I am glad to see this.
I honestly don't know why people get so angry about what someone else likes/dislikes. Why do you (collective you) care?
Anyway, let's all keep this civil at least.
Thanks. Carry on.
Kirk drift—misremembering a character…
- Thread starter Warped9
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I am glad to see this.
I honestly don't know why people get so angry about what someone else likes/dislikes. Why do you (collective you) care?
Anyway, let's all keep this civil at least.
Thanks. Carry on.
I was using the term "art" to refer to any medium, movies, music, etc. In that sense, a discussion like this, talking about elements of a work and their effect on the whole is like "art appreciation." I may have misunderstood your meaning. What I got from your post was that you were frustrated because you felt that years of over-analysis had taken Star Trek's meaning far from the intentions of the "artists." I was merely pointing out that knowing sometimes the artist's intentions can enhance a work, but sometimes we see something in a work that is not an artist's intentions, yet still holds meaning to us.
I am thinking of a "Growing Pains" episode in which Ben goes to a meet and greet with a musician who had written a song supposedly about how much the musician loved his wife, but the musician was really a jerk and unfaithful. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that Ben had to face the decision of whether to reject the music because of the person, or just enjoy the music and ignore what he knew about the person.
The 2009 film has moments that seem almost like one of those movies that take a show from the 60's-80's and use comedy, almost parody, to re-examine that shows elements. The Brady Bunch movie comes to mind, with its presenting the Brady's as ridiculous and outdated (albeit that show was a comedy from the start). Audiences are expected to both smile at the parts of the old show that worked, and laugh at the parts that are supposedly silly. They are supposed to laugh "at" the show and "with" the show. On the other hand the 2009 film has moments that seem like Star Trek being made by people who feel that original material works.
It seems that in the making of the 2009 film, the budget was upped considerably in the process. To your point, I get the impression that the film started as a sort of light-heated revisit to the show of the 60's and got turned into a major summer film that essentially kept Paramount from going bankrupt at the time.
In my view, the actual problem with the 2009 film is that it skips large blocks of time in which important events happen. The skipping to keep the plot was fine, they just skipped too much. Young Kirk probably had consequences for stealing the car, but they did not show it, which leaves the impression that he got away with what he did, or at least that it was funny. Within the 2009 film, the skip from the end of the main plot to the scene with Kirk in command could have been many years in the future, it was only the 2013 film that claimed it was six months. A montage of studying, graduation, missions under other commanders, a cut to the scene where Pike has chosen Kirk as his Relief Captain, and then the scene with Kirk in command, could have filled the gaps quickly without looking like Kirk skips many ranks and gets no consequences for negative choices, without needing a second movie to re-visit Kirk needing to rise to command.
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For JJ-Kirk to get command of the Enterprise, even six months seems fast.
TOS-Sulu would have killed for a career track like that. He spent three years looking back over his shoulder when something appeared on the viewscreen.
TOS-Sulu would have killed for a career track like that. He spent three years looking back over his shoulder when something appeared on the viewscreen.
He got an A in that class at the Academy.
On this point I largely. I think 09 has issues with not giving time for scenes to breathe fully and linger a bit with those moments. I love the film, especially Kirk's arc, but I think that film was one or two more script passes, as well as slower moments to really highlight the choice and consequences. I think a montage at the end (an idea I borrowed from SF Debris) of moving from cadet, to senior officer, commendations and wards being given and then ending with him as captain. I think it would have benefit from one more pass on the script, which they couldn't have.
It's one thing I think that many don't see the Kirk arc as I do because the film's pacing doesn't let those important emotion beats land. Kirk asking Spock about his father has a deep resonance of why this Kirk is different; not as a pop culture misremembering, but an acknowledgement that his life is different and he knows the source. He just doesn't know how, until Pike shows him, mentors him and creates a way to find purpose.
But, yeah the film skips some moments, and I think the character beats could have lasted longer.
Ironically, they had to stop revising the script because of a writer's strike, but the same people had to keep directing and producing.
Unless I'm mistaken a director would have the right to tell an actor to say a different line from what was in the script, use an outtake with a wrong line as the actual take if it "felt" the the right take, etc., but since the director/producers were the writers, any such changes would have been done "by the writers" and broken the strike. What a strange circumstance.
