Conscience of the King and Trek XI

[erastus25]

In the Conscience of the King do we ever explicitly hear that Kirk's parents were executed by Kodos? I know there were 9 witnesses but I guess it is possible that Kirk's parents were 2 of the others or there were non-witness survivors.

Regardless, if Kirk's parents were killed wouldn't the casting of Chris Pine indicate a rather serious violation of canon?

Mods: Please feel free to move this if it's more appropriate in Trek XI or the TOS forum.

 

[Timo]

We hear nothing of the sort in the episode, but it would be a natural assumption, now wouldn't it? Surely young Jimmy wouldn't be traveling to faraway space colonies all by himself. And we never get the impression his parents would be still alive by the time of TOS. And given Kirk's obsessive illogic in "Conscience", he might indeed have a familial axe to grind with Kodos, even if he hides it well.

I don't see how casting Chris Pine as young Kirk would contradict anything, though. And I don't think we have yet heard any rumors on the presence of Kirk's parents in the movie.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[erastus25]

Timo said:
We hear nothing of the sort in the episode, but it would be a natural assumption, now wouldn't it? Surely young Jimmy wouldn't be traveling to faraway space colonies all by himself. And we never get the impression his parents would be still alive by the time of TOS. And given Kirk's obsessive illogic in "Conscience", he might indeed have a familial axe to grind with Kodos, even if he hides it well.

I don't see how casting Chris Pine as young Kirk would contradict anything, though. And I don't think we have yet heard any rumors on the presence of Kirk's parents in the movie.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, I was basically making the same assumption you were. It seems likely that Kirk's parents were with him on Tarsus IV and it seems likely that they would have been executed. But that is not necessarily true. I was wondering if they were ever verified as actually executed.

As for rumors regarding Kirk's parents in the new movie we know that Chris Hemsworth has been cast as Kirk's father and there is speculation regarding casting of his mother.

The casting of Chris Pine and a parent would be contradictory to canon because of Pine's age. In the Deadly Years we learn that Kirk is 34 years old approximately 20 years after the events on Tarsus IV. That would make him about 14 at the time of the (hypothetical) execution of his parents. I doubt the 27 year old Pine will be playing a teenage Kirk. Thus, if Kirk is 20 something in the movie it seems that Conscience of the King implies his parents ought to be dead at that time.

 

[Garth Rockett]

erastus25 said:
The casting of Chris Pine and a parent would be contradictory to canon because of Pine's age.

Well, it can't be a canon violation since there is no onscreen evidence that his parents were killed on Tarsus IV. However, even if it were, the casting alone would still not necessarily mean a canon violation, as we don't yet know if Chris Pine in fact appears as an adult Kirk alongside his parents in the film. His parents could appear only in scenes when Kirk was younger than 14 (played by another actor in those scenes), or indeed, even before Kirk was born. We won't know until we see the movie (or read the script for the spoiler hounds among us).

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Interesting discussion. I think Trek XI would be more appropriate.

 

[Pindar]

And where was his brother when Kirk was on Tarsus IV?

Was the whole family there but the children survived?

Was one Kirk and father there and his brother and mother elsewehere?

I always took it from the Conscience of the King that his both his parents were killed by Kodos.

 

[Franklin]

I'm not sure there is a problem. Chris Hemsworth, only 24, is apparently cast as Kirk's father, George Kirk.
Given he is younger than Pine, and given the plot rumors floating around out there, it's quite likely we see Jim Kirk's father before Kirk was even born. That would be quite a while before the events involving Kodos.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, we have an unanswered question regarding "Conscience Of The King:"

What was Kirk doing on Tarsus? Was he a colonist, or did he happen to be visiting there - and as part of what kind of expedition?

Just, you know, speculating...

 

[johnconner]

Starship Polaris said:
Well, we have an unanswered question regarding "Conscience Of The King:"

What was Kirk doing on Tarsus? Was he a colonist, or did he happen to be visiting there - and as part of what kind of expedition?

Just, you know, speculating...

Just visiting. There was an intergalactic Gas 'n' Sip there, so he snuck over there without his parents knowing to pick up the latest copy of Green Juggs.

Some say apocryphal, I say canon.

 

[balls]

Granted, it's not canon, but in Shatner's latest book, the events of Tarus IV are talked about. Young Kirk was sent there for summer camp. His parents were back on the farm.

 

[steveman]

I remember reading that during production of "In a Mirror, Darkly" when they needed some information to put in Hoshi's profile as it's brought up on the computer in Archer's quarters on the Defiant, they threw in that Hoshi and her husband were on Tarus IV during the events referenced in "Conscience" and were both executed by Kodos.

I guess Trip wasn't the only one to get a crappy death on Ent.

Seriously though, I've always found "Conscience" to be a really interesting episode. Ronald D. Moore has said that it's his favorite episode of TOS, and he even named a ship in the Colonial Fleet (the Astrial Queen) after the similarily-titled ship in that episode.

 

[erastus25]

Franklin said:
I'm not sure there is a problem. Chris Hemsworth, only 24, is apparently cast as Kirk's father, George Kirk.
Given he is younger than Pine, and given the plot rumors floating around out there, it's quite likely we see Jim Kirk's father before Kirk was even born. That would be quite a while before the events involving Kodos.

Wow...I didn't realize Hemsworth was so young. So that probably does make his death/not death at Tarsus IV irrelevant. Kind of also makes me wonder how many different timeframes the movie will have.

