Are we all on the same page about Michael's part in starting the war?

And Kirk was trusting his experience. In this instance, he was wrong.

 

It just didn't feel like Kirk, to me.

"This is damn peculiar."

He would have had shields up before any wishy-washy statement like that.

Oh well, YMMV.

 

His whole character arc is struggling with feeling old. Of course it's out of character. That's the point.

 

Part of the subtext there was that Carol was involved. As per "the boy scout" conversation between Carol and David, part of the rift between Kirk and Carol seemed to involve the scientific endeavors vs the military issue. Maybe Kirk was trying to behave like a diplomat instead of a soldier.

 

That's a good point. He certainly didn't want to rush in, guns blazing, with that history. He also had no reason to expect Reliant to be hijacked, since Khan's ruse was another Starfleet ship had come, under orders, to take Genesis, orders that Kirk was not privy to.

 

Which didn't make a whole lot of sense, in-universe....just my opinion.

 

After TMP, I would agree. However, in terms of narrative structure it does make sense in the theme of the film.

But, that's completely fair. TWOk is not my favorite for other reasons than that.

 

Digging deep, I think that all these years I've just been disappointed that there was such a big gap in-universe between the first two films and not enough context to back up why Kirk was even feeling that way in the second. After TMP, a second go-round with a desk job made no sense, for that matter.

 

No, it really doesn't.

 

Well, obviously not - because not only does not Kirk raise shields, he has never raised shields in comparable situations. Indeed, when he met fellow starships in TOS, those more often than not failed to respond to hails; shields were not on the menu at any time.

It would have been highly inconsistent for Kirk to have raised shields against the Reliant when Saavik started mouthing off. Logical, perhaps, but only from the point of view of the audience - Starfleet logic has never worked the same way. Which is all good and well, because we desperately need to believe in some sort of in-universe logic that makes it counterproductive or impossible to raise shields on a whim, or else there would never be Star Trek adventures. We just don't need to know that logic; believing in it suffices.

What reason do we have to think Kirk would have had a choice there?

His choices, realistically speaking, would have been between accepting the desk job and slamming the door on Starfleet. And we can interpret ST:GEN as saying that Kirk did retire, possibly in a huff. (Or then we can interpret it as saying that Kirk considered doing so, but then considered again and, instead of extending his weekend with Antonia, walked back to the office on Monday morning just as always.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm officially on page 4 now

 

...But no mention of "Michael" or "starting" or "war" on this page, so does it count?

Oops, there is now. So I guess it does.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Clearly, the makers wanted to do something bigger and bolder, but it didn't end up as being epic as it should have been. That's from recollection.

But, nope. It looked like she wanted to shoot the Klingon officer instead of capturing him, per the orders she was supposed to obey. And, of course, the mutiny stuff with Captain Georgiou - well intentioned, but faulty and not because it's ostensibly called "the Vulcan hello", and I'll return to that in a moment. Never mind the lens flare as the exposition was given since the director preferred to distract the audience with pointless JJesque eye candy instead of her insistence of what this show's interpretation of Vulcans are like. Never mind a lot can change in 240 years despite basic emotional processes, otherwise humans would never have evolved in the first place. But I digressed; if the script had not been at rough draft stage when they filmed it, and camerawork directed a bit better to avoid those distracting lens flares (they're selling the plot as conveyed by the acting and not the cinematic special effects cutting in, surely?), they might have been able to prevent the wide range of beliefs the audience members cultivated more readily. I've no major inkling to see it again.

And yes, the Klingons were already wanting to start a war. Is that a big game changer for Burnham? Not necessarily. If anything, her impulse actions may have only accelerated events, which nobody wanted as Georgiou was trying to prevent a war and a war is something like a really big significant thing, preferably to be avoided. Neither character was wrong as such, Burnham's "Hi there" perspective was told plausibly as it actually fits into Klingon belief rather reasonably well for this show, and yet Georgiou still seemed to understand a bigger picture. Burnham was talking of just individual skirmishes, centuries earlier, before there was a Federation. That might be why Georgiou was in command, "We don't shoot on a hunch". And imagine if Spock convinced Kirk of doing Vuncan howdies all the time (but that's another show, one where Kirk was in command and Spock still realized it's not always about logic, as shown in numerous episodes, the more heavyhanded example being "The Galileo Seven", but I digress. ) Burnham makes an amazing change within the same season since she went from being the most incredible officer from most dire of contrived circumstances to being the most incredible officer ever, also under the most contrived circumstances... All in a dozen or so episodes, that beats everyone else's record by far!

Thankfully it's in its own canon, whereas Kelvin is its own timeline and Kirk's in his own. There's no way to keep strict continuity and the debate over our being told "it's prime" either means it's supposed to fit in with Kirk's (which is proven to be impossible) or DSC is the new official timeline and the others are their own, separate timelines - like the theory of infinite universes where each action is taken and the all results form their own realities (see the 1995 TV show "Sliders" for more.) So remove stern continuity and accept DSC on its own merits and failings and any perceived problem about canon is solved. Even the one where they're using fanservice as plot points (mirror universe so quickly, etc, etc.) What remains are fair issues about plotting, acting, et cetera.

There's a far more cynical article that was made at the time the show premiered: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...am-i-shout-at-the-screen-in-klingon-1.3234222

 

The plot of season 1 was fairly clunky. Michael had to start the war, and she had to finish. Neither her guilt - attacking and killing someone trying to kill her in self defense, was just a ruse - manipulated by T'Kuvma.
Starfleet was badly outclassed by the Klingons; with Discovery and her sister spore ship may have been able to keep them at bay.
The ending, how L'Rell was able to persuade the idiot klingons that she actually did have a weapon capable of destroying Q'onos, AND that she'd use it if she wasn't made Chancellor and forced them to stop the war, just seemed forced.

 

An emotional reaction to her captain and friend being killed. If Georgiou hadn't died, she probably would have stunned him as ordered.

No it isn't.

 

But it doesn't look the same. How do you explain that!?