Nancy Yos

Nancy Yos
Location
Lansing, Illinois,
Birthday
March 09
Bio
Google me ...and you'll find there are actually two Nancy Yos-es (Yos-i?). Kind of odd. I'm not the one who writes feminist things for the Oprah website, bless her heart. If you keep Googling, you'll find me in a few, a very few back issues of Commentary, First Things, and American Heritage, and in The Times of Northwest Indiana, The Shopper, The Southtown Star, and in a lovely, now-defunct magazine called Violet, which used to be run by jazz musician Charles Mingus' daughter Keki. Then I tried blogging. (Mom said I should.) I have five. Sometimes I cross-post to Chef's Blade and FoodBuzz, and I write at Helium. Find me at eHow, too, and I am the Chicago Baking Examiner for Examiner dot com. And oh, in between times, I got a job at a (now defunct) wine shop. That was fun. And, like geeky Miles in Sideways, ... I find lately I'm really getting into rieslings.

MAY 7, 2009 11:06AM

If they make Kirk a frat boy ...

Rate: 3 Flag

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.

Author tags:

captain kirk, star trek, movies

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Comments

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I'm afraid to see it.
I can't wait. It looks like a bright, fresh approach after that disaster involving that aging actress who should never have had a Star Trek at all.

Young is young. Military academies don't allow for an excess of "frat boy" anything, although plenty of youthful silliness goes on. Hopefully the writers aren't all white male corporate and engineering nerds with limited comprehension of classical literature, who wrote what they "think" about real world experiences.