From: v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: Locarno = Kirk (Spoilers "First Duty"))
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:04:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


>kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes:
> > You'll understand if I don't accept examples taken from ST:TWOK,
> > since this was the movie that produced Kobiyashi and exposed
> > "failings" that I don't believe Kirk has.  

>tlynch@cco.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
> > Then we can't reach agreement.  If you refuse to accept my
> > examples (and ST2 is the biggest and best of the lot), then
> > there's no point in my giving them, is there?


kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes: 
>C'mon, Tim.  If I wanted to prove that Kirk had such and such
>trait, wouldn't I write the script to back up my premise?  It
>would be much more believable if there were good evidence from
>pre-TWOK Trek, which leaves one movie and TOS to work with.

     Sorry to just "break" into this one Kyle and Tim, but my two
     cents are itching in my fingers.
     Kyle - that position is fine, but what you are doing is
     acknowledging the point Tim and myself and others have
     been arguing for that past week or so. 
     You are saying, "Yes, I see what TWOK is telling us about Kirk, 
     I just don't buy it."  That's your prerogative, but you ^are^
     rejecting, not accepting, what the movie is telling us. 

>I admit we didn't see Kirk break down in TOS.  Yes, he did indeed
>"put on a happy face" after many misadventures and close calls.
>_This is what men were supposed to do._  Men simply did not whoop
>and cry on TV in the sixties.  Particularly not leaders.  Kirk
>held it in because duty and custom demanded that he do so.

     The examples that prove the point.  Kirk didn't "whomp and
     cry" in TOS at all.  Why?  TWOK is telling us it is because
     he never let death get inside him.  You are telling us it
     is because it was "the sixties and men didn't do that."  
     Your reasoning is fine, but you are reasoning outside the
     dramatic action.  Tim and myself, and TWOK, are reasoning
     WITHIN it.

>And even so there were cracks in his composure.  For example,
>consider the episode "The Ultimate Computer".  M5 was blowing all
>those ships to Kingdom Come and all Kirk could do was sit
>helpless and watch?

     I wanted to puke.  He's such a rotten actor (generally speaking -
     don't assassinate me over it!).
     [BTW, Tim, you were talking about Stewart v. Shatner's acting
     prowess the other day, continuing a thread I had started I think,
     and you mentioned that Stewart had the ability to "slip his emotional
     point in there without us realising until later" or something and
     one LOADED line of Picard's dialogue came to mind:

     "I want to meat your mother.  Can you arrange that?"

     From Redemption II.  Rotten episode, of course, simple lines,
     but Stewart LOADED them with emotional subtext.]


                ^She's My Cousin But Doesn't She^
                      ^Look Almost Exactly^
           ____________^Like Laura Palmer^____________
          ^Scott Gorcey, v075q5fr@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu^ 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current