Not a fan of "Bridge on the captain"? I enjoyed Probe as well. I want to know more about these "Super Klingons" that killed off the whale creatures.
Better than shot in the back (who in their right mind thought that was a good idea), but not much. This is William Shatner, someone who loves dramatization. And he dies with almost a whimper. Ugh. A shame because I didn't think it was an awful movie otherwise. Not the best by any means, but just fixing that one scene could have made a world of difference.
Here's where I make my usual argument that Kirk's death scene was just right because it wasn't grandiose and melodramatic. Whatever Shatner's proclivities, Kirk didn't care about any of that. He was just an officer doing his job, and all that mattered was protecting people. And I still say the most Kirkian moment in the scene is the one that's easiest to overlook, because it's the sheer lack of drama that makes it work so well -- right after being barely saved from the teetering bridge that almost killed him moments before, he unhesitatingly steps right back into danger because he still has lives to save. He doesn't pause, doesn't wrestle with the decision, he just goes ahead and does what needs to be done, with no regard for his own safety. And there are few things that could sum up James T. Kirk as well as that.
Yeah, I never had a issue with both of his deaths. They were both done to save people which is a good enough death as you can get.
The Kelvinverse comics said that the Laurentian system was the location of Rura Penthe, so Starfleet was massing to keep an eye on things after that Klingon fleet was destroyed. It makes as much sense as anything else.
I didn't have a problem with Kirk's death per se for the same reason I don't have a problem with Tasha's original death, though I do understand why other people take issue with it. What bugs me is the whole logic of Picard deliberately going to a point in time when his deadline is minutes away, versus going back to the E-D beforehand and preventing the whole situation from happening. ...if nothing else, you'd think it might at least occur to him to go back to before Amargosa in order to keep Geordi from getting captured and tortured. Ugh, it's "Why did Janeway not go back to before "Friendship One" to save Carey?" all over again... All of that being said, the way Kirk dies retrieving the remote control is a heck of a lot better than getting shot in the back after they've already stopped Soran, IIRC.
I don't think it makes any sense at all. Presumably Rura Penthe is somewhere in Klingon space. They'd never let a Starfleet task force anywhere near it. (Also, the star charts in TUC put it in the "Beta Penthe" system, apparently.) I assume that he simply didn't have that ability. Inside the Nexus, you could relive any point from your own life, or imagine an ideal future, but that's basically just illusion, and wouldn't translate to the ability to actually go anywhere in real space and time. I assume the ability to physically leave the Nexus is limited to someplace in proximity to the Nexus.
From the script: GUINAN: But as I said, time has no meaning here. So if you leave you can go anywhere, any time.
I assume Picard didn’t want to go too far back as he didn’t want to cause a bigger disturbance in the time continuum. He also wasn’t aware of the threat the Enterprise was in.
She said that, but did she really know? After all, the speaker was the part of Guinan that had never left (or rather, the Guinan that was in there briefly before rescue and thus was there forever because time had no meaning there). So how would she know what happens when you leave? Granted, my own argument in a case like this would be that if the filmmakers put that line in there and then didn't follow up on it, that constitutes a plot hole in the writing. And, yes, it is a plot hole. But it's one that I find easy enough to rationalize. A lot of seeming contradictions in fiction can be explained away by unreliable narrators.
In the novella about the Nexus they have a chap go all the way to Deneva through it so it’s true in the novel side of things.
But would going back to, say, when the E-D was approaching Amargosa really have created such a big disturbance? I mean, Geordi got tortured, the ship got destroyed (granted Picard didn't know about that), the sun went nova and a planet of millions of people was destroyed. I'm not seeing the harm here...
Great minds think alike, in terms of us both having the same response to your first paragraph. Heck, I might have used that logic myself if our roles were reversed. I'd find it easy to rationalize except that that plot hole effectively makes Picard look like an idiot and indirectly leads to Kirk's death. It's the kind of thing they just shouldn't have thrown into the script to begin with if it was essentially irrelevant.
I kind of saw it like thribs did. That Picard did not want to go back too far in time because he was always adamant about protecting the timeline (remember in Tapestry Q had to promise him any changes would have no effect on anything else). I figured he went back just far enough that he was confident he would stop Soran without potentially disrupting anything else. I like your thought process, but it still left me unsatisfied. His first 'death' on the Enterprise-B was perfect. He died, on the Enterprise, saving the Enterprise alone. That was the way most thought he would go out (it even took into account his prediction that he would die alone in TFF). Perhaps they would have been better off leaving it at that---though they wouldn't have the whole one generation passing the baton to the next. I never had an issue with him dying on Veridian III to save the inhabitants of Veridian IV, a system he may never have even heard of. Kirk would give his life to save any civilization if it came down to it (I always thought they should have made that more clear in the film--Veridian IV was sort of forgotten, it's easy to forget he not only helped save the crew of the Enterprise, but an entire civilization as well). It was just dying on a bridge that fell. It felt, blah, for lack of a better word. I was like, that's it. That's how he died. I was waiting for that horror movie moment where he suddenly wakes up and goes boo.
If you're referring to the Amargosa star going nova, I don't believe that star had any planets. The millions of people were on Veridian IV--which was ultimately saved (though as I noted before, I'm sure some people forgot all about Veridian IV by the end of the movie). BTW, slightly off topic, but maybe not really....If you ever get the chance I highly recommend the "Engines of Destiny" novel by Gene Deweese. It depicts Scotty 'rescuing' Kirk off the Enterprise B just before it's destroyed and after he succeeds in saving it (thereby protecting the timeline, or so Scotty thought). It's Scotty after his resurrection, but before the events of Generations in the 24th century. It has significant repercussions for the events of Generations and First Contact. It was a fascinating read because of all the consequences. Pulling that thread of tapestry as it were.
Some interesting thoughts on Kirk's death(s). I'm planning on picking up The Star to Every Wandering - I hear it adds a lot to his death(s).
I dislike the idea that one kind of death can be "better" than another because it's more romantic or noble or dramatic or spectacular or something. Death sucks. It's an ugly fact of life and it's often arbitrary and random and any attempt to dress it up as something glamorous is dishonest. It doesn't matter whether he fell off a bridge or was carried off by a host of angels. What matters is what he gave his life for. Besides, tons of movie characters die from falls, often from bridges or catwalks. It seems odd to see it as such a problem here.
It would be really funny if Dillard just recycled her paragraphs of the BOP exploding from her STVI novelization the way that GEN recycled the footage from TUC. I'll never understand why some fans put so much stock in this line. Kirk's not psychic and had no reason to display any special insight into how he was going to die. The Valerian comic series debuted in 1967. Flash Gordon dates back to 1934.
It’s because the “dying alone” line plays a big part in those ShatnerVerse books. That’s why it’s stuck in some people's Head. He wasn’t alone however as Picard was there.