Sometimes, inspiration comes from interesting places.
I occasionally watch long-form YouTube videos on pop-culture. Some of them are semi-documentary “did you know?” pieces that teach me something that I didn’t know, while others critically analyze movies and TV shows, and are entertaining in their own right. A good example is the latter comes from Red Letter Media, whose YouTube videos often have more views than the material they critique (cough Picard cough).
This week, I was watching another YouTuber, “Mikey Spock”, as he reviewed the Star Trek movies starring the original series cast.
Early on in the video “Mikey” states an opinion, in a throw-away moment. Said opinion was as follows: All the original cast Trek movies, in one way or another, are about a desire to “Go back, to the way things were.”
This gave me pause.
Upon reflection, I realized: This is completely correct.
Not that any such premise was planned, mind you. It’s an unintended through-line that began with Star Trek: The Motion Picture and resolved with The Undiscovered Country. And it’s not about all the characters… Just one.
James T. Kirk. While Kirk, Spock and McCoy are the three key characters, it’s Kirk’s journey that we follow in these movies. A journey that is much more true to his character than the schizophrenic changes that Picard goes through in HIS movies (I’ll leave that rant for another day).
Let’s follow Kirk’s journey.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
The premise that these movies are all about fighting change, yearning to go back to “normal” makes a lot of sense. Because the movie that started it all, The Motion Picture, is about bringing the band back together, and about Kirk wanting to be back where he needs/wants to be.
But, when Kirk returns to command the Enterprise in TMP, everything has changed. Multiple characters tell him this is a “completely different” ship, and that he needs to readjust his thinking. He, of course, refuses to.
Much like fans were (and are) resistant to change, Kirk wants things to be made “right”. The way things were during the five-year mission. He brings back Bones, he wants a Vulcan as Science Officer, and he wants to “reset” everything to where he was.
Why? He is not happy. Sitting behind a desk is not his “first, best destiny” and his wanderlust and need to GO… often, where no man has gone before, was too much a siren song to resist. He pulled strings, taking advantage of the V’Ger threat to get back… To where he once belonged.
(Sorry, Paul and John).
My theory is that fans who don’t like The Motion Picture are very much LIKE Kirk’s character in the movie. The film is very much NOT a typical Star Trek adventure, and things are very different. As we see with modern day criticism of pop culture, giving the audience Something Different is often not well received. To put it lightly.
At the end of The Motion Picture, Kirk “wins.” He gets everything he wanted. The ship is his, Spock is back by his side, and Bones is tweaking Mr. Spock just like he used to. It is the first major example of the Star Trek “Reset” button… Everyone is back, Jim Kirk has the Conn… And… SCENE.
Except.
Kirk hasn’t changed. But Spock has. He has a complete character arc in the film. He goes from shunning his human side to almost embracing it. He “gets it.” He is self-actualized at the finale, and his search for Who He Is and Where He Needs To Be has ended.
“V’Ger must evolve.” And so does Spock. So he does.
However, Kirk is in stasis. He is happily back in the Big Chair.
But it won’t last.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
We find out something at the beginning of this film. Kirk collects antiques. Which, of course.
He wants to live in the past, not to relive previous adventures, but because it was… “comfortable.” There were challenges, but ones he always rose to meet. He was comfortable in command. He was great at it.
Then it went away. Again.
The Wrath of Khan is the pivot-point in Kirk’s life. He is no longer in command, the Enterprise is a training ship (with Spock at the helm) and he has just turned 50 years old (not stated, but heavily implied). As he talks to McCoy in the beginning of the film, it’s a moment of reflection and depression. I feel you Jim. I REALLY do.
And then the past came calling.
Khan, an illegitimate son, and a “soft” response to a threat (when Khan approaches in the Reliant, Kirk is slow to react) puts Kirk on his back-foot. He is no longer “in command” of the situation. He faces a threat he may not be able to handle.
So his best friend helps him. Repeatedly.
Watching Wrath of Khan today, it is pretty clear that the Kirk/Spock relationship is the heart of the film. Spock has evolved. Kirk has not. Spock is supporting, nudging and directing Kirk to help his best friend. Not just to defeat Khan… but to Evolve. Because he has seen that… Kirk has been selfish.
Because Kirk couldn’t get out of his own head, he has made mistakes. Mistakes he wouldn’t have made otherwise. “Must be getting senile.”
No, Jim, Spock tells him. You’re not focusing on what’s important. Servant leadership.
“The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.”
It’s not ABOUT Kirk, Spock is saying. It’s about the Greater Good. Kirk needs to change to be BETTER at what he does so well. He was TOO comfortable. This is actually summed up in a line Kirk sarcastically says in the next film:
“Young minds, fresh ideas.”
