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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.startrek,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: "His was the most human"
Message-ID: <1664@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Feb-86 20:35:53 EST
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Posted: Mon Feb 10 20:35:53 1986
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I resonded to this discussion in a single blanket comment, but since
Moriarty and I have been friendly opponents before, I wanted to answer
him in particular.

 >I assume this is an early April Fool's joke on the part of
 >Monsieur Leeper; something akin to Kelvin Thompson movie
 >reviews, though not as funny.  
 
It was a serious statement wrapped in some whimsey.
 
 >Equating the requium for
 >Spock (I'd just love to hear a voice out of the photon
 >torpedo/coffin: "But I'm not dead yet!")  to a racial slur
 >like "That's mighty white of you!"  is, at least, a warped
 >sense of degree.  
 
I am not sure what a warped sense of degree is.
 
 >As to whether Kirk is making a racial slur
 >by saying he was "the most...  human", I guess it depends on
 >1) the way he said (is human a compliment) and 
 
The whole point is that it was intended as a compliment.  It is as if
the human side is better than the Vulcan side.  It is as if the
eulogizer of someone half white, half Indian said "he had the soul of 
a white man."  When he had the strength to do so, right up to the end,
Spock denied being human (he does so in ST3).  It seems unfair to say
that his soul is human after all.  It would have been much better to
say he represented the best that was human and the best that was
Vulcan.
 
 >2) who the audience of the film was.  
 
How is that relevant?  In the context of the story his audience is the
group of people who are present at the funeral service.  That includes,
obviously, Saavik.  If you get involved in the story, the audience
should not matter.  STAR TREK should be a world unto itself apart from
who is sitting in the audience.
 
 >1) is almost certainly a
 >compliment to humans, and as for 2), I didn't see any
 >Vulcans hanging around the aisles in my local theatre,
 >popping licorice Juji-fruits and mind-melding with the cute
 >blond at the concession stand.

The fact that it was a comment that Saavik would not have cared for and
Spock, if he were alive, would have denied doesn't matter?  Just so
there are no real Vulcans.  I wonder what your viewpoint would have
been on ENEMY MINE.  You probably wouldn't have taken sides as long as
there were no aliens in the audience.

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper