Is it really that super unrealistic Kirks rank jump...

[creek_chub]

For what it's worth, I think we were supposed to see the potential for old Kirk in NuKirk in the scene where he, Sulu, and Olsen do the space jump. From everything we'd seen so far, if anyone was going to be irresponsible and get himself killed, it seems like it would have been Kirk. However, he completed the mission in a way that one could assume is pretty much by the book, indicating that for all of his bluster and tendency to spout off, there's a guy in there that took his training at the Academy seriously enough to care about learning to do things correctly.

For me his promotion wasn't a big deal. Obviously there was only one way to end such a movie and that was going to be with Kirk taking command of the Enterprise. Yes, it could have been made a little more plausible if they'd stuck a "two years later" over the scene, as someone suggested, but, as someone else suggested, the events we are shown don't necessarily HAVE to have happened immediately. To me it's ambiguous enough to be a moot point.

 

[Pauln6]

To be fair he's not the same Kirk. I don't think it's true that he didn't learn anything; clearly he learned to be a good leader.

What did he actually learn? People keep saying he's learned to be a good leader, but the only thing he did was use Spock's weakness against him... but not through any brilliant deduction of his own.

Nothing about the plan was his, except to go in guns blazing. Without Spock Prime, Kirk has nothing.

I was going to point that out too. If Kirk had had his way, the ship would have tried to fight the Narada in the Sol system and would have been destroyed. It was only the additional information obtained from Spock Prime, after NuSpock exiled him off the ship for insubordination, that Kirk formulated a plan and even then I thought that the execution of that plan was pretty amatuerish.

It doesn't automatically follow that NuSpock's plan was a good one though. The Enterprise could have flown to the nearest communications station to take full instructions from the Admirals at Starfleet Command or get a message to the fleet or any other nearby ships to return ASAP or they could have beaten Nero to Earth by several hours and helped evacuate as many people as possible using the Enterprise. The plan to sneak on board the Narada could have been conducted from a shuttlecraft or small Earth ship with a transporter, which would have been even easier to hide from the Narada's sensors.

This could all be relative too: maybe this is like the movie Demolition Man and the rest of Starfleet is really, really hopeless. Maybe Kirk, despite his flaws is waaaaay better than anything else they have.

 

[BillJ]

Maybe Kirk, despite his flaws is waaaaay better than anything else they have.

Which I don't buy for a minute.

 

[Agenda]

The only explanation that works for me is that it's some kind of "feel good" PR maneuver by Starfleet. Give the kid who saved the planet command of a ship he was already technically in command of anyways. I'm not saying this explanation is realistic, but it's the only one I can think of. Here you have a depleted fleet, a destroyed species, and a devastated Federation. You need any morale booster you can get. Jim would be a big-time celebrity on Earth. Imagine a recruitment drive targeting young people with his face on the posters as captain of the Enterprise. It's also possible that they made damn sure Spock was his number one because they trusted him to steer Jim in the right direction.

 

[Pauln6]

The only explanation that works for me is that it's some kind of "feel good" PR maneuver by Starfleet. Give the kid who saved the planet command of a ship he was already technically in command of anyways. I'm not saying this explanation is realistic, but it's the only one I can think of. Here you have a depleted fleet, a destroyed species, and a devastated Federation. You need any morale booster you can get. Jim would be a big-time celebrity on Earth. Imagine a recruitment drive targeting young people with his face on the posters as captain of the Enterprise. It's also possible that they made damn sure Spock was his number one because they trusted him to steer Jim in the right direction.

Actually, this is one of the better explanations I've seen. If Starfleet can dictate his assignments then using the heroes as a PR stunt for a while could be a good move, keeping him away from any missions of delicacy or real importance. However, it would be a terrible waste of all the highly qualified crew and the finest ship in the fleet.

 

[BillJ]

Actually, this is one of the better explanations I've seen. If Starfleet can dictate his assignments then using the heroes as a PR stunt for a while could be a good move, keeping him away from any missions of delicacy or real importance. However, it would be a terrible waste of all the highly qualified crew and the finest ship in the fleet.

And this doesn't preclude him getting in over his head on a "milk run" that goes bad. He's in command of what is, essentially, a WMD platform.

 

[Timo]

Kirk getting bumped from Lt (possibly jg) to Captain I can live with.

Pike getting bumped from Captain to Vice Admiral... Now that's unbelievable!

The claims that Kirk Prime would have been a Lieutenant or an Ensign while still being a Cadet are not corroborated by any sort of onscreen evidence. Nor is there any mention of Saavik still being a Cadet when holding the junior Lieutenant rank and doing the Kobayashi Maru test in ST2. That Starfleet would deviate from today's military norm in this respect is something of a stretch, and probably not one we have to make (although stretching is generally good for you, I hear).

Many a thing would fit better in the recent movie if Kirk indeed already graduated before retaking his no-win test for the second time (as a pure hobby project). Yet Pike, who should know, keeps calling him "Cadet" during the early part of the Vulcanian Expedition... And never calls him "Lieutenant", for that matter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RandyS]

It's a sci-fi movie. Of course it's unrealistic.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Obviously there was only one way to end such a movie and that was going to be with Kirk taking command of the Enterprise.

Yes, but Kirk didn't have to have the *rank* of Captain to have the *position* of captain. The final scene could just as easily have been something like Admiral Barnett saying "James T. Kirk, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and ordered to assume command of USS Enterprise" or some such thing. Kirk would still be called Captain by position, he just wouldn't have the RANK yet.

And don't even try to tell me this would confuse viewers. Screw 'em. They'll adapt.

