Oh for cryin' out loud! (Uncle SPOILERS)

[gastrof]

 

[I am not Spock]

Abusive uncle?

That sucks. I'm concerned about this movie now more than ever.

 

[pookha]

just waiting to see why the uncle is the way he is (was kirk estranged from his father , did he have something to do with his fathers death ie his father made some choice due to kirk.

maybe the uncle also was with jim during the massacre on the planet. and it made him drink to get away from the memory.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

There's going to be an Uncle Frank in this movie? Cool! I'm an uncle Frank. Now I'm definately gonna have to see it

Actually, having now seen the "uncle"...

I'm thinking he's more of a "TV's Frank" sort of character.

I had a tv spot called "Frank's TV" done on a local public access channel. Not done very well at all, but it was done

FYI, for anyone who didn't "get" the reference, this is a character from something called "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (the big where they made fun of bad movies, and you could see the mockers in black silhouette at the bottom of the screen).

"TV's Frank" was one of the mad scientist types who kept the "lead" captive and forced him to watch the worst movies ever made.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

We know Kirk grew up in Iowa, had a dad in Starfleet named George and had a brother named Sam both of whom would eventually die (though George's history is conjecture considering it mostly comes from the novels).

True about the conjecture. Is there any "canon" source that tells us anything at all about Kirk's father (including his given name)? For that matter, what's the canonical source of the claim that James Kirk grew up in Iowa or was even born there? As far as I can recall, the only onscreen reference to Kirk in Iowa is in ST 4: "No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space."

FWIW, I was born in DC but if anyone asks where I'm from I always answer Maryland - given that I lived in the District for something like the first four months of my life and in Maryland ever since that time, it rarely crosses my mind.

 

[Eric Cheung]

Yeah. It is totally all conjecture. They're not obligated to use any of it. But I said "we know" because it appears they're using at least the name and the idea that George Kirk was in Starfleet. From that they probably extrapolated a male adult in his life in the form of this uncle character. Orci was a fan of the novels, so he decided to use some elements from them, but obviously didn't have to.

 

[Technobuilder]

I haven't been following any of the rumors/spoilers for Trek XI, but the fact that there's this talk of a heretofore unseen 'sexually abusive' Uncle causing a childhood trauma on a character that 1.) As our Protagonist, grows up to arguably be one of the most renown Captains in the StarFleet and 2.) Is someone whose character is chiefly considered to be sexually driven by 95% of the movie going audience who only know of him as the ICON 'Captain Kirk', is a little bit much just hearing about it. Hell 50% of Modern Trek fans tend to think Kirk was a Sex machine who has bedded about 6/10ths of explored space, but that was never the character and without knowing if the writers were aware of that gives me pause.

Do you really want to first conceive of a character with a history of sexual abuse and then make him the lady's man of a hundred worlds? I certainly hope not.

Was that from another article? The one I saw mentioned that the uncle was an "alcoholic and abusive asshole," but never said anything about being sexually abusive. The implication to me was that the uncle would hit him, not molest him.

I haven't been following any of the rumors/spoilers for Trek XI, but the fact that there's this talk of a heretofore unseen 'sexually abusive' Uncle causing a childhood trauma on a character that 1.) As our Protagonist, grows up to arguably be one of the most renown Captains in the StarFleet and 2.) Is someone whose character is chiefly considered to be sexually driven by 95% of the movie going audience who only know of him as the ICON 'Captain Kirk', is a little bit much just hearing about it. Hell 50% of Modern Trek fans tend to think Kirk was a Sex machine who has bedded about 6/10ths of explored space, but that was never the character and without knowing if the writers were aware of that gives me pause.

Do you really want to first conceive of a character with a history of sexual abuse and then make him the lady's man of a hundred worlds? I certainly hope not.

Was that from another article? The one I saw mentioned that the uncle was an "alcoholic and abusive asshole," but never said anything about being sexually abusive. The implication to me was that the uncle would hit him, not molest him.

No, the "sexual-abuse" angle, as well as the "redneck/white trash" one raised in another thread, seem to have appeared out of thin air. People have been told about them, people talk about them, but I've seen no article or interview given as a source for those details.

Okay, good. I'm glad I got that wrong. (Kirk standing up to Physical Abuse is actually more in line with his ability to lead and protect others.)

