Well at least,I hope,we can agree that with all
his faults and sins Kirk was THE man and if
t'weren't for him we wouldn't have Star Trek.
I mean without Kirk we could never have had
Picard,Sisko or Janeway.So he should get credit
for making them and their adventures possible.:)

BTW:Wonder what Kirk would've done to Q.

Same thing Kirk did to all gods and computers. Deflated him. Short-circuited him. and sent him packing.

I think I read somewhere that Shatner adopted his acting/speaking style while playing Alexander the Great. Apparently, he researched the real Alexander and there were reports of him speaking the same way.

I had heard that Alexander the Great was a stutterer. Unfortunately, I don't have documentation, and don't remember where I read that. But if Shatner adopted his acting style from AtG, then it makes sense if AtG was a stutterer. It explains the pauses and the bursts of words. See how Reg Barclay talks?

The buzz up here in Canada on Shatner's uniqe acting style is that he had to stand in for apart in a Shakespearian play at the Stratford festival and didn't know all the lines. He would pause between words until he thought of the next correct one and he was applauded by critics for the dramatic affect this had. Of course this is just a rumour, and I like the AtG explanation better.

Hmmm, Alexander the Great. I had never heard that one. Interesting if true.

I haven't heard the story about the Shakespeare festival, but I have heard Shatner himself say that he paused when playing Kirk in order to remember his lines.

Like I said before, I can understand why some people would dislike Shatner's acting, but I think the statement "Shatner can't act" is just plain inaccurate. It would be fair to say that his acting is erratic, though. Watch him in the first season and then in the third season, for the biggest contrast. It's hard to believe he's the same actor. I often wonder what made him act so differently. Either he was dependent on good directors to bring out his talent, or he just did not feel that the weaker third-season scripts and directors were worth his best effort.

I thought he was pretty bad in "Requiem for Methuselah." No wonder--Kirk had no motivation for falling so deeply in love with Rayna that he would forget that his crew was dying of a plague. In "City on the Edge of Forever," the story and direction were great, Kirk had plenty of motiviation to fall in love with Edith Keeler, and consequently, Shatner was brilliant.

Yes, Shatner was terrific in "The City on the Edge of Forever," although I STILL don't understand why Kirk couldn't simply take Edith Keeler back to the future with him, thereby saving the world from Nazi rule and saving himself a lot of heartache.
After all, he would later do this with Catherine Hicks in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," as would Doc Brown with Mary Steenburgen in "Back to the Future, Part III."

Well, Gillian Taylor actually wanted to go with Kirk in ST4 (subtle difference alert!), and Kirk had no other choice...

Still, what's "action" and "intention" nowadays?

from ST6: The Undiscovered Country ...
Chang: Indeed, the record shows that Captain Kirk once held the rank of Admiral. And that Admiral Kirk was broken for taking matters into his own hands in defiance of the law! Do you deny being demoted for these charges?! Don’t wait for the translation, answer me now!!

Would these ravings by Chang indicate that Kirk was familiar enough with the Klingon language to actually ANSWER him before receiving the translation? (I don't know about you ... but several "Klingon Language" books later, I'm still shaky)

That's directly from the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our UN ambassador used the "don't wait..." on the Soviet ambassador.

Would these ravings by Chang indicate that Kirk was familiar enough with the Klingon language to actually ANSWER him before receiving the translation?

It would make sense that a former Admiral who has fought the Klingon's on numerous occasions would be familier with the language, espicaly since he and his crew was able to fly a Klingon bird of prey well enough to go back in time and save the world (ST IV)

It was Adali Stevenson Vs. Zorin to be specific.

BTW..."13 Days" is an excellent movie...it's on DVD now.

Kirk....one of Starfleets BEST Captains...

A. When his ship is in trouble, he doesn't dawdle, jog, walk, or stroll down the hallway...he RUNS AT BREAK-NECK SPEED!
B. His fighting techniques....using his whole body in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", his "Hong Kong Phooey Flying Kick" (many episodes), his ear slap in "Arena", his groin kick in the movies...nobody can put up a fight like Kirk.
C. His shouting..."I am Captain Kirk!", "I am Kirok!", "Let her go, punish me!" etc.
D. His speeches..."Risk is our business...", "Maybe we weren't meant for Paradise", etc.
E. DEFINITELY a ladies' man! He even got to kiss Uhura!
F. His "Shakespearean" legacy..."We the people"
G. No one can outsmart a computer better than Kirk.
H. His ability to do the seemingly impossible.
I. His battle strategies.."The Corbomite Maneuver", his commands during the battle vs the D-7 in "Elaan of Troyius", etc.

Kirk's DA MAN!

>>It would make sense that a former Admiral who has fought the Klingons on numerous occasions would be familiar with the language, especially since he and his crew was able to fly a bird-of-prey well enough to go back in time and save the world (ST IV)<< ...

That being said ... would it also be logical to assume that KIRK could've told Chekov & Scott which button to push so that they could get the (explicative) outa there at the end of ST3? ... or are we to assume Kirk bought a "Klingon For Dummies" book between ST3 and ST4?

Being able to understand a person speaking in another language is a bit easier than knowing all about how to work the controles of something as complicated as a starship with controles in the same language. For example an american fighter pilot who spoke Russian while possibly able to fly a Russian Mig would not be able to just jump into it and know where every controle was.

I was going on the assumption that the buttons were LABELED ... and if so, Kirk SHOULD be able to read the labels. BUT ... I suppose that's assuming too much. After all, Kirk's own command chair has a few buttons with NO label on them.

