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Star Trek XI and thoughts on Kirk's motivations.
Went to see the new Trek movie for the third time yesterday. This is a record for me. I don't think I've ever seen a movie twice before, yet alone three times.
I'm hoping lots of my friends have seen and enjoyed it, because I think this is going to become a new fandom for me, and I'd hate to be there without the rest of you.
I'm trying to work out why the movie works so well for me. I'll ponder non-spoilery stuff and then do spoilery stuff behind a cut tag.
Captain Pike - Bruce Greenwood does an excellent job. In the original series, Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before Kirk and features in the episode 'Menagerie'. He's a much more interesting and well-developed character in the movie and I like attractive older men.
Having said that about older men, I have to add that Chekov is cute beyond belief and Kirk (Chris Pine) is virtually jail bait.
Uhura is strong-willed and intelligent and speaks all three dialects of Romulan.
McCoy is wonderful. Karl Urban is McCoy to the life. He feels like DeForrest Kelly. He has the mannerisms, the dialogue and I love him. His relationship with both Kirk and Spock is spot on. And the script-writers have given him some lovely classic lines: "pointy-eared, green-blooded hobgoblin"
Zacchary Quinto does an excellent Spock - very close to Nimmoy's performance (there are moments when you could almost swear he was Nimmoy), and yet, perhaps because he isn't Nimmoy, he isn't my favourite character from the film.
Sulu was the only one who didn't really grab me. Nothing I can fault, but I definitely preferred George Takei's version.
Scotty took a while to grow on me. He feels least like the original character. However, by the third watching I'd become a convert. I like his sense of humour. At one point, viewing a scene of complete chaos on the bridge, he just stands there watching and says: "I *like* this ship."
Pine's version of Kirk really shouldn't work, except that it does... If you had told me that Kirk would be my favourite character, I'd have laughed in your face:--
Kirk is young, angry, rebellious and very aggressive. But, and it's an important 'but', he's also very intelligent and there are points in the movie where he actually uses his brains (and there are also points where that youthful aggression leads him to react with his fists rather than his brains). What's really enjoyable is to realise the points where he starts to mature. He doesn't undergo dramatic changes, but he when he has responsibility he starts to live up to it. He listens to his crew, uses them to the best of their ability and respects their skills.
Kirk has an eye for everything in a skirt, even more so than Shatner's version! For some reason, this totally fails to annoy me, possibly because Kirk is so cheerfully blantant about it.
Actually, I think the reason Kirk works so well for me is because he's NOT Shatner. Shatner's Kirk always made my teeth grate. There was an underlying smugness that irked. Pine's Kirk still has that over-whelming self-confidence, but it comes across differently. With Pine, it's more an unstoppable source of energy. He believes he's the best and that he can take on whatever anyone throws at him, but it comes across as a rebound - as a young man who's had a lot go wrong in his life and has had the choice of being crushed by it, or to fight back at every instant.
Shatner's Kirk feels as though he thinks he's the best because everyone has told him he is.
Pine's Kirk feels as though no one had believed in his ability except himself, until a trigger point in his life makes him decide to try and prove it to other people as well. I think that's a lot of what drives him. He still needs to prove himself to an unbelieving world - that's what drives his aggression. I think it's part of what drives his womanising as well. Every woman he can conquer is a point on a chart saying: "See, I can do something." And for the early part of his life, women are the only score that he's prepared to try for - maybe the only one that his contemporaries would recognise as counting. That and driving cars very fast, stealing things and generally getting into trouble.
Pike, with unerring instinct finds the one thing that will make contact with the young Kirk. He doesn't succeed by appeals to his better nature, but with challenge. He dares Kirk to do better. Presented in that form, Kirk can accept the offer without loss of face. He's not joining Starfleet because Pike wants him to, but in order to prove Pike wrong. Or even to prove him right. It doesn't actually matter which - it's a dare and he's responded to that all his life. But he's smart enough to know that this is a dare that could change his entire life for the better.
It's interesting to think about why Kirk didn't enter Starfleet in the first place. Clearly his mother has remained in the service -she's mentioned by his step-father as being away in space. Does he resent the service for taking his mother away for so much of the time? Does he resent it for killing his father? He's obviously interested in things relating to space. He instantly replies to Uhura's comment that he wouldn't know what xenolinguistics was. He has the interest. He has high grades at school and he must have been doing some pretty heavy reading in his spare time or he'd never have managed to graduate from Star Fleet Academy in three years. So, why not apply for Star Fleet to begin with? Peer pressure? Are the youth around the shipyards in Iowa resentful of the 'elite' imposed upon them? Is there an attitude of 'us and them' between locals and the crew at the yards and those cadets who come to visit the yards?