I'm still looking forward to the movie and will reserve judgment till I actually get to see it.

 

[Franklin]

I wonder if this is the same uncle with the farm in Idaho.

 

[M'Sharak]

I wonder if this is the same uncle with the farm in Idaho.

Now, that's an interesting question.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I wonder if this is the same uncle with the farm in Idaho.

Now, that's an interesting question.

Seems to me that there are three possibilities here...

1) Jimmy Kirk and the rest of George Kirk's family live in Iowa, and this uncle lives in the same community.

2) The George Kirk family lives in Iowa, and the uncle relocates to help out, but resents it.

3) The George Kirk family lives on Tarsus, but relocate to Earth following the Tarsus Massacre and ends up moving in with the Uncle after George's death at about the same time.

Personally, I prefer option #1. I'd prefer that this character doesn't live in the same house... but that he's the only "male role model" Jimmy Kirk has from about 12 to about 17 years of age. We have names (and in one case, Ben Finney, an actual, established character) who apparently served "surrogate father" roles for Jim as a young adult after leaving home.

And if Ben Finney is any sort of example, well...

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

I wonder if this is the same uncle with the farm in Idaho.

Now, that's an interesting question.

Seems to me that there are three possibilities here...

1) Jimmy Kirk and the rest of George Kirk's family live in Iowa, and this uncle lives in the same community.

2) The George Kirk family lives in Iowa, and the uncle relocates to help out, but resents it.

3) The George Kirk family lives on Tarsus, but relocate to Earth following the Tarsus Massacre and ends up moving in with the Uncle after George's death at about the same time.

Personally, I prefer option #1. I'd prefer that this character doesn't live in the same house... but that he's the only "male role model" Jimmy Kirk has from about 12 to about 17 years of age. We have names (and in one case, Ben Finney, an actual, established character) who apparently served "surrogate father" roles for Jim as a young adult after leaving home.

And if Ben Finney is any sort of example, well...

I'm guessing that this guy is going to be on screen for all of maybe 45 seconds, and that it would take longer than that just to describe most of your scenarios.

He'll just be there.

 

[M'Sharak]

I wonder if this is the same uncle with the farm in Idaho.

Now, that's an interesting question.

Seems to me that there are three possibilities here...

1) Jimmy Kirk and the rest of George Kirk's family live in Iowa, and this uncle lives in the same community.

2) The George Kirk family lives in Iowa, and the uncle relocates to help out, but resents it.

3) The George Kirk family lives on Tarsus, but relocate to Earth following the Tarsus Massacre and ends up moving in with the Uncle after George's death at about the same time.

Personally, I prefer option #1. I'd prefer that this character doesn't live in the same house... but that he's the only "male role model" Jimmy Kirk has from about 12 to about 17 years of age. We have names (and in one case, Ben Finney, an actual, established character) who apparently served "surrogate father" roles for Jim as a young adult after leaving home.

And if Ben Finney is any sort of example, well...

Not to discount any of that, necessarily, but it is this [Edit: or this, at around 6:30] to which Franklin was referring (though it does seem that an earlier version of the script had it as Iowa, rather than Idaho.)

 

[Franklin]

I wonder if this is the same uncle with the farm in Idaho.

Now, that's an interesting question.

Seems to me that there are three possibilities here...

1) Jimmy Kirk and the rest of George Kirk's family live in Iowa, and this uncle lives in the same community.

2) The George Kirk family lives in Iowa, and the uncle relocates to help out, but resents it.

3) The George Kirk family lives on Tarsus, but relocate to Earth following the Tarsus Massacre and ends up moving in with the Uncle after George's death at about the same time.

Personally, I prefer option #1. I'd prefer that this character doesn't live in the same house... but that he's the only "male role model" Jimmy Kirk has from about 12 to about 17 years of age. We have names (and in one case, Ben Finney, an actual, established character) who apparently served "surrogate father" roles for Jim as a young adult after leaving home.

And if Ben Finney is any sort of example, well...

Being a native Iowan who resents our "flyover state" status (at least in non-presidential election cycles), I always thought it was just because the west coasters who wrote GEN just didn't give it much thought and mixed up Idaho for Iowa and never changed it.

