Spock.
People seem to forget that Vulcan logic is learned, not inborn. Intrinsically, Vulcans are even more emotional than humans, which is why they need to control themselves so totally. And it makes sense that some Vulcans would reject that cultural standard of logic. After all, the society only adopted it less than 2000 years ago. For most of Vulcan history, they were all freely, wildly emotional. The Romulans -- who are still members of the Vulcan species by genetics, just a different cultural branch thereof -- are all freely emotional too.
I don't forget this. I understand Vulcans have emotions they just work to suppress them. My problem isn't so much that Sybok rejected the Vulcan's philosophy, more that Sybok came off like a "human" religious zealot (albeit somewhat of a sympathetic one). So my question is if the Vulcan didn't suppress their emotions would they be just like humans? Somehow that doesn't work for me.
And the Romulans are a good example of how they can be different from the Vulcans but still seem alien to me.
Besides, Sybok evidently had a form of telepathy, given how he could hypnotize people into following him and give them illusory visions of "their pain." Telepathy is much more a Vulcan trait than a human one.
Well this whole power was also pretty silly to me. It just seemed a bit much.
Even though I liked some of the scenes that resulted: learning a bit more about McCoy (although it was too little too late) & seeing the scene of Spock's birth was a powerful scene. Although, I also agree with Nimoy that he accepted who he was in previous movies and this was not needed.
But yes Sybok had an alien ability that doesn't mean he felt alien to me.
I never said it was either of those things. I just meant that it can work reasonably well as an explanation. I grant that it was kind of melodramatic (though no worse than some of the melodrama TOS threw us), but it was reconcilable with what we knew before.
And I am not denying that TOS has some melodramatic scenes and bad writing throughout its run as well.
If you mean it explains Sarek's behavior to Spock then yes I will grant you that. But I am sure they could have come up with a stronger explanation.
Look if Sybok worked for you that is fine. He didn't work for me. And I don't even hate Final Frontier like some fans. I actually really enjoy all the Kirk/Spock/McCoy scenes that are in the movie. And I am just grateful that Shatner didn't get his way and McCoy and Spock didn't betray Kirk too (which was how it was originally supposed to go).