Cadet to Captain...NOT!!!
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Not that I know everything about this movie, but it seems to me that Kirk is a cadet or recent grad and becomes Captain.
I mean. We have Pike telling Kirk that he dares him to do better than his father. Kirk gets in trouble for cheating. He is not supposed to be on the Enterprise, but he is and saves the day when all the other commanding officers either die or are incapacitated.
So yeah, seems to me he goes from cadet in trouble to awesome captain, but that isn't so hard to believe.
How many great movies show a rapid transformation of a character from a normal person to a "great hero".
Even superhero movies do this. Peter Parker has new powers, great. And in about 5 minutes he becomes completely comfortable with those powers and can master them.
Ironman busts out his new suit and like that he has mastered everything there is on the thing.
Movies are often about regular guys becoming heroes. Or bad people becoming really bad people. Kirk is a mess at the beginning of the movie and by the end has proved himself capable of handling command situations. So to me I would rather see him become captain in one sitting and tell a hopefully good story than have this be a long drawn out affair.
"First Kirk was on this ship and then he did this and then he did that on this other ship.... blah blah blah and after a long time he becomes captain!"
I mean. We have Pike telling Kirk that he dares him to do better than his father. Kirk gets in trouble for cheating. He is not supposed to be on the Enterprise, but he is and saves the day when all the other commanding officers either die or are incapacitated.
So yeah, seems to me he goes from cadet in trouble to awesome captain, but that isn't so hard to believe.
How many great movies show a rapid transformation of a character from a normal person to a "great hero".
Even superhero movies do this. Peter Parker has new powers, great. And in about 5 minutes he becomes completely comfortable with those powers and can master them.
Ironman busts out his new suit and like that he has mastered everything there is on the thing.
Movies are often about regular guys becoming heroes. Or bad people becoming really bad people. Kirk is a mess at the beginning of the movie and by the end has proved himself capable of handling command situations. So to me I would rather see him become captain in one sitting and tell a hopefully good story than have this be a long drawn out affair.
"First Kirk was on this ship and then he did this and then he did that on this other ship.... blah blah blah and after a long time he becomes captain!"
No. The writer of the Entertainment Weekly article drew that conclusion. What the filmmakers said was there was an "on-screen explanation" for why Kirk is wearing a black shirt. They DID NOT specify anything about the explanation. Significant difference.
I don't think anyone from the production mentioned the black shirt being a cadet thing.
Entertaiment Weekly Magazine wrote in article "Kirk spends much of Star Trek dressed in respectable black, space-cadet colors in Abrams’ Trekverse". When Kurtzman was asked about this, he simply replied "there is a reason the shirt is the color that it is".
I personally think it is more than an undershirt. I do think the Entertaiment Weekly blurb was partly true, but I think there is more to it than simply him being an "underclassman cadet".
...then again, according to the reports from the 20-minute preview, Spock refers to Kirk as "the cadet" in a scene on Pike's Enterprise bridge. However, we don't know when that scene occurs in the film -- plus, in TWoK didn't Kirk refer to Lt. Saavik as "cadet" after the Kobayashi Maru test?
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Yeah, but Star Trek is not about SUPER HEROES! Heroic deeds - sure. Super beings - sometimes. But not frakking SUPER HEROES!
Confirmed?
Source.
They're all graduates of the Academy when the crisis occurs. Kirk simply has not been assigned to a ship.
I don't really have a problem with "Cadet" or "Midshipman" Kirk taking command; it's a trope that's been used in a great deal of sea adventure literature like Hornblower. It is also used in Midshipman's Hope.
Moreover, McCoy probably has a MD by the time he goes to SFA in the movie, which would make him eligible for a higher commissioned rank like LCDR upon completion of the program.
Moreover, McCoy probably has a MD by the time he goes to SFA in the movie, which would make him eligible for a higher commissioned rank like LCDR upon completion of the program.
I'm sorry to disagree with you but Horatio Hornblower had years of naval service behind him by the time he became captain (albeit his first command had come much earlier). It is true that all his advances through the ranks were accompanied by outstanding and heroic achievements but that did not mean he made unrealistic advances such as going from midshipman to captain without anything in between.
^ This is the correct answer. ^
In the Entertainment Weekly article in question, the writer of the article was responsible for Hollywood gossip-mag prose such as:
Regarding the shirt, Orci was quoted only as saying the following:
Since that interview first appeared, of course, we have seen a snippet in the trailer of Kirk wearing a gold shirt, but we have no way of telling where in the story it fits or how much time separates black-shirt Kirk from gold. I think they want us to watch the movie to find out that and what the significance of that black shirt really is.
In conclusion, I can only say I felt like this when I saw this thread:
How'd that turn out for him?
I meant by my previous statement that the trope is having a highly exceptional "cadet" or "midshipman" take command in a certain situation, wherein he/she becomes the "captain" of the vessel, over more qualified officers.
In other words, filling the position of "captain" not being commissioned as the rank of Captain. Two different things.
Yes, Hornblower didn't achieve the rank of Captain until later, but he was given several commands before then, especially in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, while he was still a young middy or Acting Lieutenant. As seen in the book, it's the highly exceptional middy given command, albeit small, over several qualified Lieutenants and Midshipmen with more years of service.
He obtained the rank of Master and Commander at the end of Lieutenant Hornblower. IIRC, he made Post Captain in the next chronologically ordered book, Hornblower and the Hotspur. But it's been years since I've read them all.
As for Kirk, he could take the position of captain during the main events of the film but it is up to Starfleet Command to ratify an official commission to both the position and rank of captain. A situation that comes up at the end of Midshipman's Hope.
Well, you can't judge his entire career by a single little bad call...
A rather pessimistic Naval officer once remarked to me that he was pretty sure that Custer had coined the term "target-rich environment" to describe all the indians at Little Big Horn.
Actually, what you have been seeing IS the movie. Come May 8, all it will be are the 4 or 5 trailers strung together for the movie.
Exactly, I really don't care if he goes from cadet to captain in one day. He is Kirk. It is not like we are talking about handing the keys of the Enterprise off to Season 2 Wesley Crusher.
Pretty well actually. He went on to an impressive string of victories in the Civil War. When he died he was a Colonel. Lots of officers lost rank at the end of the war because the Army was drastically downsized.
I guess he really could have used those Gatling guns after all...
Well, in that case I would find the transition more acceptable but it will have to be handled in a believable manner and not as some kind of Mary Sue type feat. When Hornblower received command as an acting lieutenant he had already proven himself many times over in the eyes of his commanding officer. From what we have heard about Kirk he is not exactly a model officer at the point he takes over, quite unlike Hornblower whose sense of duty and integrity were always impeccable, almost to excess.
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Where has anyone said anything about age, hmm?
The problem is with cadet to captain.
If you read the little article you linked, you'll find the guy did something heroic at 21, but didn't become captain until he was 34 - 13 years of service LATER.
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