Did Spock die because....

I've wondered about this for a while and it could be a coincidence but:

Did Spock die at the end of TWOK because he was the only Red Shirt in the engine room?

It's really possible that the Director intentionally had him not take his jacket off for color purposes. To stand out with what was happening in that control room.

Or just because Spock was in a hurry.

Or because everyone else in the room was in white.

What other reason do you think why Spock didn't take off his jacket in the Engine Room?

 

Being from a hot desert planet, Spock would be more sensitive to cold. Since he knows that his actions will result in his death, the jacket may provide extra warmth for comfort's sake.

 

Nobody "took off their jacket." McCoy was in his medical jacket over his green medical-department turtleneck, and the engineers were in the radiation suits they routinely wore in the engine room in both TMP and TWOK. They were all in full uniform, just different variations of it befitting their stations. https://movies.trekcore.com/gallery...h-of-khan-2016/chapter19/st2-twok-dc-2664.jpg

And the stupid "redshirt" joke certainly had nothing to do with it. I don't think fans in 1982 were as obsessed with that joke as they are today, and since Nicholas Meyer and Harve Bennett were not Trek fans to any significant extent, I doubt they'd even heard of the joke. After all, they put all the officers in red.

 

because, without his jacket, Spock looks like this:

 

At LEAST as much. When TNG came out and command was changed to red there were fans who said "Now they're ALL going to die!"

"Redshirt" is not a current phenomenon.

But no, Spock did not keep his uniform on because he had to be a redshirt.

The only time in TWOK that anyone is seen in only the undershirt is in the transporter room when they change from the landing party gear back to their shipboard uniforms. Even when Kirk is in his quarters drinking alone he is still wearing his jacket.

 

Actually, Kirk is sitting in his white shirt while reading. He puts the jacket on after David comes in and he get up to go to the bridge, trying to dodge the conversation.

 

Okay, granted. But I think that having a fan in-joke be so long-established that writers of the actual series would be influenced by it in their writing is the sort of thing that would probably only happen once you got to the second generation of a franchise when people who grew up being fans became its writers. TWOK was too early in the franchise to be that metatextual. Not to mention that it wasn't Lower Decks and wouldn't have built a plot point around a corny in-joke.

 

Dammit, I even CHECKED! But I didn't look at the beginning of the scene! You're right, of course.

It was definitely a part of the parodies of the time. But no, Meyer was not going to engineer a scene that he was probably already getting death threats over to lean into a trope. "Hey, Bob. Make the jackets red. No, trust me, they'll be rolling in the aisles!"

Even if they were acknowledging the trope (nay, I say MYTH) which they were not, the ones with the literal red shirts were the cadets! (If there is a stereotypical red shirt in the movie it's Preston. "I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is."

I suppose the first time they killed a redshirt just to say they'd done it was JJ.

I mean, we're arguing to the same conclusion: No.

 

Thank you. I needed that.

 

Wait... TWOK wasn't metatextual?

The movie where we discover that TOS ladies' man Kirk had a kid we never knew about? Where Kirk's disobeying regulations when approaching the Reliant doesn't work and is explicitly shown to be the wrong course of action? Where it's heavily implied that Kirk took the wrong course of action 15 years earlier in "Space Seed"? Where Spock, a long-standing regular character, the one most associated with the franchise up until that point, DIES? The one where Kirk, the man who came up with the Corbomite Maneuver and talked a half dozen malevolent computers to death on TOS, says, "I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing"? THAT wasn't metatextual? What is that if not Star Trek commenting on Star Trek?

I agree that Spock wearing a red uniform in TWOK wasn't any sort of in-joke (Nicholas Meyer has said he wanted more military-looking uniforms & wanted them to look like the uniforms in the 1937 version of The Prisoner of Zenda), but TWOK is 100% a metatextual movie. Star Trek was too much of an American institution in 1982 for it not to be. Half of TWOK's power comes from our familiarity with TOS, our knowledge of how things usually played out on the series, and zagging where the show would traditionally zig.

