Killing Kirk was the stupidest move ever made!

[KirksFlyingFist]

I agree, killing Kirk was a fairly foolish move. I don't dislike the idea of Kirk dieing, so don't get me wrong, but it just wasn't done right. If Kirk was going to die, it should have been in a movie ABOUT Kirk. Oh well, what can you do?

Maybe with the reboot we'll see something else, somehow someway. You never know.

 

[Lynx]

I don't think it was the stupidest move ever made in Star Trek but I agree that it was stupid to bring back Kirk in "Generations" just to waste him. They should have left him and TOS alone.

 

[FormerLurker]

IIRC, Rick Berman had promised Gene Roddenberry in a letter* that Kirk's final fate would never be revealed. Obviously, once GR was dead, RB no longer felt he had to abide by that promise, and Generations was designed to break it. That's my theory.



*Like it or not, this comes dangerously close to being contractually binding.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

IIRC, Rick Berman had promised Gene Roddenberry in a letter* that Kirk's final fate would never be revealed. Obviously, once GR was dead, RB no longer felt he had to abide by that promise, and Generations was designed to break it. That's my theory.



*Like it or not, this comes dangerously close to being contractually binding.

Berman had no investment in the original cast at all and just wanted to have them come in to help his characters in TNG along the way to movies.

As far as Kirk dieing in "Generations" it should have been the epic moment of the film but the film itself was very small screen in feeling and script Berman really blew a great Star Trek opportunity then because the threat which was supposed to be the one that the previous generation couldn't solve leaving it for the next wasn't done and instead we got the nexus a very small scale idea indeed. If Generations hadn't been so disappointing than Kirk's death wouldn't be todays regret.

 

[Arpy]

I don't think it was the stupidest move ever made in Star Trek but I agree that it was stupid to bring back Kirk in "Generations" just to waste him. They should have left him and TOS alone.

I think this is the consensus among movie goers. Make that Trek fans. Among movie goers I think it's that the two captains together was awkward. Shatner hammed it up and Picard was RSC in a DS9 uniform.

This is where some fanboy chimes in "Well Sisko, or Janeway, and Kirk would have been better..." No. They wouldn't.

...Scotty and Chekov as token TOS characters there in the beginning too was awkward. So Nimoy and Kelly decided against, big deal. Have Kirk there alone. Melancholy as he was, it'd have probably been better.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Kirk and Picard finally meeting was the big selling point of Generations. If they hadn't done it, everybody would be complaining about how they missed a golden opportunity to bring the two captains together.

I think everyone knows that, but the dissatisfaction by some might be in the way it all played out.

Not everyone knows that, because I was replying to the message directly above mine that said they shouldn't have had any TOS characters in Generations.

I can't speak for that poster, but some other folks aren't TOS fans and really could have done without any TOS characters in Star Trek VII...even though I know why they did it, I can question was it truly necessary in the end or would Star Trek VII have been better as a TNG-only movie?

 

[FormerLurker]

It wasn't necessary. As GhostFaceSaint pointed out, Berman had no emotional investment in the TOS characters, and just wanted to have a film that said "These guys are done, it's our turn now." That's the main reason he killed Kirk in the first place.

 

[Cuhl]

I always thought Kirk should go out like Amelia Earhart and mysteriously disappear at some point in his career. Is he dead? Is he alive somewhere, having new adventures? Who knows? You can decide for yourself.

 

[number6]

Kirk's death came from Paramount, not Rick Berman.

 

[number6]

IIRC, Rick Berman had promised Gene Roddenberry in a letter* that Kirk's final fate would never be revealed. Obviously, once GR was dead, RB no longer felt he had to abide by that promise, and Generations was designed to break it. That's my theory.



*Like it or not, this comes dangerously close to being contractually binding.

Where did you hear this??

 

[PhasersOnStun]

I think Kirk's death matched the movie:

It was a bland, mediocre movie, in which Kirk died a bland, mediocre death.

 

[T'Girl]

The original ending. Kirk's original death. The quality is less than perfect, sorry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enBoGjEr2H8

 

[drychlick]

! am happy we saw kirk death! we all have to go sometime! all the other tos people live well over 100 year oid ! that not very real! ! am just mad he die not in a fight like he should have saving every1! love don

 

[The Wormhole]

! am happy we saw kirk death! we all have to go sometime! all the other tos people live well over 100 year oid ! that not very real! ! am just mad he die not in a fight like he should have saving every1! love don

Actually, the only TOS character we know of to live over 100 years are Spock and McCoy. Spock's Vulcan, so that's easily accepted. McCoy is a bit of a miracle, but for all we know 150 might be possible in the 24th century. Though I've always assumed that people living that long is a rarity, like people who make it to 100 in the modern day.

 

[SilentP]

! am happy we saw kirk death! we all have to go sometime! all the other tos people live well over 100 year oid ! that not very real! ! am just mad he die not in a fight like he should have saving every1! love don

Actually, the only TOS character we know of to live over 100 years are Spock and McCoy. Spock's Vulcan, so that's easily accepted. McCoy is a bit of a miracle, but for all we know 150 might be possible in the 24th century. Though I've always assumed that people living that long is a rarity, like people who make it to 100 in the modern day.

And though Scotty is alive in the TNG era (in Trek Lit, he's running the Starfleet Corps of Engineers), he's effectively been in stasis for a lot of time between the launch of the Enterprise-B and when the Enterprise-D discovered him.

 

[barnaclelapse]

IIRC, Rick Berman had promised Gene Roddenberry in a letter* that Kirk's final fate would never be revealed. Obviously, once GR was dead, RB no longer felt he had to abide by that promise, and Generations was designed to break it. That's my theory.



*Like it or not, this comes dangerously close to being contractually binding.

Really?

I didn't know that. That's kind of pathetic on Berman's part if that's the case.

 

[number6]

IIRC, Rick Berman had promised Gene Roddenberry in a letter* that Kirk's final fate would never be revealed. Obviously, once GR was dead, RB no longer felt he had to abide by that promise, and Generations was designed to break it. That's my theory.



*Like it or not, this comes dangerously close to being contractually binding.

Really?

I didn't know that. That's kind of pathetic on Berman's part if that's the case.

I seriously doubt the veracity of this whole "letter" thing..

Berman was always defending the GR vision, much to the consternation of the writing staff. The decision to kill Kirk came from higher up. Generations was designed to make a movie franchise out of the TNG series. Kirk's presence and death in that film was meant to pass the torch and close the chapter on TOS for good, thinking that they would get another six films out of TNG and possibly the other spinoff shows.. Of course it didn't quite happen that way, but I am pretty confident that a lot of these decisions didn't come from Rick Berman. He was just the producer of the Star Trek TV franchise.. He still had to deal with higher ups. GR would resist the suits and that's why the franchise was taken away from him. Without Berman we wouldn't have had DS9, VOY, ENT, GEN, FC, INS, or NEM.. and the "Starfleet Academy" reboot would have already happened with Matt Damon and Jennifer Anniston..

 

[RandyS]

I think that killing Kirk was vastly less stupid than killing the Enterprise-D.

So did I.

 

[Forbin]

Randy, I like your Sagal Sisters av. Those two were so freakin cute!

 

[Bluesteel]

You know what the stupidest move was? The fact that people make a fuss over Kirk. He's just a character. Get over it. I would personally prefer if they kept him out of the last film. It should have been a TNG exclusive cast.