Kirk chooses to hang out in a bar frequented by spacers (I forget the exact name of the bar, but it's something space related, and the salt shaker of the USS Kelvin says it all). Space obviously draws him, but at the same time, he rejects it. Is Starfleet 'cool' among the Iowa youth? Spock Prime tells Kirk that his father was the inspiration for the original Kirk to enter space. Without that influence, is Kirk still drawn to the stars, pulled by curiosity to study in secret, but never able to overcome the disdain of his peers for men in uniform who have to obey orders?
I'm inclined to think that with a mother who was often absent and a step-father who didn't care, the young Kirk was very reliant on friends of his own age to form his opinions and to base his self-image on. I see his friends as being largely youths who have no interest in things beyond their own town, an insular community that takes money from the spacers, but views them with suspicion. (A bit like the attitude of locals in popular tourist areas. They'll take your money, but they don't consider you as belonging)
Thus, we have a young man who has a strong interest in space, but who keeps quiet about it when his friends are around. He hangs out in spacer bars, both to share the illusion of belonging, but also to be able to laugh at them in order to retain his social status.
We have a young man who has grown up with a less than ideal home life and who doesn't have good role models for either steady relationships or authoriy figures. We don't see any indication that he spoke to his mother before he joins Starfleet, and we don't see her at his graduation (which is tragic). He doesn't form steady relationships with women - and this is probably a reflection both of the family environment he grew up in, and the need to look cool in front of his friends.
He has a bad relationship with authority figures, from his step-father to the local police. Is Captain Pike the first stable authority figure in his life? Possibly. I suspect the presence of at least one really good teacher. Someone found a way to motivate the young Kirk, or he'd never have learned as much as he did. Someone inspired him with a love of learning (I think I feel a fanfic coming on there).
What we have when Kirk first takes command of the Enterprise is a young man of genius-level intelligence, but who has only had three years to train that intelligence into a stable form. He's impulsive and erratic and still has that hard core of rebellion. He's not good at taking orders, and deep down, we suspect that he never will be.
However, his saving grace is that when he does get command, he doesn't blindly run into danger. He thinks, he listens. He knows they need a way to beam aboard the Narada without Enterprise being seen and shot down first. He works with the crew to find a solution to that problem. He doesn't try to control everything when he is not aboard. He trusts Sulu to spot a tactical opportunity and exploit it if one occurs. He obviously has to know that Spock Prime's ship is aboard the Narada and has probably allowed for that when formulating his plans (he doesn't mention it as that would break his promise to Spock Prime).
Once he's got command away from Spock, he accepts Spock as part of his team (and I could say a lot of complimentary things about Spock at this point, but that's another post if anyone wants to read it) and does everything he can to support Spock both physcally and mentally. (though even I was surprised when Spock responded by calling him Jim). He has learnt that Spock is not his enemy and he accepts, purely on trust, that the two of them will make a perfectly-balanced team.
When Kirk offers the Romulans a chance to surrender, it isn't just to impress Spock. He's gained in maturity, and he also understands from Spock Prime what event drove Nero insane. As Captain, he has become an official spokesman for Starfleet, and he speaks as the voice of the Federation when he gives the Romulans that chance. With authority goes responsibility. Kirk has learned that lesson.
I'm hoping lots of my friends have seen and enjoyed it, because I think this is going to become a new fandom for me, and I'd hate to be there without the rest of you.
I'm trying to work out why the movie works so well for me. I'll ponder non-spoilery stuff and then do spoilery stuff behind a cut tag.
Captain Pike - Bruce Greenwood does an excellent job. In the original series, Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before Kirk and features in the episode 'Menagerie'. He's a much more interesting and well-developed character in the movie and I like attractive older men.
Having said that about older men, I have to add that Chekov is cute beyond belief and Kirk (Chris Pine) is virtually jail bait.
Uhura is strong-willed and intelligent and speaks all three dialects of Romulan.
McCoy is wonderful. Karl Urban is McCoy to the life. He feels like DeForrest Kelly. He has the mannerisms, the dialogue and I love him. His relationship with both Kirk and Spock is spot on. And the script-writers have given him some lovely classic lines: "pointy-eared, green-blooded hobgoblin"
Zacchary Quinto does an excellent Spock - very close to Nimmoy's performance (there are moments when you could almost swear he was Nimmoy), and yet, perhaps because he isn't Nimmoy, he isn't my favourite character from the film.