Spock is a TEACHING Captain at the beginning of The Wrath of Khan. Teaching recruits, and in the movie he is also teaching his friend, Jim Kirk. He is prescient enough to know that the only way to help his friend, and the rest of his trainee crew… Is to die.
This is the ultimate destruction of Kirk’s complacent hope. He can now never go home again, because his home has an empty seat where his best friend once sat.
Kirk, at first, decides to use this as a moment of rebirth. Looking at the newly birthed Genesis Planet, he says, in a moment complete hope and sincerity… “I feel young.”
It doesn’t last.
When the opportunity comes, he again breaks rules to try to return things to how they once were.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
It’s always annoyed me that Kirk’s mood switched from hope/”I feel young” to abject mourning in-between films, but I’ll accept it. The point of The Search for Spock is… Well, the search for Spock. If Kirk had fully accepted his death, his motivation wouldn’t be as clear-cut. Hence, at the beginning of the film: mourning Kirk, it is.
Kirk goes through even more loss at the beginning of The Search for Spock. McCoy is deluded, the Enterprise will be retired, and Scotty is assigned to a new ship… The Excelsior. He’s, again, rudderless. No way to get home again for Dorothy… I mean, Kirk.
Then, hope! McCoy has Spock’s Katra, and Kirk has a chance to “save” his friend… At least, a way to put him to rest in a proper way (Kirk wasn’t proficient at Vulcan burial rituals). And, COINCIDENTALLY, Spock’s body has been revived on the Genesis Planet, thanks to Plot.
With the hope to revive his friend, and to bring back some semblance of the status quo, Kirk gives up his command, literally. After stealing the Enterprise, he destroys it.
The past is truly gone. Right?
NOPE. He saves Spock, and reunites his Katra with his body. The movie ends with the core crew on Vulcan, fugitives for their actions against Starfleet, but Spock Lives!
That whole saying, “You can’t go home again?” Well. Here’s the thing…
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Kirk has recovered his friend, who now has been made whole. They’re in a pirated Klingon Bird of Prey, ready to return to Earth to face the consequences of his actions. And then another threat emerges. An alien presence approaches Earth, causing destruction in its wake. Hey, WAIT A MINUTE…
This sounds… familiar.
(All you folks complaining that The Force Awakens is a remake of the original Star Wars, well, Trek did it FIRST.)
Yes, it’s V’Ger 2.0. The first time, Kirk used the situation to get back his command, and the second time he… (unintentionally) uses the situation to get back his command.
Of course, Kirk doesn’t KNOW how things will turn out, but that is a measure of how he has matured as a character. Instead of a selfish action to get something he lost (the Enterprise), he risks his core crew to (as he did so many times before) to save Earth and/or The Federation.
But instead of “journeying inward” (inside V’Ger) he has to go BACK… In time, that is. To 1980s San Francisco. There be whales there!
I’m trying not to be TOO pretentious here (“Too late!” – Inner voice), but the parallels are obvious to me. Kirk has matured. While the film is played mostly for laughs, you can see him being a man comfortable in his own skin. Despite the threat he’s… Happy. Which is odd, since he just lost his son and his ship, but… (hand-waving that away).
In the end, Kirk’s punishment is… A demotion, to the rank of Captain. He’s given a new command… Another refit Enterprise, NCC 1701-A. Kirk is home… Again. back where he belongs.
All that has happened, and we have another Reset Button.
But Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have changed. They now appreciate all the more what they have, and Kirk is once again confident and in command.
But once more his position and power will be threatened.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
I’ve read a lot of commentary that discusses the next film in the series (The Undiscovered Country), about how mortality and death is an underlying subtext, but… These pundits are looking at the wrong movie. The Final Frontier is about losing control, about dealing with meeting God. Not just seeking out The Creator, but FACING him.
And when that moment comes, Kirk… Confronts Him.
Of COURSE he does.
Years earlier, Gene Roddenberry wrote a treatment for the first Trek movie called “The God Thing”. In it was a scene where the alien threat showed different forms to Kirk, and one of them was… Jesus Christ. It was a scene that Hollywood would NEVER green-light and so we got The Motion Picture. But the essence of that idea, the notion of “Captain Kirk meets God” was finally realized in Star Trek V. And yes, the movie is deeply flawed (BTW it was NOT Shatner’s fault – they cut his original budget dramatically, and it showed). But… it kind of works.