 

[Vektor]

It was never my impression that Kirk’s parents died on Tarsus IV. I believe one or more of Diane Carey’s novels postulated that he was there with his father when the crisis occurred and that both of them narrowly survived Kodos’ culling of the population. Given Kurtzman’s and Orci’s reported knowledge of and respect for literary Trek, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the general backstory they’re going with.

In fact, I remember hearing that some of the actors auditioning for parts in the new Trek film were playing out scenes from certain Trek novels so the producers could keep the actual script under wraps. The name of Kirk’s father in the new film is apparently George Samuel Kirk (or at least George Kirk per IMDB), which, as far as I know, was first established in the Diane Carey novel Final Frontier. I also remember hearing that Chris Hemsworth supposedly “nailed the part” so perfectly in his audition that they cast him on-the-spot, which suggested to me at the time that the producers had an established template in mind, possibly Carey’s. Final Frontier was one of my all-time favorite Trek novels so it wouldn’t disappoint me in the least if that was the source they were mining for character backstory and family history.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

For all we know, little Jimmy Kirk could have been part of an intergalactic Boy Scout troop (or some sort of organization for kids likely to join Starfleet someday) that travelled to Tarsus - who's to say the rest of his family was anywhere near the place?

I've always been interested in this part of Kirk's backstory. It would be fun for it to be something unexpected but still canonical (which wouldn't be hard to achieve).

I'd like to see Kevin Riley integrated into the story, at least mentioned by name. We really don't know whether Kirk and Riley somehow joined forces to survive. Kirk would have been a resourceful adolescent while Riley couldn't have been much more than five or six. Anyway, this is something that can be explored in later movies, it's fun to just speculate now.

 

[PiperMaru22]

I can't recall exactly, but I didn't think it was established in the episode (or even really implied now that I think about it) that his parents died on Tarsus IV. Now I admit that doesn't add up when we think about how old he probably was at the time of the massacre, but how do we know he wasn't staying with friends or other relatives while there? He parents and brother didn't have to be there with him. I believe that by the time of the series his parents are dead, but I don't think they died on Tarsus IV since there wasn't any dialogue or hints or anything about it in "Conscience of the the King" or any other episodes.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

George_42 said:
And where was his brother when Kirk was on Tarsus IV?

Was the whole family there but the children survived?

Was one Kirk and father there and his brother and mother elsewehere?

I always took it from the Conscience of the King that his both his parents were killed by Kodos.

Guys, remember that Kodos didn't kill EVERYBODY. He picked which people "deserved to live" and which "didn't."

So he'd have done away with the aged, the infirm, and the non-contributing members of society. He almost certainly would leave all the kids alive, as well as the parents of young children... or at least one of the parents. "Society" would demand it.

I've always accepted the idea that George Kirk was a Starfleet officer, and that he was killed in the line of duty (most likely when Jim Kirk was about 12). It would then have been his father's memory that got him into SFA, and also which would have made him so driven to prove himself (and so "grim").

The age thing with Winona Kirk is meaningful, however, because it would be likely that Kirk would have been JUST with his mom (Sam, who I believe was older, would already have been on his own... it would have been JUST Jimmy and his mom!). And if Winona Kirk was older, and Jim was "old enough"... she may well have been one of Kodos' victims.

Nevertheless, the bit with Pine contradicts exactly ZERO of that. No more than having Nimoy in the film "contradicts" having a young Spock.

I'd be surprised if we didn't see at least THREE actors playing Jim Kirk (and, honestly, I wouldn't be too shocked if we saw a fourth, with the initials W.S.) And I also expect at least one other "Spock" besides Quinto and Nimoy.

 

[PiperMaru22]

Temis the Vorta said:
For all we know, little Jimmy Kirk could have been part of an intergalactic Boy Scout troop (or some sort of organization for kids likely to join Starfleet someday) that travelled to Tarsus - who's to say the rest of his family was anywhere near the place?

I've always been interested in this part of Kirk's backstory. It would be fun for it to be something unexpected but still canonical (which wouldn't be hard to achieve).

Haha I can totally picture Kirk in an intergalactic Boy Scout sort of thing!

Yeah I've always wanted to know more about his backstory from that area of his life. Hopefully this will be explored in some way in the future (hey they probably could make a movie out of it with the right writers).

 

[xortex]

The young Jim Kirk chronicles. Neither of his parents died else he would have been more passionate in his somewhat civil condemnation of Kodos, er, Karidian. It always makes me cry though.

 

[Cyrus]

The episode never gave even the slightest impression that Kirk's parents had been killed on that planet. Kirk himself never reacted to Kodos as someone responsible for the death of his parents. Something as dramatic as that should be mentioned (as was the case with Riley). So making the assumption that Kirk's parents were among those killed on that planet simply based on his age is quite an stretch.

btw, that episode made a big deal about eyewitnesses that could identify Kodos. But Kirk was a terrible eyewitness. Unlike the other guys he didn't recognize Kodos, and even after he was told about it he was very skeptical and needed computer analysis for confirmation. So he would have been useless as an eyewitness. Kodos' daughter shouldn't have bothered to try to kill him. Of course she wasn't very smart anyway, killing witnesses on the path of their stage show, making it very easy to trace it back to them.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Cary L. Brown said:
...Sam, who I believe was older, would already have been on his own...

I don't know if Sam WAS older...maybe the mustache just made him LOOK older.