Summary
- Captain Kirk's fight scenes in Star Trek showcased his iconic hand-to-hand combat style and legendary fight moves.
- Kirk's ability to use combat when necessary demonstrated his willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve his aims.
- Kirk's fight scenes highlighted the resilience and resourcefulness of his character, showcasing his ability to overcome seemingly impossible challenges.
Widely respected for his imaginative ability to find solutions to unwinnable scenarios in Star Trek, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is known for his distinctive hand-to-hand combat style and legendary fight moves. From sharp double-shoulder chops to high flying-air kicks, sword fighting with Klingons, and launching himself at a target as a projectile, Kirk's iconic actions are undeniably exciting (if occasionally slightly cumbersome) and unexpectedly effective against space foes.
Throughout the USS Enterprise's initial five-year mission, first airing in September 1966, Star Trek brought the promise of peace to the universe and hope for a better world, promoting the ideals of harmony, diversity, and resolution over those of conflict, division, and violence. Trained for diplomacy and leading Starfleet's flagship into the great unknown, Captain Kirk demonstrates the various skills and mastered disciplines that forged the template for all subsequent Starfleet Captains. That said, Captain Kirk is not above using combat to achieve his aims, and he's thrown down with the best of them. Here are his best fight scenes.
10 Kirk Vs. Gary Mitchell (Star Trek: TOS Season 1, Episode 3 - "Where No Man Has Gone Before")
ln Star Trek's second pilot, Kirk is faced with a personal dilemma when one of his closest friends and bridge officers, Lt. Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood), begins to exhibit strange powers that threaten the safety of his ship and the crew of the USS Enterprise. Ultimately, he realizes he has little choice but to abandon Mitchell on Delta Vega, a desolate mining planet. On the planet's surface, Kirk fights with Mitchell but cannot counter his rapidly growing powers. With the help of a phaser rifle and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman), who has also begun to exhibit the same powers, Kirk defeats Mitchell and returns to the Enterprise alone. Interestingly, in "The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation To The Next," creator Gene Roddenberry credits this scene as the reason NBC picked up Star Trek.
9 Kirk Vs. Finnegan (Star Trek: TOS Season 1, Episode 15 - "Shore Leave")
The Enterprise orbits a picturesque, apparently uninhabited planet that seems ideal for the ship's exhausted crew and Captain. Still, Kirk must investigate the planet's strange mysteries when the landing party's report unusual sightings, including a small blonde girl and a large white rabbit carrying a pocket watch. During his search, Kirk is confronted by his mischievous nemesis Finnegan (Bruce Mars), a bully and fellow Academy cadet. As Finnegan resumes his taunting, and the threat level to the landing party increases to deadly, Kirk becomes engaged in one of Star Trek's longest fight sequences. Kirk's defeat of Finnegan leads him and Spock to understand what is happening, and why.
8 Kirk Vs. The Shahna (Star Trek: TOS Season 2, Episode 16 - "The Gamesters Of Triskelion")
While attempting to use the transporter, Kirk, Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Ensign Chekov (Walter Koenig) are instead brought to an unknown, remote planet to become thralls, unwilling gladiator-style fighters for the gambling-based entertainment of the planet's Providers. As the Enterprise searches for their missing crew , the three officers are trained for combat by Drill thralls and ultimately purchased by one of the Providers. Later, Kirk challenges the Providers to a wager directly, pitching the Enterprise crew against the liberty of all thralls. Using his practiced fighting style, Kirk takes out two opponents and injures a third, characteristically showing mercy while gaining the freedom and independence of those oppressed.
7 Kirk Vs. Kruge (Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)
In the movie sequel to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Captain Kirk and his crew are again met with peril in the form of renegade Klingon Commander Kruge (Christopher Lloyd). Angry and facing an unimaginable loss following the murder of his son, David Marcus, Kirk is visibly drained and emotionally wrought. A last confrontation between Kirk and Kruge occurs on the doomed Genesis planet, burning up and breaking apart beneath them as they engage in one final battle for survival. Despite Kirk's repeated attempts to save him when he falls over the edge of a newly formed cliff, holding tight to Kirk's leg, Kruge rejects any assistance and prevents Kirk's safe escape. Kirk tells Kruge, "I have had enough of you!" before kicking him free from his leg. Kruge falls from the cliff's edge to his doom.
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6 Kirk Vs. Spock (Star Trek: TOS Season 1, Episode 24 - "This Side of Paradise")
The Enterprise visits Omicron Ceti III, a Federation colony, to check on the inhabitants. Noting the excellent health of the colonists and the surprising lack of animals and farmland, they are surprised to find that the planet has been subject to a deadly radiation known as Berthold rays. When the inhabitants are informed yet refuse to leave, Kirk insists they must evacuate. But when one of the inhabitants the spores of a local flower to infect him, Spock begins to act emotionally. He is happy and believes the colonists should stay. Working without care or discipline, he refuses a direct order as he hangs from a tree. As more of the crew become exposed to the flower's spores, they also exhibit strange, carefree behavior.
