Consider this about Kirk's promotion...

[Norrin Radd]

Wouldn't it be pretty damn hard for any captain to have Jim Kirk under his or her command?

I mean, the guy has saved Earth and avenged Vulcan, so he'd basically be a living legend around the Federation. He would have likely accomplished bigger things than any living captain currently in command of a starship.

It would be difficult, I think, for him to be subordinate to anyone. Not because he wouldn't be willing to follow orders, but because his very presence could overshadow the authority of any captain on any vessel he served on.

Maybe they really had no choice but to therefore give him the big job because I think the only alternative would have been to drum him out of Starfleet. And that wouldn't do either.

 

[Opal1]

Maybe no captain wanted him as First Officer? Too much trouble...

 

[Jeri]

Yeah, I said in the original thread that nobody would want Kirk for an underling.

He'd be blasted out the airlock onto a frozen planet on every assignment.

 

[Hambone]

Even as an admiral (movies I-IV), he was more trouble than he was worth, causing constant headaches for Starfeet and the Federation. They had to bust him back down to Captain in order to keep him in line.

 

[darkshadow0001]

You know what is funny about this is that in the previous films, Kirk was demoted from Admiral to Captain for his heroic efforts

So to see him promoted so quickly was actually a nice change of pace.

 

[Jeri]

Captain is his level of functionality.

 

[Islander]

Wouldn't it be pretty damn hard for any captain to have Jim Kirk under his or her command?

I mean, the guy has saved Earth and avenged Vulcan, so he'd basically be a living legend around the Federation. He would have likely accomplished bigger things than any living captain currently in command of a starship.

It would be difficult, I think, for him to be subordinate to anyone. Not because he wouldn't be willing to follow orders, but because his very presence could overshadow the authority of any captain on any vessel he served on.

Maybe they really had no choice but to therefore give him the big job because I think the only alternative would have been to drum him out of Starfleet. And that wouldn't do either.

On that theory alone, he should have become Fleet Admiral or even President of the Federation.

 

[Norrin Radd]

On that theory alone, he should have become Fleet Admiral or even President of the Federation.

Nonsense. He's displayed skills as an acting Captain, but never as an acting Admiral or President. That's the difference.

 

[FanFanatic]

He was probably promoted because there were not that many candidates
to choose from. The ships that arrived at Vulcan prior to the Enterprise, were all destroyed, the cadets and officers on board. The remainder of the fleet was elsewhere. I am surprised at how many cadets still filled
the room when Kirk was made captain. (They could have been new recruits.) Even with all the events unfolding on the Enterprise, Chekov,(only 17!), was left in charge of the bridge on two occasions, and he left it to someone else when he ran to the transporter room. It is almost like playing "hot potato". As Spock said in TOS, he never wanted command, anyway. In this instance, I do not believe that Quinto/Spock has developed like the Nimoy/Spock as far as his sense of duty. In 'Jouney to Babel', Spock refused to leave the bridge to save his father's life because of his sense of duty. In this case, Spock left the bridge, during a 'red alert', for personal reasons, to save his mother and father. We don't really know, but Spock could have been offered the captaincy, but declined. It was not mentioned. Kirk showed he had what was needed in an emergency, and never gave up. Pike probably was instrumental in him actually getting the Enterprise itself.

 

[Omega_Glory]

He's a whiny, immature, brat in this film. Starfleet must be a desperate organization to give such a crybaby the captaincy of the Fleet flagship.

Now, I'm quite a fan of Kirk...but NuKirk has a long, long ways to go. He's Lieutenant j.g. material right now....gushers be dammed.

 

[Peter the Younger]

Eh, I still think it was a stretch from a narrative standpoint, but I understand it as a business decision. All franchises are ultimately constrained by what the "casual fan" will understand/accept, and Paramount obviously decided that it's gotta be Captain Kirk by the end of the movie. Having said that, I wish the writers would have covered themselves with a bit of a fig leaf. Even if they hung a lantern on it, it would have made me feel better, like: "By special order of the Federation Council, you are hereby commissioned at the rank of Captain, and are ordered to report to Admiral Pike, as his relief." Basically just say, yeah, we know this is nuts, but this is a special case.

