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I’ve complained about mentioned in a few threads that while I love TOS, I find the TOS movies pretty much unwatchable because Kirk feels so out of character. How many others share this view? Is he more TOS like in some movies or scenes than others?
For me, the most un-TOS Kirk thing is having David not be part of his life.
Similarly, Picard is quite out of character in the TNG movies, turning from archaeology to dune buggies.
Are there any other characters that feel completely different in the movies?
People often change when they get older so it's only natural that fictional people might do the same... but the way that Picard changed as a character as Patrick Stewart gained more control annoyed me greatly.
When the Picard family died in Generations, they took a piece of Jean-Luc with them.
Kirk was much better developed in the movies than he ever was in TOS.
On the other hand, they just shamelessly turned Picard into an action hero in the TNG films, something he absolutely was not in the show. I don't consider that to be character development. More like the writers (and obviously Stewart himself) wanting to change the character into something he really was never meant to be.
I guess Picard had a mid-life crisis, and turning into an action hero was the result.
As far as Kirk not having had David in his life, TWOK presented that as Carol's decision, as Kirk had his life among the stars, and Carol didn't want David to be part of that. Kirk would have had to have given up starship command, or fleet command at Starfleet headquarters or wherever, to be with Carol and David wherever Carol's scientific career took her.
Kirk was only out of character in TMP until Spock arrived. The way he greeted Bones was very weird, shoving his hand forward when he didn't immediately take it.
Picard's aggression in FC is simply because he is dealing with his BOBW trauma again, and for the first time with real confrontation therapy.
The change of Picard into an action star is one of the reasons I prefer Generations to the other TNG movies, because he and the rest of the characters still feel like themselves.
The change of Picard into an action star is one of the reasons I prefer Generations to the other TNG movies, because he and the rest of the characters still feel like themselves.
I suppose. It just seems so forced and out of place. And then we get to the future movies and it's "you should turn off your emotion chip for now" and "he didn't take his emotion chip with him." So what was the point?
Kirk wasn't out of character in the TOS Movies, just older, in different circumstances, and more had happened to him. There are a few nitpicks, but they're not enough to tip the scales, so I voted Not Out of Character.
Picard wasn't really out of character in Generations and First Contact. That doesn't come until Insurrection and Nemesis, where I think he's really out of character. I split the difference and voted A Bit Out of Character.
I'm going with Picard was going through a mid-life crisis. He's certainly not Action Hero Rambo Picard in PIC. Even though Patrick Stewart's greater influence in general did remain.
I can see more and more of William Shatner in Kirk as the TOS Movies go on, but it blended in well enough for me as a viewer that I personally don't have an issue with it.
Short version:
Kirk is sometimes out of character but sometimes is. Some of the discontinuity can be attributed to being 15 years older. Sometimes not, often due to the movie needing to have a certain element (e.g. comedy) that forces the character to be unlike the character. Best of all, being 15 years later and exploring new types of plotting, and I'll highlight those below, even some of the times Kirk is bordering unKirk, he still feels his authentic self.
As for Picard? He's got an almost complete character shift goin' on, since his movies come right after TNG ended. You know, where Q promised Picard some of the real unknowns he will face*. How much headcanon is needed to make this work, it's another reason why a gap of time can make events more plausible, especially if narration or theme helps explain upfront any character changes. IMHO, YMMV.
* And what were those new unknowns? A universe contracting situation with Soran, the Borg yet again, the same splintered species that would be ideal guests for the Jerry Springer show, and the most contrived and idiotic plotline about a clone experiment failing that led to the Reman slave race building the best ship of all best ships ever and somehow the Romulans running the big joint all failed to notice. Okey dokey then...
The long and sleep-inducing version: (aka individual movie breakdown)
TMP: Set 5 years after TOS, something about Kirk does feel off. Can't quite pinpoint it and it's not due to obsession with the ship. Given Kirk's knowledge and micromanagement, would he be this quick to take command? The script does try to address this, but it still doesn't feel quite right. There are popsicle sticks don't come across as stiff. Was Adam the space hippie right in calling him stiff? Well... All that said, Kirk does have some strengths, buty his persona is still a little off in this.
