‘Star Trek 3′: Roberto Orci Wants to Direct

[Amaris]

...and then crapped all over Kirk & Spock on TUC with their prejeudice & pride issues.

I like how he handled Kirk and Spock in The Undiscovered Country. Being on the precipice of all-out war for thirty-plus years and having a member of that race execute your son may color someone's judgement towards that race.

Yep. Kirk's son was murdered by a Klingon. Of course Kirk is going to be pissed toward Klingons. It's not like they were friends before, but knowing one murdered his son, and tried to murder his best friend, and that an entire crew of them were complicit in the murder, that changes things. Some people seem to forget that these characters are human, and that they will hold irrational fears and grudges.

 

[Mudd]

The "racist" stuff in TUC came out of nowhere and was shoehorned into a mediocre movie.

 

[BillJ]

The "racist" stuff in TUC came out of nowhere and was shoehorned into a mediocre movie.

I'm not sure it really came out of nowhere. There was more than enough stuff we witnessed between Kirk and the Klingons that could easily explain why he had those underlying feelings.

The Undiscovered Country isn't a perfect movie, but I find it entertaining.

 

[Mudd]

I'm not sure it really came out of nowhere. There was more than enough stuff we witnessed between Kirk and the Klingons that could easily explain why he had those underlying feelings.

Yes, it can be explained retroactively - most anything can - but that doesn't mean that it was consistent with or in any way foreshadowed by the portrayal of the character up to that point. Kirk and his crew became suddenly narrow-minded simply in the service of Meyer's lame plot.

 

[Amaris]

The "racist" stuff in TUC came out of nowhere and was shoehorned into a mediocre movie.

Oh, I'm sure it did, but it works for me. I like the whole tone of the movie anyway. I'm big on the whole "cold war movie," so it scratches all the right itches. As a straight up character piece? Yeah, it misses by a long shot. Still, Cliff Eidelman's score was terrific.

 

[BillJ]

Yes, it can be explained retroactively - most anything can - but that doesn't mean that it was consistent with or in any way foreshadowed by the portrayal of the character up to that point. Kirk and his crew became suddenly narrow-minded simply in the service of Meyer's lame plot.

To me, it seemed like a natural cap to events Kirk had experienced through his life with the Klingons. So we're not really explaining it retroactively. Kirk even references the death of David in his log entry. True we hadn't really seen Kirk react in this way but sometimes feelings have a way of simmering under the surface for a period of time before erupting.

It's definitely fair enough that you disagree with the path they chose and didn't like the movie, it definitely stumbles in places. Hell, I'm no final arbiter of taste, I like "The Omega Glory".

 

[Franklin]

I'm not sure it really came out of nowhere. There was more than enough stuff we witnessed between Kirk and the Klingons that could easily explain why he had those underlying feelings.

Yes, it can be explained retroactively - most anything can - but that doesn't mean that it was consistent with or in any way foreshadowed by the portrayal of the character up to that point. Kirk and his crew became suddenly narrow-minded simply in the service of Meyer's lame plot.

I don't know, look at how Kirk gets along with the Klingons and how he speaks of them in "Errand of Mercy". He had no kind words, and was about as ready to go to war as the Klingons were. He even said he was a soldier, not a diplomat.
It may have been taken up a notch in TUC, but I found Kirk's feelings quite believable.

 

[Tosk]

That's an immensely stupid thing to say.

You wait and see. There's a whole subset of fandom who hang their existence to being contrary to whatever is on the screen at the time.

If it happens and if there is complaining, you'd have to show definitively that it is the same people complaining both ways. Just having some people say "Where da lens flares at?" means nothing.

 

[trevanian]

I'm not sure it really came out of nowhere. There was more than enough stuff we witnessed between Kirk and the Klingons that could easily explain why he had those underlying feelings.

Yes, it can be explained retroactively - most anything can - but that doesn't mean that it was consistent with or in any way foreshadowed by the portrayal of the character up to that point. Kirk and his crew became suddenly narrow-minded simply in the service of Meyer's lame plot.

I don't know, look at how Kirk gets along with the Klingons and how he speaks of them in "Errand of Mercy". He had no kind words, and was about as ready to go to war as the Klingons were. He even said he was a soldier, not a diplomat.

And presumably that is one of the few instances where Kirk does show some growth. Whenever I look at Q WHO?, I think, this is maybe the ONLY time Picard ever gets humbled and owns up to things. Whereas Kirk, as is clear during the tag in ERRAND, is very much humbled by the experience, and I think the writing of Kirk in TOS to some degree at least reflects his acknowledgement that there are things that are lots more advanced and/or smarter than him (hell, he has one on board serving under him.) But Picard is this retro King-type captain who strikes me as not very 24th century at all except when lecturing other people about how enlightened mankind has become.

The cold war Kirk IS present before TUC at times (there's that 'the feeling's mutual' line in TFF responding to McCoy about klingons not liking him), but not to the point that I'd look up at the screen and say 'that ain't him' which is exactly what happened in st6.

I don't have a problem with the idea of the wall coming down in space, I just hate the way they did it. Always seemed to me that the klingon/human relations should have been at the heart of the movie, not as a plot point that popped up occasionally. If you'd had ENTERPRISE and KRONOS 1 working in concert to fight their way through to Earth or wherever the conference would wind up being, you'd have a much better example paving the way for century 24's characters. You could have done plenty of foible/character moments as they interact, and kept it mostly shipboard to spend more on vfx and less on ice prisons.

A shorthand version of this happens in THE WILD GEESE, when mercenaries rescue a Mandella like imprisoned leader and try to get him back to his country and people. One of the mercs is south african and keeps calling the guy by their equivalent of 'nigger' until he comes around from the leader's committment and sincerity and dedication, to the point of giving up his life to make sure the guy CAN get home and make a difference for the whites and the blacks. It's handled a little too quickly in GEESE, but it works emotionally, & I think it would have been a much better model for TUC to follow (it even has the 'rounding up the good guys' sequence, which TUC had to cut in order to pay for the ice prison and all that.)

 

[Mudd]

I don't know, look at how Kirk gets along with the Klingons and how he speaks of them in "Errand of Mercy". He had no kind words, and was about as ready to go to war as the Klingons were. He even said he was a soldier, not a diplomat.

Yes, almost as if he were the commander of a military vessel at war. There was no racism or personal hatred involved, and the story would have been less effective if there had been.

Contrast with "Day Of The Dove" in which Kirk expresses revulsion at being made to experience race hatred by the alien energy creature. Nope, doesn't track at all with TUC.

Granted, Meyer gives Kirk a fig leaf of justification by bringing up David Marcus - never mind that we see no traces of racism in Kirk's dealings with the Klingons in TFF - but the comments and attitudes of his crew, notably Uhura, are inexplicable.

 

[YARN]

I don't know, look at how Kirk gets along with the Klingons and how he speaks of them in "Errand of Mercy". He had no kind words, and was about as ready to go to war as the Klingons were. He even said he was a soldier, not a diplomat.

Yes, almost as if he were the commander of a military vessel at war. There was no racism or personal hatred involved, and the story would have been less effective if there had been.

Contrast with "Day Of The Dove" in which Kirk expresses revulsion at being made to experience race hatred by the alien energy creature. Nope, doesn't track at all with TUC.

Granted, Meyer gives Kirk a fig leaf of justification by bringing up David Marcus - never mind that we see no traces of racism in Kirk's dealings with the Klingons in TFF - but the comments and attitudes of his crew, notably Uhura, are inexplicable.

TOS Kirk is no racist.

As people age, however, sometimes they get crustier. From your POV, for example, think of all those former bright-eyed inspired kids who fell in love with the possibilities of Trek, only to spend old-age quibbling about canon or not-canon and the essences of the show and its characters.

And yes, the death of his son is a motivator. The life that could've been, but wasn't.

Frankly, Klingons are made to be so ridiculously bellicose and paranoid in the films, that it is hard to fault Kirk for slipping for a moment. His former cold war nemeses devolved into bumpy headed bikers in space.

 

[BillJ]

TOS Kirk is no racist.

I don't believe TUC Kirk is a racist either. Just a man overwhelmed by emotions and circumstance. Honestly, the only character that seemed off was Uhura.

Wasn't Carol Marcus mentioned as being killed during a Klingon raid in one of the drafts?

 

[Franklin]

The Klingon ambassador in TVH makes Kirk a marked man among Klingons when he says there could be no peace as long as Kirk lives. If we had gone from that moment in TVH directly to TUC without TFF in the way, Kirk's feelings may have made more sense, too.

In TUC, Kirk did say he never trusted Klingons, never will, and can't forgive them for the death of his boy. I don't remember anything he said that was just pure hate or racist about Klingons. When he said, "Let them die," at the beginning of the movie, it was an emotional outburst that even surprised Spock. Apparently, his outburst was supposed to even shock him, but Kirk's reaction to his words was edited out of the final cut, along with the line, "I didn't mean that." Shatner is said to have been opposed to cutting that part out.

Still, I would think if you've been trained all your professional life for the potential of going to war with and taking the lives of a people, you could easily build up a suppressed hatred for them that won't go away over night.

And yes, Kirk's feelings are far more understandable than Uhura's or any of the officers in TUC. There are moments (like in the transporter room after the Klingons leave the Enterprise) where Spock looks perplexed or even disappointed at what his colleagues are saying.

 

[Leto_II]

Wasn't Carol Marcus mentioned as being killed during a Klingon raid in one of the drafts?

That's certainly possible -- J.M. Dillard has her being severely wounded during one (a Federation colony world attacked by General Chang's prototype) in the film's novelization. This could've been a plot-remnant carried over into the final version of the storyline.

 

[trevanian]

Carol's part in the film script (dropped due to budget) has her alive and living with Kirk in his SF apt, so no, that aspect is the novelizationist's invention.

 

[Commishsleer]

The "racist" stuff in TUC came out of nowhere and was shoehorned into a mediocre movie.

Oh, I'm sure it did, but it works for me. I like the whole tone of the movie anyway. I'm big on the whole "cold war movie," so it scratches all the right itches. As a straight up character piece? Yeah, it misses by a long shot. Still, Cliff Eidelman's score was terrific.

Agreed.

IMO the main cast were slightly too dumb and slightly too racist. Yet surprisingly I really liked the movie

 

[Tosk]

When he said, "Let them die," at the beginning of the movie, it was an emotional outburst that even surprised Spock. Apparently, his outburst was supposed to even shock him, but Kirk's reaction to his words was edited out of the final cut

Thankfully. His "I didn't mean that" physical acting that they cut out was, in my opinion, stinky.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

But some of that atitude continues subtly (Shatner is capable of subtlety, he just doesn't trust it) in the rest of the scene. Kirk never apologizes for his outburst but I saw, in the attitude he adopts for the remainder of his conversation with Spock, that he wasn't proud of what he'd said, that it came from the other side of his usually enlightened mind.

 

[JRS]

I do not personally like everything Orci has done, in movies and television.
But maybe he will be good director, we just have to wait and see. I doubt he will be as bad as Stuart Baird was with Nemesis..

 

[Tosk]

I still maintain that it is the script and the final edit that ruined Nemesis. The actual direction is fine.