If they make Kirk a frat boy ...

Tomorrow the new Star Trek movie premieres, the prequel of all prequels, in which the crew of the original series are seen in youth and all played by new young actors. I have seen the trailers on television and I'm concerned. Of course the special effects look good, but that was never the point of the show. And the young man playing Kirk seems to do a lot of jumping and screaming.

Please no. I quote my text. Dr. McCoy and Captain Kirk discuss, briefly, his time at Starfleet in the episode "Shore Leave."

McCoy: ... and you were a serious young cadet.
Kirk: Serious? Bones, I was positively grim.

There. Let us, please, see the young Kirk as a slowly evolving, almost monkish martinet, talented, proud, and yes grim, as young heroes are. They soften with maturity, and are able to crack a smile perhaps by their mid-thirties, just when they're out exploring the universe with the responsibility of a starship crew of 430 on their shoulders.

Let us not, please, see him as what I suspect the scriptwriters have already created. Barracks frat boy suddenly sobered up by -- let me guess -- some unexpected tragedy or betrayal which he sees as "his fault." No, no, no. In fiction heroes really are born (hello, Riverside, Iowa!), not transformed into such by some after-school-special plot twist.

... please. I'll be upset. And no one wants that.


(Photo, New York Post blog)