Good stuff; thanks for sharing.

The contrast between Curtis’ outgoing personality versus the character she played reminded me a bit of Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock Holmes. I would think one’s native personality would peek through the stoniness of the role from time to time, regardless.

You’re quite right, altho I think it was a different scene or sub-scene.

This seems to be either an outtake or a between-scenes shot.

Because the title leaves out the fact that Kirk’s native character was actually inspired by Horatio Hornblower, not Cook. Also, Hornblower was such a complex character that his attributes got split up in to both Kirk and Spock, evidently.

It’s a pretty interesting read!

Difficult to tell when he’s playing an android

I thought that was a big part of how Spiner made Data just about the most interesting character in the series-- the understated little flourishes, tics, and burblings of emotion showing through.

To me a very clever variation on Nimoy’s amazing work on Spock in the series before, but of course Brent made the character wholly his own to the point that it barely registered that he was cut from the ‘Spock template.’

Wow, what a great mini-essay. I’d love to see it posted such that more ST fans could enjoy it.

He is a different person at the end of the movie than he was at the beginning (or throughout the TV show). Less cocky, more aware of the consequences of his actions, because it literally cost him his best friend.

Hmm, the idea of ‘cockiness’ is an interesting one that seems to meet the eye test, but I’m not sure I really agree with. That is-- altho he could indeed bluff, boast and ‘exert his personality’ here and there in the series, it felt to me like there was almost always a stone-cold, calculating nature behind it.

TWOK has what’s arguably Shatner’s finest performance - certainly in Star Trek, maybe ever.

I’m tempted to agree, altho reading something like Shatner’s Toupee, I was impressed by how many strong performances he turned in over the years. For example, I’d never heard of Incubus nor The Defender before, but that amazing blog introduced those and many other interesting acting he’d done.

I also feel that in the series proper, Shatner showed an amazing versatility in terms of ways to react and play various scenes, to the extent that I can’t imagine how much more dull the show would have been with Jeffrey Hunter as lead. So I think it’s fair to say that while his TWOK performance was great, he also turned in a load of other great performances as Kirk and other characters. Which was ‘finest?’ I suspect that’s a pretty monster and/or nebulous debate, really.