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- Star Trek VI, Kirk's Reaction
- -------------------------------
- By Edwin Yau
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-
-
- Star Trek VI (ST6) saw a slightly different side of Captain James Tiberius
- Kirk. Many IDIC members, as well Star Trek fans across the world thought that
- Kirk's reaction to Klingons in ST6 was not how Kirk should have reacted,
- especially in light of what happened in ST5.
-
- I feel that I should put across to you a different perspective on ST6.
- Basically, I believe that you're all missing a few vitally important points:-
-
-
- 1) Most people change. Over 25 years, peoples' perspective of life and
- society changes. Issues which weren't important to you, say, 10 years ago,
- could be important to you now, and 10 years from now, those very same
- issues may not be important to you at all. Imagine what sort of world we
- would be living in if even now most of the world had not forgiven and
- learnt to trust the Germans or Japanese because of World War II. A few can
- never do, which is understandable - thankfully most people can.
-
- The other extreme would be developing a "hate", or even a fear of
- something - a phobia. The definition of a phobia is "an abnormal,
- persistent and morbid fear of some object or situation". ST6 was a perfect
- example of both of these - some people on the Klingon, Romulan and
- Federation sides hated what peace could mean, and were afraid of the
- future. One of the reasons for the title "The Undiscovered Country".
-
- As to Kirk's reaction because of his son's death. Kirk only had a month or
- so to get to know David - some people can "latch on" to a relative they
- have only known for a while really quickly, and a strong bond can form
- between them. If a Klingon killed your son, you'd hardly implicitly trust
- the next one who comes along, would you? Once you really got to know him/
- her, of course, but it would take time.
-
- 2) The ST6 novel states that Carol Marcus was badly injured in Klingon
- attacks on the planet she was stationed, and that the Klingons had been
- attacking at least one other planet. This would fuel Kirk's anger.
-
- 3) What was the basic theme to ST6 and where did it come from? Well, ST6 was
- about the start of peace between two great empires, and the basis of this
- was taken from the two great empires here on Earth, the then Soviet Union
- and the United States Of America.
-
-
- In other words, the main basis of ST6, indeed of the whole of the Classic/
- Movie Trek era in general, was really reflecting on 20th century man and life
- as it is now. It was putting 20th century man into the 23rd century and
- letting them deal with 20th Century problems.
-
- Kirk & Co. dealt with their problems in an almost human 20th century way and
- so gave us "true-to-life" situations - they would help people as best they
- could and do what they thought was best, even to the point of violating the
- Prime Directive if absolutely for the better or for worse. In the 23rd
- century this is still apparent, unlike the near-perfect 24th century. As
- Saavik once said to Spock about Kirk, "He is so... human.", which is
- certainly true.
-
-
-
- (This article was submitted both to IDIC -AND- Infinite Frontiers for
- publication by the author - Simon)
-