Hopefully, they will make the newer versions better. Dont get me wrong I do like the older versions its just now we have so much advance technology.
Captain Kirk's death
- Thread starter Miss Mess
- Start date
I saw a recent interview with Berman. He still doesn't get it. He thinks fans are upset just because they killed Kirk, when it's really about how they killed Kirk. If they couldn't do it justice then they shouldn't have done it at all. At least Ron Moore gets it.
YES!!! That's exactly it. It wasn't that they killed Kirk but, how they did it. I thought how they did it was LAME! Alot of fan are agreeing to this. I was in this other forum the other day and alot of fans thought in the beginning that Kirk would die at the end. I dk maybe because he was one of the main characters and he got out of alot extreme situations with his life intact. They thought his luck will be run up. But, exactly its how they killed him off. =]
I personally feel that Kirk's status in 24th Century Trek should have been left "Ambiguous", Kirk's "Death" in GEN was poorly executed and IMO ruined the character, leaving Kirk's status "Ambiguous" would have left the option open to bring Kirk back should a decent story arise, look at it this way, if they didn't kill Kirk off in GEN (and didn't feature him) it could have been Spock and Kirk that ended up travelling back in time in XI and thus the "passing off the torch" could have been done with a lot more respect to the character
But you wouldn't have been there to be the judge of what is a decent story or not. So that means Kirk couldn't have ended up in a worse story by your opinion. So be careful what you wish for.
So if they hadn't killed Shatner-Kirk in Generations, then where else to put him? In First Contact? DS9? Insurrection? Voyager? Kirk was the Star Trek movie main character of the day. The TOS movies were ending and the TNG movies were starting. It wouldn't have made any sense but to put Kirk anywhere else but in the very first TNG movie, as a transition. The Star Trek reboot was years off and not planned in 1994, so it's more than a little silly to say that they should have waited to use Shatner-Kirk in the movies.
Like Kirk's death or not, it wouldn't made sense anywhere else, so we got what we got.
Tell me about it.
Kirk was/is my favorite Trek character. If you want more Trek with Kirk still alive, read the Trek novels co-produced by Shatner and the Reeves-Stevenses. They are also available in audio format. You don't get the whole story, but it's still fun to hear Shatner produce a wide range of characters.
I almost could have accepted Kirk dying to save the Enterprise, but somebody's dirty pleasure is killing Kirk twice in the same movie. But not me.
Since I don't expect this to ever be made, here's my thoughts on the final adventure of Kirk.
Scotty has been assisting with the Starfleet museum, and while he keeps other things OK, he's been quietly upgrading the museum Enterprise to current standards.
After Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty had to use the ship during a crisis, they realize that to go back to Starfleet will mean the end of their careers.
Therefore, all the original characters decide to do what they do best: explore. There are rumors and myths about their fate, but no proof can ever be found.
I think that would have given the Enterprise A ship and crew a better ending than Kirk falling from a bridge and both him and Picard being beaten by a Sting lookalike.
I've never had a problem with Kirk dying or the way they did it - and characters who have a full life's story are more interesting as "legends" than the basically modern pop culture "riding off into the sunset" versions. Hercules died (and ascended), Odysseus died, Robin Hood died...in all those cases their demises were somewhat anticlimatic if not ignoble. Such is often the way with real legends of some longevity, as opposed to John Wayne characters.
At least Kirk wasn't poisoned or bled by leeches or otherwise done in by a treacherous woman, as seems oddly common for mythological heroes! And "falling off a bridge" is hardly less worthy than being accidentally killed by one's son with a stingray. Oops!
If anything, the expectation of either ambiguous immortality of the "happily ever after" kind or a "hero's death" for such characters seems to be one aspect of a modern culture which views these kinds of figures as story fodder for immature children rather than exemplars for adults of not only how life should be lived or might be lived, but also to a degree reflections of life as it's really experienced with its ironies, reversals and low comedy.
At least Kirk wasn't poisoned or bled by leeches or otherwise done in by a treacherous woman, as seems oddly common for mythological heroes! And "falling off a bridge" is hardly less worthy than being accidentally killed by one's son with a stingray. Oops!
If anything, the expectation of either ambiguous immortality of the "happily ever after" kind or a "hero's death" for such characters seems to be one aspect of a modern culture which views these kinds of figures as story fodder for immature children rather than exemplars for adults of not only how life should be lived or might be lived, but also to a degree reflections of life as it's really experienced with its ironies, reversals and low comedy.
