Still about the Kobayashi Maru test...

Still about the Kobayashi Maru test, masterfully expored in Star Trek II. It deepens our image of James T. Kirk - he really does not want to lose. However, even though he ultimately did beat the test, before that, he failed it more times than anyone else, ever. He took it multiple times, researching it, attempting different tactics, and finally found a combination of parameters and approaches that solved the problem.

Even though in popular culture Kirk has the reputation of a maverick, risk taker, who uses intuition to beat any challenge, in Trek canon Kirk was an academically accomplished student who studied harder than anyone else, said to be a nerd who lived in the library or similar. His "original" solution to Kobayashi Maru was due to academic rigor, just like his later tactical successes.

When sitting in the captain's chair on the Enterprise, he was sitting on a stack of manuals, textbooks, and biographies of historical commanders. He didn't impose them on others, and didn't remind others of Starfleet regulations, even though he was the one who knew them (and maybe even ultimately wrote them?).

In Star Trek II, Kirk is a faculty member at Starfleet Academy, teaching command-branch specializing cadets like Saavik. The test is only required for command-branch cadets at the end of their studies. But what the audience doesn't know and it is not explained that there was (by canon) a 12-year gap between the events of the first two movies. Kirk had retired from Starfleet, contemplated marriage with Antonia, but just recently returned to a teaching job at the Academy.

Part of the tension of the first movie was that Kirk hadn't even been on a starship since Enterprise returned from its five-year mission two years earlier. But in II, he had already been retired for years. We see him in action, and he feels old. That's natural for someone who just came back from retirement, but this setting is not apparent from the movie.

It also explains the tone of Kirk's birthday party. He is, indeed, back at Starfleet, but disillusioned. Is this why he came back? Should he have stayed away? After all, he was just about to get married (though we only learn about this in Generations) but chose Starfleet instead.

So in the first movie, Kirk is a jerk and he imposes himself over others for selfish reasons. In the second one, he is not sure what he wants or even whether it was the right choice to come back. At 50 years of age, it is also fitting to see his home, like a captain's cabin containing souvenirs from around the world, but him not knowing what they mean to him any more.

Now, of course, Strange New Worlds has reframed TOS. It is no longer about a lone starship, one of many, venturing into the unknown, commanded by a brilliant semi-celebrity captain, but about the most famous ship, not only wihin Starfleet, but within the whole UFP, for no apparent reason. No big deal for Kirk, then. Even if he had failed, there were no stakes, as Enterprise had already established its iconic status before he started.