Was Kirk Really Essential in TMP?

[Tallguy]

Were it not for the following, I'd agree, wholeheartedly in fact, that it's pretty clearly to be with Ilia.

It's Decker who answers the question of what more is there besides the universe. Decker is the one who interprets the probe's statement of intention to join with the creator as physical joining. There's no dialog in between his description of what there is beyond the universe and his declaration of intent to join. He doesn't mention Ilia. So, the biggest problem is that, on paper, it reads like, Higher levels of being? Hell, yeah, let's do this.

Even after, they talk about the birth of a new life form. No one expresses hope that Decker and Ilia have been reunited. The only significant thing happening worth talking about is the machine evolving to a higher plane of existence and a possible next step in the human adventure that's just beginning. Decker and Ilia are just missing, again another blank.

It's all / and. That's a good call about Decker being the one who is probably a step ahead of The Gang. (I like Decker. Kirk liked Decker too. It was just a bad situation.)

Spock does mention it being the next step in our evolution. Decker and Ilia are guides. Companions, I suppose. (Not in a Doctor Who sense. Definitely not in a Firefly sense.)

But the heart of the scene is Decker looking at Ilia like "Hey, we're going to get ALL OF IT."

 

[Maurice]

SPOCK: To join with the creator. How?
ILIA PROBE: V'ger and the creator will become one.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

SPOCK: To join with the creator. How?
ILIA PROBE: V'ger and the creator will become one.

Yeah, that's back from when the probe was stating circular definitions, and they had no idea what it meant by either "V'ger" or "the creator".

Fast forward to when they're at the Voyager probe [transcript]:

KIRK: What V'Ger needs in order to evolve is a human quality. Our capacity to leap beyond logic.​

DECKER: And joining with its Creator might accomplish that.​

McCOY: You mean that this machine wants to physically join with a human? Is that possible?​

Decker's the one putting it all together to interpret what the probe said to mean that V'ger intends to physically join with a human subject that's representative of the creator.

 

[Tallguy]

Decker's the one putting it all together to interpret the probe's intention to physically join with a human subject that's representative of the creator.

They're really all bouncing ideas around. It's the most Star Trek scene in the whole movie.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

They're really all bouncing ideas around. It's the most Star Trek scene in the whole movie.

I can get behind all that.

Sadly, it's late in the film when it starts to feel that way.

 

[Tallguy]

I can get behind all that.

Sadly, it's late in the film when it starts to feel that way.

It's the ONLY Star Trek film where the climax of the movie is "figuring things out". EVER.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

So, let's say there's no TMP and Phase II goes to series with its initial thirteen episode order.

After the first thirteen, Shatner bolts for a movie career, except for a cameo appearance in later episodes.

The back thirteen episodes are being led by Decker, Ilia and Xon.

We still have the McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov to round out the cast.

How accepting would the audience have been to three unknowns as the lead characters of the series?

Do they try to emphasize that this is the new 'triumvirate', or do the producers/writers turn their focus on the original five supporting characters; as if to say, "Kirk and Spock might be gone, but the rest of the gang is here?"​

Would Paramount looked at the numbers at the end of the season and called it a day; or would they have tried to lure Shatner back for a second season with a ridiculously large contract and tried to keep the network afloat.

Paramount is probably hemorrhaging money and any sort of contract they offer Shatner isn't going to help matters.

 

[Maurice]

From the Star Trek II scripts I've seen, the recurring characters carried over from the original had about as much to do as in the 1960s. If the show ran more than one season, I could see them being weeded out for younger/cheaper replacements.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Poor Kirk, nobody wants Captain Dunsel

M5: General survey party requires direction of science officer.Astrobiologist Phillips has surveyed twenty nine biologically similarplanets. Geologist Carstairs served on merchant marine freighters inthis area. Once visited planet on geology survey for mining company.
DAYSTROM: Why were the Captain and the Chief Medical Officer not included in recommendation?
M5: Non-essential personnel.

That episode seems more and more appropriate in today's world of generative models ("AI"). It also makes me feel more optimistic to know that history rhymes.

"We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to amachine. When it comes to your job, that's different. And it alwayswill be different"

 

[fireproof78]

Responsibility lies with whoever decided to start beaming live people less than two minutes after the fault was discovered. In fact it looks like Cleary is still testing it when it shorts.

And it's not like Scotty (You know: Beam me up Scotty) is deferential to Kirk when they're trying save the transporter victims.

KIRK: As Captain ...I am responsible for the conduct of the crew under my command

 

[David cgc]

KIRK: As Captain ...I am responsible for the conduct of the crew under my command

Well, it’s a different question if Kirk is ultimately responsible as captain of record at that moment, versus whether Rand was about to fix the transporter on her own and he barged in and ruined everything.

