Paul Wesley's incarnation of James T. Kirk

I'd argue the only "part" he needed was Spock. But, still, commanding any othership he still would have been a legend.

 

And I'd say he needs McCoy, as well. Having a "miracle worker" in engineering helps, too.

 

No one is calling for a carbon copy, just that he at least gives the vibe of Kirk. Which Wesley hasn't done so far, and we've seen him as a Kirk at a time/age we've seen.

 

I wonder how much leeway a Captain has in picking their crew? We know Kirk asked for Mitchell in his first command. And he seemed to have inherited Spock from Pike. Could he have asked for someone else and set Spock on his way?

 

Exactly. Part of a person is the people, the relationships, that are formed and influenced our own growth.

 

Honestly, even if Pike changed the future starting at the point of his accident, Kirk should be virtually the same as on TOS. You could erase the past year of my life and I would be substantially the same.

 

He changed it at the point he sent the letter to Maat, seven years before the accident.

 

Perhaps, but still. How widely would you expect changes to radiate in that short time period.

 

Dominoes.
Pike stays with the Enterprise. Only Scotty and Uhura are part of the crew, The others are elsewhere. Them not being on the Enterprise knocks over more dominoes.
Kirk becomes captain of the Farragut. Who ever was the Captain in the Prime Universe has a different path. More dominoes fall.
Kirk and Pike's ships are given different assignments than they had in the Prime Universe. More dominoes.

 

Very quickly.

 

I still have problems with Peck swallowing whole words and speaking his "S"s with a chicago-esque accent but on the whole he's an okay Spock.

Also, I'm a little worried about Wesley being a much younger Kirk in Season 2. I mean, I know they do de-aging etc these days and might just do that on him... I mean, he already LOOKS older than Shatner did in Season 1 of TOS. Anyhow, I'm not going to think about this anymore.

 

I do get fragile, old man vibes from his performance. Picard seems more fit in TNG than Wesley does in SNW too. It was a bad casting choice.

 

Not in the beginning he was. James Cawley grew into the role as Kirk, IMO. Same with Vic Mignogna with his take on Kirk.

 

Echoing what others are saying in response: things change in an instant. How Kirk's (or anyone's) mannerisms are forged by his interactions with certain people in certain places will differ significantly.

Anyway, here's a BTS picture of Wesley that looks a lot like Chirs Pine:

https://twitter.com/StarTrekOnPPlus/status/1546132136175865856/photo/3

There's hope for him having the essence of Kirk. I'm down with it, and want to see how he grows into the role next season.

 

Paul Wesley's take on Kirk reminds me more of Chris Pine's take on Kirk, circa STitD. That's not me saying its a bad take, but it's definitely not Shatner's take. Interestingly, Chris Pine's take on Kirk was much better in that SNL skit he did a while back, which was more like Shatner's take on Kirk.

 

On the contrary, I saw an old black and white promo picture of Shatner from way before Star Trek, and its astounding how much that picture looks like Chris Pine. If they actually wrote Pine's Kirk to be the same Prime Kirk, I think the resemblance would have been uncanny. (And I'm not a fan of Pine's Kirk, or the Kelvin movies.)

 

The problem with Wesley-as-Kirk is that his performance was completely uninteresting, uninspired and shows nothing of any hints to the personality of James T. Kirk. Honestly, without all of the characters referring to him as Kirk and the fact that he "saves the day" (aka the writing), there's nothing from the performance side to show us anything of Kirk at all.

He's just some lame, flavorless Captain.

The episode wanted to contrast Pike with Kirk - and was written that way - but the performance left out Kirk.

And no, he didn't need to be even close to Captain James T. Kirk of the Enterpise. But his performance should at least have been interesting and hinting at who he would become.

 

Because it was a caricature which Pine explicitly stated avoiding in 09.

More generally, I'm not thrilled by Kirk showing up but I'm at least willing to give the actor more than one episode in an alternate timeline before I start my #notmyKirk outrage campaign. Call me crazy.

 

I remember reading somewhere that Pine was inspired more by Harrison Ford's Han Solo in his take on Kirk. In hindsight, his Kirk did have a roguish and slightly outsider quality even after three years at Starfleet Academy, IMO...

 

Yeah I read that too and you can see it in his portrayal in the first two films.