Even the music cues ended up in a different order from what was intended when recorded because the final film did not always have the emotional moments in the way that was expected. That's why the soundtrack CD does not match the order of the cues in the movie, although there is no reason it would have to match anyway.
Intent does not matter compared to actual impact. The actual impact of "The Cage" is that it casts women as either threatening Jezebels or submissive potential conquests, and centers hetero male desires. That inherently puts women down.
I question that.
Which is, itself, misogynistic.
The fact that you don't happen to enjoy their creative decisions does not mean that the creators of SNW don't respect the original source material.
I think the point of that scene was to demonstrate that Kirk was a troubled young man who needed to mature in order to become the great leader he had the potential to become. Like, literally his next big scene involves getting into a bar fight because a dude tried to make him stop sexually harassing Nyota.
He did. He got his ass kicked at the bar, and then later he got his ass dumped onto Delta Vega. Now, was that enough of a comeuppance? Arguably not, and I think part of the reason he literally dies in Into Darkness was to try to give him more of a general comeuppance to make him grow up a bit. Whether or not that writing choice worked well is another question, but the narrative function seems pretty clear.
Usually people care when they perceive that the fundamental value system which informs whether or not the other guy likes something as being a potential threat to their own values.
All three women have desires of their own. They are the objects of male desire but Pike is the object of female desire. You are failing to practice what you preach by only viewing them in the way that you criticise.
Number One in particular is not submissive. She directs the landing party, she sets the phaser to overload. She's just less overtly emotional and more analytical. Colt is not submissive either, she's plucky but green. I think the yeomen devolved a bit after Colt and became more submissive, with occasional glimpses of competence.
There isn't anything in "The Cage" to tell us what you say about Colt, except only the "plucky but green" part.
The sum total of Colt's lines are quoted below [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/1.htm]:
COLT: Yes, sir. [...]
COLT: But you wanted the reports by oh five hundred. It's oh five hundred now, sir. [...]
COLT: We were the only ones transported. [...]
COLT: Leave him alone. [...]
COLT: Picked her? For what? I don't understand. [...]
COLT: Offspring, as in children? [...]
COLT: Captain. [...]
COLT: What's happened to Vina? [...]
COLT: Yes, sir. [...]
COLT: Sir, I was wondering. Just curious. Who would have been Eve? [...]
COLT: Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir.
Is this "Colt drift," here?
I suppose technically you are right since her line volunteering for landing party duty was ultimately cut:
From Memory Alpha: "In another example of scripted but ultimately omitted dialogue, Colt was established as having had the same training as everyone else on the Enterprise, despite being new to the ship herself."
The Cage was the only time that the yeoman did sort of fulfill the army batman role. Pike's original yeoman was killed / MIA while supporting him on a landing party and his new yeoman, Colt, beams down to the planet to join the search. Youth and strength are not bad traits if your duties are more than administrative.
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Pauln6 said:
Mostly true but Pauln6's comment about Colt being "not submissive" sounds correct. Would Colt be submissive even though she cuts off Pike berating her in front of everyone on the bridge and gets Pike to back down?
PIKE: Yeoman!
COLT: Yes, sir?
PIKE: I thought I told you that when I'm on the bridge, I exp...
Colt interrupts Pike.
COLT: But you wanted the reports by oh five hundred. It's oh five hundred now, sir.
PIKE: Oh, I... I see. Thank you.
Why would she not have the same training as the rest of the crew? They're all Starfleet.
I agree. Her pertness at the end asking about who would have been Eve also backs that up.
If one accepts the premise that "intent does not matter," how could it be relevant if a writer "respects the source material"? In other words, I'm getting the impression that, if "The Cage" impacts you negatively, you seem to be suggesting that any positive intent should be overlooked, but then when someone suggests that a new series impacted them negatively, you would like us to remember their positive intent? I doubt this was your intention, but it comes across as though you are suggesting we "should" like the new show because it was written with current-day values as a result of progressivism, but that you would like us to look more critically at the older show just because it was written at a time when values were different. I cannot agree with that position: movies art and people like whatever effects them positively.