Sulu was the only one who didn't really grab me. Nothing I can fault, but I definitely preferred George Takei's version.
Scotty took a while to grow on me. He feels least like the original character. However, by the third watching I'd become a convert. I like his sense of humour. At one point, viewing a scene of complete chaos on the bridge, he just stands there watching and says: "I *like* this ship."
Pine's version of Kirk really shouldn't work, except that it does... If you had told me that Kirk would be my favourite character, I'd have laughed in your face:--
Kirk is young, angry, rebellious and very aggressive. But, and it's an important 'but', he's also very intelligent and there are points in the movie where he actually uses his brains (and there are also points where that youthful aggression leads him to react with his fists rather than his brains). What's really enjoyable is to realise the points where he starts to mature. He doesn't undergo dramatic changes, but he when he has responsibility he starts to live up to it. He listens to his crew, uses them to the best of their ability and respects their skills.
Kirk has an eye for everything in a skirt, even more so than Shatner's version! For some reason, this totally fails to annoy me, possibly because Kirk is so cheerfully blantant about it.
Actually, I think the reason Kirk works so well for me is because he's NOT Shatner. Shatner's Kirk always made my teeth grate. There was an underlying smugness that irked. Pine's Kirk still has that over-whelming self-confidence, but it comes across differently. With Pine, it's more an unstoppable source of energy. He believes he's the best and that he can take on whatever anyone throws at him, but it comes across as a rebound - as a young man who's had a lot go wrong in his life and has had the choice of being crushed by it, or to fight back at every instant.
Shatner's Kirk feels as though he thinks he's the best because everyone has told him he is.
Pine's Kirk feels as though no one had believed in his ability except himself, until a trigger point in his life makes him decide to try and prove it to other people as well. I think that's a lot of what drives him. He still needs to prove himself to an unbelieving world - that's what drives his aggression. I think it's part of what drives his womanising as well. Every woman he can conquer is a point on a chart saying: "See, I can do something." And for the early part of his life, women are the only score that he's prepared to try for - maybe the only one that his contemporaries would recognise as counting. That and driving cars very fast, stealing things and generally getting into trouble.
Pike, with unerring instinct finds the one thing that will make contact with the young Kirk. He doesn't succeed by appeals to his better nature, but with challenge. He dares Kirk to do better. Presented in that form, Kirk can accept the offer without loss of face. He's not joining Starfleet because Pike wants him to, but in order to prove Pike wrong. Or even to prove him right. It doesn't actually matter which - it's a dare and he's responded to that all his life. But he's smart enough to know that this is a dare that could change his entire life for the better.
It's interesting to think about why Kirk didn't enter Starfleet in the first place. Clearly his mother has remained in the service -she's mentioned by his step-father as being away in space. Does he resent the service for taking his mother away for so much of the time? Does he resent it for killing his father? He's obviously interested in things relating to space. He instantly replies to Uhura's comment that he wouldn't know what xenolinguistics was. He has the interest. He has high grades at school and he must have been doing some pretty heavy reading in his spare time or he'd never have managed to graduate from Star Fleet Academy in three years. So, why not apply for Star Fleet to begin with? Peer pressure? Are the youth around the shipyards in Iowa resentful of the 'elite' imposed upon them? Is there an attitude of 'us and them' between locals and the crew at the yards and those cadets who come to visit the yards?
Kirk chooses to hang out in a bar frequented by spacers (I forget the exact name of the bar, but it's something space related, and the salt shaker of the USS Kelvin says it all). Space obviously draws him, but at the same time, he rejects it. Is Starfleet 'cool' among the Iowa youth? Spock Prime tells Kirk that his father was the inspiration for the original Kirk to enter space. Without that influence, is Kirk still drawn to the stars, pulled by curiosity to study in secret, but never able to overcome the disdain of his peers for men in uniform who have to obey orders?
I'm inclined to think that with a mother who was often absent and a step-father who didn't care, the young Kirk was very reliant on friends of his own age to form his opinions and to base his self-image on. I see his friends as being largely youths who have no interest in things beyond their own town, an insular community that takes money from the spacers, but views them with suspicion. (A bit like the attitude of locals in popular tourist areas. They'll take your money, but they don't consider you as belonging)
Thus, we have a young man who has a strong interest in space, but who keeps quiet about it when his friends are around. He hangs out in spacer bars, both to share the illusion of belonging, but also to be able to laugh at them in order to retain his social status.