(Also, Decker was probably still technically captain during the transporter accident.)

 

[fireproof78]

Well, it’s a different question if Kirk is ultimately responsible as captain of record at that moment, versus whether Rand was about to fix the transporter on her own and he barged in and ruined everything.

(Also, Decker was probably still technically captain during the transporter accident.)

Sooo...he's not responsible for his behavior?

He's the one insisting upon getting the ship underway and unfamiliar with the refit and all that. I'm uncertain how Kirk isn't responsible.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's the emergency that's putting pressure to get the ship launched. If Kirk's driving it, it's because he appreciates the danger. Certainly, by the time they launch, it's readily apparent to everyone.

By implication, I think, Decker was not a captain of a ship on a five-year mission. Why else would Kirk be playing that card that he has that experience, as an argument that he should command and not Decker?

Kirk lacks specific knowledge of the ship's upgrades, but we see that Kirk's command style seems more appropriate to confront the cloud than Decker's might have been. Kirk's willingness to take risks pays off when they gather essential information that probably would not have been learned in time, had they followed Decker's advice not to take those risks. Perhaps Kirk genuinely believed that Decker that was too inexperienced in first contact situations to be the right captain for such an emergency.

 

[Maurice]

Sooo...he's not responsible for his behavior?

He's the one insisting upon getting the ship underway and unfamiliar with the refit and all that. I'm uncertain how Kirk isn't responsible.

Which might've come down from Nogura. No way to know.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I was always annoyed that meeting with Nogura warrants mention but no explicit elaboration regarding what happened. Kirk proclaiming that he knows how long the meeting will last sorta sounds like he's going to be calling the shots... but on the other hand it could sound like Kirk's been around the block and he's quite familiar with how Nogura calls the shots. So, our time is occupied while we learn precisely nothing.

The convo with Scotty drops a hint that Kirk pushed to get the ship back, but that makes the tram station dialog superfluous and even the dialog in the pod is oblique.

I guess Sonak's surprise that Kirk said to report to him hints that as well (that Kirk was pushing to get the ship back). But that could just be because Sonak's out of the loop. It's infuriating.

Later we learn that Nogura reactivated McCoy, so clearly Nogura is doing something. Maybe Nogura brought Bones back to keep an eye on Kirk?

edited to add - Kirk doesn't deny it when McCoy accuses Kirk of ramming getting the command down Starfleet's throat, so maybe that's confirmation that it wasn't Nogura assigning Kirk.

 

[Maurice]

What happens in the movie re the Nogura meeting is unclear, but even if Kirk forced Nogura's hand about who'd command the Enterprise, that doesn't mean the decision to launch in 12 hours was also his choice.

I never found any of this infuriating, because it's not important enough to the narrative to spell it all out.

 

[Tallguy]

On the one hand, it's pretty clearly Kirk's decision. He's on way to the meeting with Nogura and Sonak thinks that they are departing in 20 hours. Kirk is going to push for 12. (Yes, it's possible that Kirk had already been told the timeline had been shortened but that's not what it feels like.)

That plus Scotty's comment that he "doubt(s) it was that easy with Nogura" indicates that Kirk took charge of the situation. "...rammed getting this command down Starfleet's throat" no doubt with the same rationale he gave Decker.

On the other hand the way things played out, they got down to within six minutes of the Entity destroying Earth. Apparently those 8 hours mattered.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think that, from the audience's perspective, there's ambiguity in Kirk's motivations that is very similar to the ambiguity involving Decker's motivations discussed upthread. Crucially, just how legit was the five-year mission experience as a reason to push Decker aside?

The problems are, we don't know Decker's mission experience, we don't know how the conversation between Kirk and Nogura went down, and the conversation with McCoy after the wormhole incident encourages the viewpoint that Kirk has so far been blind to his duties because of his personal ambition and obsession with starship command.

That matters because it weighs on the question of what kind of character Kirk is. How self-serving is Kirk, really? With respect to Kirk's line that might tend to imply he has qualifications that Decker lacks, dealing with unknowns because of his "five years out there", if it turns out that that's just as much b.s. as what Kirk follows up with in the same breath, the claim that he's still familiar with the Enterprise, that would paint Kirk in a very unfavorable light.

 

[Tallguy]

Crucially, just how legit was the five-year mission experience as a reason to push Decker aside?

Totally legit. But he would have done it anyway.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Totally legit.

I agree with that interpretation. But by the question I mean, where's the specific evidence on screen? Decker's a completely new character, all we know about him is what's in the film, and we know Kirk was dead wrong in half of his statement there. Putting our bias for Kirk aside, where's the specific evidence that Kirk isn't overestimating or even exaggerating the significance of his experience next to Decker's?