Nrys Myk said:
One word: Uhura. She's now something TOS never has, a lead female character.
Maybe. It seems like all she is is moody love interest of Spock. Not a full character yet imho. (Though more than TOS-Uhura was.) Neither is McCoy, really, either: just comic-relief De Kelley impression.
(A very good one, I might add, and one of the things I like about nu-Trek. I like nu-Scotty too. I like that he quit. I could see old Scotty doing that too.)
I have to agree about Uhura, really. Yes, nu-Uhura is a more overtly central character than her TOS counterpart often was (and a good thing too), more proactive, and when she's
not making doey eyes at Spock she's an excellent addition to the canon.
However, her being a satellite of the Spock character does lead to unfortunate implications, that ultimately she is being used as a 'token love interest' as well.
I think a version of the alternative Uhura jettisoned of all the relationship stuff and made into a "core part of the command structure" would be a very welcome development of an otherwise under-developed character. The scene with her speaking Klingon in STiD is a good case in point: it's a role that only Uhura could possibly play in the script, her skills as a linguist are used very efficiently, making her
important to Star Trek (unlike, again, her TOS counterpart most of the time).
be careful not turning her in that problematic
'strong independent black woman who doesn't need no man' trope, though.
the Spock/Uhura relationship is a welcome change for her character too, and I might argue for Spock too because in tos he was reduced to being
a satellite of the Kirk character.
"
When the producers recruited Shatner for the role of Captain Kirk, they were very clear: He was the star of the show. All action aboard the starship Enterprise centered on the captain, whose leadership, bravado, and sex appeal would keep viewers tuned in week after week. Mr. Spock was to be Kirk’s sidekick, the Tonto of Trek. As Nimoy explained in both I am Not Spock and I am Spock, the producers/writers did not give him much to work with, because the character was not fully developed. Kirk, on the other hand, had been well-fashioned, modeled in part off of Gregory Peck’s 1951 role as Horatio Hornblower. All other characters, with the exception of guest stars were, in the words of Trek writer David Gerrold:
Subordinate characters, meant to be just that: subordinate… [and] otherwise
unnoticeable.. simply there to dramatize the external conflict of the leading
characters. They were functions of the starship, not the story. (Gerrold, 85)
(read the rest
here for more perspective)
Spock
was the sidekick at the service of the star that was Shatner.
But something happened: Spock became the most popular character.
You think the writers were glad? But no, they were glad to use Spock to get the teenage audience but they were actually concerned that Spock's popularity would be an obstacle to Kirk's, who was supposed to be the star and HAD to be the star. So how they resolved this issue? They made them best friends and gave to them most of the interactions.
here you can read the letters shared between
Roddenberry and
Isaac Asimov where the first asked for a solution concerning this 'problem' (how to make Kirk more popular)
"I promised to get back to you with my thoughts on the question of Mr. Shatner and the dilemma of playing against such a fad-character as "Mr. Spock."
The more I think about it, the more I think the problem is psychological. That is, Star Trek is successful, and I think it will prove easier to get a renewal for the third year than was the case for the second. The chief practical reason for its success Mr. Spock. The excellence of the stories and the acting brings in the intelligent audience (who aren't enough in numbers, alas, to affect the ratings appreciably) but Mr. Spock brings in the "teenage vote" which does send the ratings over the top. Therefore, nothing can or should be done about that. (Besides, Mr. Spock is a wonderful character and I would be most reluctant to change him in any way.)
The problem, then, is how to convince the world, and Mr. Shatner, that Mr. Shatner is the lead.
(..) it might be well to unify the team of Kirk and Spock a bit, by having them actively meet various menaces together with one saving the life of the other on occasion.
The idea of this would be to get people to think of Kirk when they think of Spock. "
what you get from here is an interesting perspective on the genesis of the Kirk/Spock friendship because you realize that
you probably wouldn't even have all the focus on them and their relationship written in a certain way IF Spock hadn't been so popular and they hadn't wanted to take advantage of it to make Kirk popular
too. Just think about how different the whole thing would have been if McCoy or Sulu was the most popular character instead of Spock.
So, and in light of reading that behind the scenes stuff, no wonder
why Nimoy and Nichols welcomed the Spock/Uhura romance angle and liked it in the reboot!
If you don't think that a friendship being the main aspect of a male character is a problem or takes away from that character, then I can't see why a romantic relationship should be any different and held to a different standard.
Furthermore, in the original series and movies both Spock and McCoy had always been elevated to the level of main characters compared to Uhura and others
through their friendship with the real main character who was Kirk.
If we were to follow the reasoning some people use against romantic relationships, then we should watch movies where the characters have
no relationships at all. Neither romantic nor platonic friendship. Are you complaining that Uhura also was Kirk's friend in Star trek into darkness? Or it's just her expressing feelings for
her boyfriend that is your problem here? And since when having relationships is a bad thing all the sudden? It's not.
You can't tell me that Kirk, Spock and the other guys had never acted nonprofessional in the name of friendship, way more than reboot Uhura or Spock ever did in these movies. If you tell me that, then we watched two different versions of tos and the old movies. It seems to me that people love the Kirk/Spock friendship so much
precisely because of how affected and influenced by it these characters were/are.
"There’s a difference between a female character who exists in a story and has a romantic relationship with a male character versus a female character who exists in a story to have a romantic relationship with a male character"
and Uhura is the first, not the second.
also
wise words:
"Screw writing “strong” women. Write interesting women. Write well-rounded women. Write complicated women. Write a woman who kicks ass, write a woman who cowers in a corner. Write a woman who’s desperate for a husband. Write a woman who doesn’t need a man. Write women who cry, women who rant, women who are shy, women who don’t take no shit, women who need validation and women who don’t care what anybody thinks. THEY ARE ALL OKAY, and all those things could exist in THE SAME WOMAN. Women shouldn’t be valued because we are strong, or kick-ass, but because we are people. So don’t focus on writing characters who are strong. Write characters who are people."
