Kirk's death

[Paradise City]

Nope. It was foolish to think that they had any hope of matching the emotional weight of Spock's death in TWOK when Kirk had had no previous connection to either Picard or Soran.

It also didn't help that the filmmakers apparently expected us to get more choked up about Data finding his cat than Captain Kirk dying.

The backroom cliquish nature of the TNG cast actually emerges out on screen in this film.

Kirk is no more lamented by the TNG gang than the average red shirt was when Kirk was a pup. Picard and Co are lost in their own problems and don't give a hoot that arguably the greatest hero of Starfleet history has just expired on their watch.

All the spinoffs (including the well-received DS9 crossover, aside from a bit near the end) have their characters not amazed by the original series Enterprise crew and that is, although perhaps disappointing to the viewers, believable as the events take place a century later. Would even someone in today's US military be thrilled to meet Ulysses Grant or William Sherman or Omar Bradley?

They can get this right. They got it right in Unification and Relics. That very elegantly weaved the different generations together keeping Spock and Scott in the spotlight delivering for us some world class episodes in the process.

I loved "Unification II" even though some felt it was pretty disrespectful to the original series but I thought "Relics" and Generations had a very similar, indeed somewhat dismissive, style with the crossover interactions (but again it's believable that the crew of the present would be much more concerned with solving the problems of the present).

Well, Sisko takes time out to have a yeoman scene with Kirk. That's a hero worship or veneration for the person of Kirk right there. Dax has lived through those times. But they are professionals and they got on with the crisis they are there to resolve. That episode was done well, it tends to support my position.

I think we live in a uniquely cynical age that has few heroes or no heroes at all. I don't think that is necessarily representative of Federation society though. Clearly Kirk has importance given that Starfleet felt disposed to confer other ships with the name Enterprise B,C,D, E and on it goes. I don't think Spot's survival should overshadow the consequences of Kirk's death, a death which didn't know what it was in cinematic terms.

I thought both Unification and Relics were excellently done and the TNG team and the TOS star moved in tandem in an effective way. I felt here they just plain didn't know what to do with Kirk in this film.

 

[Seven of Five]

I agree. He was just there for the sake of it. His best scene was the opening one on the Ent B, never mind the Nexus. The studio should have just let this be a TNG film.

 

[Timo]

Clearly Kirk has importance given that Starfleet felt disposed to confer other ships with the name Enterprise B,C,D, E and on it goes.

Or then the -A and -B are Kirk's doing, but Harriman is to be thanked for the -C and Garrett for the -D, etc...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nebusj]

All the spinoffs (including the well-received DS9 crossover, aside from a bit near the end) have their characters not amazed by the original series Enterprise crew and that is, although perhaps disappointing to the viewers, believable as the events take place a century later. Would even someone in today's US military be thrilled to meet Ulysses Grant or William Sherman or Omar Bradley?

Why are you supposing Kirk to be as significant as Grant or Sherman or Bradley? Why might he not be, in the grand scheme of things, someone as important to history as General Elwell Otis, or James Franklin Bell, or Hamilton Hawkins?

 

[eyeresist]

There's also that, at least as far as the Nexus seems to have rules, they would seem to suggest that anytime there's a real crisis someone could pop into the Nexus and pull out another copy of Kirk. He doesn't seem to be dead quite so much as having passed on to Avalon, ready for the day he's truly needed.

An intriguing idea. If we could pull an endless number of Kirks out of the Nexus as needed, we might end up with hundreds of duplicate Kirks running around. A ship crewed by Kirks!

Now that would be a clusterf*** (possibly literally).

 

[suarezguy]

Well, Sisko takes time out to have a yeoman scene with Kirk. That's a hero worship or veneration for the person of Kirk right there. Dax has lived through those times. But they are professionals and they got on with the crisis they are there to resolve.

It does indicate veneration from Sisko (although O'Brien and Bashir seem to have much less interest in or knowledge about the time period in general) but likewise Picard was also trying to resolve a crisis, I don't see how either focusing on their problems indicates clique-ishness.

I thought both Unification and Relics were excellently done and the TNG team and the TOS star moved in tandem in an effective way. I felt here they just plain didn't know what to do with Kirk in this film.

IMO in "Relics" Scotty felt like a (special) guest star, at most co-star, and La Forge the star (and Picard the co-star), and likewise in Generations (at least its second half) Kirk the special guest star and Picard the star. Agreed that Kirk could have been more and better utilized in the story and climax but OTOH it is hard to otherwise include him without him taking over the film.

Why are you supposing Kirk to be as significant as Grant or Sherman or Bradley?

Well he did have a lot of achievements, many major, and during a time when, IIRC, Starfleet was smaller. My point was even with those most current people wouldn't be awed. If he hasn't been as historically acclaimed it makes more sense that other crews wouldn't hold him in awe.

 

[Paradise City]

Well, Sisko takes time out to have a yeoman scene with Kirk. That's a hero worship or veneration for the person of Kirk right there. Dax has lived through those times. But they are professionals and they got on with the crisis they are there to resolve.