Over on the Wikipedia page for Metatextuality, they define it as "a form of intertextual discourse in which a text makes critical commentary on itself or on another text." That's TWOK. It's not metatextual in the comedic Lower Decks style, sure, but if TWOK isn't metatextual, nothing is.

 

Taking off the red jacket wouldn't have helped Spock in this situation.

I have sometimes wondered if he could have survived if he had managed to put on the full-body white radiation suit including helmet briefly seen in TMP. His hands were still burned pretty badly despite the gloves. But, presumably, they would have been in even worse condition without them.

Kor

 

I don't agree. It's not metatextual to build on established character traits (your example of Kirk and his actions in Space Seed). That's continuity. Spock dying isn't metatextual any more than the death of any character on Star Trek is. Nimoy didn't want to keep doing Star Trek and the best way to even get him involved was to promise him a good death scene. Kirk having a kid is a plot development expanding on the already established history of Kirk being a ladies man. That's not meta, that's logical progression and something else for Kirk to struggle over on his 50th birthday. Kirk's mistakes are part of his missing a step in middle age. I don't know how Kirk's comments about not facing death vs The Corbomite Maneuver prove anything. I mean, you MAY want to think they're commenting on Star Trek refusing to die, but I think that's more your own interpretation.

A lot of this stuff is just continuity or lack thereof.

TWOK was a film written, or should we say assembled, by Nick Meyer primarily from pieces of earlier drafts and put together by him fairly quickly in order for the film to get made. He wasn't a fan and he certainly didn't have time to pepper the film with metatextual commentary. He just wrote the best story he could.

If you want metatextual Star Trek movies, look down a few at TUC. That film has very obvious commentary about Star Trek and is the most self aware film in the run. The worst offender in my view is "I can't believe I kissed you." "Must have been your lifelong ambition" which is a comment about SHANTER not Kirk. Where TWOK was nuanced, TUC was obvious. And cutsey.

 

Well, yeah, I figure that's basically what they're for. The radiation was unusually intense, but a full suit would've reduced the exposure and improved his chances.

No. Kirk was no more a ladies' man than any other 1960s-70s TV protagonist, and much less of one than many, since he was married to his ship and driven by duty. It's a complete myth that he was a skirt-chaser; usually his love interests pursued him instead of the reverse, or he pursued them when not in his right mind or as a tactic to serve the mission. Or else he fell deeply and devotedly in love and sought a committed relationship, as with Edith or Miramanee. People who accuse Kirk of being a womanizer are mistaking the universal formulas of episodic TV for a personal attribute of Kirk's. Male leads in episodic series always had multiple romances-of-the-week, unless they were married -- and they usually weren't allowed to be married, because the execs would've insisted they stay available for romances-of-the-week.

By the same token, a hero's hitherto-unknown kid showing up out of the blue was a very common plot device for a lot of TV protagonists; for instance, MacGyver ended that way, off the top of my head (though I think introducing his son was a backdoor pilot for a spinoff attempt). It even happened for characters not known for womanizing; for instance, when Mission: Impossible was revived in 1988, they cast Greg Morris's son Phil to play his character's son and successor on the team, even though Phil Morris was old enough to have been alive during the original series's run (he was one of the kids in "Miri," after all) and it would've had to mean that Barney already had a son during the original series when he was portrayed as single and available.

I think the actual reason for introducing David was the same reason they introduced Saavik -- to set up a "next generation" (to coin a phrase) that could potentially take over the film series while the older actors were phased out. Though the series ended up going in the opposite direction.

 

Yes, I'm aware that it was a sign of the times, of how TV worked and Kirk was "no more a ladies man" any any other. Sure, guys like Jim West and Alexander Mundy had a lot more woman than Jim Kirk. Literally every week. You and I watched the same shows, probably around the same time.

And yep, I know his rep is overblown, I've gone on record saying that myself. But it's not a complete myth, just exaggerated to the point of satire. There is still a basis for him having a track record.