Increasingly alone, Kirk returns to the ship to find a solution. When he, too, is infected with the spores, his strong sense of responsibility leads him to overcome it, and he realizes that extreme emotions rid a person of the flowers' spores. He convinces Spock to return to the ship to assist him in bringing items to the colony but instead goads him using insults and slurs into an angry attack. The rush of emotions cures Spock of the plant's influence, and together, they bring back the rest of the crew and rescue the colonists.
5 Kirk Vs. Himself (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
Following their sentencing to the Klingon penal colony Rura Penthe, a planet in the Beta Penthe system, a price on their heads and traitors amongst them, Kirk and McCoy must escape to the Enterprise. With the assistance of their fellow prisoner Martia, a shape-shifter, they are able to make it to the planet's frozen surface. Kirk soon realizes that Martia has betrayed them, and she transforms herself into a duplicate Kirk. The two Kirk's tussle, rolling over the ice and Doctor McCoy, before the prison warden locates them. Moments before they learn the secrets behind who has been manipulating them and Kirk and McCoy's imprisonment, they are beamed away to the Enterprise to safety.
4 Kirk Vs. Thelev (Star Trek: TOS Season 2, Episode 10 - "Journey to Babel")
Ahead of a diplomatic conference to a neutral planetoid codenamed Babel to discuss the ission of Coridan planets to the Federation, Captain Kirk is charged with transporting Ambassadors, dignitaries, and other delegates due to attend. With tempers and tensions high among the ship's engers and an unidentified vessel tailing the ship, Kirk must also uncover the identity of an anonymous rogue agent planted on board to sow division and chaos ahead of the conference.
With a murder already committed on board, Kirk must defend himself and is forced into a fight in the ship's corridor on deck 5 near his quarters. Using the ship's bulkheads as leverage to throw himself at his attacker with a flying kick, a perhaps-Andorian named Thelev, Kirk surprises and ultimately subdues the surgically enhanced Orion spy. In the melee, he suffers from a nasty stab wound to the back but prevents further attacks on his crew or engers.
3 Kirk Vs. Khan (Star Trek: TOS Season 1, Episode 22 - "Space Seed")
When the Enterprise encounters the SS Botany Bay, a sleeper ship adrift in space, they inadvertently trigger a mechanism to wake the ship's leader (and with it, a series of events that will span several decades and cost many lives, and reach into the franchise's second movie feature Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).
Newly awakened, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban), who is a genetically engineered tyrannical superbeing from Earth's Eugenics Wars, sets his sights on conquering and claiming Kirk's ship. Initially suffocating the command crew on the Enterprise's bridge, Khan attempts to leverage Kirk's life (and death) in exchange for the cooperation of his officers. After a few more run-ins, Kirk and Khan face off in the Enterprise's Engine Room, with Kirk impressively holding his own against the defrosted augment. Kirk ultimately triumphs when he successfully knocks Khan out with a metal pole and later again demonstrates his strong penchant for forgiveness when he clears all charges against Khan and his people.
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2 Kirk Vs. Gorn (Star Trek: TOS Season 1, Episode 18 - "Arena")
In this iconic episode and scene, Captain Kirk battles a Gorn commander who has mounted an attack on a Federation outpost on Cestus III. Under observation from all-powerful alien beings known as Metrons, who do not appreciate conflicts in their personal space, Kirk and the Gorn are transported to a vacant yet well-stocked planet to settle their differences using only their ingenuity and basic weapons. Where the Gorn has the advantage of physical strength and stamina, Kirk has speed and superior resourcefulness. They're told that the winner and his ship will go free, and the loser and his vessel will be destroyed.
Over several unsuccessful confrontations, and very much the underdog, Kirk attempts to better the Gorn physically using several of his signature fighting moves before withdrawing to a safe distance. Noticing various items in the surrounding landscape, he fashions a makeshift canon to incapacitate the Gorn. Despite the Metrons' expectations, Kirk surprises them and refuses to kill his opponent, insisting that they may be able to reach an agreement or understanding and put aside their difference instead. Kirk’s behavior impresses the Metrons, and though they continue to deem humanity unready to engage any further with them, they do leave a door open for possible interactions in the future.
1 Kirk Vs. Spock (Star Trek: TOS Season 2, Episode 1 - "Amok Time")
Along with Kirk's battle in "Arena" with the Gorn, his fight with Spock in "Amok Time" is one of the most recognized fight scenes in Star Trek, and is particularly significant due to the close bond between the two parties. In this episode, Kirk is required to fight his friend to the death. As Spock succumbs to private-Vulcan-it-is-a-matter-of-biology-issues (Pon Farr), he returns to his home planet with Kirk and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) for a betrothal ceremony to his childhood bond-partner T'Pring (Arlene Martel). However, T'Pring rejects the union, and selects Kirk as her Champion to battle against Spock.
Kirk agrees to the arrangement, not aware of the intricacies of Vulcan customs and not realizing that the fight is to the death. If Spock loses, the blood fever will kill him. If Spock wins, he will kill Kirk. The fighting begins with Lirpas and a small selection of weapons, but it is Dr. McCoy that saves the day by injecting Kirk with a paralytic to simulate death. Spock's emotional despair at the thought of killing his friend, and later joy at finding him alive, also lend to the grand significance of this epic Star Trek battle.