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So Really, Why Is Captain Kirk Such A Douchebag?
San Francisco, 4:07 PM
Mon Dec 21
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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So Really, Why Is Captain Kirk Such A Douchebag? |
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05/12/09
Kirk's egotistical underachievement and entitlement are more what you'd expect out of a kid who, conversely, had everything handed to them on a silver platter. I went to a high school full of selfish rich kids and I saw this all the time in guys: who thought the world owed them everything. They came from perfect little nuclear families where they'd been told from day one that they were a genius and that they were destined for great things. I couldn't help but see some of them in Pine's portrayal of Kirk.
By contrast, I found the portrayal of Spock a lot more believable. His need to prove himself to a society that considered him "less than" because of his heritage, and then his decision to abandon them when he realized he'd always being second-best no matter what he accomplished, seemed like a much more natural story arc for someone with his background and his struggles.
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There isn't much justification for Pike's belief in Kirk. It's almost as if there should have been a scene with Pike and Old Spock at the end, where Pike says "I wouldn't have believed you if you hadn't done that mind meld thing."
05/12/09
We can't simply postulate "Oh, Pike broke the 4th wall and read the script."
That's bad writing.
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05/12/09
Damn you Garrison!
/fist shake
05/12/09
Which proves that she's, you know, smart.
05/12/09
I think it's something altogether different to see him be a dickhead, and an unabashed one at that.
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05/12/09
people who insist they are right all the time, like kirk, are huge dicks. however, when they are also right all the time they tend to be in charge. the observation that they were lucky or didn't deserve it on merit alone or that they're a huge dick just sounds like the covetous kvetching of someone that wishes they could be that fortuitous.
'well if this and this and the other thing had happened for me and i had argued stronger for that and so forth i would have been captain' no one cares because you didn't have the nerve to shove how right you were in everyone's face when it actually mattered.
spock understood this which is why, instead of pissing and moaning to starfleet about how many protocols kirk broke, he requests to be assigned to work with him.
05/12/09
You don't see his mom overly concerned about his criminal record or his overall bad attitude; you see, she's working off-planet. Po' latchkey kid, in an era where kids probably more treasured than they are even now, with the whole Eugenics War / WWIII thing.
I know fathers were important, and abusive uncles are Bad, but Kirk had a mother, too.
Why, then, did she make him a jerk?
And can she make another one, if I give her the yarn?
05/12/09
I was too busy nodding at your points.
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here's a quick test I often use to figure out if I 'like' a character...
Would I have a beer with this person in a bar? (replace beer with coffee, whatever)
Shat-Kirk? = Yes, great stories, interesting views etc, you'd get a indication of why he's such a great captain.
Pine-Kirk? = No, he's a douchebag. Shat-Kirk is arrogant but also thoughtful, Pine-Kirk is just far too full of himself...for no reason at all...
and when will we get past using the 'single-parent = troubled' trope...it isn't true and it's lazy writing.
as for the Kobyasahi Maru scene in the new flick...ugh, really shitty, yes the apple was a nice touch, but how lame is it for everything to just turn off, then back on again and the Klingons have no shields? LAME...nothing creative, sly or clever about it, it's like a cheat code in a video game.
all other issues aside, the weakest part of this film is Pine-Kirk.
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as for "journey of self-realization" I think you're giving him too much credit...he learns nothing (maybe something vague about teamwork) and is rewarded at the end for simply doing whatever he wanted.
05/12/09
Kirk is not one of those.
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The Plague is not a douche.
An asshole? Maybe.
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If he did his dissertation (and since when do captains have the time to defend one?) on Kirk's Last Stand, why didn't he step up to help Jimmy when it mattered -- when he was stuck in the ass-end of Iowa with a drunken, abusive uncle? Did he get a vision of the future saying, "no, leave this douchebag alone, so he may grow to be the Greatest Captain EVAH", or was it simply convenient to use that bar fight as a recruitment opportunity, and see what happens?
If that nu!Earth was even as advanced as ours, Jimmy and George Jr. would be taken by Child Services and put in foster care as soon as Jimmy stole that car. But no, even though Earth has improved as a worldwide culture, neglected kids stay in bad homes. *White* intelligent kids stay in bad homes, when hunger and want supposedly have been reduced, if not eliminated, so no one should have to stay in a bad situation because a drunken sot pays the bills.
Riiight.....
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05/12/09
Huh. Douchiness abounds in nuTrek, then.
ShatKirk reprogrammed the K. Maru cleverly and by himself -- he was a "walking stack of books".
PineKirk is a douche who's given everything on a platter for no reason other than "the script says so." He doesn't earn it, so he's not a leader, and this leaves a big sagging hole in the middle of the movie.
They ripped off Luke Skywalker, but he ended up more Anakin.
05/12/09
This is why, ultimately, Shatner could not have been in this film. Putting the new Kirk so squarely against the "old" Kirk would have made the differences too glaring, too stark. It would have turned off the old Trekkers (like me) and probably have made hash of the plot (though there was plenty of hash to go around).
That said, this is a reboot. The shell is the Kirk-we-know, the person is the Kirk-about-to-be. Give us a couple more movies (hopefully with more polished scripts), and this rough-and-ready approximation of Captain Kirk may flesh out into a reasonable facsimile of the Kirk we all know and love.