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How old is Pike/Kirk

The original notes had Kirk's age at 31 when he took over the Enterprise so that would put him at around 34 by Deadly years.
 
A beaker full of death said:
Zeppster said:
in ST 2 when they said he was 50 I think.

To be clear, they never said WHICH birthday it was in STII.

According to the DVD commentary, Meyer wanted to be specific that it was indeed Kirk's 50th birthday but Shatner fought for them to leave it vague.
 
No, Meyer says in the commentary that he wanted it to be Kirk's 49th birthday. I think he gave as his reasoning that he wanted Kirk to start worrying about hitting the big 5-0 a year before it happened.

Sir Rhosis
 
Sir Rhosis said:
No, Meyer says in the commentary that he wanted it to be Kirk's 49th birthday. I think he gave as his reasoning that he wanted Kirk to start worrying about hitting the big 5-0 a year before it happened.

Which would make sense since the movie was set 15 years after the series in which he was roughly 34.
 
...Of course, one may wonder whether 30, 40 and 50 will mean the same for these future folks who get to live to 130+. It is a bit strange that we see e.g. Bashir agonizing over his future at his thirtieth birthday, considering that he lives in an era where people might live to see their Nobels delivered, then enter a second field of research and live to see their second Nobels.

Giving Kirk a 2233 original birthday would mean that his fiftieth would come in 2283, his 49th in 2282 - both a bit early to fit the date on McCoy's ale bottle. Of course, the makers of the movie didn't know or care what year TOS took place exactly, and the 2233 thing thus only comes from later chrono-speculation...

The "15 years after TOS/Space Seed" thing is pretty vague as well, and could be interpreted which way fits the theory du jour the best.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Timo said:
Actually, folks stopped trying to correct Kirk's "Gamma Hydra II" error pretty soon, resorting to cringes instead.

I just rewatched this episode & Kirk's comment about his age comes before his confusion about "Gamma Hydra II" and the courts correction there of. So if he had been incorrect about his own age it would have been the first instance during the hearing of Kirk's diminished mental state rearing its head. If this had been the case I think someone would have mentioned it, as they hadn't yet given up correcting him. Again, I see no reason to doubt the fact as stated.
 
...Me neither - except if STXI explicitly gives us a different birthdate. In that case, I'd rather readjust Kirk's age than readjust the dating of the TOS episodes.

But I doubt they will alter that detail for the movie. They already picked the actor to match the age they got from the reference books, right? So there's no concrete pressure to change things.

Timo Saloniemi
 
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