What did Kirk say to Spock?

[JonnyQuest037]

Kirk's suspicion is also set up just before they find the bodies:

SPOCK: I have reason to believe that Gorkon's murderers are aboard this vessel.
KIRK: I have a thought about that.

There you go. Kirk probably thinks it might be Valeris during that conversation in the hall, but when they find the bodies of Burke and Samno, all doubt is removed from his mind.

One thing that Shatner and Nicholas Meyer both understood: In a TOS story, Kirk has got to be the mover and shaker. Spock may come to his own logical conclusions and steer Kirk in a certain direction, but ultimately, the decision is the Captain's.

 

[balls]

I know exactly what Kirk said to Spock:

"Hey...I have this convoluted idea that if we make an intercom announcement that the two assassins are still alive, the remaining conspirator will be absolutely STUPID enough to show up in sickbay with a phaser, somehow thinking that these key witnesses to one of the greatest integalactic conspiracies of all time, will just be laying around, unguarded and not under any security...and we'll be able to catch them. And the audience will be so caught up in wanting to like this, our last film, that they won't notice how dumb and contrived this is. It's a chance....!"

Thank you for writing this!!! Amen a thousand times. Will people stop loving this movie? This, books on the bridge - the most capable crew in Starfleet can't muster a few lines of Klingon? lame.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Will people stop loving this movie?

No.

 

[Leto_II]

At the same time though, the attack on Carol helped with the "WTH, Kirk is a racist now???" argument. Assuming one felt any help was needed.

In 2002, Dayton Ward's TOS novel In the Name of Honor was published -- set between TFF and TUC in the year 2287, it was also intended to show the "inciting incident" behind Kirk's abrupt change-of-heart concerning the Klingons between the two films, in which

Spoiler: In the Name of Honor Spoilers

an unnecessary massacre perpetrated by the Klingons takes place, utterly horrifying Kirk and pushing him in the direction we finally see depicted onscreen in TUC (i.e., a quasi-bigot).

Taken in tandem with J.M. Dillard's additional details in the TUC novelization concerning the attacks carried out by Chang's Bird of Prey prototype involving Carol Marcus's near-death (plus, of course, David's murder in TSFS), for my money at least, Kirk receives pretty reasonable incentive to arrive where he is onscreen in TUC, but just going off the movie itself you wouldn't really see that (to say nothing of how almost-warmly he treats some of the Klingons in TFF, such as General Korrd).

I remember being kinda taken aback, sitting there in the theater in December, 1991 watching the film and seeing how Kirk reacted in the Starfleet Command briefing-room, given his deferential behavior towards the Klingons in the previous movie (which, again, was also after his son's murder).

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Taken in tandem with J.M. Dillard's additional details in the TUC novelization concerning the attacks carried out by Chang's Bird of Prey prototype involving Carol Marcus's near-death (plus, of course, David's murder in TSFS), for my money at least, Kirk receives pretty reasonable incentive to arrive where he is onscreen in TUC...

See, as far as I'm concerned, we didn't really need any extra justification for Kirk's attitude in TUC. He'd fought Klingons for 30+ years by that point, and he'd been witness to numerous atrocities and betrayals by Klingons. A Klingon killed the son he never really got the chance to know. A Klingon forced him into blowing up his own ship. Just how many more reasons did he need to hate them, anyway?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Hey was TUC digitally recorded because of all the Trek movies and other stuff I have it seems to have a really clear picture quality.

 

[Leto_II]

See, as far as I'm concerned, we didn't really need any extra justification for Kirk's attitude in TUC. He'd fought Klingons for 30+ years by that point, and he'd been witness to numerous atrocities and betrayals by Klingons. A Klingon killed the son he never really got the chance to know. A Klingon forced him into blowing up his own ship. Just how many more reasons did he need to hate them, anyway?

It's just more that we see Kirk speaking positively warmly about General Korrd and wanting to be like him, and then later completely forgiving Klaa's attack and welcoming his same cohort of Klingons aboard the Enterprise as guests in the last film, is what throws the viewer off when they start viewing TUC.

Granted, Kirk (as you mention) had been dealing with the Klingons for 30 years by that point, but even until fairly recently (at least from the casual moviegoer's standpoint), he'd still been letting bygones be bygones, even with the major incident of his son's murder hanging ominously over everything.

Something clearly happened between one movie and the next to instantly send him into a raging froth at the merest mention of peace with the Klingons, but it's clear from a screenwriting standpoint that Meyer and Flynn simply turned Kirk's bigotry up to "11" for dramatic reasons, despite what the previous movie had taken pains to establish (that he was still a lot more chill than that, despite all that had transpired).

