What was wrong with Kirk?

[Pauln6]

I agree to a certain point about Kirk. Was he ready to be a leader? No. Did he show traits of being a leader? Yes, the biggest one being he inspired loyalty and had compassion for his crew. He was not willing to be silent, and to speak up even in the face of overwhelming odds. Did he have a lot to learn? Yup, and he had to do so quickly and very painfully.

I agree that very minor tweaks to the film, including a better ending scene, would have done wonders. But, then, I would also prefer no writers strike while the film was being made.

As far as "stoopid Romulans" I have no idea what you are saying? Kirk, with the support of Chekov, Sulu and Scotty, worked up a plan, developed it, and they all executed it. He inspired others to collaborate and become better for it. If that isn't leadership then I would recommend you rewrite all those leadership training modules I just spent the last 6 months doing.

As for Nero, I still don't see the glee or satisfaction. You have a Kirk who acknowledges the last wish and ensures the threat is ended. People say "Nero was helpless!" And Kirk has no way of knowing that for certain. The ship has demonstrated the ability to go through the black hole and time travel, potentially causing more damage. Kirk has a responsibility to stop the threat by any means necessary. That's not rough justice or anti-leftist or whatever. That's him doing his duty to the best of his ability with the information he had at the time.

I'm not saying Kirk didn't display leadership traits - clearly that was the point. Although it's more of a point that most lieutenants display NO leadership qualities, despite being officers (in the official comics Keenser was to be a lieutenant if you can believe that - Scotty treats him like a minion, so I had assumed he was just a crewman or petty officer), that's a whole other point. I'm just saying he wasn't ready to carry the responsibility of being a starship captain. A commendation - perhaps. A promotion - possibly not due to his insubordination and shockingly bad planning. Captaincy - definitely not.

The issue I have is that Kirk's plan isn't smart or even sensible. The story suffers many of the same issues as the Enterprise Incident in that it relies on the Romulans being very inept and failing basic tasks like using sensors or monitoring incursions. You can argue, well that's Romulans, but Kirk has no clue about Romulans and no reason to expect people from the future who escaped a maximum security Klingon prison to be so inept. His plan almost fails because he chooses not to take a security team, reminiscent of Troi's attempt to pass her command test by doing everything herself. It's only Pike waking up at an opportune moment that saves the day.

I agree that maybe if there had not been a writer's strike they might have put something in the script to cover issues such as why Spock takes no steps to warn Earth or get a message to the fleet by contacting an outpost closer to that sector but decides to limp to the fleet, leaving Earth unaware and vulnerable. Or why Spock wastes an escape pod instead of beaming Kirk under guard to Delta Vega so that they could warn Earth (his decision to plant an escape pod far from the outpost to prevent Kirk escaping isn't logical because as soon as the outpost detects the pod's distress call, Kirk will be beamed to safety or collected by shuttle). Or why Nero travelled to Earth at less than warp 4, despite knowing that he would have a limited window to use any codes that Pike knew because, well, why wouldn't survivors, or other ships arriving in response to distress calls, look to update Starfleet headquarters of the carnage at Vulcan (a stolen Klingon mind sifter or a Reman inquisitor would have been better fan service than a brain bug IMO, but I digress)? Or why the Enterprise detected Nero's approach vector (I guess he had no cloaking device) but Nero didn't detect the Enterprise even though she would have had to pass the Narada at a higher warp to get to the Solar System before them.

I suppose I was just frustrated at the near miss for what could have been a great Star Trek movie without bad science, eighties sexism, and silly movie tropes. It's not that TOS didn't have all those things, it's more that they were so close, and could have done it all that bit better, while maintaining the fun rollercoaster ride.

 

[MAGolding]

Kirk & Co. are not the most extreme examples of Television characters being happy and joking immediatley or shortly after scenes of violence and tragedy, and thus possibly displaying physchological problems of some tiype.

I just looked up the list of programs available on the Disney Plus streaming service, wich some of us on this thread might possibly have access to. The section with Live-Action.Series lists Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012).

Naturally one would assume that teenage and preteen characters on a Disney Channel series for children would be quite acceptable as role models for child viewers. ON ewould assume that they never lied, or stole, or bulleid, or cheaed on tests, etc.

The protagonists of Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012) are all young wizards in training, being taught how to use various magic spells. Amoung the various spells the Russo family wizards in training learn are spells to reassemble broken objects, spells to immobilze persons without harming them, spells to teleport instantly from one place to another (even to other planets), spells to travel in time, spells to rewind time over and over again so they can do things over and over again until they get a good outcome, and so on. All the wizards n training have powers similar to the Q. That means that a wizard in training can never be forced by cicumstances to harm a living being they do not want to harm. UNlike unmagical humans, wizards in training can never be haunted by guilt over harming a living being that they didn't want to harm but were forced by circumstances to harm.

