George Kirk in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

[F. King Daniel]

Spoiler: STXI

Star Trek (2009) kicks off with George Kirk (Sr.) meeting his demise at the hands of Nero. But what became of him in the original Star Trek timeline?

I know he starred in ‘Final Frontier’ and ‘Best Destiny’. IIRC, ‘Final Frontier’ had a tiny comment at the end saying George and his ship vanished mysteriously while on a mission (I don’t think George was ever mentioned on TV. Might be wrong.). I always assumed this would be elaborated on someday (with JTK finding his Dad on some alien planet), but with Star Trek XI’s reboot I wonder if the subject will ever come up again.

The aborted Star Fleet Academy film was to give us another version of the story: In it George Kirk was a test pilot, lost when he and the prototype USS Bonaventure mysteriously disappeared testing the first (young Scotty designed) Dilithium-powered warp engine.

So – does George get a mention in any other novel (bar the Trek XI novel, obviously)? Do we find out what originally happened to him?

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

George gets the odd mention, but no one's ever elaborated on what happened to him between Best Destiny and the time the five-year mission got underway.

 

[Christopher]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

Info on George Kirk, Sr.'s appearances and mentions in Trek Lit:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/George_Samuel_Kirk,_Sr.

 

[ronny]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

any particular reason movie plot points are being given out in the first sentence of posts with no warning? any particular reason you couldn't have used a spoiler code. i'm not reading the movie forums because i'm not interested in reading about the entire damn plot before the movie comes out and we got people coming here doing just that.

i'm not a spoiler nazi, i laughed at the guy that was annoyed last week someone didn't put a spoiler tag around a plot point for an 8 year old book, but we're talking about a movie that's not coming out for 2 months.

wondering if i'm supposed to take a break from the boards for a couple months...

 

[Saul]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

Info on George Kirk, Sr.'s appearances and mentions in Trek Lit:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/George_Samuel_Kirk%2C_Sr.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/George_Samuel_Kirk_Sr. here is the link fixed

 

[JD]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

You've got the wrong Kirk there, you want to second son listed. As for why Chris's link won't work, I have no idea because that appears to be the exact same name as the one in the second link there.

EDIT: I just checked and it apparently doesn't like Chris's link because there is no period after Sr. I don't know why it's being so picky, it doesn't usually care about that stuff.

 

[TGTheodore]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

any particular reason movie plot points are being given out in the first sentence of posts with no warning? any particular reason you couldn't have used a spoiler code. i'm not reading the movie forums because i'm not interested in reading about the entire damn plot before the movie comes out and we got people coming here doing just that.

i'm not a spoiler nazi, i laughed at the guy that was annoyed last week someone didn't put a spoiler tag around a plot point for an 8 year old book, but we're talking about a movie that's not coming out for 2 months.

wondering if i'm supposed to take a break from the boards for a couple months...

Ditto. I couldn't believe the first sentence of the OP. Thanks a lot.

--Ted

 

[Christopher]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

Ahh, the problem is that the TrekBBS software assumes the period is meant to be a sentence-ending period and thus excludes it from the automatically created link. I've edited the link in my post above so it will work. Alternatively, just go to Memory Beta and type "George Kirk" into the search box.

 

[Saul]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

any particular reason movie plot points are being given out in the first sentence of posts with no warning? any particular reason you couldn't have used a spoiler code. i'm not reading the movie forums because i'm not interested in reading about the entire damn plot before the movie comes out and we got people coming here doing just that.

i'm not a spoiler nazi, i laughed at the guy that was annoyed last week someone didn't put a spoiler tag around a plot point for an 8 year old book, but we're talking about a movie that's not coming out for 2 months.

wondering if i'm supposed to take a break from the boards for a couple months...

Ditto. I couldn't believe the first sentence of the OP. Thanks a lot.

--Ted

But in the trailer it says "your father was a starship captain for 12 minutes and saved 800 lives including yours". The trailer seems to imply that he died.

 

[Bobatiel]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

any particular reason movie plot points are being given out in the first sentence of posts with no warning? any particular reason you couldn't have used a spoiler code. i'm not reading the movie forums because i'm not interested in reading about the entire damn plot before the movie comes out and we got people coming here doing just that.

Yeah!

WTF!

 

[EmperorKalan]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

Info on George Kirk, Sr.'s appearances and mentions in Trek Lit:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/George_Samuel_Kirk%2C_Sr.

Of course, speaking as one of the MB admins, that article is badly in need of overhaul, since it overly synthesizes events from several sources and doesn't really follow one of MB's operating principles: "present the information both (or all) sources and note the discrepencies". E.g., Kirk's father in World Without End is mentioned as a "Back to Earth" movement activist and local politician, a polar opposite from the Starfleet security officer from Diane Carey's books. It's also missing the whole Collision Course version of the character, except for his name.

As others have already answered, George Sr.'s fate isn't really specified. More of a "he went off on a (classified?) mission and didn't come back" sort of thing.