Unfortunately, that sounds like the screenplay for Generations: fodder for immature children. I mean really...an all-powerful, all-magical, do-everything Nexus? That's the best they could come up with?
Bad plot devices aside, sometimes when you're watching a movie, you just know when something feels wrong and when something feels right. Here's a larger than life hero who has survived everything that the universe has thrown at him, including god-like beings, genetic supermen, and hostile alien empires, and yet he dies in a fist fight with Alex DeLarge.
People can give me all the rationalizations in the universe as to why this appropriate, but I just know that it isn't.
He's nowhere near as "larger than life" a figure than Hercules. But then, Hercules was a significant cultural myth that represented something to adults in his native culture. Kirk is an adolescent fantasy in most respects - or at least, fans are more than satisfied with that version of him (and then some had the nerve to complain that Abrams and company somehow "dumbed him down"
)."It doesn't feel right" is entirely unpersuasive - it's not a jot different from "I don't like it." Okay, don't like it - just don't rationalize it as a matter of what's "fitting for the character" and what's not.
Since you're the one who brought it up, Dennis, I won't go so far as to quote your above post(#68), but tell me: where in the Odyssey does Odysseus die?
He doesn't. He dies in the Telegony, which was not written by Homer. So I don't know if it's canon.
I wouldn't have minded Kirk dying like Hercules did.
That's right.
Maybe, but as movies, it won't. Generations was one of the worst Trek movies (granted, in a series where only three movies can be reasonably called "good," that's not saying much). Maybe Kirk needn't go out in a cliched blaze of glory, but the photoplay in which he does die needs to be something more than a boring, vacant mess. I have the same problem, on a rather smaller scale, with the death of David Tennants' Doctor: the story itself was godawful.
Spock's death was in some ways less technically heroic, yet I don't think anyone had a problem with how it was handled. Sure, some people objected, but in the movie, it was a very memorable and poignant part of the movie.
Kirk's death was anything but, even though he did as much if not more, for less on-screen results. It didn't resonate with me in any way, and apparently, a lot of people agree.
So it didn't "just do".
Kirk's death was anything but, even though he did as much if not more, for less on-screen results. It didn't resonate with me in any way, and apparently, a lot of people agree.
So it didn't "just do".
Kirk's death was pointless. The notion that they had to do this to pass the baton from the original era is nonsense. It was done for shock value and to sell tickets and (for the time) to put a final nail in the original crew's coffin.
I'd rather that we never have known Kirk's fate. At best it could have been hinted at.
But what can you expect of such a crappy film. TPTB couldn't even handle their own era and characters in a film so it's no surprise that they would piss on the original era and crew. They should have just left it alone.
I admit I was moved by Kirk's death, and part of that was because it was a signal that an era had passed and we were left with something that mostly left me disappointed and wanting.
In a sense Kirk's death might be argued as being somewhat credible because old heroes don't often have glorious endings. But dramatically it was disappointing. Spock's death resonated because he sacrificed himself for his shipmates and friends, something easy to grasp and empathize with. What did Kirk die for? A barren planet with no one we saw and for a crazed nutbar that Picard should have been smarter to stop on his own? And the whole Nexus thing was contrived---if you can go wherever you want then why not stop Soren before he puts any of his stupid plan into effect? The whole thing was stupid.
Then again for diehards like me who don't acknowledge most things like GEN then as far as I'm concerned the TOS crew are still out there on the frontier.
I'd rather that we never have known Kirk's fate. At best it could have been hinted at.
But what can you expect of such a crappy film. TPTB couldn't even handle their own era and characters in a film so it's no surprise that they would piss on the original era and crew. They should have just left it alone.
I admit I was moved by Kirk's death, and part of that was because it was a signal that an era had passed and we were left with something that mostly left me disappointed and wanting.
In a sense Kirk's death might be argued as being somewhat credible because old heroes don't often have glorious endings. But dramatically it was disappointing. Spock's death resonated because he sacrificed himself for his shipmates and friends, something easy to grasp and empathize with. What did Kirk die for? A barren planet with no one we saw and for a crazed nutbar that Picard should have been smarter to stop on his own? And the whole Nexus thing was contrived---if you can go wherever you want then why not stop Soren before he puts any of his stupid plan into effect? The whole thing was stupid.
Then again for diehards like me who don't acknowledge most things like GEN then as far as I'm concerned the TOS crew are still out there on the frontier.
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I suppose, but I sure teared up when he went.
The actual moment of regeneration was heartbreaking. That was more Tennant himself than anything, though.
