James T Kirk was better, as he was in lots of episodes and many movies, and he is ICONIC, the FIRST CAPTAIN in Star Trek history (aside from Archer, semantics aside).
So why this focus on modern shows on a character who was in a failed pilot, and later was severely crippled and in a wheelchair, unable to speak, not to mention a couple of crappy Abrams movies decades later.
WHAT MAKES PIKE SO SPECIAL ALL OF A SUDDEN?
It's because we know we'll never get another proper TOS series and Pike is as close as we can hope to get to the feel and wonder of that era. It's really just something that we are hoping gets us close enough, and away from nutrek. It was never all that much about Pike specifically.
shareThe Cage and Where no Man ... pilots both have the same Imdb rating. Very good sci fi but the studio didn't like it.
Kirk was first Captain? Plenty before him. The reason this is a prequel to TOS is because a sequel would be impossible to merge between the Kirk movies.
If Paramount did a TOS reboot today's haters would be hating it even more. A million senile trekies shouting "CANON"!
I think Kirk is problematic and they're trying to pivot away from him. There's some appeal in the notion of a doomed hero. So we get to have classic pulpy tales of the early days of Star Trek, without the hammy womanizer, and to have Spock too, within established continuity.
shareDespite his womanizing reputation (near parodied in the 2 JJ films which went big on Trek preconceptions) kirk wasnt really that much of a womanising jerk in TOS , there was the odd episode in s1/2 where hed seduce a female guest star (and Rand was a constant potential love interest in the first 10 or so episodes) and a fair few in s3 (where kirk became more of what hes parioded), but it was always mutual, with the female very into him (probably off camera too lol). and near nothing in the movies aside a brief elevator flirt with Kirsty Alley and a lunch date with Catherine Hicks .
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