Beginnings in the movie: Kirk & Spock friendship and crew . . .

[JBElliott]

Over on the old Paramount Star Trek movie forum (or whatever that seems to have gone away or I've lost track of where it is) I posted a question about what in the movie showed Kirk and Spock becoming friends.

Over the holidays I watched the movie on PPV (mostly to see what 1080p looked like on my new 58" plasma HDTV). I kept that question in the back of my mind during the movie and after watching it, the only thing I can point to as the source of Kirk's and Spock's friendship is because Spock' (old Spock, Nimoy-Spock) told them that they should be friends. Other than that, I didn't see anything. In the end it could be argued that Spock had to respect Kirk's abilities because his plan of action saved the Earth and defeated Nero, but that's not friendship.

Similarly, we saw the beginnings of Kirk's friendship with McCoy, but after the shuttle ride it was shown that they were friends, not so much how they became friends.

As for how the rest of the crew came together, other than Scotty's arrival on the Enterprise, the rest were in place or assigned to the ship without any special circumstance (okay, maybe there was some special circumstance with Uhura).

All in all the movie seemed to me like a decent sci-fi summer popcorn movie and was "a" Star Trek, albeit one in an alternate universe.

On that topic, it had to be an alternate universe akin to the Mirror Universe because in time travel (as shown in every Star Trek series and several of the movies) changing the past changes the future. So the only way TOS is still around is if the movie takes place in an alternate universe and Spock and Nero went not only back in time, but into another universe (regardless of what Spock' told Kirk, and after all Spock' wasn't completely truthful with Kirk, so it's easy to understand he just left out the alternate universe stuff and only mentioned the time travel stuff).

 

[Shikarnov]

Try not to make too much sense of it. The film is fun; it takes our old favorite characters out for a fresh spin. It made a ton of money, and a lot of people happy. But this nuTrek stuff is not for thinking men.

Too bad The God Thing isn't around anymore. It'd be really interesting to read his take.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, there's not much development going on. Characters coincidently run into Kirk, stay with him and that's it.

And then there are some hilarious things going on, for example Scotty, who had been exiled on an ice planet, is illegaly boarding a starship and becomes Chief Engineer immediately.

And the friendship between Kirk and Spock didn't grow naturally. They are just staying together because the original Spock told them to. And that's not the same.

 

[Aike]

Kirk and Spock weren´t great friends at the start of TOS either. They were colleagues, and generally had a professional relationship. Also, not a lot of the episodes in series developed their friendship or even portrayed them as friends. Amok Time comes to mind as one of the few exceptions.

Their legendary friendship wasn´t a major focus until the movie series.

 

[JBElliott]

Kirk and Spock weren´t great friends at the start of TOS either. They were colleagues, and generally had a professional relationship. Also, not a lot of the episodes in series developed their friendship or even portrayed them as friends. Amok Time comes to mind as one of the few exceptions.

Their legendary friendship wasn´t a major focus until the movie series.

That's true. In WNMHGB Kirk and Spock didn't seem particularly friendly.

In later episodes of TOS it seemed like it was was a given (in several episodes) that Kirk and Spock were friends (e.g. "Devil in the Dark" Spock's concern for Kirk, ditto for "The Tholian Web" and so on). TOS never seemed concerned on showing how they became friends or why exactly they were friends (the same for McCoy and Kirk and McCoy and Spock).

However, as I recall the hype around the 2009 movie, one of the themes was just how the crew came together and how Kirk, Spock and McCoy became friends. So I was wondering how much of the hype people thought came to fruition.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, there's not much development going on. Characters coincidently run into Kirk, stay with him and that's it.

And then there are some hilarious things going on, for example Scotty, who had been exiled on an ice planet, is illegaly boarding a starship and becomes Chief Engineer immediately.

And the friendship between Kirk and Spock didn't grow naturally. They are just staying together because the original Spock told them to. And that's not the same.