Again (and this is not directed at you specifically) but some of the words being used to describe TOS on this thread are words that would be seen as harsh criticisms in many contexts, and I would hesitate to use them about anything I liked.
Since this is a pilot, or, in this case, also a short movie, any character need only have lines that advance the plot or tell something about the universe of the story. Colt is only saying the words she would say doing her job in real life, and much that could be revealed abut her character is just saved for later (hopefully later episodes if the pilot sells). TMP is similar in this regard, which I think is part of why it seems so slow for some viewers.
The main issue I had with whether it was indicated that Colt was not submissive is that that concept was posited in conjunction with, as I read it, essentially the premise that Rand and the other post-Colt yeomen were written as more submissive than Colt. How is that the case? Rand pushed back and did not allow herself to be sexually harassed or assaulted by either Charlie Evans or Evil Kirk, and she confessed to Kirk that she'd tried to get him to notice her legs. Barrows was forward in her pursuit of McCoy. I have a hard time seeing Rand and the others as necessarily more submissive than Colt, who by comparison is a tabula rasa.
Furthermore, all of the yeomen were subordinate to the main characters, so any indication of "submissiveness" has to be filtered through that. The example you've shown is really necessarily indicative only of Colt obeying orders and being diligent to carry out her duties. There's a vast distinction between being a spineless wet noodle and "submissive." This example shows she's not the former. Additionally, carrying out orders is necessarily conforming to the will of others and, in that narrow sense, submissive.
I'm more advocating for "insufficient data" here regarding character issues than anything.
Exactly.
Nope. There you go again, failing to infer other people's motivations.
And their desires are all presented as being Christopher Pike, the cisgender heterosexual male main character who the audience is supposed to identify with. Nothing is told from their point of view; the only glimpse we get of their interior lives comes either from Talosian dialogue or from their revelations to Pike.
This bland assertion completely fails to consider the question of power dynamics. Power dynamics as they exist within the universe of the story, power dynamics in in terms of the construction of the narrative, and power dynamics as they exist in the real world.
Vina, Colt, and Una are indeed objects, because their agency is almost nonexistent and the entirely of their emotional lives as we see it in "The Cage" centers around desiring Pike. Pike, on the other hand, is the subject of their desires, but never an object -- because the narrative always centers Pike and gives him full dimensionality and agency.
Most male-centric, misogynistic fantasies feature men becoming the subjects of female desire. That doesn't make those fantasies not misogynistic.
And Talosian dialogue indicates that upon being captured, she starts concerning herself with the idea of becoming Pike's sexual partner -- a ludicrous notion when she had literally been abducted and aliens are trying to coerce her into a sexual relationship. This is the narrative's manifestation of the idea of female submission vis-a-vis Una: she's concerned with competing against Colt and Vina to become Pike's sex partner over trying to escape.
She spends the entire episode desperate to please him and literally finishes the episode wanting to know if Pike would have chosen her as his paramour. That's a depiction of female submission.
Indeed, the only elements of a text that count are the elements that are actually in the text.
Yes, because "she interrupted him once" doesn't change her fundamental motivations. Throughout the entire episode, her goal is to please Pike. Even this interruption is just an attempt to get him to realize that she has done her job well enough to deserve his approval.
Her "pertness at the end" is the final nail in the coffin to the idea that Colt in "The Cage" had any motivation other than gaining Pike's approval.
Because evaluating the impact of a work of art and the themes it advances is an entirely different question from evaluating the personal opinions of the artist. Seriously, your question is intellectually incoherent.
Intent does not matter to the question of whether a work of art advances an idea. Only the elements of the text matter. Here's an example: it is the common cliche that though John Milton was consciously a devout Christian, his Paradise Lost was written in such a way as to make Satan a more relatable and dramatically compelling character than Christ or God the Father -- he was, as the old saying goes, "of the Devil's party without knowing it." That was not Milton's intent, but it is the effect that the elements of the text have.
But if you're talking about the author's personal opinions, then clearly that's an entirely separate question. You can cite all the ways in which Paradise Lost casts Satan as a more relatable and dramatically compelling character than Christ or God, but the fact remains that John Milton was in real life a devout Christian; the elements of the text do not change that.
