I love the Abrams films, but they definitely have areas where they could've improved.
Did JJ ruin Kirk?
- Thread starter RAMA
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I love the Abrams films, but they definitely have areas where they could've improved.
I'm shocked that Kirk's final speech isn't referred to more(it's one of those things that the purists have plugged their ears about and ignored if they got that far to try and convince themselves they're right) . It's one of the best speeches in any of the trek movies, and a defining character moment of growth. After the story outlines his failings using Spock and Pike earlier in the movie, Kirk tells us what he's learned in retrospect. This video is one of the rare times other than myself, that I've seen it mentioned.
Yes this is very true, although the same arc for nukirk would have been as valid with a less ludicrously rapid promotion. Kirk would still be very inexperienced as a commanding officer even if he had spent several years as a junior officer. It would have just been a more realistic arc.
I agree. This point isn't lost on me at all. It just doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the film either.
As a side note, this is something that I've noticed and I'll just put out there. My enjoyment of Abrams Trek movies has nothing to do with ignoring problems. It has nothing to do with shutting my brain off. Could Kirk's promotion have been done better? Yes, absolutely, and I could write it up for you in 5 minutes if you asked me to. Same thing with Khan, or Spock Prime's inclusion, etc.
But, that doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the film. In fact, for me, it immerses me further because I have to think about it, figure out how the world works and go from there. So, for me, it adds more enjoyment not less.
Pretty much where I'm at. The good in the two Abrams films far outweighs the bad.
Oh yes. Did jj ruin Kirk? No. It's just frustrating that the bad could have been better with such minor tweaks.
The older I get, the more this is true of most films that I like.
This is the same organization that thinks a landing party consisting of the CO, the XO, the Chief Engineer and the CMO is a good idea.
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Kirk is an unseasoned guy they've taken a chance on for varied debatable reasons.
Sisko is a matured, seasoned officer.
His sacrifice wasn't 'earning the chair' - it was about this unseasoned idiot realising he's not the miracle boy he thought he was and not knowing what else to do. It could have been a little heavier in the script (the story gets distracted a bit with personal loss over that overconfidence) but all that quote does is show exactly why Kirk went this route.
It's not really a case of "Oh, Kirk died for his crew, he's awesome." The story is trying to point out the opposite; This idiot doesn't know what he's doing, but he's gonna try and by the end, grow up and act his age.
All that quote does is support Kirk's side of things - in that scenario he's Li Nalas, but he doesn't have a Sisko to give him the smart advice as Pike got gunned down.
True! But on that note I tend to find that the episodes that do that for no logical reason tend to be the weaker episodes in general.This is the same organization that thinks a land party consisting of the CO, the XO, the Chief Engineer and the CMO is a good idea.
I noticed in a recent interview about Beyond, Chris Pine was saying Kirk is not a young man as defined in the first two films. I think and hope we will see a more mature Kirk for the next film not just in terms of age but also character.
The thing is that when they did the new 'Knight Rider' series in 2008 they had the son of Michael Knight doing the exact same thing in the pilot. I don't get the need to show a character bed two women to make us believe they are a ladies man. I always thought Kirk's art of seduction was what made him a ladies man. With the 2009 Kirk we generally just see him in bed with other women, not how he got to that point which is taking the focus off the man and putting it on the sex and oh look he's playing around again.
Not sure I see the problem? We all know that Kirk likes the ladies.
I think the problem is that scenes like this, while frivolous and amusing, speak to the outdated misogynistic attitudes of too many of the Trek writers. We see it far too often, with the women sidelined to the roles of mother, girlfriend, or eye candy. Shows like Killjoys are becoming far more balanced, with varied mixture of men and women in the roles of heroes and villains. Trek still seems to default to its male heroes and villains with the odd token female if there is a reason to be a woman. It's still a common approach in Hollywood but it's looking more and more outdated for Sci fi.
It is misogynistic for Kirk to like the ladies? If Kirk has been a female, it wouldn't have bothered me for the character to be in bed with two guys, or two gals or a guy and a gal.
Beyond that, there is just an imbalance in TOS, that if one wants to do TOS, it is going to be male dominated to a large degree because six of the seven long term characters are male. I, for one, don't mind doing a hard reboot that reshuffles the deck to make things more even.
Hmm. I could see a Marie (Montgom-marie) Scott, or a Polina Chekov....
Yeah I agree but the problem Trek has is that it consistently fails to deliver. Actually, NuKirk has a lot in common with Kara Thrace, albeit she is more messed up and self-destructive than him, so we know that it is possible to feature equivalent female heroes in a sci fi setting.
I was never in favour of re-branding male characters as women - there were actually plenty of women who could be rebranded as better officers. Nutrek doesn't get a pass from me because it excised almost every notable female character they could have used (T'Pau, Number One, Chapel, Rand), introducing some new male characters like Cupcake, Keenser, and Logan instead. Gaila was fun but she was relegated to a visual joke and sex object. It's the consistent failure that is so telling.
Edit: That's a bit unfair. Carol was a love interest in waiting. At least she dodged that bullet in her first appearance.
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Bit rough to delegate Carol to 'love interest in waiting' when we have no idea if that was ever true. The writers certainly didn't say anything, and in-universe there's not much to support it besides 'she's a sexy female that Kirk's attracted to.' I mean, I've seen plenty of fans who were convinced that the writers were setting up McCoy as her intended love interest.
As for inherent sexism in the threesome...I'm not convinced. Mainly because the point of the scene was not to tittilate the male audience, or establish Kirk as some womanising god by using attractive women as walking shorthand. The actual point was to show Kirk as the sort of character who'd have a threesome with bipedal cats.
And no, them being attractive cats (ergh) doesn't signify anything when literally everybody in the movie is ridiculously attractive.
As for inherent sexism in the threesome...I'm not convinced. Mainly because the point of the scene was not to tittilate the male audience, or establish Kirk as some womanising god by using attractive women as walking shorthand. The actual point was to show Kirk as the sort of character who'd have a threesome with bipedal cats.
And no, them being attractive cats (ergh) doesn't signify anything when literally everybody in the movie is ridiculously attractive.
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Yup. Carol, like Uhura before her, seemed immune to Kirk's charm. Folks want to project the TWOK relationship on to this version of Carol and Jim. Bones and Carol had a good scene together but I didn't see any sparks.
I thought the purpose of the cats was to highlight kirk's shallow existence. The existence of a woman who is resistant to his superficial charm raises the possibility of a deeper relationship because he'd have to let her see more of the real him. Pine does a great job of letting the real kirk peek out from under the mask of bravado every now and then. The infamous underwear scene, while contrived and gratuitous, had a wider symbolism. His reaction lacked bravado and confidence. That's not a spark, it's a lever into a chink in his armour.
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