[martok2112]

Or as someone else once put it...that political correctness was a flawed mentality invented and harbored by folks who seem to somehow think that you can pick up poop by the clean end.

[Pauln6]

I prefer it when difficult decisions are portrayed as just that. The wrath of judgment and the concept that a life for a life is justice leave me cold if tehy are portrayed (sometimes literally) in a vacuum.

The worst, most hilarious example I've ever seen was in the Rookie when Clint Eastwood catches a criminal and, instead of cuffing him and arresting him, in front of multiple witnesses at an airport, he puts a gun in the guy's mouth and shoots him in the head with a bullet that has his name carved on it.

In the next scene, he gets promoted.

Hmmm - sounds familiar...

[kevin]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

I don't buy the ethical dilemma argument. Nero refused surrender. He was given the opportunity, he declined it.

I tend to agree. Though I used more words in the process!

If a starship captain is going to wring their hands in anxiety or wallow in wishy washy notions of 'what if' over every decision which may involve the loss of life then they should not be in the Captain's chair. Because they are going to be called on to be able to make that decision at some point.

Notwithstanding that some courses of action are not difficult to take in the first place.

[horatio]

Originally Posted by Pauln6

I prefer it when difficult decisions are portrayed as just that. The wrath of judgment and the concept that a life for a life is justice leave me cold if tehy are portrayed (sometimes literally) in a vacuum.

The worst, most hilarious example I've ever seen was in the Rookie when Clint Eastwood catches a criminal and, instead of cuffing him and arresting him, in front of multiple witnesses at an airport, he puts a gun in the guy's mouth and shoots him in the head with a bullet that has his name carved on it.

In the next scene, he gets promoted.

Hmmm - sounds familiar...

I think the problem of this scene is not so much the act in and of itself as it is in my opinion totally justified to make sure that the Narada is destroyed (of course I totally agree with you that Kirk should think before he acts) but rather the brief moment in which Kirk enjoys that Spock and Nero basically allow him to "pew-pew" the Romulan ship.

People derive pleasure from breaking rules. Sometimes it is utterly harmless like a couple of teenagers making out in the fifties, sometimes it is utterly horrible like a totalitarian leader telling the people between the lines that they can have a lot of fun with him. Hitler is the obvious example but Karadzic's poems (People nothing is forbidden in my faith)) are also quite telling.

So Kirk enjoying not being bound by rules and firing "everything we got" (obviously extremely irrational, a few torpedoes should suffice; and no, in no other movie do we witness such an unnecessary waste of firepower so Kirk is very clearly just a trigger-hungry adolescent and hardly a responsibly-behaving Starfleet officer) would be problematic in general and is even more so in a franchise in which the main characters are often sublime ethical agents.
As Spock behaves similarly this is not a single minor scene but actually constitutes the atmosphere of the coming-of-age aspect of the story. The two protagonists do indeed learn to get along and also learn from each other but alas, PewPewKirk does not learn basic ethics from EmoSpock or vice versa (obviously Orci is the driving force of this adolescent jouissance issue).

[Pauln6]

Slightly off topic but just watched a documentary about the Comic Strip Presents. The part of the show about the Strike (a Hollywood parody of the UK Miners' Strike in the 80s) was so hilarious. I couldn't help but see numerous parallels with the new Trek franchise.