The Star Trek reboot fits my fanwank explanation of Kirk’s broken family* much better than his dad “living to see Kirk graduate”
Paste what we know of TOS Kirk* onto his dad being killed by Nero and it’s a perfect fit. Just excise all the “douchy, can’t keep it in my pants” scenes and it’s fine.
*Family never mentioned except a brother he doesn’t seem too broken up over when said brother dies. In fact Kirk seems to allude to him in ST V, but turns out to have been using it as a back-handed compliment to Spock. Cool, but kind of callous. In fact the reboot makes said brother a half-brother at best.
Spent some time on that colony where half the population was executed by Kodos. Kirk doesn’t mention any family or anything. He must have been with a foster family.
A ‘book with legs’.
Tortured by an upper classman.
Nearly married very young.
In my mind Kirk was very much a self-made man, and that nonsense about a galaxy-spanning lothario isn’t held up onscreen.
I’m not certain what it is you are trying to say, but I relate the faults of the TOS Kirk to the actor. It was hard to watch reruns of ST TOS in my house because Shatner kicked my dad out of a play at Mcgill in the late 40’s.
A fun Fan Theory I saw was that the “Jim” Kirk in the reboot was actually George Kirk in the original Timeline and the actual Jim Kirk was never born because his father died on the Kelvin. It explains why he looks and acts different from the Shatner Kirk but not why Spock would recognize him as Jim Kirk.
George Samuel Kirk was to appear in 2009’s Star Trek, where he would have been played by Spencer Daniels. Scenes featuring Daniels as Sam Kirk were filmed, but the character was entirely cut from the final release. The one remaining scene of Daniels playing Sam Kirk, in which Jim Kirk called out to him as he was driving past him in their uncle’s (in the final cut, their step-father’s) Corvette, was altered to change the name of Daniels’ character to “Johnny”, apparently a friend of Jim’s.
I just found this, it makes me want to get the disk just for the commentary.