It’s like a “bottle episode” of the original series, which is set mostly on the ship. And it follows a classic formula: Someone takes over the ship, and Kirk has to fight to regain his command. Something that he’s (obviously) done before. But this time the “someone” taking over the ship is Sybok – Spock’s half-brother. He has doubts about his friend, after all that they had been through – Spock had never told him about his brother.
And then, Kirk loses the loyalty of his crew to Sybok’s mind-melding powers.
Kirk, again… A man, adrift. At one point, Sybok tries to “cure” Kirk, relieving him of his pain. And in one of the best scenes Shatner has ever done as James Kirk, he pushes back. Hard.
“I NEED my pain!”
Exactly. We are all a collection of every moment we have lived through – Good, bad, indifferent. It makes us who we are and our sense of Self is developed throughout this personal journey.
Our “Human Adventure.”
Kirk cannot give his pain up any more than he can hand over his moments of pleasure. Joy, pain, sacrifice, love, and hope are what we are. And it makes us, US, in ways we can’t imagine.
Who knows the full equation of what makes us who we are? God only knows.
Sybok believes God exists beyond The Great Barrier, a call-back to the original pilot, and this is why he has stolen the Enterprise. And if you think “crossing over the Great Barrier” is not a metaphor for death I don’t know how much more I can spell it out to you.
Kirk resists Sybok, but accepts one thing – When the ship breaches the Great Barrier, Kirk Spock and McCoy go with Sybok.
To face God.
Yes, in the end of the movie it’s not REALLY God, but the subtext becomes text here. Kirk has never really “faced death” until The Wrath of Khan, but he faces his own mortality here. Someone ELSE is in command, and he doesn’t like it.
The end of the movie has Kirk and crew win again, and the status quo is restored. Again. As I noted, it’s a big-screen episode of the original series, but there is some interesting things to think about here.
Kirk is happy but unsatisfied. He’s a “company man”, having held basically the same job for 40 years. But on his free time, he stretches himself, cheating death by free-climbing mountains. He has nothing to lose, so… Why not?
You wonder if he ever asks himself, like his friend did years before… “Is this all that there is? Is there nothing more?”
The next film, the final one with the original cast, provides an answer to that question. Kirk has to change, and once again that change is forced upon him. Again, by his best friend.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
At the beginning of the film Kirk is as he was in the last film… Comfortable. A happy warrior, commanding the Enterprise with his core crew. Then he is tasked with a new mission.
Help save the Klingon Empire. The same Empire who killed his son.
A mission is set in motion by Spock.
Kirk is more than reluctant. He’s ANGRY. He has never forgiven the Klingons, for the death of his son. (Side note: I think Kirk has a touch of schizophrenia, because in these six movies his emotions goes from happiness to anger to vengeance to mourning depending on what the plot requires).
But the course of The Undiscovered Country tasks Kirk to face his anger, and question himself and his beliefs. Something he hasn’t REALLY done before in the films or the series, because He Is In Command. He can’t doubt himself, because if he does… Well, the crew might, too.
“Heavy lies the head that weighs the crown.”
That Shakespeare quote is apt, cause The Undiscovered Country is ALL ABOUT The Great Bard, because director and co-writer Nicholas Meyer brings a LOT of that to the movie. The subtitle itself is from Shakespeare. Hamlet, to be precise (though it IS better in the original Klingon).
To me, Kirk’s “Undiscovered Country” is not death (the Hamlet meaning of the subtitle), but accepting change. Accepting he is wrong, and needing to adjust his views to align with what things actually are.
Discovery. Illumination. Epiphany.
Kirk is able to move beyond his biases and prejudices, to accept the Klingons as fellow travelers, well met. He also… Forgives.
Grace.
In the end of the film Kirk has become a better man, a man who has lived a full life and is able to accept what has occurred and what will come without fighting and raging against Fate. When the order comes in the finale that the Enterprise will be decommissioned… He accepts it. No stealing the Enterprise this time.
He wistfully quotes Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up (which Kirk WAS in much of the journey we saw in the films) and says, as his last command…
“Second star to the right. And straight on ’til morning.”
Conclusion
So… Yeah. This was a whole heck of a lot of words discussing a fictional character in a series of disconnected disjointed films. But when I think about Kirk’s arc… Well, it works. It’s mostly subtext, but viewed from the proper perspective BOY HOWDY does it work.
I will not write much about Kirk’s appearance in Generations, save to state that it reinforces the development of the character we saw in the previous films.
He is now a teacher, like his friend Spock before him.
“Risk is part of the game if you want to sit in that chair.”
When given a chance to “take command” of the Enterprise B, he refuses… Telling the new Captain that his place is on the bridge. He will do what is needed to save the Enterprise.
Just like he always did.