TWOK: Set 15 years after TOS. Older, wiser, middle-aged, semi-retired, etc, took McCoy's advice in getting command back to keep his brain going - instead of adding to his collection with his own self - but he'd still let his guard down because he wouldn't listen to book-smart Saavik fairly quoting regulations, which is more tangible proof as to why good ship captains have parrots perched on their shoulders while diaper-clad because untrained parrots can make a mess, but I digress. Kirk still wins out in the end, mostly thanks to Spock offing himself in the process. It's heavy stuff but is well-told due to good script rewrites. He really does feel more like Kirk here and the passage of time, I think, gives some bonus points. Some people can change radically over time, not so much for others. It feels more believable here, even if he went from making speeches about "risk is our business" to "I reprogrammed the simulator to end run the rules".
TSFS: On the coattails of TWOK, this one truly is an undiscovered country for sure where no Kirk had gone before and it's huge. Kirk never had to face big big odds until now, never mind the end of TWOK, and does so solely for his best friend thanks to McCoy acting stranger than usual. This and TWOK, IMHO, did worldbuilding in some epic ways and needing two fleets of massive starships constantly shooting at each other wasn't required to be so engaging.
TVH: Everyone's just a comedy act for the bulk of this outing, so - no - he's not Kirk. Most succinct. Answer. Ever. (I know, I've just taken my temperature and it's running a little hot as well...)
TFF: He's a little too cartoony at times, partly because TVH ensured that a comedy routine would be inevitable, but yet the philosophical elements in the movie and for Kirk, outside of fluff lines like "Hiya Bones, am I late for dinner!!" stuff, feels very Kirk-like. Kirk of TOS really would ask what anybody needed with a starship. Kirk of TOS would do a brazen hostage rescue if need be.
TUC: n years since TFF. The movie seems to be a little forced with the racist elements drags down points. Like pounding a square peg into a slightly smaller round hole, Kirk is a bit off at times, but not as bad as TMP. He's also more unsure of himself in ways than in TWOK as, this time, the uncertainty is the largest he's ever faced. That said, too many times in TOS (esp. later in TOS, and brownie points for TSFS) has Kirk shown tolerance and grace that defy his antics in this one. The movie tries to pass it all simply via "never forgive them for the death of my boy", but is it really as simple as one incident? Did all of his dealings all weigh on him so much, or is it really nothing more than the movie changing character motivations to suit the plot?
---INTERMISSION---
---END INTERMISSION, RETURNING TO THE PROGRAMME ALREADY IN PROGRESS---
GEN: Kirk likes horses while retiring in the mountains and frying eggs'n'bacon now, directly countering what Bones told him n years earlier about keeping command and it's his first best destiny and all that? (Never mind telling him to watch the cholesterol intake.) Um, okay... That aside, the crew did stand down in TUC, and the continuity of dying alone definitely comes into place and there's otherwise a philosophical bent with Kirk ruminating, which was missed. Especially as he was alone in a different time and knew nobody. As for Picard, Picard seems his usual self for the most part, which is about as much Picardy as he'd ever be in the four Picard films, unfortunately.
FC: Jean-Luc McClane is now punching, kicking, gunslinging, wisecracking, swinging on cables and doing all but a Tarzen yell, which surprisingly wouldn't have been out of place given the crass comedy also in a script that also makes the least amount of sense to date.
INS: Picard starts out okay, if not in an early season-1 way that nobody would have bought into in 1987 either, but still. Unfortunately, he switches back into McClane-mode soon enough, complete with Collector Array that had me wondering in the theater why a self-destruct button is now an assembly-line feature put into everything Star Trekky. Plus even more wisecracking, complete with 4th wall break about how he's getting too old to be actionflicking it up. Even Kirk in "Beyond" had a better reason to do the mopey middle-aged stereotype thing and Kirk's like 40 in that one, good grief... and, yes, we all preferred it back when the crew were explorers, and not because most of season 1 was better than this outing. It also makes even less sense than its predecessor.
NEM: There's an attempt in there somewhere to make Picard proper Picard again, but the TNG movies' reliance on comedy acts for a whiz-bang golly good time ended up diluting the franchise and this tonal whiplash went too much the other way. Plus, he's dune buggying and other things you'd see McClane do if they did a "Die Hard: Die Dunebuggying Die", though that would confuse translators as "Die Hard: The Dunebuggying The" sounds incredibly dumb... It also makes even less sense than its predecessors.