We have a young man who has grown up with a less than ideal home life and who doesn't have good role models for either steady relationships or authoriy figures. We don't see any indication that he spoke to his mother before he joins Starfleet, and we don't see her at his graduation (which is tragic). He doesn't form steady relationships with women - and this is probably a reflection both of the family environment he grew up in, and the need to look cool in front of his friends.
He has a bad relationship with authority figures, from his step-father to the local police. Is Captain Pike the first stable authority figure in his life? Possibly. I suspect the presence of at least one really good teacher. Someone found a way to motivate the young Kirk, or he'd never have learned as much as he did. Someone inspired him with a love of learning (I think I feel a fanfic coming on there).
What we have when Kirk first takes command of the Enterprise is a young man of genius-level intelligence, but who has only had three years to train that intelligence into a stable form. He's impulsive and erratic and still has that hard core of rebellion. He's not good at taking orders, and deep down, we suspect that he never will be.
However, his saving grace is that when he does get command, he doesn't blindly run into danger. He thinks, he listens. He knows they need a way to beam aboard the Narada without Enterprise being seen and shot down first. He works with the crew to find a solution to that problem. He doesn't try to control everything when he is not aboard. He trusts Sulu to spot a tactical opportunity and exploit it if one occurs. He obviously has to know that Spock Prime's ship is aboard the Narada and has probably allowed for that when formulating his plans (he doesn't mention it as that would break his promise to Spock Prime).
Once he's got command away from Spock, he accepts Spock as part of his team (and I could say a lot of complimentary things about Spock at this point, but that's another post if anyone wants to read it) and does everything he can to support Spock both physcally and mentally. (though even I was surprised when Spock responded by calling him Jim). He has learnt that Spock is not his enemy and he accepts, purely on trust, that the two of them will make a perfectly-balanced team.
When Kirk offers the Romulans a chance to surrender, it isn't just to impress Spock. He's gained in maturity, and he also understands from Spock Prime what event drove Nero insane. As Captain, he has become an official spokesman for Starfleet, and he speaks as the voice of the Federation when he gives the Romulans that chance. With authority goes responsibility. Kirk has learned that lesson.
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The new movie does seem to have split to old guard a lot. Some old school fans are saying 'it's just a lot of big explosions. It's like a Michael Bay film.' Others are loving how fresh and vital and fun it's made the franchise feel.
I'm in the latter camp, and have to confess a particular love of Karl Urban's McCoy, because he's fab.
Some very interesting points made about Kirk, here, including a lot of stuff that hadn't occurred to me. If you write ST09 fic, i'll be only too happy to read it and offer feedback. :)
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And Pike is my new Daddy. Don't ask. He just is.
So there.
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Pike is fabulous. I love him to pieces.
I loved Pike first. It was only on later watchings that I came to understand Kirk better and to like him also.
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I was a McCoy person before and I'm still one, gawd bless him but I loved all the other characters, too.
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The last thing I need is to watch it :-)
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When you say 'The last thing I need is to watch it', an English person would read that to mean "I will never watch it" (ie. it's the last item on your list of things to do, and is last because it is something you don't want to do)
Is that what you meant?
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*Hugs*
a chip off the old block?
Well, somebody following in the footsteps of their dear old, unfortunately-early-deceased and subsequently hero-worshipped dad, after at first not daring to compare himself with such a paragon, is the oldest cliche in the book. I cite Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones as other examples of the archetype. I bet there are dozens more in SF and other literatures. It's a hackneyed old cliche and the genre deserves better!
Re: a chip off the old block?
Luke Skywalker hero worships his father when he learns about him. Kirk is more cautious. He doesn't hero-worship anyone easily. He's always known who his father was and what he did.
Pike doesn't reel him in by telling him how wonderful his father was (that approach fails), he does it by effectively telling him to outdo his dad, rather than live up to his dad. To a personality like Kirk's there's a big difference.
(PS. I'm not in the least bothered by the hair style! I didn't expect a clone of Shatner)
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Yes. :) I never really liked the character of Kirk but always had the suspicion that it was more a Shatner thing than a Kirk thing. The recasting gave me a character who I could see as a character in his own right rather than just a dodgy actor in a bad wig, and I found him really rather enjoyable! I think that this was the only way to really save the franchise - just cut everything right back to basics and reintroduce it to a new audience from scratch, free of the creaking weight of old continuity. Worked wonderfully.
