" He'll live out the remainder of a normal life span..."

[Grant]

Did anyone else find it annoying or petty that Flint at the last minute was revealed to have lost his immortality?
It's like the writers felt that it was unacceptable that a character have ongoing immortality. How dare his character clash with Kirk over a woman and still get to the immortal.
What was the actual point in having that thrown in at the last minute?

 

[Takeru]

I always thought it was done because he was a tragic character, he watched every partner, every friend die for thousands of years, then he build an android who wouldn't age and he even lost her. His immortality was a curse, the writers taking it away wasn't a punishment.

 

[johnnybear]

It annoyed me back in the day but it is explained that his being away from the fields of the earth for so long meant that his gift or curse of eternal life had faded away! That or because he'd won the prize he could now partake of it's great rewards!
JB

 

[Phaser Two]

Doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I imagine Flint suspected it. And it leads to Spock's "On that day I shall mourn" line.

Requiem is one of the strongest Spock episodes in the entire series.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The line also tracked well with James Daly's appearance. Flint was clearly not in a steady-state, permanent prime of life. He was aging.

If they had cast a 30-year old actor and kept Flint immortal, the whole episode would have a different feel. Like in Interview with the Vampire (1994), where you sometimes struggle to suspend disbelief that the characters are so old.

I think a young actor would have been much less sympathetic as Flint; we might hate him for his ridiculous advantages and good fortune. James Daly on the other hand had the authority, stage presence, and layers of sadness that Flint needed, and the trade-off was his evident mortality.

 

[Grant]

So somehow Flint had started aging after 5000 years - but didn't realize it - and was continuing to build an immortal Android partner?
He didn't look in the mirror and notice that he had started to age?
He didn't then decide just to find a brilliant woman of his own (apparent) age to live out his life with , but decided to waste his remaining time trying to build an immortal series of robots to be his mate?
It may have been fitting that a tragic character Like Flint leaves Earth and then begins to age but as far as the writing it's just a contrivance. No human should be allowed to be immortal and we have to tie up that loose end. Just like zefram lives 150 years but as soon as the companion turns part human they both have to age and die.

 

[Ronald Held]

I thought there was a chance he fooled McCoys tricorder, if for no other reason, to reinforce his solitude.

 

[DonIago]

I tend to side with the novelverse on this, which is that it was just a ruse.

 

[johnnybear]

Doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I imagine Flint suspected it. And it leads to Spock's "On that day I shall mourn" line.

Requiem is one of the strongest Spock episodes in the entire series.

Thank you, Phase, I will have a brandy!
JB

 

[Spock's Barber]

Thank you, Phase, I will have a brandy!
JB

The Enterprise should have visited the planet where Saurian brandy was made.

 

[FormerLurker]

So somehow Flint had started aging after 5000 years - but didn't realize it - and was continuing to build an immortal Android partner?
He didn't look in the mirror and notice that he had started to age?
He didn't then decide just to find a brilliant woman of his own (apparent) age to live out his life with , but decided to waste his remaining time trying to build an immortal series of robots to be his mate?
It may have been fitting that a tragic character Like Flint leaves Earth and then begins to age but as far as the writing it's just a contrivance. No human should be allowed to be immortal and we have to tie up that loose end. Just like zefram lives 150 years but as soon as the companion turns part human they both have to age and die.

People don't notice their own aging. Every so often, you look at yourself and realize you now have grey hair, wrinkles, sagging skin. But you don't see it as it happens. An immortal, so used to seeing so little change to their appearance, so used to there being no change to it, won't see it until, like everyone else, enough changes are in place that harsh lighting makes it obvious.

How often do you look at your face just to see it, rather than to shave or comb your hair? I guarantee it's much less often than you think.

 

[Green]

LOL. No.

 

[Henoch]

"There can be only one."

It looks like Flint was the winner.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

How often do you look at your face just to see it, rather than to shave or comb your hair? I guarantee it's much less often than you think.

There's a phenomenon in which you see yourself in a department store mirror, and see the "self" you expect. But then another shopper appears in the glass, and in an instant you see your face very differently.

When you see your face in a social context, your mind can no longer apply whatever flattering "filters" it likes. The second person comes in like sudden, harsh lighting. Flint went a long time with no social context in the mirror, because Rayna was really just an extension of how he saw himself. She saw him through his eyes, as a unit built and programmed by him.

 

[Timo]

How long would Flint have been aging, really? We get no timeline beyond his purchasing the planet 30 years ago, no indication of whether he spent lots of time off-Earth prior to that, no info on whether the aging started immediately or is currently taking him towards his grave one minute each year. For all we know, he has looked more or less like that for the past five millennia.

Or then nothing like that. After all, he is the veteran of faking his life, and death and birth. Changing his face and age might be an old trick he learned in the 12th or 17th century already, listening carefully to those sensible few who didn't believe in medicine... By the 21st, it would be a breeze anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

Spock is a fool (going of his own quote in City on the Edge of Forever). Flint is a gold mine of historical facts. Once their mutual enmity had been resolved and the Enterprise was on its way with the cure, Spock could have stayed behind with a recorder and interviewed Flint about his entire life. First hand eyewitness accounts of 5,000 years of living thru history!

 

[gottacook]

Spock could have stayed behind with a recorder and interviewed Flint about his entire life.

Who's to say Flint hadn't already started (or completed) a 500-volume memoir? Volume XCII: The True History of Christianity; Volume CCCLVI: My Life as Brahms; etc.

 

[Ronald Held]

Flint did not seem be the type to give away his life's knowledge. Moreover, after what happened to Rayna, he might think about the next interation or maybe influences others in AI.

 

[Tenacity]

The line also tracked well with James Daly's appearance. Flint was clearly not in a steady-state, permanent prime of life. He was aging.

Flint face might not simply have been a matter of resent aging, but time in the sun, life experiences, diet, smoking, etc. All of which left their marks.

Just because he was immortal doesn't mean he was in a state of perpetual youth.

 

[Timo]

Hey, he looked like Brahms at one point, and like these Abramson and Pollack fellows our heroes are supposed to recognize at other points.

Nobody might know what Solomon or Alexander or da Vinci or even Brahms really looked like, but Flint must have been able to fake his appearance to some degree, so that when he went by "Mr Brack", neither the person selling the planet nor the computer closing the deal would raise a flag about him looking exactly like "Mr Abramson" or "Mr Pollack" or having the fingerprints and retina scans of "Mr Jobs" or whatnot. This would get progressively more difficult as time passed and technology on Earth advanced. (Until everything became computerized and Flint merely needed to master the fooling of all those Artificial Stupidity applications...)

This wholly apart from the "perpetual youth" thing, which must also be taken into account. Flint faked entire careers, which in many cases must have involved faking entire lives. Not aging would make that extremely difficult!

Or then Flint didn't fake entire careers, but took over from deceased masters (perhaps after helping them along with the deceasing), which in turn would involve him faking the later years of said masters.

Timo Saloniemi