In one pisode, the wizards bring to life the figue of a man on their father's trophy, and the figurine runs away. Their father demands that they put it back on the trohy. So their father is willing to denimate (i.e.kill) a now living being with a desire to live and the ability to speak, merely to keep his trophy intact. At the end of the episode the figurine is back on the troppy and deanimated (i.e. killed). However, the end tag to the episode shows the figurine reanimated, so apparently they sometimes reanimate him for a while. If all the end tags are canon, then that end tag is canon, and the figurine is not always dead but sometimes alive.

The double length episode "Wizards vs Angels" February 28, 2011, has a subplot where tween girls are invited to the Russo family apartment and get turned into old men, and then into talking fruits. In the end tag at the end of the episode the taking fruit (formerly little girls) are threatened with being blended if they tell more bad jokes, one of them tells a bad joke, and as it fades to black the sound of a blender starting is heard.

Obviously, if the end tags are all just silly jokes and are not canon, then the wizards never harmed invited guests by killing talking fruit who had recently been little girls. But if none of the episode end tags are canon, then there no evidence that the figurine was ever reanimated. Thus the Russos would have deanimated (killed) the figurine and never brought him back to life.

in fact, the Russo wizards in training kill a number of humans, intelligent magical beings, and other types of persons, in several episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012), despite having vast magical powers enabling them to avoid killing anyone they don't want to kill.

The joke in the end tag at the end of "The Good, the Bad, and the Alex" on 7 May 2010 is unimportant. But the last scene in the episode proper is quite dramatic. The protagonists are quite cheerfull and happy and even crack a few jokes at the end of that scene, like the protagonists of TOS do in the end tags of various episodes, despite violence and tragedy in previous scenes. But in TOS the scenes of violence and tragedy happen various periods of time, minutes or hours, sometimes, even days after the violence and tragedy, and the protagonists have a least a little time to get over the previous events.

But in the "The Good, the Bad, and the Alex" there are acts of violence and the protagonists are immediately happy and cheeful in the same scene, with absolutely no intervening time to recover from any hypothetical emotional distress the violence might have cause them. Furthermore, unlike anyy TOS episode, the protagonists are happy and joking while surrounded by the grim remains of the violence. The TOS characters weren't happy at all in the only scene in TOS with similar evidence of death.

So anyone who thinks that TOS was the ultimate examples of protagonists seeming to ignore previous tragedy and joke at the end, and that no other show could ever take such insane behavior any farther, will have to change their mind after seeing "The Good, the Bad, and the Alex".

 

[fireproof78]

I'm not saying Kirk didn't display leadership traits - clearly that was the point. Although it's more of a point that most lieutenants display NO leadership qualities, despite being officers (in the official comics Keenser was to be a lieutenant if you can believe that - Scotty treats him like a minion, so I had assumed he was just a crewman or petty officer), that's a whole other point. I'm just saying he wasn't ready to carry the responsibility of being a starship captain. A commendation - perhaps. A promotion - possibly not due to his insubordination and shockingly bad planning. Captaincy - definitely not.

Agreed.

The issue I have is that Kirk's plan isn't smart or even sensible. The story suffers many of the same issues as the Enterprise Incident in that it relies on the Romulans being very inept and failing basic tasks like using sensors or monitoring incursions. You can argue, well that's Romulans, but Kirk has no clue about Romulans and no reason to expect people from the future who escaped a maximum security Klingon prison to be so inept. His plan almost fails because he chooses not to take a security team, reminiscent of Troi's attempt to pass her command test by doing everything herself. It's only Pike waking up at an opportune moment that saves the day.

I mean, it sounds basically simple. Small team, beaming in, infiltrating and leaving. Yes, it assumes security is faulty but that's Trek logic to a T. It's Kirk and Spock posing as Organians to infiltrate Klingons all over again.

Or why the Enterprise detected Nero's approach vector (I guess he had no cloaking device) but Nero didn't detect the Enterprise even though she would have had to pass the Narada at a higher warp to get to the Solar System before them.

They didn't get there before the Narada. The Narada had already started drilling, and the Enterprise warps in to the atmosphere of Titan to set up their ability to beam in without being detected.

Not sure where this complaint is coming from because this didn't happen in the movie.

 

[Pauln6]

They didn't get there before the Narada. The Narada had already started drilling, and the Enterprise warps in to the atmosphere of Titan to set up their ability to beam in without being detected.

Not sure where this complaint is coming from because this didn't happen in the movie.

I may be mis-remembering. It has been a long time since I watched the whole thing. I thought they could not use transporters while the drill was in use so they had to wait for the Narada to arrive and pass them, dropping its shields to use the drill, so they could beam aboard before the drill was activated?

That part would actually make sense.