 

[DonIago]

I don't feel like it should be such a stretch, given that time has obviously passed between TFF and TUC, to assume that events must have transpired in the meantime to ratchet up hostilities once again.

Yes, it might be nice to have a more clear idea of what those events were, but that would also be rather outside the scope of the film.

 

[Nyotarules]

But why would all those people loose out if peace happened?

We don't have a military any more do we?
We don't have money worries do we?

Just it didn't make sense as to what was so bad about peace?

Humans are not logical, non humans are not logical and Vulcans can use logic to justify anything.

 

[Nyotarules]

At the same time though, the attack on Carol helped with the "WTH, Kirk is a racist now???" argument. Assuming one felt any help was needed.

Sometimes it does not take much to bring out folks prejudice
Consider how Western society views its Muslim citizens now and how it viewed the same folks before 9/11
Consider Brexit -
Person 1 'Get rid of all those old immigrants',
Person 2 'But I'm an immigrant', been here 10 years'
Person 1 'Oh no, I don't mean you'...
Person 2 'Yeah right, very comforting'

As the child of immigrants I have learned all my life one needs to tame the racist beast that lives in all of us.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

It's just more that we see Kirk speaking positively warmly about General Korrd and wanting to be like him...

I never read this as "speaking warmly" of General Korrd. Just a simple statement of facts (He was a great general who came up with strategies worth studying, and he's since fallen out of favor with the Klingon High Command).

KIRK: General Korrd's military strategies were required learning when I was a cadet at the Academy. When they put me out to pasture, I hope I fare better than Korrd.

Kirk said that a few people were "required reading" at the Academy. It's just a simple shorthand to establish that a person is very accomplished.

From "What Are Little Girls Made Of?":

SPOCK: Now, Doctor Korby, often called the Pasteur of archaeological medicine. His translation of medical records from the Orion ruins revolutionized our immunization techniques.
KIRK: Required reading at the academy, Mister Spock. I've always wanted to meet him. Do you think there's any chance of him still being alive?

From "Whom Gods Destroy":

CORY: Garth. Garth of Izar, a former Starship fleet Captain.
KIRK: When I was a cadet at the Academy, his exploits were required reading. He was one of my heroes. I'd like to see him.

And to Garth later in the same episode:

KIRK: I agree there was a time when war was necessary, and you were our greatest warrior. I studied your victory at Axanar when I was a cadet. In fact it's still required reading at the Academy.

Notice that Kirk doesn't follow up his "required reading" statement in TFF with any sort of admiration or compliment to Korrd the way he does with Dr. Korby and Garth of Izar. So maybe Kirk doesn't think that much of Korrd outside of his military tactics.

 

[Leto_II]

^ Although note that I used the phrase "positively warmly" there, which meant that relative to what had just recently transpired with Kirk's son, he was speaking almost glowingly about Korrd in that scene, by normal standards...if it were me, I'd probably have a much harder time finding something nice to say about a high-ranking Klingon military officer in that moment, considering recent events (which is basically what I was trying to say, there).

 

[JonnyQuest037]

^ Although note that I used the phrase "positively warmly" there, which meant that relative to what had just recently transpired with Kirk's son, he was speaking almost glowingly about Korrd in that scene, by normal standards...

Ah. I wasn't getting that from your original post at all. Eh, I guess. I'm still not really seeing it, though. I think that's just attributable to TFF being made 6 years after TSFS. As far as the filmmakers were concerned, David was ancient history by then.

 

[Leto_II]

It's cool -- I probably should've phrased it slightly differently than I did, there.

 

[Timo]

The choice we face is speculating on something atypically mellowing out Kirk between ST4 and ST5, and something atypically pissing him off between ST5 and ST6.

Kirk never was the one to put a clamp on anti-Klingon sentiments. Racist jokes are fine with him in "Trouble with Tribbles" and the like, and it's up to Spock to gently chide Chekov for them; this opposed to Kirk personally falling down on racist insinuations in "Balance of Terror". Of course, everybody is a frothing Nazi in "Day of the Dove" when it comes to putting down the Klingon Untermenschen, but we know that at least some of that is the doing of the Beast of the Week, and there's little reason to shy away from thinking that all of it is; nevertheless, we could say that at least some of the langauge comes from the heart.

Is Kirk good at forgiving in general? Since his adversaries seldom recur, we don't really know. He gets along with Kang for tactical reasons, but generally villains receive comeuppance or at least get abandoned to their doom. The "I can understand and even sympathize for what and why you did to us" spirit was mostly lacking in TOS: "Corbomite Maneuver" made a valiant early try, but even there Kirk could just be licking up to a superior enemy...

Timo Saloniemi