The "little blonde lab technician;" Ruth; Helen Johannsen; Areel Shaw; Janet Wallace; Janice Lester. All of these were in his past, not woman he conned with his charm to get out of scrapes and it's not a small amount of girlfriends for one guy that young if he's constantly in committed relationships. I get that the lab tech was a set up, but it seemed real enough to get to near marriage. Helen Johannsen was implied to be nothing more than a wild liaison that Kirk had a happy memory of but didn't want it public knowledge, at least in front of a commodore. Areel was an ex girlfriend that he kissed on his own bridge. Janice Lester didn't seem as important to Kirk as he did to Janice.

As far as what occurred on the TV series itself, sleeping with Odonna wasn't a tactical move, Kirk out of his mind or even Kirk in love (unless they just went into his "cabin" to get socks). It was a guy getting some action in the middle of an episode. Was it necessary to actually bed Deela to further his plan? Maybe, but you can bet Kirk wasn't considering it torture.

But even if he wasn't "bedding green women" every week, he had a roving eye - even with his crew (The Immunity Syndrome ) and he was flirting hard with Miranda Jones until things went south (so was McCoy though). These things were part of his personality. Most reputations of this type are overblown, but there's a basis for them but he certainly wasn't the horndog seen in the Bad Robot films.

I agree that David and Saavik were introduced also to bring in new blood, back when they were interested in doing that. However, the series established Kirk's history and David being born out of one of those relationships is not unrealistic. He may not gotten as many women as some other 60's TV heroes, but he probably did better than most men in the audience.

My point, though, was that Kirk having a son is an outgrowth of his character and not a metatextual comment.

 

Which does not mean that his "track record" was the specific reason for the Carol Marcus plotline. That's pure conjecture with no factual basis. As I said, giving characters hitherto-unknown sons was a commonplace plot device in the fiction of the era and had no correlation with whether the character had a reputation for womanizing. And since virtually every male lead of the era was expected to be available for romances-of-the-week, it is illogical to call that a characteristic of James T. Kirk in particular. After all, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov had their share of romances too.

I mean, the movies also gave Spock a hitherto-unknown half-brother, even though he was never much of a family man. There's no reason to assume such a plot device has to be correlated with a character trait rather than the needs of the specific story. Giving Kirk an adult son was probably intended more to tie into the theme of Kirk feeling old and dealing with his past coming back to haunt him, as well as the potential backdoor-pilot angle of introducing younger characters to carry future films.

Which is an inevitable consequence of how TV shows were written in the era. As you've already conceded, many contemporary or later TV heroes had even more old flames in their past, never mind their present. Spock had Leila Kalomi and T'Pring. McCoy had Nancy Crater. Chekov had Irina. The only reason Kirk had more was because he was the main character.

I mean, look at Captain Picard. He was established as an aloof, distant figure who wasn't easy to get close to, but over the course of the series he accumulated an incongruously large number of old friends and old flames in his past. It's not about the character's own attributes, it's just an artifact of how episodic television works.

First off, I'm not saying it never happened; life is an essay question, not a true-false test. I'm saying that in proportion to TV heroes of the era in general, Kirk was nowhere near as much of a "womanizer" as modern mythology would have it.

Second, it is a generational error to assume that he "slept with" every woman he romanced. Between the cultural values of the era that discouraged premarital sex and the much stricter network censorship that existed at the time, the general assumption was that onscreen romances rarely got beyond first base. With Deela, yes, they managed to sneak in a pretty clear indication that he slept with her, but the default assumption for a 1960s TV show should be that sex did not occur unless there's specific evidence that it did. It's conceivable that Kirk had the time and opportunity with Odona, but there's no proof of it.

Again, no more so than most male leads of the era, and less so than many. And they became more so over time under network pressure to turn Kirk into more of a conventional womanizing action hero, as opposed to the more disciplined military man of the first season. Recall that in "Mudd's Women," Kirk was the only human male in the crew who was unaffected by the allure of the title characters. And the whole point of Helen Noel implanting a false memory of romance in Kirk's mind was that it was completely out of character for him; note how easily he shook it off and coldly ordered her to risk her life in an electrified tunnel. Even in season 3, after he'd been conformed more to conventional male-lead expectations, you still had things like "Elaan of Troyius" where he had to be brainwashed into falling in love and was able to overcome it because his sense of captainly duty was stronger.