So it is with Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry's intent does not matter in evaluating whether or not "The Cage" is a misogynistic text; the elements of the text are what matter, and the elements of the text create a misogynistic text. But that's an entirely separate question from whether the writers of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds respect Star Trek: The Original Series; the elements of their text are actually not relevant to that question.
You are confusing subjective personal impact ("negative" or "positive") with ideological impact ("Do the elements of the text advance X idea or Y idea?"). "The Cage" has never negatively impacted me; I'm a white cisgender heterosexual Anglo-Saxon Protestant male. But I recognize that the ideas "The Cage" advocates about how men and women ought to relate to one-another are deeply regressive ideas rooted in patriarchy -- its ideological impact is to advance misogyny and patriarchy, even if that was not Roddenberry's conscious intent.
I understand that you mean to suggest the "work itself" has issues because of the gender roles in the story, but if you have that severe concern, why are you bringing it to the TOS forum, where, presumably, the poster mostly like TOS as it is?
"The Cage" does not "advocate" any gender roles. It was written in a time when stories typically featured a male protagonist for the audience to "play along with" while watching the show, even if they were not male. If you gender-flip "The Cage," every one of your criticisms disappears. I don't think you mean to be attacking the work, but it sure sounds like you are. This is not even a "product of its time" thing. Do you complain that you play as a male in most Mario games or that you have to play as a female in Metroid?
If you want to write a college paper using the content of your posts, have at it; it would probably score well in terms of structure. But I do not think it is an worthwhile intellectual endeavor to bring existential complaints about the thematic language of "The Cage" to a TOS forum.
To clarify what it is you're talking about, here is the bulk of the dialog concerning these particular aspects, AFAIK [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/1.htm]:
ONE: Captain! Captain.
VINA: No! Let me finish!
ONE: But we were a party of six.
COLT: We were the only ones transported.
VINA: It's not fair. You don't need them.
PIKE: (grabbing Colt's laser pistol) They don't work.
ONE: They were fully charged when we left. It's dead. (communicator) I can't make a signal. What is it?
PIKE: Don't say anything. I'm filling my mind with a picture of beating their huge, misshapen heads to pulp, thoughts so primitive they black out everything else. I'm filling my mind with hate.
VINA: How long can you block your thoughts? A few minutes, an hour? How can that help?
COLT: Leave him alone.
VINA: He doesn't need you. He's already picked me.
COLT: Picked her? For what? I don't understand.
VINA: Now, there's a fine choice for intelligent offspring.
COLT: Offspring, as in children?
ONE: Offspring as in he's Adam. Is that it?
VINA: You're no better choice. They'd have more luck crossing him with a computer.
ONE: Well, shall we do a little time computation? There was a Vina listed on that expedition as an adult crewman. Now, adding eighteen years to your age then.
(The Magistrate approaches the cell)
VINA: It's not fair. I did what you asked.
MAGISTRATE: Since you resist the present specimen, you now have a selection.
PIKE: I'll break out of this zoo somehow and get to you. Is your blood red like ours? I'm going to find out.
MAGISTRATE: Each of the two new specimens has qualities in her favour. The female you call Number One has the superior mind and would produce highly intelligent children. Although she seems to lack emotion, this is largely a pretence. She has often has fantasies involving you.
PIKE: All I want to do is get my hands on you. Can you read these thoughts? Images of hate, killing?
MAGISTRATE: The other new arrival has considered you unreachable but now is realising this has changed. The factors in her favour are youth and strength, plus unusually strong female drives.
VINA: No! Let me finish!
ONE: But we were a party of six.
COLT: We were the only ones transported.
VINA: It's not fair. You don't need them.
PIKE: (grabbing Colt's laser pistol) They don't work.
ONE: They were fully charged when we left. It's dead. (communicator) I can't make a signal. What is it?
PIKE: Don't say anything. I'm filling my mind with a picture of beating their huge, misshapen heads to pulp, thoughts so primitive they black out everything else. I'm filling my mind with hate.
VINA: How long can you block your thoughts? A few minutes, an hour? How can that help?
