Think about all of the things he has seen, all of the worlds he has explored, all of the green women he has slept with, and when he is faced with death, it shocks even him, to the extent that all he can say is, “Oh, my.” I’m not sure how popular this scene is among the Star Trek Zeitgeist, but I imagine it’s probably hated. I, however, love it. Feel free to tell me how I’m wrong in the comments.
I won’t say you’re wrong to love something, but I do disagree with you. Kirk deserved more poetic last words because he spoke with eloquence. He has also been faced with death more than once before that, he just ended up surviving. It felt like a wasted opportunity to me. They didn’t have to give him a long monologue or anything, just something a little more pithy than “oh, my.”
This is the man who said things like:
You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown – only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.
Without freedom of choice there is no creativity. The body dies.
Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That’s what war is all about. That’s what makes it a thing to be avoided.
And, most applicable to this situation:
How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.
I don’t think he dealt with death as he dealt with life.
I don’t disagree with you, but I think Kirk was probably the most “human” of the Star Fleet Captains. Sure, he was larger than life in some respects, but he was very grounded and his character flaws were all human traits. Giving him a human reaction to death suited him well, I think. Sure, we all want Shatner to ham it up and give us some spoken word space poetry, but Kirk was human through and through, and I think his final words reflected that.