Lastly, about breaking it down and in a complete different direction to the rest of this post, even the aforementioned intermission...
...there's no implied correlation, apart from the words "break it down". ♪♫
Picard wasn't really out of character in Generations and First Contact. That doesn't come until Insurrection and Nemesis, where I think he's really out of character. I split the difference and voted A Bit Out of Character.
I'm going with Picard was going through a mid-life crisis. He's certainly not Action Hero Rambo Picard in PIC. Even though Patrick Stewart's greater influence in general did remain.
I think that is fair about Picard. Given what happened to his family in Generations and his traumatic history with the Borg, his actions in those two films can be seen as natural for his character. But there's simply no reconciling "action hero Picard" of Insurrection and Nemesis with the character we'd all grown to know and love over the years.
The Picard of PIC is a more mixed bag for me. Season 1 was absolutely a totally different character. I see Patrick Stewart's influence all over that season and I find it very un-believable even as an older Picard. Season 2 was better, but the backstory with his mother just doesn't work for me based on what we knew of the character all those years. Season 3 was the closest I felt we got to a natural evolution and aging of the character. And taken as a whole, it feels like we watch three different lead characters throughout only 30 episodes.
I can see more and more of William Shatner in Kirk as the TOS Movies go on, but it blended in well enough for me as a viewer that I personally don't have an issue with it.
I suppose. It just seems so forced and out of place. And then we get to the future movies and it's "you should turn off your emotion chip for now" and "he didn't take his emotion chip with him." So what was the point?
Bingo. Not only Picard's Picardisms are put to the side. The egregious discontinuity for Data was increasingly mindbogglingly bad. First it's fused and cannot be removed. Then he can turn it on or off at will (or at Will) as a throwaway line, so how did Data reprogram himself and if he can do that with ease, what else can he do? Who wouldn't be worried? Then he can remove it at will, used as a throwaway line - at what point did the technology to replicate Data become the norm and who operated on Data to un-fuse then make it socketed?. Then, lastly, there's not only no throwaway one-liner about it, Data acts like he's never had it in "Nemesis". That I recall of, anyway. Either which way, why not keep the theme in "Generations" of "it's fused, learn to integrate" instead of just switching it on and off like what errant kids do in a hotel conference room in order to make all the guests wonder "Oi, what's happening?!".
Kirk was only out of character in TMP until Spock arrived. The way he greeted Bones was very weird, shoving his hand forward when he didn't immediately take it.
Picard's aggression in FC is simply because he is dealing with his BOBW trauma again, and for the first time with real confrontation therapy.
But he'd dealt with the Borg prior to that, twice, and Starfleet had no qualms. Well, maybe the second time in admonishing him for nursing one back to health after a few contrived scenes took place because we had to connive a way to work around a foe that could never change at its core, especially for Picard. (Nitpick aside, it's a refreshing original take as well as an attempt to not do the same-old action shlock again, and "Descent" - at least in pt 1 - had a terrific dramatic outcome. )
Agreed with generally not. Kirk really doesn't seem different, even though in pretty different circumstances, and already varied quite a bit within the series.
Agreed Picard felt quite still same character in Generations and FC, even though in very different circumstances in FC, and I would also add Insurrection to that, I would consider him still only reluctant and limited action hero there, mostly just in the climax and that still pretty in line with both "Starship Mine" and Generations. But Nemesis, though it's been a long time since I watched it, yes feeling like very different character for most of it.
Never felt Kirk was out of character in the movies. This is probably due to the fact that he was always meant to be a bit of an action hero, which translated well into the movies since they were also often based on that concept.
With Jean-Luc it's different, he was indeed a diplomat on TNG and then suddenly a phaser rifle slinging action hero in the last two movies. I can understand the way he behaves in First Contact, we see him acting very similarly in "I, Borg" when he's ready to obliterate the Borg with a virus and lectures LaForge on not getting too attached to Hugh and likens the whole thing to scientists getting too attached to animals they did tests on. So, this does have a precedence - his Borg PTSD.
But Insurrection and Nemesis just... feel slightly off. I mean it's clearly still Jean-Luc, but with an added (and rather unwanted) bonus of "diplomat turned action hero" that feels very shoehorned in. I mean yes, there's stuff like "Starship Mine" on TNG where he's basically also an action hero, but that's mostly because it's being forced on him by the circumstances (he's the only one left who can defend his ship, etc). In the last two movies it feels like as if he CHOSE to become an action hero to look cool. Big difference, and probably why it feels weird.