Scotty is the only one who runs into Kirk and stays with him. The others were assigned to the Enterprise before Kirk got there. If Pike can make Kirk XO, then Kirk can make Scotty Chief Engineer. Scotty did have the rank and training, so its not like he made a helmsman or an Academy drop-out the Chief.

 

[KirkSpockTOSFan]

I dont' know about that. I did see a friendship and a trust between Kirk & Spock begaing in the scene were Spock was talking about boarding Nero's ship and Kirk said "I will not allow you to do that Mr. Spock" and Spock says " Vulcans and Romulans carry a simlar ansetory therefore it will be easy to ascces thier comptuer. After all my mother was human which makes Earth the only home I have left" than Kirk says "Than I'm comming with you" Spock says "I cite regualtion but I know you would simply inore it" Kirk says "See we are getting to know each other". There you can see a trust begaing, and than in the Jellyfish ship scene you see a friendship begaing were Spock calls Kirk "Jim" for the first time and than afterwards trust Kirk to tell him something happens to him to tell Uhura, in which afterwards Kirk resures Spock that everything will be fine. If Spock didnt trust Kirk and wasnt a friend, would Spock relay a measge to Kirk to give to Uhura about if something happen to him? I would think not. This right here you see a trust and frienship begaing way before Spock ment his old self. But thats my oppion of course.

 

[JarodRussell]

I Kirk says "See we are getting to know each other".

Yeah that was the obvious spoonfeeding.

Reminds me of Die Hard 4 were they thought it was a good idea to let John McClane talk about being a hero. Instead of just showing it during the movie. Or in Indiana Jones 4 were they talk about how cool and great and what a war hero Indy is, instead of just doing it. Man, I hate these kind of scenes.

 

[Franklin]

And the friendship between Kirk and Spock didn't grow naturally. They are just staying together because the original Spock told them to. And that's not the same.

This bit bothered me, too. Somehow, the friendship between Kirk and Spock seems contaminated (for lack of a better word) by their knowledge of how important they were to each other in the other universe.

The other five may not have any real idea at all whether they were together on the Enteprise in another universe or not. For all they know, they didn't know each other in the prime universe. Not even Kirk and McCoy, whose friendship did grow naturally in the new universe.

 

[Ronson2k10]

Ya. And Spock is the contamination in both instances. He melds with Kirk to tell him how things are going to be and he tells his younger self (doppleganger moment - still having a bit of time with that?) all about the friendship that is 'supposed to happen' between them. The elder spock really messed up the movie for me. I have a great deal of respect for the character and the actor but he really didn't belong here. They should have let things mature on there own with out prodding from the 'known' universe.

I can understand the reasoning behind having him in there as a connection to the current fans. Because we really don't understand how a trek movie (The TNG series of movies) could be made without a cast member from the TV series. It would have left us all scratching our heads..(not).

Even though I really enjoyed the movie I felt the characters were pulled and pushed along. They had picked traits that are so well known they are cliched and emphasized them when they really didn't need to be explored. Their character trait origins is what I was hoping for. Why do the characters 'as we know them' act the way they do? McCoy's fear of space for instance? In any case I think they did try to force the issue in as much as Spock tells both himself and Kirk that they are to be friends despite current circumstances to the contrary. Outside of the need to have the elder Spock 'be shown' the destruction of Vulcan he really should have been out of this movie. The ships log (Spocks Ship) could have held all the needed info for the plan to take place. Allowing for the friendship to develop on it's own without interference from the elder Spock.

As it's been said though. "The more things change the more they stay the same"

 

[JBElliott]

I'm not sure that Spock' shouldn't have tried to get Spock and Kirk together, after all, it was Nero's appearance that altered things in the movie universe and prohibited history from unfolding as it had in TOS universe. So in that regard, Spock', in trying to get Kirk and Spock to be friends, was just trying to fix something that he felt (illogically or not) he had a hand in breaking. Still that's different from this movie being an origin story and telling an interesting story of how the characters and relationships came to be, that part we didn't get to see all that much.