"Let's see, what was that line in The Voyage Home? 'I'm from -- .' Damn. What was it? It was an 'I' state. Or did he say Ohio? No. It sounded like Ohio, but it was definitely an 'I' state. Idaho. That's it! It was Idaho."

I mean, it couldn't have been about location shooting. Bakersfield was just 105 miles away then, too.

 

[Franklin]

Not to discount any of that, necessarily, but it is this [Edit: or this, at around 6:30] to which Franklin was referring (though it does seem that an earlier version of the script had it as Iowa, rather than Idaho.)

From the "earlier version of the script" link:

KIRK : This is my uncle's barn in Iowa... He points to a horse with a saddle on it.

Never saw that before. Now I am pissed.

 

[Augustus]

Well, I don't know and you don't know how they will play it onscreen. But to me, so what, having an abusive uncle makes Kirk kind of real in my book. He dealt with something that was a problem and over came it...

Hey sounds like all of us!!

 

[Franklin]

I mean why couldn't Kirk have had a normal Iowa farmboy family upbrining? Cow-tipping, smoking cornsilks, having carnal knowledge of pigs. That kind of thing.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Now, that's an interesting question.

Seems to me that there are three possibilities here...

1) Jimmy Kirk and the rest of George Kirk's family live in Iowa, and this uncle lives in the same community.

2) The George Kirk family lives in Iowa, and the uncle relocates to help out, but resents it.

3) The George Kirk family lives on Tarsus, but relocate to Earth following the Tarsus Massacre and ends up moving in with the Uncle after George's death at about the same time.

Personally, I prefer option #1. I'd prefer that this character doesn't live in the same house... but that he's the only "male role model" Jimmy Kirk has from about 12 to about 17 years of age. We have names (and in one case, Ben Finney, an actual, established character) who apparently served "surrogate father" roles for Jim as a young adult after leaving home.

And if Ben Finney is any sort of example, well...

Being a native Iowan who resents our "flyover state" status (at least in non-presidential election cycles), I always thought it was just because the west coasters who wrote GEN just didn't give it much thought and mixed up Idaho for Iowa and never changed it.

"Let's see, what was that line in The Voyage Home? 'I'm from -- .' Damn. What was it? It was an 'I' state. Or did he say Ohio? No. It sounded like Ohio, but it was definitely an 'I' state. Idaho. That's it! It was Idaho."

I mean, it couldn't have been about location shooting. Bakersfield was just 105 miles away then, too.

I've lived in waaaay too many places over my life... but for about three years (essentially right up to the day that they closed the doors at the Newton plant) I lived in Iowa, working at Maytag. Iowa was actually one of my favorite places, so far... though, truth be told, I think I may actually STAY in the Raleigh area! It's great working in an R&D environment where half the people I talk to everyday are PhD's in one or another technical fields.

But Iowa is definitely one of those states that gets the short shrift. I grew up in Indiana, and I remember the first question I got asked when I arrived in California...

"So, what sort of farm did you grow up on?"

"Flyover states" indeed...

 

[Franklin]

I've lived in waaaay too many places over my life... but for about three years (essentially right up to the day that they closed the doors at the Newton plant) I lived in Iowa, working at Maytag. Iowa was actually one of my favorite places, so far... though, truth be told, I think I may actually STAY in the Raleigh area! It's great working in an R&D environment where half the people I talk to everyday are PhD's in one or another technical fields.

But Iowa is definitely one of those states that gets the short shrift. I grew up in Indiana, and I remember the first question I got asked when I arrived in California...

"So, what sort of farm did you grow up on?"

"Flyover states" indeed...

Hell, even in TVH, Gillian called Kirk, "Farm boy," after hearing he was from Iowa.

And, guess what? Apparently she was right.

Of course, if it's in Iowa, and there's an abusive uncle, then we need to hear the line, "C'mon Jimmy. I bet you can squeal like a pig."

[Ah, Maytag blue cheese.]

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

...though, truth be told, I think I may actually STAY in the Raleigh area! It's great working in an R&D environment where half the people I talk to everyday are PhD's in one or another technical fields.

Do go on...

 

[Captain X]

I'm starting to think that the Siskos might be the only major characters that didn't have any form of a "daddy issue".