Star Trek

>> Of course Picard buried him under rocks, he wasn't going to leave the body in the open for who knows how long. Also, Picard was picked up by shuttle, not beamed. And we don't know how many days he was out there alone waiting for rescue. I imagine Kirk's body was taken with them when they departed for a proper burial.

Definitely good points, Matthias.  I guess you're right.  Under the given circumstances, the cairn was appropriate.  It's essentially a cowboy burial. 

That said, I honestly don't see how you could assume one way or the other that Kirk's body was exhumed and taken with the Enterprise crew back home.  In fact, the writers of Spock:  Reflections assumed it was left there and, again, that Picard told know one except Spock in an encrypted message to Romulus.  In the miniseries, Spock goes back to Veridian III to get Kirk's body and bring it back surreptitiously to Earth for burial in Iowa, where he's met by Picard, who explains that they finally detected Spock at the last minute.  This story doesn't make Picard look good either, since Spock had get Kirk and bring him all the way back to bury him on his family farm when Picard could've done it himself.  I guess Picard didn't because, as he says in the book, he felt it was better not to have to explain the entire affair to SF.  After all, Kirk was already considered dead.  Maybe he didn't want to explain that he'd broken the temporal directive by changing time and that the legendary Kirk had to die on his behalf to save the Veridian system.  See?  If you're left to assume that Picard left Kirk there without telling anyone, Picard comes out looking bad again.  GEN hurt both Kirk and Picard. 

They should've put a few words, if nothing more than mentioning Kirk's sacrifice in Picard's voiceover log entry at the end of GEN to clear up exactly what happened with Kirk's body imo.  Because assuming it was just left there doesn't look the principled Captain Picard look good at all.

>> However, consider this: Explorer Ernest Shackleton died while at a whaling station about to embark on another polar expedition and his men buried him there in a small cemetery for whalers. Plans were made to bring the body back to england for a state burial but his wife had him left there, figuring he would be happier with the sailors. So shackleton's body is still there in a small forgotten cemetery in the middle of no where on an uninhabited island but with a significant monument which was since erected.

Oh, yeah, I remember that from the epilogue to the Shakelton drama.  

>> Kirk, being an outdoorsman who wanted peace, may have preferred his body to be left in peace among nature. A monument could be erected there too.

I suppose.  The could've put that scene in there.  They should've.  

 
>> Did the novelization touch on this?

I don't have it, but I did peruse it and read the end.  They had the original ending in it, where Kirk is shot in the back.

Romulan agents beamed up Kirk's body and injected his body with modified borg nanites. Kirk then began a new series of adventures

It is all in the Shatnerverse Novels I love them

>> Romulan agents beamed up Kirk's body and injected his body with modified borg nanites. Kirk then began a new series of adventures

>> It is all in the Shatnerverse Novels I love them

Yeah, I heard.  Shatner actually pitched that story to Berman for a TNG film.  Berman obviously didn't like it.

I still perfer Picard in in the Nexus and Kirk defeats Soran

A monument? Wasn't this just some random, uninhabited planet? If they really wanted a monument, they should have brought him back to Earth and buried him in Iowa or something.

TMP-Lt. Ilia....POOF! she's gone....

Maybe Kirk wouldn't have wanted to be buried at home in Iowa, but how would Picard know that?  He didn't know Kirk that long. 

The right thing to do would be to take Kirk's body back with them and contact Spock, Scotty, and McCoy too (if he was still alive) and any of Kirk's known family who were still alive (possibly his nephews and their descendents).  And what about Kirk's wishes for his funeral?  From the original show, there are indications that Kirk may have been religious or brought up that way.  Maybe he would've like to have a priest (or a rabbi if he was Jewish) conducting a funeral service on his behalf if that was possible.  It probably wasn't in the 24th century, though, since GR pretty much specified that humanity was over religion by that point (no chapel on the Ent-D, I guess, unlike the original Enterprise).

Maybe Picard did do that, but without any information in that regard, we're left assuming that he just left Kirk there with no proper funeral, which is what the Spock:  Reflection miniseries assumes.

Yes Captain kirk did deserve alot better death than he got!

kirk got shafted, spock goes out in a blaze of glory gets  a service  lol everyone remembers that scene "he was the most hum...an" kirk saves the planet  to have a brigde fall ontop of him to say it was fun o my then the crew of the enterprise is rescued an hes left to rot on that world

Yeah! That was totally the worst death scene in the whole of starfleet history!