12 of pop culture’s best birthday moments

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BEIJING, CHINA – AUGUST 18: Chris Pine attends the red carpet event of the Paramount Pictures title ‘Star Trek Beyond’ on August 18, 2016 at Indigo Mall in Beijing, China. (Photo by Xiaolu Chu/Getty Imagesfor Paramount Pictures)

My favorite birthday scene in any movie is when James T. Kirk celebrates his birthday on the Enterprise in Star Trek Beyond. Why? Because it is just Kirk and Bones, drinking, and chatting. Also Leonard “Bones” McCoy yells at Jim Kirk to call his mother.

Star Trek is most definitely not about birthdays. But Star Trek Beyond does have a nice little twist to it that makes the underlying themes of growing older and family tied to Kirk’s birthday. Or maybe I just love the idea of retrospective Chris Pine.

Either way, I love the idea of Kirk constantly thinking of aging and getting grumpy about it. Especially in the reboot since, while it happened in the original Star Trek movies, William Shatner’s Kirk was significantly older than Chris Pine.

But James Kirk thinking about getting older yet still wanting to run around with the crew of the Enterprise is part of why I love him. He’s a kid at heart. He just wants to explore space, the final frontier.

So again, Star Trek Beyond isn’t really a birthday movie but this is just one scene that makes me love Kirk a little bit more. That and I love the idea of Bones screaming at him to call his mom.

-Rachel Leishman, co-expert