For fuck’s sake, it was announced SNW is introducing nine year old David Marcus because why wouldn’t you if you’re an old white guy with daddy issues like all of Secret Hideout, apparently. Look at any picture of me; of course I am the poster child for bald, bearded, tubby white guys who think they know everything and won’t stop telling you about it. Bad news for the Bell Curve is that, yes, stipulated, but I only keep my know-it-all stuff to things I actually know a little something about, so it goes down a little easier to the Under 100s and the Jangling Nerves.
But even I can see that having “Kirk be a shitty father” is just fine when it is established David’s mother didn’t want anything to do with his dad and so Kirk jetted off into history believing it was a noble act on his part and then we get the bombshell of OH NICE TO MEET YOU; KLINGON BASTARDS YOU KILLED MY SON. That right there is dense with meaning and regret and path-not-taken and is all friggin’ suggested in the world-building with a few wistful lines of dialogue and Billy Shats gazing off longingly into the middle distance. It’s color and shape and feelings all smooshed in to the space diplomacy at the point of a phaser. It’s breathtaking in its simplicity and stunning with its richness in story.
But, in comparison, anything else done by these modern guys is just going to read like a Hallmark movie of Redemption and Understanding and not what STAR TREK FUCKING IS. It’s a bitter old crank who’s had it up to here and Starfleet is the only way to make sense of the world. Don’t pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you’re sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you’re still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding! Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.
Anyway, for fuck’s sake. I wish there were cool Star Trek episodes that mattered now instead of guys bleeding all the juice out of it for clicks and ad revenue. Giving Kirk some scenes of playing catch with his kid so Kirk doesn’t seem like a layered guy making the best of a shitty situation, choosing humanity over family, and is just another Jim Carey-looking dude in a toothpaste commercial who first met Spock on the Enterprise instead of in the academy. Why not?