Kirk was a Jerk

[Shieldsdown]

Kegek said:

trevanian said:
and the first shoot of the Kirk/Carol scene (wth Checkov sleeping) implied that Kirk was unaware of David's existence, not that he turned a blind eye to it.

That's always how I still read the film. Kirk seems very surprised to hear he has a son at all. And he certainly makes the effort to get closer to David subsequently, so these are not good grounds for calling Kirk a jerk.

Is not there a scene where David and Carol are talking and David refers to Kirk as "that boy scout type you once hung around with", or words to that effect. Seems like Carol had not yet told him that Kirk was his father. It is not really justified to consider Kirk a jerk for ignoring a son that he seems not to have known about.

Regards

 

[HRHTheKING]

For letting Carol Marcus keep him away from his son.

He should have fought for his right to be a part of his son's life. Even if it was just regular contact and occasional visitation...

What a jerk.

We don't the circumstances that led to their break-up. There may have been issues that we are unaware of. So it's unfair to call him a jerk.

 

[starburst]

Shieldsdown said:
Is not there a scene where David and Carol are talking and David refers to Kirk as "that boy scout type you once hung around with", or words to that effect. Seems like Carol had not yet told him that Kirk was his father. It is not really justified to consider Kirk a jerk for ignoring a son that he seems not to have known about.

Id forgotten about this bit. Even if Kirk knows full well that David was his son (or if he didnt) how can you call him a Jerk when Carol obviously never told David who his father was but obviously he knew of her and Kirks relationship...he just did what she wanted and stayed away, she lied to her son. If you ask me thats worse.

 

[Timo]

If we only discuss the events we saw on screen in the final release, Jim Kirk knows fully well that he has a son named David. After all, his first comment after his attacker identifies himself as "Doctor Marcus" is an exclamation of dawning understanding: "This is David?". Jim has not been prompted as to the guy's first name at that point yet, by Carol or anybody else.

While Kirk knows he has a son, and even knows his name, he clearly hasn't seen this son or heard of him for a long time. He doesn't recognize David by looks, and he doesn't seem to know (or even be capable of fathoming the idea) that David could have become "Doctor Marcus" during daddy's absence.

The later dialogue between Jim and Carol does not contradict the initial impression that Kirk knowingly left behind a son, and then stayed out of contact very efficiently for most of the son's life.

Is not there a scene where David and Carol are talking and David refers to Kirk as "that boy scout type you once hung around with", or words to that effect. Seems like Carol had not yet told him that Kirk was his father.

I wouldn't go that far. Surely David would have come up with colorful expressions for the man he refuses to call his father! And surely his tone of voice is sarcastic to the extreme when he discusses Jim Kirk with his mom. I see no indication that David would not know who his father is - mainly because there is no "revelation" scene as regards the fact, and there surely would be if the fact came as news to David.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[trevanian]

But that was the point of the earlier post, the film itself contains contradictions BECAUSE of the reshoots! He doesn't know Kirk is his father, hence his boy scout comment and his willingness to kill Kirk (esp in the first version shot.)

You can rely just on onscreen info, but when the onscreen info is contradictory, you have to use a bit o' imagination or research or extrapolation to fill things in.

 

[starburst]

Ok so if your saying that David knows Kirk was his dad how come he never sought him out, Kirk by this point was getting to hero status along with the Enterprise and its crew.

Even though there is no revelation scene I always felt that David was the one in the dark and that Kirk was doing exactly what Carol wanted putting his own feelings aside

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Timo said:
If we only discuss the events we saw on screen in the final release...

Which is all that matters, period.

...Jim Kirk knows fully well that he has a son named David. After all, his first comment after his attacker identifies himself as "Doctor Marcus" is an exclamation of dawning understanding: "This is David?". Jim has not been prompted as to the guy's first name at that point yet, by Carol or anybody else.
.
.
.
The later dialogue between Jim and Carol does not contradict the initial impression that Kirk knowingly left behind a son, and then stayed out of contact very efficiently for most of the son's life.

You're Absolutely Right(TM).

 

[ClayinCA]

Mike Have-Not said:
I'm saying that Jim Kirk was courageous enough to stand up to Klingons, Romulans, Salt Vampires, etc. but he wasn't brave enough to put up a fight for a relationship with his son?

Gee, sounds like you're saying he's human to me...

It's much easier to be heroic on a grand scale, while still being all kinds of messed up in your personal life (hell, Stan Lee has made an entire career out of writing heroes with exactly this problem). I think the notion that planet-saving, Klingon-busting, supercomputer-destroying, great-speech-in-the-third-act-making James T. Kirk is still an imperfect human being who is quite clearly shown as being afraid of his son on many levels.

One of the reasons why The Wrath of Khan is such a great film.

 

[trevanian]

Starship Polaris said:

Timo said:
If we only discuss the events we saw on screen in the final release...

Which is all that matters, period.

An extraordinarily shortsighted POV, given that movies and TV exist not just as released entities, but as items that fester and grow in the public consciousness, causing debate and even stimulating people to career choices and in some cases to create websites to debate (gasp) the vagaries of those very movies and TV shows.

