Thoughts on "Valiant"?

Nothing in the film says that. I am not disputing the ability to go straight to Lieutenant; I'm just saying that typically cadets go from the academy to Ensign. Going from Cadet to Captain is a farce.

None of that stops Trek '09 from being a badly written film, primarily as a vehicle to get Kirk to be the Captain and the status quo of TOS initialized before the end credits.

 

Watters would have been a very talented young officer had he simply graduated the Academy and been assigned as a new officer would have normally been. But even talented young officers who a fast-tracked to command need experience and seasoning. All the talent in the world can't make up for lack of experience. This episode portrayed that wonderfully. Again, kudos to Ron Moore!

 

Who knows, maybe Watters would have been the 24th century's Jim Kirk.

 

I wanted to smack those kids around for defying orders under some kind of vague loophole, and for being arrogant little bastards.

 

I'd say that for the ending of the episode to be dramatically poignant, we must assume that the intel on the Dominion ship was not salvaged, and that therefore the mission was ultimately a failure. The crucial point is that Watters has completed the mission and should probably have got their ass out of there, but he opts to go for one more bite of the cherry... which results in the death of his crew and destruction of the ship. So his efforts were fruitless and wasteful. Going back to engage the Dominion ship negated all the good work that had been achieved to that point.

We know he was operating the Valiant under radio silence, so obviously the intel didn't get out that way. The final scene pretty much underlines that the only people left who can tell the story of what happened are Jake, Nog and Dorian. Unless the CPO somehow brought all the information with her, and putting aside any theoretical "black box" type device, I think we can safely say that the intel didn't get out. Certainly, as I said earlier, it's more dramatic if everything Red Squad achieved got washed away by their own collective hubris, and Watters' thirst for glory in particular.