Tiberius.....see STVI

This is in response to Fitzgeralds post of 9/18/01. I was at Wright PAt Air MUseum with a friend and was talking about the different airplanes and asked a volunteer (he was a former korean war pilot it turns out) about how hard it was for our pilots to fly a russian plane (they were talking about the testing of the captured migs) and he said that aside from learning russian the controls were all pretty much in the same place. Maybe that is the way things went on the BOP. Just a thought.

I think the variation between the controls of fighter jets of different planets would be greater than that between those of different countries. Fighter jets are basically fighter jets, particularly when they both come from the same time period and standard use of technology.

A Bird of Prey and Constitution-class ship shouldn't be anything alike.

It makes far more sense to me that Kirk knew Romulan (or some of it), or was briefed on what the control labels would look like.

True like I said it was just a thought. Maybe not a very good one but a thought none the less.I just brought it up because I read at one time a synopsis that said the klingons stood for the russians the romulans for the chinese, etc.... And considering how the bridge of the klingon BOP changes tween 3 and 4 its rather irrelevent anyhow. But a thought is still a good thing.

As a teenager watching the show each week, I often laughed at Kirk's overacting. I remember to this day the scene in "Plato's Stepchildren" when he slaps himself several times. Priceless! And I never could figure out why he was putting his boots back on after the commercial break in "By Any Other Name". When we left them, he was kissing her. Hmmm...?

Watching the show as an adult, I can appreciate his acting abilities more. And he does have moments that are superb. Now that I've met him in person, I have even more respect for him. He may be pompous, but he's fun. And that's no small thing!

What does the T in James T Kirk stand for?
Actually, his middle name of Tiberius was first given in the animated episode "Bem". Just a little trivia there.

Denise....I believe the episode you refer to about Kirk putting on his boots is "Mirror-Mirror" not "By Any Other Name".

You're both wrong, it's "Wink of an Eye".

This might make a good trivia question. What four characters on TOS called Kirk "James" (without the last name)?

Answer:


Tyree in "A Private Little War"
Abraham Lincoln in "The Savage Curtain"
Gary Mitchell ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
McCoy (at the end of "Friday's Child")

interesting, all my guesses were female.

You're thinking of James Bond

Julik, Tuesday, April 10, 2001:

-Like I said before, I can understand why some people would dislike Shatner's acting, but I think the statement "Shatner can't act" is just plain inaccurate. It would be fair to say that his acting is erratic, though. Watch him in the first season and then in the third season, for the biggest contrast. It's hard to believe he's the same actor. I often wonder what made him act so differently. Either he was dependent on good directors to bring out his talent, or he just did not feel that the weaker third-season scripts and directors were worth his best effort.-

This is what I always surmised, too. I always liked the 'flavor' of the earlier episodes. Reading these posts, I'm beginning to think that Shatner had a lot to do with that (as well as, obviously, script content).

It'd take a lot more free time than I have to list examples of Shatner's acting which to me, are very, very good. One recent one I saw was in 'Balance of Terror', when Spock is reading the sensor debris from the Romulan ship, saying something like "...however, insufficient mass...". Look at the next quick shot of Kirk's reaction of "What?" Shatner puts more into that one 'what' than some actors do in an entire sentence. In that quick, maybe one-second shot, Shatner conveyed (at least to me) Kirk's state of mind regarding the sensor information, and his inability to 'connect the dots' that Spock seemed to be implying. Shatner (at his best, admittedly) even makes his blinks carry some of the load! Better still are all those early shows where, even with the sound off while watching, Kirk would visibly show signs of the stresses wearing down on him ('Balance of Terror', 'The Corbomite Maneuver', 'The Naked Time' and others).

Shatner was often called upon to react to invisible, to-be-added-in-post-production effects, such as ray blasts, force fields, etc. I'm sure there's a term for this sort of thing in the acting world, but I get the impression that not all are capable of doing this effectively. Take, for example, Martin Landau, who otherwise was an extremely gifted actor, but 'Space:1999' scenes involving him reacting to added-later special effects and weapons were often among his weaker efforts, in my opinion. However, give him a 'human element' to work with, and he can perform wonders.

Shame that we didn't get to see any more of Kirk's family, aside from his dead brother and sister-in-law (and their son, but he never spoke a line).

Yeah, there was David Marcus, but he died in the next movie after he was introduced!

Posts have been moved to the Ask The Moderator thread.

In the non-canon book, 'The Autobiography Of James T. Kirk', the author took the unexpected route and placed Kirk's relationship with Antonia (the woman on horseback in 'Star Trek: Generations' that Kirk wanted to get a second chance with) between 'The Motion Picture' and 'The Wrath of Khan'.
It always seemed to me that the movie hinted that it took place more recently, but the author set the events years earlier.
Basically, Kirk got a second 5-year mission after STTMP, and then Admiral Nogura stuck him behind a desk. Kirk hated it and retired, living on his family's farm with his parents and the Sam and Aurelan Kirk's twins (Peter was at the Academy by then), and then he met Antonia.
She'd never heard of him, which intrigued him, and after her relationship with Captain Game Show Host failed (I mean, J.T. Estaban of the USS Grissom from 'Star Trek III'), their relationshiop grew.
Then Nogura retired and Admiral Morrow (also Star Trek III) took over and got Kirk to come back to Starfleet. He told Antonia that he was going back to Starfleet and she left him.

Shame we never got to see James Kirk's parents.