Yeah, the only thing that matters is what is on screen. Surrre. By that same argument, you probably have to figure that TWOK takes place during a bad couple days in Saavik's menstrual cycle, since she is tempermental throughout, but even-tempered to the point of being nearly comatose during SFS and TVH. No, it doesn't wash, you HAVE to take into account that the director is altering the character to his own end or come up with some bs to justify the fact that this is not the same character at all. And it really isn't. Saavik was written to be half-Rom, directed to be half-Rom, and played in TWOK to be half-Rom. Now Bennett can say she didn't seem all that Romulan to him so it wasn't any big deal to ignore it and play up the Vulcan aspect when Nimoy directed SFS, but that's Bennett ignoring the work on-screen as well as what got cut when it went from 129 minutes to 113 for theatrical release, and also trying to downplay after the fact what Kirstie Alley brought to it (for better or for worse, since I'm not gonna get into a who's the best Saavik when they are separate entities in my mind.)

What is on screen has to be evaluated in context. When a film is a sequel to another film that is a followup to a long-dead TV show, there's context and backstory, and all of that plays into evaluating and appreciating the drama. Watch what is up on screen in TWOK and on that basis, decide that Kirk losing Edith Keeler was not a mega-important event, because he has never had to face death. No. Just cuz it was up on screen doesn't invalidate a good bit from before.

 

[Mandra]

trevanian said:
Part of the problem here is that what we see in the film between Kirk and Carol is a reshoot. Apparently the discarded sequence (seen on a poster) where David has a knife at Kirk's throat and is only disuaded from using it when Carol says somthing like, "use that and you'll have killed your father" and the first shoot of the Kirk/Carol scene (wth Checkov sleeping) implied that Kirk was unaware of David's existence, not that he turned a blind eye to it.

I seem to recall actually seeing a scene like that when I originally watched the movie (in the theatre). I was surprised when I watched it on tape recently and that scene wasn't there.

 

[jayrath]

For all we know, Kirk fought hard to keep infant David in his life, but Carol pushed him away. Maybe he even asked Carol to marry him. It does sound that she wanted to keep the baby herself, rather than "traipsing around the galaxy" with poppa. Just because we didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

We didn't see bathrooms, either, but I assume they were around.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

jayrath said:
For all we know, Kirk fought hard to keep infant David in his life, but Carol pushed him away.

The conversation between Kirk and Marcus indicates otherwise. Kirk's "I did what you wanted" seems to come across to Marcus as an old, old song. He did what he wanted.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Mandra said:
I seem to recall actually seeing a scene like that when I originally watched the movie (in the theatre). I was surprised when I watched it on tape recently and that scene wasn't there.

I remember that too. David attacks Kirk...I remember it fairly distinctly...weird..

 

[Anubis]

Mike Have-Not said:

Anubis said:
Of course he's a jerk. Why do you think all the chicks dig him?!

That's funny 'cause it's (almost) true!

But, I know there are plenty of chicks out there who dig non-jerks...

Yes, and I'd be up to meeting any of you.

 

[Timo]

Ok so if your saying that David knows Kirk was his dad how come he never sought him out, Kirk by this point was getting to hero status along with the Enterprise and its crew.

Seems obvious to me: David hated Jim's guts (although not enough to go find and kill him).

It's the old story: boy meets girl, girl gets pregnant, boy walks out claiming this is for the best, girl raises son while still thinking fondly of boy, son grows up hating his dad and refusing to even speak his name, boy and girl meet again and sort it all out in the warm glow of photon torpedo explosions.

If there was anything else to it in the early versions of the script, the people who rule the Trek universe decided it wasn't good enough and cut it all out, leaving what we see on screen.

Sure, one might want to argue about a broader Trek universe, one that includes all sorts of novels, fan fiction, outtakes and blooper reels. But that never helps when the point is to weed out contradictions, supposedly in an effort to make the Trek universe look and feel more like a real world.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[starburst]

Starship Polaris said:

jayrath said:
For all we know, Kirk fought hard to keep infant David in his life, but Carol pushed him away.

The conversation between Kirk and Marcus indicates otherwise. Kirk's "I did what you wanted" seems to come across to Marcus as an old, old song. He did what he wanted.

I never thought of it that way, its always seemed that he had done what she wanted and we may well never find out how long it took before he actually did what she wanted.

 

[Borjis]

Was it the TAS episode: The Practical Joker
that had "kirk is a jerk" on the back of kirk's shirt?

The enterprise thinks he is a jerk

 

[cardinal biggles]

<----- Yes.

 

[dkehler]

The earlier conversation between Carol Marcus and David goes something like:

David: Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of man...
Carol: Listen, kiddo, Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout.

So clearly, David knew that Kirk was his father.

With respect to the later conversation between Carol and Jim, it went something like:

Kirk: I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn't you tell me?
Carol: How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father.

It looks to me that what Kirk is saying is that Carol asked him to stay away from HER, probably because he had chosen his Starfleet career over her early on and she had been deeply hurt by that decision. But it also seems to clearly indicate that he didn't know that David was HIS son, but that Carol had told him of this moments before offscreen.

It's the only way to make sense of what is being said that I can think of.

 

[cardinal biggles]

^Except that during the fight you have this exchange:

(from memory; I'll fix it when I get home from work and can check the DVD)

Kirk: Where's Dr. Marcus?
David: I'm Dr. Marcus.
Carol: Jim!
Kirk: Carol? Is that David?

So what exactly Kirk knew and when he discovered it is a bit muddy.