 

I doubt it would've made a difference. Scotty was presumably overcome by the radiation even though he was wearing the suit, and Spock didn't have time to do anything other than put on the gloves, anyway.

...What? That's not what I was saying at all. I brought up "The Corbomite Maneuver" because it was one of the most famous examples of Kirk bluffing his way to victory. That's why I included Kirk's line from TWOK "I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

That line, and that entire plotline, works as metatextual commentary on TOS because, for the first time in the history of the franchise up until that point, Kirk didn't snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. The person who died wasn't an anonymous redshirt or a one-episode guest star who was never mentioned since like Gary Mitchell. It was Kirk's best friend, the guy who was by Captain Kirk's side for every episode we'd been watching over and over for 15 years. THAT'S why Spock's death in TWOK had impact.

(Yes, I know that Gary Mitchell was Kirk's best friend in universe before he died. But we saw Gary Mitchell for something like 10 minutes before he was transformed in WNMHGB. There's no way a one-shot guest star could match the impact of killing off the co-star of the entire series that the audience had a strong identification with.)

True, Meyer wasn't a fan of Star Trek before he got the job, but he made a point of bringing himself up to speed after he did, and he also had a general awareness of Star Trek as a pop culture phenomenon. At the very least, he would've taken the time to watch "Space Seed" a few times. And Meyer brought a lot more to the screenplay for TWOK than just assembling scenes and bits from previous drafts. He was the guy who wove it all together and gave it meaning. Kirk's birthday and midlife crisis threading throughout the film was all Meyer.

And they only brought Khan back in the first place because producer Harve Bennett made a point of watching every episode of TOS in the Paramount screening room to familiarize himself with the series and thought that Khan would be a great character to bring back in a movie.

 

I forget who it was, Bennett? Sallin? made the point of "Of COURSE Kirk has a kid that he didn't know about."

The creative team of TWOK (esp. Meyer) had a weird mix of being well enough versed in Star Trek, reportedly through a crash course, but also coasting on and because of the success of TWOK codifying many of Trek's tropes. No doubt this is why there are many TOS purists who can't stand the film. Not only was it "low-brow" Star Trek but then it committed the cardinal sin of becoming BELOVED.

True or not, deserved or not, Kirk as a space Lothario was a cultural given. (Just ask Eddie Murphy.) When i saw TWOK in the theaters there were knowing chuckles when it is revealed that Jim had a kid. (Funny. I know they changed it, but it still LANDS like Jim didn't know about David and that it's as much a surprise to him as it is to the audience.)

People who know the show know that there are LOTS of times where Jim "faced death". But the legend is that he is the rule breaking devil-may-care trickster. And TWOK printed the legend.

 

Probably not, given that there were engineers... literally wearing the suit already, who were pretty much like "Nah, that's suicide".

Spock died because... somebody had to do it, everyone else was scared, so he went ahead and did it.

 

If so, that mercifully didn't make it into the final cut (though it was in the novelization, as I recall). In the film, David didn't know about Kirk, but Kirk implicitly knew about David. He asks Carol "Is that David?" when they meet, then later says, "I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn't you tell him?"

And again, my point is not that Kirk didn't have a history with women at all, just that he didn't have one to a greater degree than other TV series male leads in general, or even other TOS characters. Heck, McCoy was at least as big a flirt as Kirk was. He could've just as easily turned out to have a child out of wedlock (in addition to his in-wedlock daughter established in "The Survivor"). It was expected that any red-blooded male hero was virile and actively interested in the opposite sex. That's not specific to Kirk, it was just the cultural norm.

Hmm, okay, I concede the point. McCoy stresses that "No human could survive the radiation in there!"

Still, Spock replies "I am not human," suggesting that he thinks being half-Vulcan might give him greater endurance. He may have just been bluffing, but it's possible that if he'd been in a full radiation suit, he might have been able to survive long enough to get hyronalin treatment in sickbay and pull through.