Chris Pine/Kirk
- Thread starter Taylirious
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He just saved the world. Rescued Chris Pike from Romulans. Saved another planet. Exposed a highest-level plot at Starfleet and stopped a planned war with the Klingons.
Nope, he didn't do a thing
He became Captain of the Enterprise after goading Spock to beat him up. At that point in the film, he'd done absolutely nothing to demonstrate any kind of leadership capabilities, instead only proving himself an idiot (and probably mentally ill) at every turn. After all, prior to that point, all he's done is 1. be born, 2. trash a car, 3. get in a barfight, 4. cheat on an exam, 5. beat guys up and fire a guy. I'm not sure where in there he demonstrates any kind of cunning or skill or leadership abilities (unless his ability to beat guys up and fire a gun qualify him to command the Federation's flagship). I guess all the events which prove his leadership abilities must've occurred off-screen.
And if you examine the events of the films following this event, none of his actions come from the content of his character, but instead come from the plot (and I use the term loosely). J.J. Abrams' films are those in which the characters do whatever is required from them in order to advance the plot; the story does not come from the characters, but rather the plot.
Pasi...your listing of the events re: nuKirk are spot on - and J.J. Is not my absolute fave...ahhhhhhhhhh, sorry, got blinded by a lense-flare there...I am ok - but, consider where leadership and greatness sometimes come from...they frequently spring from resistance to authority...flouting of rules...questionable choices...and I know this personally...but a true leader uses that and more to end up with the cunning and leadership skill you speak of so clearly...Yanks is correct...for now, you are watching a blockbuster popcorn movie...give nuKirk a chance...I bet he will not disappoint you...
Good point. That's why as an origin story, ST is a complete failure. Origin stories are all about character development and plot is secondary. Look at "The Avengers", the plot is pretty simple, the complexity and therefore the entertainment comes from the individual characters coming together. Honestly I don't understand why things were so rushed. The main plot didn't need to start at the academy (outside of some bizarre desire to show Kirk as an insubordinate jerk instead of an experience officer with his first command).
I feel this was much more prominent in STiD. Is it because he had less to do I wonder?
Quinto is my favorite reboot, but I'm not going to say he's the closest to the original. He's my favorite because I like him better (shh!).
Pine is no Shatner, but he's got his own brash charm that is a bit wide eyed with boy-ness as befits a younger Kirk. I like him fine.
Depends how you see Kirk, doesn't it? Some fixate on Gary Mitchell's "Stack of books with legs" line from the second pilot and work backward from there, while minimizing Kirk's actions in "Amok Time" and the movies (Carol: "Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a boy scout!") which firmly establish him as being insubordinate. Of course that comes from somewhere, he didn't just wake up one day and decide "F--k Starfleet, I'll do whatever I want!", it's a part of who he is.
He's also a lateral thinker, a man whose thinking is one step ahead of others.
See, the STiD scene where he figures out why they are all gathered here today at this meeting..
Good writing of NuKirk has helped a lot. Long may it continue. Could easily have been Spock that deduced that but it was a very Kirk thing to figure out.
See, the STiD scene where he figures out why they are all gathered here today at this meeting..
Good writing of NuKirk has helped a lot. Long may it continue. Could easily have been Spock that deduced that but it was a very Kirk thing to figure out.
Last night I dreamed I was on JJ's Enterprise and I was following along behind Kirk and Spock on the way to the turbolift and NuKirk said, "NOW Mr. Spock.." in this very Shatnerian way and in the dream I thought "he really IS Kirk" and I was very thrilled.
They really don't. The "stack of books with legs" line and Kirk's assertion in Shore Leave that he was a "grim" young man go together with his early characterisation as a Hamlet/Hornblower crossbreed to paint a man who is "so worried about duty and obligation [he] couldn't see past [his] own uniform." In TOS he's fairly by-the-book, but if push comes to shove he'll break the rules for the greater good (the one occasion he outright defies orders to save his friend, in Amok Time, is the exception not the rule), not because he likes sticking two fingers up to authority. Kirk the young rebel is a retcon that came out of TWOK, so there is a precedent, but the Kobayashi Maru incident (for which there was no mention of disciplinary action, but rather a commendation for original thinking) alone, and the oblique description of him never having been "a boy scout" might suggest "unorthodox," but it's quite a leap to "insubordinate."
