For most Star Trek fans, there isn’t a better series than The Original Series, and those fans worship Captain Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest of that original Enterprise crew. To this day, actors like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and more represent the best of the best of the long-running sci-fi franchise. However, as time passes, some fans are seeing cracks in the series, and some are starting to see that these original heroes are not as great as others might claim. One complaint comes from the first movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Videos by ComicBook.com
This movie is a more cerebral Star Trek story, one that takes its time and looks more to philosophy and Gene Roddenberry’s original vision than just action and military fights. However, it is also a story about the original characters from the TV series, and according to a Reddit thread, Captain Kirk comes across and cruel in his comments and actions. The OP wrote, “In The Motion Picture Kirk seems a bit cruel for mocking McCoy’s fear of transporters…. AFTER TWO PEOPLE LITERALLY JUST DIED IN IT.”
Star Trek Fans Realize Captain Kirk Was a Jerk
This refers to a moment in Star Trek: The Motion Picture where an accident occurs with the transporter. When the movie starts, Captain Kirk has been promoted to admiral and Captain Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) was named the new captain of the Enterprise. Starfleet Command has ordered the Enterprise to intercept a massive energy cloud, but it had to pass some test first thanks to new systems. One of the tests was for the transporter, which was malfunctioning, and two officers, including the Vulcan science officer Sonak, die when transporting, in a terrifying body horror scene.
Right after this happens, chief medical officer, Leonard McCoy, is not too keen on using the transporter because two people just died using it. When Kirk asks why, one crewmen said that McCoy wanted to see it in action first, and as one Redditor wrote, “Kirk smirks and says, ‘That has a familiar ring, doesn’t it?’” It was a joke that Kirk made immediately following the death of two crew members, and he mocked his main chief medical examiner for being worried about it.
Many fans began to debate if this was a problem with the movie, but several Redditors admitted it wasn’t a problem with the movie, it was a problem with Kirk, and it wasn’t anything new. One Redditor mentioned that “Kirk being impatient and judgmental is kind of a theme with that movie, Kirk has to learn to overcome it.” They even mentioned that he mocked Captain Decker for “competing” with him, right after Decker just saved the entire Enterprise.
However, there was also a comment that makes sense when looking at The Original Series and all the movies with the original Star Trek crew. Captain Kirk has always been arrogant and refuses to see anyone else other than him being right. After Kirk made the “competing” comment to Decker, Bones actually asked if it was Kirk who was competing. That led a Redditor to saying, “Spock and Bones have always functioned as Kirk’s conscience.”
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Sony -
Image Courtesy of Crunchyroll -
Image Courtesy of A-1 Pictures