 

[JoeZhang]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

any particular reason movie plot points are being given out in the first sentence of posts with no warning? any particular reason you couldn't have used a spoiler code. i'm not reading the movie forums because i'm not interested in reading about the entire damn plot before the movie comes out and we got people coming here doing just that.

i'm not a spoiler nazi, i laughed at the guy that was annoyed last week someone didn't put a spoiler tag around a plot point for an 8 year old book, but we're talking about a movie that's not coming out for 2 months.

wondering if i'm supposed to take a break from the boards for a couple months...

Ditto. I couldn't believe the first sentence of the OP. Thanks a lot.

--Ted

But in the trailer it says "your father was a starship captain for 12 minutes and saved 800 lives including yours". The trailer seems to imply that he died.

Well since the trailer shows him getting BLOWN UP - I suggest people turn off their TVs as well.

 

[Guartho]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

To be fair though, if you're avoiding spoilers you don't know who that guy is. Plus that shot's so fast (only 10 frames - less than half a second) it didn't even register with me until I went through the trailer slow to look for things.

 

[TGTheodore]

Re: George Kirk's original demise?

And to those who successfully avoid trailers? And didn't know who was killed or who was responsible?

The movie ain't out. Use spoilers code, please, or stay in the Star Trek XI forum.

Much appreciated.

--Ted

 

[David R. George III]

Re: George Kirk's in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

Not consistent with the appearances of Jim Kirk's father in other literary works, but completely consistent with all Star Trek episodes and films, my own The Star to Every Wandering reveals the elder Kirk's demise. In my Crucible trilogy, details of Jim Kirk's childhood appear, including some facts about his father.

Spoiler: one of those facts about Jim Kirk's father.

According to Crucible, Jim Kirk's father never entered Starfleet.

 

[Rosalind]

Re: George Kirk's in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

I've edited the thread title, and the OP.

in the future, please notify on the post if you would like us to do something.

 

[foravalon]

Re: George Kirk's in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

I do believe a younger George Kirk briefly appears with his wife and two boys in The Last Full Measure, as well.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Re: George Kirk's in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

Not consistent with the appearances of Jim Kirk's father in other literary works, but completely consistent with all Star Trek episodes and films, my own The Star to Every Wandering reveals the elder Kirk's demise. In my Crucible trilogy, details of Jim Kirk's childhood appear, including some facts about his father.

Spoiler: one of those facts about Jim Kirk's father.

According to Crucible, Jim Kirk's father never entered Starfleet.

David,

Was there anything in particular that made you go that direction in Crucible? Personally, I thought it was a refreshing view of Kirk Sr, though a little jarring at first given the traditional literary interpretations.

 

[David R. George III]

Re: George Kirk's in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

Not consistent with the appearances of Jim Kirk's father in other literary works, but completely consistent with all Star Trek episodes and films, my own The Star to Every Wandering reveals the elder Kirk's demise. In my Crucible trilogy, details of Jim Kirk's childhood appear, including some facts about his father.

Spoiler: one of those facts about Jim Kirk's father.

According to Crucible, Jim Kirk's father never entered Starfleet.

David,

Was there anything in particular that made you go that direction in Crucible? Personally, I thought it was a refreshing view of Kirk Sr, though a little jarring at first given the traditional literary interpretations.

Well, to be honest, I hadn't read any of the works in which Jim Kirk's father appeared. In fact, there were many Star Trek novels I hadn't read before sitting down to pen the Crucible trilogy. I knew, though, from the many Trek novels that I had read, that plenty of the literary works contradicted each other; I also realized that some even contradicted the series itself. Because of all that, my editor and I chose to make sure that Crucible was consistent with canon, but not necessarily with other literary works. Where reasonable, I also kept consistent with numerous other novels, but when it came to the elder Kirk, the notion that he had served in Starfleet just didn't seem right to me. I mean, wouldn't a fact such as that reasonably be expected to come up in an episode? Also, artistically, it just didn't work for me. I'm sure that there are plenty of readers and fans out there for whom the idea of Jim Kirk's dad being in Starfleet does work, and I intend no disrespect to them or to the writers who made that choice. For me, though, as both a writer and a reader, it simply didn't feel right.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Re: George Kirk's in TrekLit (STXI movie spoiler)

Where reasonable, I also kept consistent with numerous other novels, but when it came to the elder Kirk, the notion that he had served in Starfleet just didn't seem right to me. I mean, wouldn't a fact such as that reasonably be expected to come up in an episode? Also, artistically, it just didn't work for me. I'm sure that there are plenty of readers and fans out there for whom the idea of Jim Kirk's dad being in Starfleet does work, and I intend no disrespect to them or to the writers who made that choice. For me, though, as both a writer and a reader, it simply didn't feel right.

Given that the writers of the movie are amongst those who made that choice, how do you feel about their going with the interpretation which "didn't feel right" for you...?