 

[Gojira]

 

[Mr_Homn]

It's a sci-fi movie. Of course it's unrealistic.

That's a total cop out. This isn't a criticism against some futuristic made up technology. It's a criticism of character/plot progression. Something any movie, regardless of genre, should possess.

 

[RandyS]

It's a sci-fi movie. Of course it's unrealistic.

That's a total cop out. This isn't a criticism against some futuristic made up technology. It's a criticism of character/plot progression. Something any movie, regardless of genre, should possess.

No it's not. Fiction, by it's very nature does not have to be realistic, regardless of the current trend. Plus, it's sci-fi, so, as Spock always said, "There are always possibilites".

In short, anything goes.

Just because Kirk would never be promoted that fast in any of our real military outfits, does not for one second mean that Starfleet must automatically be the same way.

 

[Pauln6]

It's a sci-fi movie. Of course it's unrealistic.

That's a total cop out. This isn't a criticism against some futuristic made up technology. It's a criticism of character/plot progression. Something any movie, regardless of genre, should possess.

No it's not. Fiction, by it's very nature does not have to be realistic, regardless of the current trend. Plus, it's sci-fi, so, as Spock always said, "There are always possibilites".

In short, anything goes.

Just because Kirk would never be promoted that fast in any of our real military outfits, does not for one second mean that Starfleet must automatically be the same way.

Yes but levels of realisim and improbability dictate whether a movie is a drama or a comedy, whether it is aimed at adults or children, and whether it considers its audience to be capable of following an intelligent plot or not.

The Bond films are all very silly in many respects but compare say From Russia with Love to Octopussy. They are very different films and are appreciated differently by different people. I know which one I prefer and, while I'm not ordinarily a snob, I do consider that opinion to be superior to someone who prefers the other movie.

 

[Mr_Homn]

I agree, bad fiction doesn't have to have logical character and plot progression. Bad fiction can basically pull anything out of it's ass in a contrived way, violate common sense, and fly in the face of what has been established for years in canon. Most definitely.

 

[Timo]

Good fiction can be written by breaking previously established rules, tho. The first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film didn't really suffer from plunging deep into the supernatural, for example, contrary to the traditions of pirate fiction.

It's just that STXI is the latest in a long string of movies and TV shows that bring a mixture of past real-world naval adventures into a space setting, and that long string has done things a tad differently before. It has done many an unrealistic thing, but usually without violating fictional precedent, just like PoC. Here, it borders on violating its own rules, which is a worse sin than violating the rules of the real universe...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I agree, bad fiction doesn't have to have logical character and plot progression. Bad fiction can basically pull anything out of it's ass in a contrived way, violate common sense, and fly in the face of what has been established for years in canon. Most definitely.

Then Star Trek in general is bad fiction and always has been.

In practice, of course, evaluating fiction isn't a matter of sorting everything into two bins with one labeled "good" and the other "bad."

 

[creek_chub]

Obviously there was only one way to end such a movie and that was going to be with Kirk taking command of the Enterprise.

Yes, but Kirk didn't have to have the *rank* of Captain to have the *position* of captain. The final scene could just as easily have been something like Admiral Barnett saying "James T. Kirk, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and ordered to assume command of USS Enterprise" or some such thing. Kirk would still be called Captain by position, he just wouldn't have the RANK yet.

And don't even try to tell me this would confuse viewers. Screw 'em. They'll adapt.

Perhaps that is a more plausible explanation, but it's not a concise or tight enough explanation for storytelling purposes since yes, some might not understand. It might fly in a written medium such as a novel, but given the time constraints of a film, the old adage of "show, don't tell" is even more important. It's not so much about not confusing the viewers, it's about not boring them with unnecessary exposition.

And don't come back telling me that if viewers are that easily bored then Star Trek shouldn't be for them. The fact of the matter is, occasionally a product needs to cater to the masses in order to continue receiving the funding it needs to exist. Kirk jumping to Captain in a bit of an unrealistic way (and again, I think the ending is somewhat ambiguous in terms of WHEN it's happening) is a small price to pay (especially when you know he has to hit Captain eventually anyway.)

 

[Pauln6]

Obviously there was only one way to end such a movie and that was going to be with Kirk taking command of the Enterprise.

Yes, but Kirk didn't have to have the *rank* of Captain to have the *position* of captain.

Perhaps that is a more plausible explanation, but it's not a concise or tight enough explanation for storytelling purposes since yes, some might not understand... It's not so much about not confusing the viewers, it's about not boring them with unnecessary exposition.

And don't come back telling me that if viewers are that easily bored then Star Trek shouldn't be for them. The fact of the matter is, occasionally a product needs to cater to the masses in order to continue receiving the funding it needs to exist.

I do agree that NuTrek wisely avoids boring general movie goers by avoiding lengthy exposition and technobabble and this is probably a good decision. However, I think they could have achieved the same result without adopting an approach that was so dumb. Successful shows like the Simpsons prove that you can have different levels for different viewers and still have an excellent product.

 

[JarodRussell]

It's a sci-fi movie. Of course it's unrealistic.

That's a total cop out. This isn't a criticism against some futuristic made up technology. It's a criticism of character/plot progression. Something any movie, regardless of genre, should possess.

No it's not. Fiction, by it's very nature does not have to be realistic, regardless of the current trend. Plus, it's sci-fi, so, as Spock always said, "There are always possibilites".

In short, anything goes.

Just because Kirk would never be promoted that fast in any of our real military outfits, does not for one second mean that Starfleet must automatically be the same way.

So Kirk doesn't need to wear a spacesuit because he can breath in vacuum in the next movie, I guess.

 

[M'Sharak]