(And yeah, I know we can assume that is what happened, but this is a case where they could have bolstered the fan service a little without slowing down the film.)

 

[Phily B]

President Kirk

I like it.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

Maybe no captain wanted him as First Officer? Too much trouble...

They'd run out of escape pods eventually...

 

[MarkKalz]

I get to be feeling that Kirk, no matter what universe this is, be it mirror or prime or the dozens seen in TNG's 'Parallels', Kirk can only ever be Captain. The original movie series as much as proved that by focusing a great deal of drama over just how inappropriate it is for Kirk to be behind a desk.

Nero did everything to disrupt the Kirk life, but in the end, Kirk must be captain.

 

[Quo Vadimus]

Even if they hung a lantern on it, it would have made me feel better, like: "By special order of the Federation Council, you are hereby commissioned at the rank of Captain, and are ordered to report to Admiral Pike, as his relief." Basically just say, yeah, we know this is nuts, but this is a special case.

Teddy Roosevelt did something similar in 1905, advancing John J. Pershing four ranks from Captain to Brigadier General. And boy did it piss off those 835 officers he skipped! Not quite the same, I know, but there is a precedent for advancement under unusual conditions.

 

[Captain Randy Hall]

Wouldn't it be pretty damn hard for any captain to have Jim Kirk under his or her command?

I mean, the guy has saved Earth and avenged Vulcan, so he'd basically be a living legend around the Federation. He would have likely accomplished bigger things than any living captain currently in command of a starship.

It would be difficult, I think, for him to be subordinate to anyone. Not because he wouldn't be willing to follow orders, but because his very presence could overshadow the authority of any captain on any vessel he served on.

Maybe they really had no choice but to therefore give him the big job because I think the only alternative would have been to drum him out of Starfleet. And that wouldn't do either.

Let me mention something I realized during my third time seeing the movie and checked out in the novelization. No one ever explains how much time elapsed between the Enterprise escaping the singularity and Kirk becoming a captain. It could be hours, if that floats your boat. I like to think that's a longer period than just a few days. Yeah, everyone is still in their academy suits, but this still could give Kirk some more time in maturing into a person worthy of being the captain of the Federation flagship.

Just my two quatloos....

 

[theFirebottle]

My take on it is that the Enterprise was pretty badly damaged from the gravitational forces of the singularity -- if the ceiling of the bridge was cracking, you better believe the spaceframe itself was warped. It could take possibly years to fix it up. Either they made him Captain as an honorarium before the ship was fixed and sent him off elsewhere to serve on another ship (because they needed the people and couldn't afford to have one of their most exemplary graduates sitting around waiting for the guys in spacedock to do their magic) or they sent him off elsewhere and made him Captain after the ship got fixed.

The fact that there were so many seats filled in the Academy auditorium tells me that scene happened quite a while after most of Kirk's graduating class got themselves dead in the massacre at Vulcan. They would have had to recruit like crazy to make up for the catastrophic losses, especially after they seemed to be having so much trouble recruiting that Pike was picking up schlubs in bars to fill out the roster...

 

[suarezguy]

Respectfully, Starfleet members are supposed to be the best and to have more respect for the chain of command than Kirk did in this movie.

 

[Jeri]

Teddy Roosevelt did something similar in 1905, advancing John J. Pershing four ranks from Captain to Brigadier General. And boy did it piss off those 835 officers he skipped! Not quite the same, I know, but there is a precedent for advancement under unusual conditions.

Yeah, and I don't think their circumstances could have been more unusual than these.

 

[Omega_Glory]

^^^But Kirk was not an experienced officer like Pershing. He was a wet-behind-the-ears kid right outta the Academy. Not the same thing in any way.