Yeah, I never saw Kirk as insubordinate. He understood the chain of command and followed orders. But he did have outstanding principles and never let the strict interpretation of regulations trump the moral factor. His interpretation of the prime directive in STID is a great example of that. His method was reckless and borderline stupid. It reeked of youth and inexperience. But his purpose and conviction was pure Jim Kirk.
Bear in mind if he were truly an insubordinate officer, he wouldn't have a very long career in Starfleet no matter how brilliant he was.
Oh come on, the dude steals and blows up starships and they give him new ones.
Starfleet has no real rules or structure beyond plot contrivance.
Forgive me. I interjected a moment of the real world into the proceedings.
Actually, I've always thought Kirk is the moral voice of Starfleet. He is the embodiment of the type of person Grace Hopper used to say was the type who found it easier to apologize rather than get permission. As in, I'm sorry I saved several billion people even though regulations said I probably shouldn't have. Who's morally correct regarding the aliens in the opening of STID, Kirk or Starfleet?
I'm sorry I stole the Enterprise and saved Spock, then brought Spock back to life when all of you were content with his death.
Kirk was larger than life, and reality.
If Star Trek were in any way realistic, Spock would be dead and Kirk rotting the rest of his life away in a prison for attempting to steal a Federation starship. It's a comic book fantasy world.
With SF you have to change what is realistic to fit the givens of the universe you are watching. You may still judge the Genesis Device and what it can do, to be unrealistic of course. But not as unrealistic as it would be in a temporary cop show, for example.
So maybe Spock should still be dead (just not as dead
). Kirk's a little harder though. After all, how many courts have had to rule on someone who A) steals and destroys a starship but B) that's B) saves a whole world? I'd say its one each way. 
There's heaps of people who hijacked a Starship and got away with it.
Spock
Data
Those Awful Children
The Hippies
The Binars
Moriarity
And there were heaps of time when Picard, Kirk and Janeway lost control of the ship through invasion, disease or stupidity.
They're in space. A lot of mysterious unknown alien things happen.
If Starfleet dropped the captain every time they lost control of the ship or crew both Picard and Kirk would be gone after episode 3.
Forgive me. I interjected a moment of the real world into the proceedings.
Actually, I've always thought Kirk is the moral voice of Starfleet. He is the embodiment of the type of person Grace Hopper used to say was the type who found it easier to apologize rather than get permission. As in, I'm sorry I saved several billion people even though regulations said I probably shouldn't have. Who's morally correct regarding the aliens in the opening of STID, Kirk or Starfleet?
I'm sorry I stole the Enterprise and saved Spock, then brought Spock back to life when all of you were content with his death.
Kirk was larger than life, and reality.
With SF you have to change what is realistic to fit the givens of the universe you are watching. You may still judge the Genesis Device and what it can do, to be unrealistic of course. But not as unrealistic as it would be in a temporary cop show, for example.
So maybe Spock should still be dead (just not as dead
<As HIjol's Suspension of Disbelief comes crashing down like any given scene in "Inception">
...but just a gosh darned minute...hmmm...I want to present logical, well-layered arguments to the contrary to all of you...but I cannot summon them...they did beg, borrow and steal Starships, and for any number of Good, Bad, and Ugly reasons...especially Those Awful Children...
...still, Star Trek Rocks!!!!
That's why I said Kirk was larger than life, and reality.
