He came to me in a dream. Well, it was a mash up between TOS, TNG, VOY & JJ Trek. Spoiler He became a Borg though.
I don't object so much to Kirk's new characterization as I do the plot (mostly the first film) being engineered to rush him into the captain's chair years before he could have reasonably earned it. It was obvious that Into Darkness tried to answer that a bit by taking command away, only finding a convenient way to give it to him again when he is STILL too green for the chair. It just commits the same sin all over again. So the problem is the writing as it filters into the decisions that Starfleet brass make. The only rationalization given is the "you are the chosen one"(TM) message, which is the antithesis of Star Trek. Star Trek stands for a meritocracy where you pay your dues and everyone gets a fair shake. JJ Trek is so retroactively self-aware of the iconic status of these characters that the world itself kneels before them in an unrealistic way. All of these people are JUST newbies. They aren't prodigies or superheroes and they can't be the only newbies in Starfleet with promising futures. The special abilities we ascribe to them are purely a function of decades of fandom, not the Trek universe's inner-consistency. The only way someone right out of the academy can get into the captain's chair is through spending hard years in active service (and yes, this includes making mistakes, as prime-Kirk did in his past) something the reboot wasn't willing to allow. They didn't want to film an entire story of Kirk and company at the academy or as ensigns. And they didn't want to insert large gaps of time in some sort of montage to show them moving up the ranks. We're in the 21st century and it's an ADD culture we're dealing with, so Kirk and company all need to fast-track into their TOS roles. Again, fanservice driving the show. It just wasn't very plausible. You just can't do a "young Star Trek" type of story and a straight TOS story at the same time. They tried to have their cake and eat it too and they wound up with fratboys taking over the ship.
Anybody seen the Armani ad with Chris Pine as weirdo stalker creep? [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZFr7Qz9dAc[/yt]