Star Trek VI. the stupidity of Starfleet and Spock for choosing Kirk to meet with Gorkon

The crew were probably remembering the Klingons intentions toward Organia and are no doubt briefed on Klingon activities on those worlds they have subjugated.These are not nice people.

 

It wasn't a Federation moon that blew up it was the Klingons. This event, in conjunction with formulating peace would spawn Kirk to undiscover his underground racism for Klingons??? Wow.

 

The world sympathized with the Soviet Union and made an effort to help and restore them; as for the US government at the time it appeared officials were all saying the right things, but whether they had any hatred for them is completely speculative. For a person to have pure hate for an entire race of people must've had something traumatic which one had witnessed at an early stage of their lives. Kirk doesn't and have never fit that bill IMO, what was delivered by the Great Nick Meyer was blasphemous to a character who express and shown even in bad times he can move forward and do the right thing. Sorry, Kirk a racist, along with the crew acting that way... I can't accept that.

Its out of character, and I'm not the only one who thought this was absurd, the cast of actors felt the same way, and I don't blame them.

 

I don't ignore anything. It works for me as a a person who watched TOS all the way up to TUC.

IT'S in the film that Kirk is afraid and lashes out. That's both in character, and keeping with history.

 

Trust me…the Russia phobia gets old. Kill a commie for mommie, better red than dead…Morton Downey Jr. professional wrestling level of discourse suited for five year olds.

I thought a lot of the late Stephen Cohen. And Putin played that…the Bastard. Every time we try to normalize…it might be that…off-screen, and pre-Gorkon, the Klingons also backslides a bit and Kirk just threw his hands up. He even tried to pull Kruge up out of the pit and said..no more suicide by tolerance. The conspirators heard this and hoped he’d act rashly and start their war…not figuring he’d be one to surrender. Bigot or not…he didn’t want a bloody war on his hands.

 

I don't think Kirk is particularly acting poorly. I think fans dramatically overstate the level of animosity he shows towards the idea of Klingons or a peace treaty on the subject.

* He is upset with Spock when he has this landed on his lap.
* He says ONE THING in the heat of anger.
* In his private logs he's angry at the prospect of being forced to make peace with the Klingon Empire.
* He's boorish at a party that he's actually DRUNK at (because the Romulan Ale was inserted by Valeris)

Are we supposed to believe Captain Kirk must be perfectly behaved AT ALL times?

 

There's a big difference between being "perfectly behaved AT ALL TIMES" and being an out-and-out racist.

I mean, let's just make a few minor substitutions and tell me if you think the characters would say any of this.

"Arabs are animals!"
"Jim, there is an historic opportunity here."
"Don't believe them! Don't trust them!"
"They are dying."
"LET THE ARABS DIE!"

"I have never trusted Asians. And I never will."

"Did you see the way those Black people ate?"
"Terrible table manners."

"Native Americans don't place the same value on life that we do, Spock, you know that."

Personally, I don't think so. And the "Guess who's coming to dinner?" line was the final abhorrent cherry on top, a line so gleefully racist that Nichelle Nichols actually refused to say it. Along with "would you want your daughter to marry one?"

Now, somewhere out in the multiverse there's a good version of the screenplay where the characters can actually confront their own internalized prejudices. But this ain't it. Not when they're literally spouting the KKK's favorite lines. This script eschews complexity (and established character) for cartoonishness.

 

Kirk literally does.

It's a heavy handed script bereft of much subtlety but Kirk confronting his biases is classic TOS.

 

Eh, he talks about it but doesn't actually do it.

For every interesting question the script asked, every "Is it possible ...that we two, you and I, have grown so old and so inflexible ...that we have outlived our usefulness?" For every one of those, we had a ham-fisted, nonsensical, cartoon.

That's why the film is so frustrating. The ideas are as profound as the execution is awful.

 

I mean, he does it at the end of the film. So, kind of hard to do more after that, you know?

To me, the film has the beats of a TOS episode. You have the conflict, the preponderance of Kirk and the resolution.

It probably could have gone deeper but I don't know if it would given the TOS style formula.

 

Yeah, that's what the Excelsior is doing which is odd because later on Uhura says "what about all that equipment we're carrying to catalogue gaseous anomalies". I wonder if there was a script rewrite somewhere that had the Excelsior more involved.

 

Incredibly sloppy writing.

 

He doesn't do it, though. It just sort of happens, unjustfied, because the script demands that it happens. Maybe that's also a failing of the actor to sell it, but I think the lion's share goes on the half-baked script.

Not sure that "as deep as a TOS episode" is really the strongest defense for a film.

 

Close. Enterprise carrying the same equipment would've been mentioned in the "brief tour" between Gorkon's party arriving on the ship and the dinner scene.

 

That's literally what I want from a Star Trek movie.

 

The scene should've been shot, without it Uhura's comments is out of place since it was established Excelsior was solely performing this. Its clunky.

 

I have heard that Nichelle refused to do the "would you want your daughter to marry one" scene, but I had thought it was her line. I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but they also may have decided the film didn't really need this scene in particular.

 

Shame they tried to be more "profound" than that, then. An episode on the big screen would have been a big improvement.