COLT: Leave him alone.
VINA: He doesn't need you. He's already picked me.
COLT: Picked her? For what? I don't understand.
VINA: Now, there's a fine choice for intelligent offspring.
COLT: Offspring, as in children?
ONE: Offspring as in he's Adam. Is that it?
VINA: You're no better choice. They'd have more luck crossing him with a computer.
ONE: Well, shall we do a little time computation? There was a Vina listed on that expedition as an adult crewman. Now, adding eighteen years to your age then.
(The Magistrate approaches the cell)
VINA: It's not fair. I did what you asked.
MAGISTRATE: Since you resist the present specimen, you now have a selection.
PIKE: I'll break out of this zoo somehow and get to you. Is your blood red like ours? I'm going to find out.
MAGISTRATE: Each of the two new specimens has qualities in her favour. The female you call Number One has the superior mind and would produce highly intelligent children. Although she seems to lack emotion, this is largely a pretence. She has often has fantasies involving you.
PIKE: All I want to do is get my hands on you. Can you read these thoughts? Images of hate, killing?
MAGISTRATE: The other new arrival has considered you unreachable but now is realising this has changed. The factors in her favour are youth and strength, plus unusually strong female drives.
It's Colt who is described by The Keeper (the name given to the character in "The Menagerie") as realizing that the potential now exists for Pike no longer to be unreachable for her, not Number One, who is only described as having (sexual) fantasies involving Pike.
I would agree that Number One jousting with Vina about her age has the distasteful subtext of sexual competition. But I don't believe that Number One had any motive except defeating the Talosians. With escape impossible, she was prepared to destroy them all.
Because it is a TOS episode and that is where TOS is to be discussed.
But here's the thing: At no point have I said I don't enjoy "The Cage!" It is, in fact, entirely possible to see things in something you object to and yet still enjoy the work. I think Forrest Gump is a work of right-wing propaganda, but I still enjoy it and still enjoy the love story between Forrest and Jenny. I recognize that it's both racist and historically inaccurate of Titanic to not feature the people of color who were passengers aboard the ship, but I still adore that film. The sexual politics of Game of Thrones are infamously problematic, but I still love that show. (Well, the first four seasons, anyway.)
So it is with "The Cage." I recognize that it is a misogynistic text. I also still enjoy it -- I like Jeffrey Hunter's performance; the Talosians remain nicely creepy and alien in spite of almost sixty years passing;* and I enjoy the overall aesthetic (which if were done today would be called reto-futurist). I also think most of the actors do a pretty good job with the material they're given. I can recognize that the text advocates ideas I strongly disapprove of yet still enjoy the work.
Of course it does. It centers a cisgender heterosexual male, depicts all of the women through the lens of his feelings towards them, presents him as being the subject of all of their sexual desires, frames Vina as a dangerous Jezebel, and frames Pike's leadership over all the female characters as good and natural. In all these ways, "The Cage" advances ideas about gender roles.
Which is an act of advancing a gender role -- the gender role of male leadership of male narrative centrality.
This is true! If my critique of a text is, "This text is advocating for [X idea]," then my critique does indeed disappear if the text start advocating for [Y idea] instead!
In that counter-factual scenario, "The Cage" would be advocating for female power over men -- it would be arguing for matriarchy rather than patriarchy. So, yes, if "The Cage" were arguing for matriarchy, then my critique that it is a patriarchal text would indeed disappear!
I don't "complain," but the fact that the vast majority of video games required people to play as male characters for a long time is, in fact, a deliberate creative choice that reflects widely-held, normative beliefs about the centrality of male agency in life over female agency. If this patriarchal belief weren't so widespread, then video game (and film, and TV) protagonists would be roughly 50/50 male/female. And, yes, these ideas and the ways they manifest -- Mario having to save the Princess! -- are worth recognizing and analyzing.
If other people don't want to recognize the ideas that are plainly being advocated in their entertainment, that's really not my problem.
* In point of fact, I didn't like the version of the Talosians we saw in Star Trek: Discovery nearly as much as the Talosians of "The Cage." They were just guys with big heads; the feeling of being truly alien was gone.
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