He did, but in "I, Borg" it was a single Borg, and the Borg in "Descent" weren't acting like normal Borg and were a much smaller subset controlled by Lore.
First Contact was the first time they were dealing with the Normal Borg, a.k.a. the "Resistance is Futile" Borg, since "The Best of Both Worlds", complete with a Borg Cube on its way to invade Earth.
Never felt Kirk was out of character in the movies. This is probably due to the fact that he was always meant to be a bit of an action hero, which translated well into the movies since they were also often based on that concept.
With Jean-Luc it's different, he was indeed a diplomat on TNG and then suddenly a phaser rifle slinging action hero in the last two movies. I can understand the way he behaves in First Contact, we see him acting very similarly in "I, Borg" when he's ready to obliterate the Borg with a virus and lectures LaForge on not getting too attached to Hugh and likens the whole thing to scientists getting too attached to animals they did tests on. So, this does have a precedence - his Borg PTSD.
But Insurrection and Nemesis just... feel slightly off. I mean it's clearly still Jean-Luc, but with an added (and rather unwanted) bonus of "diplomat turned action hero" that feels very shoehorned in. I mean yes, there's stuff like "Starship Mine" on TNG where he's basically also an action hero, but that's mostly because it's being forced on him by the circumstances (he's the only one left who can defend his ship, etc). In the last two movies it feels like as if he CHOSE to become an action hero to look cool. Big difference, and probably why it feels weird.
It's not as "in your face" indeed. But then that's precisely my point - with Jean-Luc the action heroing feels "in your face" because it goes so much against the very nature of the character we see in seven seasons of TNG. Kirk as a character was far better suited for movies like the ones the studio wished to make. You can have him in a more quiet setting AND in an action-oriented one, he'll go from one to the other within a few minutes, no problem.
With Jean-Luc... they would have had to change their strategy. They would have had to make more movies like Generations. He needs a different kind of setting that fits to his character traits. They weren't really interested in doing this anymore at some point, though.
In short: They didn't make movies for a character, they made a character for their movies. No wonder it didnt't fit anymore by the time Nemesis came around.
It's not as "in your face" indeed. But then that's precisely my point - with Jean-Luc the action heroing feels "in your face" because it goes so much against the very nature of the character we see in seven seasons of TNG. Kirk as a character was far better suited for movies like the ones the studio wished to make. You can have him in a more quiet setting AND in an action-oriented one, he'll go from one to the other within a few minutes, no problem.
With Jean-Luc... they would have had to change their strategy. They would have had to make more movies like Generations. He needs a different kind of setting that fits to his character traits. They weren't really interested in doing this anymore at some point, though.
In short: They didn't make movies for a character, they made a character for their movies. No wonder it didnt't fit anymore by the time Nemesis came around.
Honestly, I don't think it was "they" who weren't interested in doing this anymore, I think it was Patrick Stewart. He has made it clear on numerous occasions that he wanted to see more physical action for the captain during the series, as well as more romantic relationships. He put it more crudely, saying the captain needed more "fighting" and "f***ing." But he didn't have the level of control over the series to really make those things happen. The movies were a different story.
Which all goes back to my basic theory that actors should never, ever, ever, under any circumstance, for any reason, be given any level of creative control
Sir Patrick was the main star of the entire thing. Without him, no movie. On top of that, the studio was money-hungry and greedy after the success of First Contact. It's as much their fault as it is his. He didn't need the studio. The studio needed him. (Do I think his ideas were good? No. I'm just saying that the fault isn't his alone. They nagged at him to make more movies. He wasn't too thrilled at the idea, so, he came up with demands for his involvement. This is just what happens in the industry.)
They already bent to his ideas during TNG tho, this was nothing new - he was used to having a lot of influence over the character of Jean-Luc Picard. The line about more fighting etc. is from when he went to the producers and complained about Jean-Luc's character at the end of season 2 of TNG. Hence why from season 3 onwards Jean-Luc was a little different (nobody seems to complain about THIS change) AND he got his wish with episodes like "Captain's Holiday".
