Did anyone laugh when...

When Spock turned command over to Kirk, the responsibility for everyone and everything on the ship and the ship itself transferred to Kirk, too. It's the nature of command. You can't split responsibility. It rests alone with the ship's captain. Spock went back to the science station on the bridge and filled his old roles as science officer and first officer.

I did say Spock certainly knew the ship as well as Kirk. Since it apparently became a training ship, it's unlikely it would've had any new equipment on it Kirk wouldn't be familiar with (unlike in TMP, where the refit with new technology meant Kirk had to catch up).

I'll grant you that Vulcan endurance may have given Spock an advantage in the situation, but that doesn't mean the thought of getting the mains back on line the way Spock did it couldn't have crossed Kirk's mind to at least try. Instead he stood there on the bridge and looked helpless.

 

Spock seems to have more knowledge than Kirk about the complexities of matter/antimatter engines in "The Naked Time".

 

Whether Kirk would know the ship as well as/better than Spock would depend on whether Kirk went on another 5YM after TMP. For all we know this could be the 2nd time kirk has crewed a ship since TOS.

I think Spock would still feel responsible for the untrained crew in TWOK even though Kirk technically was in charge.

When Spock in the Science Station saw the Warp core was offline he probably wouldn't have known the exact situation in engineering. All he would have known that the core was offline, Scott was not answering and there were no other trained crew there.
The last thing he would have wanted was for Kirk to go down there. Not because Kirk wouldn't have known what to do but because Kirk was his BFF and if the situation was desperate Spock didn't want KIrk to die.

 

Maybe I didnt chose the best words. I meant Prime Spock was concealing, or denying, but anyway he was (almost) always in control of his emotions and projecting a cultural image of Vulcans that they have no emotions at all (belived by a lot of in-universe people).

The only times I remenmber him losing it was:

1. infected by technowater naked time.

2. during PonFarr, but THAT was a unavoidable biological imbalance (And Pon Farr itself was so not-talked-about few humans ever knew about it at all)

3. Spores.

4. He thought he had killed Kirk (while recovering from pon farr). -- AND he promptly regained control (great scene)

As it can be seen, all abnormal circunstances (half of then he was under influence) that are the proverbial "exceptions that proves the rule".

Now JJ Spock is the completely opposite: he is always nervous. He trembles, he screams, he beats people since he was a kid. Granted it was under stress, but 1) he is angrier and dyscontrolled than everybody else enduring these same stressful situations and 2) Where's "The" Spock? I was told Spock would be in these movies.

 

Maybe the three films aren't Kirk's story, but Spock's. Perhaps he turns into patiently annoyed Spock in the third film.

 

A lot? Anyone on the Enterprise who read even a paragraph of Vulcan history on the library computer would know Vulcans have emotions. They would know Spock is not hiding them, but repressing them.

Besides what you mention above, Spock showed emotion in:

-- "The Cage", when he smiled at the flowers and, of course, all together now, "THE WOMEN!"
-- "Where No Man Has Gone, Before", he seems very content with himself for beating his captain in chess.
-- "Charlie X", he plays the Vulcan harp. Music is self-expression.
-- "All Our Yesterdays", when he reverts back to pre-Surak Vulcan behavior.
-- "City on the Edge of Forever", he claims himself a fool for not starting to record the history the Guardian is showing sooner. An exclamation like that is revealing emotion.
-- "The Savage Curtain", when he meets Surak.
-- "Unification, Part II", upon hearing Sarek has died.
-- "The Galileo Seven", he ignites the shuttle's fuel in an act of pure desperation.
-- "Assignment Earth", he is incredibly content petting a cat until he realizes it, then he almost acts embarrassed.
-- In many episodes, his little smirks and put downs of McCoy.
-- TMP, he weeps for V'Ger.
-- TVH, he calls his shipmates his friends.
-- TFF, he's obviously not all that happy with Sybok in general.
-- TUC, he gets very disgusted with Valeris.

There are probably others. But those are quite a few to be just exceptions.

 

I'll admit I giggled with glee at how upset I expected the fanboise to get about it.

 

I think some of those are debatable (and others I'd forget). But anyway, dont come close to JJSpock's tantrums and such.

When Prime Sarek died Prime Spock was "not happy". When JJ Amanda died JJ Spock completely lost it.

When Prime Kirk apparently died (by his hands), Prime Spock surrendered himself to the authorities. When JJ Kirk died JJ Spock went on a murderous rampage.

