Loved the movie for what it is...

[F. King Daniel]

I don't think we've gotten the end of the Kirk promotion story. He'll probably be the inexperienced captain who has to prove himself worthy in STXII.

 

[ConRefit79]

The promotion was ridiculous. They should have had another flash forward to 5 - 10 years after the Kobyashi Maru. Kirk is a Commander or Lt. Commander on the Republic. Then somehow he ends up on the Enterprise. Or just flash forward 5 - 10 years after the events of the film to show him being promoted to Captain of the Enterprise.

 

[Amaris]

Kirk's promotion was incredibly unlikely, but c'mon - it's a movie! In the same universe where Kirk Prime and co are cleared of all wrongdoing and rewarded with a new Enterprise after disobeying orders, commiting treason, stealing and blowing up the old and Picard keeps being handed newer and more powerful ships after trashing his old ones, no less.

I also wouldn't call Kirk a "slacker" as was said upthread. He was a genius who was effortlessly acing the academy - after only three years he already held the rank of Lieutenant (see "Lt. J.T. Kirk" on the transporter panel when he and Sulu are beaming up). He was Pike's golden boy.

Exactly, although I do have this itching desire to see "Two years later" or something to that effect in the bottom left hand corner when he's at the Academy hall. Still, loved the movie, can't wait for the next one.

 

[The Wormhole]

Well, Pike did promote Kirk to XO, which means that the moment those words left Pike's mouth Kirk outranked everyone except for Spock. If you want to blame someone for for Kirk's ascendence to command, blame Pike. Also, if Spock were truly captain material, he would have been professional and in control enough to not assault a subordinate and have an emotional breakdown.

So, between Pike's decision and Spock's craziness, there really wasn't anyone left to take command of the ship.

As Dennis pointed out, everyone knows and loves Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Captain is just as much part of Kirk's name as James T. is. It was inevitable that he'd be captain of the Enterprise by the end of the movie.

One more thing, Kirk was a full Lieutenant (O-3) and not just a cadet. So, its not like he started out a no rank college attendee and made Captain by the film's end, he only skipped two ranks to advance to Captain.

Some thoughts of my own:

-Even if we take into account Kirk being the only one who could command the Enterprise after Pike's capture and Spock's breakdown, that should only have left him in command of the mission. After that, he would have to step aside when Starfleet assigned an actual captain.

-Kirk hadn't yet graduated the Academy. However, during the mission he was granted a field promotion to Lieutenant, and rank which could have been rescinded after the mission ended. It wasn't, but Starfleet wasn't required to make him a permanent Lieutenant either.

Picard keeps being handed newer and more powerful ships after trashing his old ones, no less.

To be fair, Picard wasn't on board the Enterprise D when it went down.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

So I take it that there are basically no Kirk promotion apologists here?

When I brought this topic up 5000 years ago an apologist put me in my place with a very wordy explanation full of military and movie facts. Or something like that.

I've forgotten all of it.

 

[T'Girl]

Well, Pike did promote Kirk to XO, which means that the moment those words left Pike's mouth Kirk outranked everyone except for Spock.

No, Kirk would have held the POSITION of executive officer, which isn't a rank. As XO Kirk still would have retain his temporary or brevetted rank of lieutenant, and likely still have had (what the military calls) his permanent rank of cadet.

There no indication Kirk prior to the last couple of minutes of the movie was ever commissioned.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

No, Kirk would have held the POSITION of executive officer, which isn't a rank. As XO Kirk still would have retain his temporary or brevetted rank of lieutenant, and likely still have had (what the military calls) his permanent rank of cadet.

There no indication Kirk prior to the last couple of minutes of the movie was ever commissioned.

It's Starfleet, no the US Navy. There's no reason to think that it works the same way.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Thinking back to the DS9 episode "The Valiant", does anyone think those cadets would have remained in their positions had they completed their mission?

 

[JarodRussell]

It's "Captain Kirk". We know him as "Captain Kirk", everyone knows him as "Captain Kirk". In a movie called "Star Trek", you don't want to have "Ensign Kirk" or "Cadet Kirk", even if it's an origin story, you want to see at least a glimpse of "Captain Kirk".

That's it, in a nutshell.

If you do a Superman movie, he has to put on the cape (and fuck Smallville anyway. ).

I really wish the Trek folks would hurry up and announce that they're casting Khan in the next movie so that we could move on to being upset about something new.

I think we two are the only one's convinced Khan's gonna be in it. In any event, when that happens I can't wait for the firestorm.

Khan appears, plays a sick game with Kirk. He takes Spock and Uhura hostage. Kirk can only save one of them. He wants to save Uhura, because he secretly loves her, but ends up saving Spock. Spock is angry, blames Kirk for her death. Then Khan lures Spock into giving in to his dark human side. So Spock turns bad, murders everyone who he thinks is responsible for Uhura's death. So Kirk has to stop and kill him.

 

[The Wormhole]

Thinking back to the DS9 episode "The Valiant", does anyone think those cadets would have remained in their positions had they completed their mission?

No. In fact, that may have been why the cadet-captain was in no hurry to return to Starfleet.

 

[infinix]

So I take it that there are basically no Kirk promotion apologists here?

When I brought this topic up 5000 years ago an apologist put me in my place with a very wordy explanation full of military and movie facts. Or something like that.

I've forgotten all of it.

I wish I was here 5,000 years ago...