What's Bones Talking About? (Possible Spoiler)

[Praetor]

I tend to discount the scene at the end a bit, based on the dialog SalvorHardin graciously posted. Still, I think something's up.

Either Bones is really worried about the psychological effects that everything that's been going on have had on him (which is certainly possible, even though he actually does examine him) or there's something else going on.

I don't recall any health concerns for Kirk in the Primeverse. Orion gonorrhea, maybe.

What's a bit more interesting, though, is this: if he does have some sort of terminal or even potentially fatal illness, then that explains why he was so ready to let himself die at the end of the film. Indeed, it might help explain his earlier recklessness too.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I don't recall any health concerns for Kirk in the Primeverse.

There was definitely an episode where McCoy was close to suggesting a diet for Kirk. Lots of tie-in novel authors picked up on that stray comment over the years and, when Richard Arnold was vetting the tie-in manuscripts in the late 80s/early 90s, he specifically stopped them from doing so.

McCoy expressed concern of Kirk's mental health in "Obsession".

In at least one version of TMP, McCoy mentions "command fitness".

if he does have some sort of terminal or even potentially fatal illness

Huh? You're reading way too much into the scene.

 

[Praetor]

You're probably right.

 

[Gsam]

I think it would be giving the writers to much credit as it would require some effort to write a back story on Kirk's ill health. I am going with between physical and emotional stress his system is all out of wack. They couldn't do an original story line so I doubt they would have some sub plot going on with Kirk and his health.

I now have my one snarky remark out of my system.

 

[Set Harth]

I read somewhere that he's supposed to be 26 when STID takes place.

He was born in 2233, and STID is in 2259, so yes.

 

[Timby]

That's pretty young to have all his vitals be way off, as Bones says just before he starts arguing with Scotty about the torpedoes.

You're reading too much into it. When McCoy is referring to Kirk's vitals, he's doing it in the same vein as today's doctors do: Blood pressure, heart rate, pulse ox. The whole point of the line is to convey that Kirk isn't in his right mind, he isn't thinking clearly, and that something is very wrong -- same as the brilliant inversion of the Trek theme a minute earlier, during the sequence where the shuttlecraft heads to the Enterprise. It's text and subtext all saying, essentially, "shit ain't right."