It does indicate veneration from Sisko (although O'Brien and Bashir seem to have much less interest in or knowledge about the time period in general) but likewise Picard was also trying to resolve a crisis, I don't see how either focusing on their problems indicates clique-ishness.

I thought both Unification and Relics were excellently done and the TNG team and the TOS star moved in tandem in an effective way. I felt here they just plain didn't know what to do with Kirk in this film.

IMO in "Relics" Scotty felt like a (special) guest star, at most co-star, and La Forge the star (and Picard the co-star), and likewise in Generations (at least its second half) Kirk the special guest star and Picard the star. Agreed that Kirk could have been more and better utilized in the story and climax but OTOH it is hard to otherwise include him without him taking over the film..

Scott dominated proceedings in Relics. He was the defacto star. He had scenes where he had strong dialogue in his own right, he was the pivot for the scenes with LaForge, Data and Picard. It was a great episode and Doohan was deployed brilliantly. If anything Doohan was the defacto star and everyone else the supporting cast.

In Unification there's a partnership between Stewart and Nimoy.

Star Trek Generations isn't TNG. They had the iconic James T Kirk on the books and they should've put him at centre stage jointly with the other team. Instead Kirk spends half the time dazed in disneyland until he gets whacked by a metal bridge.

I like Generations - generally - but they got carried away writing for the TNG people whom they knew well and got writers block when it came to Kirk. If that isn't cliquish, albeit with the best will in the world, then nothing is.

 

[OpenMaw]

Kirk's not really dead, as long as we remember him.

 

[TheGoodStuff]

I know many fans still gnash teeth over how Kirk died but...It has never really bothered me. Why? Because:

1. He dies fighting a random lunatic, well past his prime. To me there is a Trek-like poignancy in the simplicity of his death. He survives huge space battles, 'god'-like aliens and dies on a barren rock at the hands of a mad scientist. Kirk, as superhuman as he seems, is a man and time [the theme of the film] won't wait until you are ready.

2. Some fans wouldn't be happy unless Kirk died fighting 1000 Klingons bared-handed, with the 997th finally besting him. What death WOULD have been grandiose enough for Kirk?

3. There seemed to be an inevitability to his death [almost like how The Punisher mentions that a random thug will probably get lucky and kill him...], in the sense that Kirk has sacrificed family and stability in exchange for his glorious Starfleet career. How many dangerous encounters can you hope to survive? He dies heroically but not epically. Like so many red-shirts and Tasha Yars before him.

 

[Paradise City]

The thing is with Captain Kirk in Generations is that he's biologically the same age as Captain Picard was in the 2nd season of TNG.

Both he and Picard had long and fraught records as Starship Captains. Although, I'm not sure there's a specific date as to when Picard took his first command.

 

[FormerLurker]

What death WOULD have been grandiose enough for Kirk?

One we never know about. Possibly lost to the mysteries of time. A Ragnarok so epic no one actually remembers it happening, and there are those that believe he still may be out there somewhere, waiting to come back.

At some point, Rick Berman is supposed to have promised Gene Roddenberry that he would never reveal Kirk's final fate. I would have preferred if he had not.

 

[Paradise City]

It might be a grandiose death but it doesn't need to be. It just need to be poignant and wrenching -- even if he's alone - not routine and underwhelming. The way he's taken from the Enterprise B isn't bad. Put that at the end of the movie, show the numbness of his colleagues and you've got a better death right there.

That he's there in a daze, getting clattered by a bridge and then spot the cat elbows him out of the spotlight, you're left shrugging your shoulders. Kirk just didn't need to be in that film.

 

[eyeresist]

I'm glad Kirk was in GEN, because I like Kirk.

 

[Kor]

and it doubly demolished the silly notion that Kirk would have known what he was talking about when claiming he'd die surrounded by his closest friends.

He actually claimed "I've always known, I'll die alone."
He wasn't psychic, but it could be considered some kind of long-term foreshadowing.

And I actually think that the way he died in obscurity, away from anybody he knew and cared about, matched up pretty well with what he said.

Kor

 

[FormerLurker]

Didn't I say that already?

 

[Kor]

No, I think I'm the only one who expressed the idea that Kirk's death in GEN did actually fit in well with what he said in TFF.

Kor

 

[FormerLurker]

True, you did phrase it to get that across. I was referring to my response to Timo saying that Kirk had said he'd die surrounded by his closest friends, to which I quoted his "I'll die alone" line.

 

[DWF]

I had no real problems with Kirk's death, there was a certain amount of reality to it. And it serviced the storyline, it wasn't done because the actor was to too of the role or too old to play Kirk. I love Generatons anyway, it was a fittng and true end to the TV show.

 

[arch101]

I really wish they had done something like: while Picard is distracted as the ribbon passes over, Kirk's body mysteriously disappears. Picard smiles and watches the ribbon fade away.
See? Very Trek-like and ambiguous. Would have taken so little effort.

 

[OpenMaw]

They shouldn't have killed him to begin with.

Kirk's death should have been graceful old age with a woman he loved at his side. He, and the rest of the original crew, should have just been left to our imaginations after they signed off.