The recasting was excellent overall - some near-channelling the original actors, others coming at them in their own way, but it all worked superbly. Sulu was the one that had the least to do overall, but I'm sure he'll come into his own later. Scotty I rather liked - I was talking to someone who has family working on the North Sea oil rigs, and apparently Pegg pretty much played Scotty as a rig engineer, sandwich jokes and all, which makes a rather odd sort of sense!
I've only seen it the once, though I may well get around to seeing it again once the Big Fic Deadline From Hell is past. :) I'll read a little of the genfic, I suspect, but I can't see myself being a writer here. But whatever my level of (non)involvement, it's rather nice to see one of the real grand-daddies of genre fandom getting a new lease of life. As with DW, the trick seems to be to blow the shit out of a familiar old Plot Sink Planet and go from there.... ;)
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You're right about him proving himself, taking things as a dare (oh, I loved how Pike did that!). This Kirk is more reckless; but it makes a lot more sense for this Kirk to tend to think with his fists than the original Kirk did. And yes, this Kirk seems less smug, because he's less sure of himself underneath; I mean, he's smart, and he knows he's smart, but he hasn't been a Good Boy. I think you're probably right about the influence of his peers on his attitudes. Also, perhaps he avoided Starfleet because he didn't want to be known as "George Kirk's son" rather than someone in his own right.
Kirk has an eye for everything in a skirt, even more so than Shatner's version! For some reason, this totally fails to annoy me, possibly because Kirk is so cheerfully blantant about it.
I think it was also that he was shown as not always getting the girl, because Uhura turned him down flat. I liked that.
And the Uhura/Spock thing took me by surprise also, but I really like it, because it is obviously based on mutual respect.
Fandom seems split on that relationship: some people really like it, others write fanfic which breaks them up in order for them to get Kirk/Spock slash, and a third group likes making Kirk, Spock and Uhura a threesome. Even those who like Uhura/Spock are split: I am apparently in a minority of those who think that they weren't in a relationship before the Enterprise, that they were friends, but hadn't gone any further than that (though they might have wanted to).
McCoy and Scotty are love. ♥
"You're from the future. Do they still have sandwiches there?"
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I wasn't sure whether I'd like Quinto's Spock, mostly because I thought I wouldn't be able to help seeing him as Sylar, but he ended up being my second favourite part of the film (the first being Spock Prime, of course). Except for the Spock/Uhura stuff, which I just can't bring myself to buy at all (and not only because I'm a slasher).
I do hope you write some fic - I've never read anything of yours!
(This is Rachael btw - I'm on DW these days and don't read LJ, but saw you linked on
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Pine's Kirk feels as though no one had believed in his ability except himself, until a trigger point in his life makes him decide to try and prove it to other people as well.
This puts so simply something I've been mulling over in my head ever since seeing the movie. I'm sure you know Kirk was based in large part on Horatio Hornblower, but much as I like Shatner's Kirk, he never hit me on the same level as Hornblower, either the book character or Ioan Gruffudd's portrayal, and it's for exactly the reason you outlined. Hornblower claws his way up through the ranks despite the disadvantages of his birth and relative poverty. He doesn't lead a charmed life, but he's tenacious through every hard knock the story gives him, he has natural tactical brilliance, and inspires fierce loyalty in his men. (Also, both he and all incarnations of Kirk are basically like Wedge Antilles: shit just happens when they're around.)
I don't see that hardscrabble ethos in Shatner's Kirk, but it's written all over Pine's portrayal. Maybe if we'd had a chance to see Shatner's Kirk rise through the ranks we'd see why he is a Hornblower-type. But without that, it's like you said: he behaves less like he's had to fight to prove himself and more like people have been telling him how great he is since the day he enlisted.
Anyway, you don't know me, but I've just meta-d all over your post. Sorry about that, but it was an interesting discussion of Kirk and Pike, who along with Uhura were easily my favorite characters.
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In the original series of Star Trek there was an episode with the famous 'first inter-racial screen kiss' between Kirk and Uhura. Geek legend holds that the scene was originally written to be Spock/Uhura, but that the scene was shamefully stolen by Shatner, who wouldn't let anyone else get anything this cool. He did stuff like this all the time apparently.
I kinda think that the new Spock/Uhura relationship is retroactive payback for that, along with Uhura cutting young Kirk dead.
And yes, Spock and Uhura were definately at it whilst at the Academy. That's why he wasn't gonna assign her to the Enterprise 'I thought it might be favouritism'
Loved the film, going for a second viewing tonight, and I haven't gone twice to a film in years and years.
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Sloppy script-writing in that regard.
(I enjoyed the way she puts Kirk down - and the fact that he doesn't resent it)