At the same time, even in the fiction of Trek, he couldn't be written as a completely loose cannon and maintain the aura of moral and ethical correctness. Part of the drama was when regulations came up against what Kirk thought was right at the time (so well shown at the start of STID). You'd never want a "by the book" captain in the unknown reaches of deep space, where things can come up every day that fly in the face of the intent of regulations. At the same time, even Kirk and the others knew they were crossing a line and ruining their careers to save Spock in TSFS.
Kirk and the others didn't get by with anything in TSFS. They were charged with stealing Federation property (the Enterprise) and other things, and were more than willing to go back to Earth to face their punishments. Indeed, they plead guilty to all charges in TVH. It was only because of Kirk's heroics in TVH that all charges but the one against Kirk for disobeying a direct order were dropped.
Edited to add: Kirk also knew he was crossing a line in "Amok Time", but T'Pau basically intervened to save his career, there.
I guess the point is he wasn't flying around doing things his way willy nilly (practicing cowboy diplomacy) without some realization that he'd be held accountable for his actions in the end. That he turned out to be on the right side of things so often is part of what built his legend in the fictional Trek world.
At the same time, even in the fiction of Trek, he couldn't be written as a completely loose cannon and maintain the aura of moral and ethical correctness. Part of the drama was when regulations came up against what Kirk thought was right at the time (so well shown at the start of STID). You'd never want a "by the book" captain in the unknown reaches of deep space, where things can come up every day that fly in the face of the intent of regulations. At the same time, even Kirk and the others knew they were crossing a line and ruining their careers to save Spock in TSFS.
Kirk and the others didn't get by with anything in TSFS. They were charged with stealing Federation property (the Enterprise) and other things, and were more than willing to go back to Earth to face their punishments. Indeed, they plead guilty to all charges in TVH. It was only because of Kirk's heroics in TVH that all charges but the one against Kirk for disobeying a direct order were dropped.
Edited to add: Kirk also knew he was crossing a line in "Amok Time", but T'Pau basically intervened to save his career, there.
I guess the point is he wasn't flying around doing things his way willy nilly (practicing cowboy diplomacy) without some realization that he'd be held accountable for his actions in the end. That he turned out to be on the right side of things so often is part of what built his legend in the fictional Trek world.
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I think Chris Pines Kirk wasn't to good, in the movies he was to unsure of himself, his crew doubted him, he's too wreckless, cocky and not a very good leader wasn't the Hero Shatners Kirk was..Out of all the Captains in Star Trek, in my opinion, Pine's Kirk is the worst.
^He's unsure of himself by design, the idea being that he is ten years younger than the Kirk of TOS and isn't the confident leader quite yet.
Yes, he is young and inexperienced compared to TOS Kirk. But, the problem I have is that he is never shown to be a particularly good leader, someone who can bring together and inspire his crew while providing a stable center. Chris Pine is a fine actor but the scripts he has been given make his Kirk come off as an obnoxious, arrogant frat boy with a high IQ. Not only is he unlikeable to the audience, his crew is constantly annoyed and exasperated by him. His only saving grace is his innate intelligence and bravery but he is not someone you'd want to follow and he seems to always be out for his own personal gratification.
Some of these problems stem from the necessity for the writers to follow through with the ridiculous idea of Kirk being insta-promoted from Cadet to Captain of the flagship. I think ST:XI would have worked better if Kirk had graduated from the academy several years before Nero's attack and was a regular officer serving under Pike who was suddenly thrust into command. There was no reason to condense everything into such a short time span. Instead we wound up with Starfleet:90201.
There is potential in Pine's Kirk but the character needs some much better writing. I could also say the same for the film series in general, it needs to be toned down a bit and take its time to develop a good story. The acting, directing and visual effects are all great but I'm still waiting for a decent story. NuTrek has so far fallen into the trappings of lazy, cliché, big budget action movie writing. The story doesn't exist for its own sake, its just there to somewhat plausibly drive events towards the next CGI action set piece. Again there is potential and definitely more substance than say the Star Wars prequels (NuKirk is nowhere near as grating as Anakin) but every time I watch the new movies, they make me miss the lost art of screen writing.