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From: barb@oliven.UUCP (Barbara Jernigan)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re:  \"His was the most human\"
Message-ID: <517@oliven.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Feb-86 15:34:43 EST
Article-I.D.: oliven.517
Posted: Fri Feb 14 15:34:43 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Feb-86 04:53:14 EST
References: <1117@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: barb@oliven.UUCP (Barbara Jernigan)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 50

>Skip Williams
>Onto "The Wrath of Khan".  The only one who acts in this desperate 
>situation is Spock.  Everyone else is content to sit on the bridge,
>look worried, and say to themselves, "Well, we've got to get out of
>this one!!  We're the good guys!!"  

Of course not!  Scotty has *always* pulled the Enterprise out of
the fire before, why not now?  In an emergency, the Captain does
not leave the bridge -- that's why he has specialists (and Scotty,
short of Spock, perhaps, is the best in Star Fleet).

>Everyone else thinks he acted on an impulse but he didn't.  

I didn't think that, and I'm someone.

>Would Kirk sacrifice himself for his ship and his crew?

Yes.  (So far he's always been rescued at the last minute.  We call
this saving the cast director extra work.)

>No human does.

Baloney.  Read your history.

>Would Spock go through
>what Kirk goes through in "The Search for Spock"?  I don't think so.
>...He'd probably balk at the idea of stealing the Enterprise.

Wrong.  Spock *did* steal the Enterprise in *Menagerie* -- to take
Captain Pike to Talos IV.

Personally, I'm not sure why we're so fired up about the Human line.
People say dumb things at funerals.  Of *course* Kirk would think the
highest praise he could give Spock is being Human (as opposed to human)
-- by Spock's own words (well agreement with Saavik), Kirk is *very*
human.  As for me, I don't remember what Kirk said at all -- what tore
my heart out was Scotty's piping.

But then, like Skip, my image of the characters is not limited to the
scriptwriters (of whom there are a lot more bad than good -- and, fewer still,
excellent).  The image on the screen -- tv and movie -- is an imperfect
reflection of the characters who *live* in my mind.  To reitterate Skip's
conclusion, in my head, humans are not better than Vulcans (*or* vice versa)
-- just different.  And the best Star Trek writers -- the ones who implanted
the series in my beloved zone -- knew that.  The others, well, I can always
change the channel (or rewrite the episode in my head ;-).

Ta!

Barb