 

speaking about that K/S scene my problem with it is -- aside from the fact that I don't buy them being that much friends at this point -- that they left out Bones who for all intents and purposes was Kirk's only real friend. It also made little sense to me that Scotty called Spock and not the doctor
Call me sensitive but they could keep the K/S moment and have Bones there too but it seems like they deliberately left Bones out of that scene because they recognized that if he were there it would somehow take away from the whole 'Kirk and Spock are best friends forever' moment, and I don't like it.

and I didn't like that Kirk thanked Spock only for saving his life giving all the credit to him since (and bless Bones for reminding him that) he would be dead now if it wasn't for McCoy and Uhura. Spock also knows that it wasn't all his merit and he almost ruined everything with his anger, actually.


I get that the Kirk/Spock friendship is the one thing the writers absolutely can't not have in the movies (they can't win about that, I know that) but they should also respect the new dynamics they have created and keep the integrity of these characters, otherwise some K/S moments will always inevitably feel pretentious and not earned to me.

 

But the situations are completely different...

Spock Prime is 160 years old and had reconciled to a degree with Sarek and being part human. Spock in Star Trek (2009) is in his thirties and just lost his mother and his homeworld and has Kirk sticking a proverbial fork in the wound and twisting it.

It doesn't even make sense to compare these two situations.

 

Pretty sure Kirk beat Spock.

 

You're right, Kirk made a move Spock didn't anticipate and escaped his trap. Spock looked annoyed and surprised. Thinking more about it now, I don't remember anyone saying, "Checkmate," but yeah, Spock at least didn't win.

 

I think my impression that Kirk won came from the throat-cut gesture made in the turbolift when discussing the game.

 

I think a different life might have made this Spock different and accelerated his emotional development (Spock Prime reached this point too but it took him longer).
You can't, also, know what kind of experiences might have made Tos Spock the way he was, experiences that maybe this Spock hadn't lived. My impression is that he's a tad more defensive about his human side too, less ashamed about it
and honestly? It makes more sense to me. Even if a part of him had always tried to be the proper vulcan and please his father (not to mention that as a kid he grew up on vulcan and was subjected to those standards and expectations), he also is his mother's son and he undeniably loves Amanda. Denying his human side would mean denying his mother and being ashamed of her. Spock isn't ashamed of his mother.

I feel JJ&co did a good job trying to realistically show what it means for him to be a hybrid and someone who is torn between two worlds that also represent not only two sides of him but also his parents so he can't choose only one side because it's like choosing between his parents.
Now with the loss of his mother he might embrace vulcan more because it's a defense mechanics in order to deal with his grief, logic being the comfort zone.. at the same time I can see him wanting, even more than before, to honor his mother embracing his human side too.


I also think a lot of that is a matter of perspective too. In the reboot you get more focus on Spock as a protagonist .. he's not just the hero's sidekick anymore. In putting him more to the front you're allowed to see him beyond Kirk's own perception of him. You see more of him and what you see is a tad less biased than the perspective used by tos.
This is one of those things that remind me that tos was a result of its time.. Spock just was the cool alien, in being simply 'weird' he was considered interesting. Nowadays writers don't see things like that anymore-
I think the same would happen to the other characters too if they suddenly were made front and center. You'd know way more about Sulu or McCoy or Uhura and that 'more' might challenge a bit what you thought you knew about them when they were in the background.

 

The younger Spock in The Cage was more emotional than he was by the time of TOS era. Reboot Spock is younger than Spock Prime was in TOS.
Also, Reboot Spock has a relationship with Uhura, who does encourage him to show emotions. He loses Amanda at a much younger age and Vulcan, so Reboot Spock is living a very different life than Spock Prime.

 

Absolutely. nuSpock is younger, and less mature in regards to his emotional control. I mean, even Saavik showed some minor hints of emotion and was not the pure logical control like Spock was in TWOK.

In addition, one of my favorite aspects of Sarek was the wisdom of his lines to Spock in Star Trek 2009. One that stood out to me, and was a major theme I picked up on in Spock's arc was this line:

And that is the journey that Spock is on. He is trying to find that serenity that Sarek talked about, but he is still learning. There are still events that get under his skin, that push him to his limits.

Kirk's death, to me, was that final straw. He had lived with death for a year, trying to bury it, trying to deal with it, and then more death comes all at once.

As a quick aside, I think Nero and his crew in 09 represented the potential loss of control and emotional nature that Sarek is speaking about.

Spock is not emotionless, but in control. nuSpock is still learning that. That's why his "Khan" never bothered me.

 

No I didn't find it amusing at all I felt for Spock.

 

Yes, there was snickering in my theater. Very awkward moment.

 

I agree.it was awkward.

 

No snickering and no laughing when I saw it. There may have been a few "Go get him Spock!"s uttered though.