It's possible Kirk had the wrong motivations for taking his command back but that it was still the right choice, just made for the wrong reason. I agree with Spock that commanding a starship is Kirk's first, best destiny.
Decker's demotion -- unprofessionally handled?
- Thread starter KelisThePoet
- Start date
The thing is, its unbelievable that a message like that would not have an addressee (probably Decker since the changeover hadn't happened yet), and they would decide how to disseminate it to the crew. But, we had gotten used to the dramatic license of Uhura announcing things audibly to the captain and everyone within earshot.
I don't think anyone is disputing that, just the way it was handled. As for the wormhole thing, if the traditional arrangement had been followed, with the admiral giving orders to the captain for what to do, and the captain giving orders to the ship for how to do it, Kirk's error wouldn't have happened and the ship would not have nearly been wrecked when its mission had barley begun. The problem is, the show had never come up with an arrangement for flag officers on the Enterprise, where they would have to be on the same bridge set with the captain for dramatic reasons. So in both TMP and TWOK, the admiral ended up in the center seat, though in the second movie they didn't shuffle ranks around to do it.
Definitely not perfect and that is why I find him interesting even if I dislike the character. Great at his job, commitmentphobe boyfriend and terrible father. He abandons his own kid on the mother's selfish say so.
He demotes Decker and demotes Chapel, she was the CMO, what did McCoy do that Chapel could not? She should have run to the Federation EEO as fast as she could, and sued his ass!
Kirk not being perfect is one of many reasons he's my favorite character and captain. He makes mistakes. He is acutely self-aware of his own flaws. He accepts that humanity isn't perfect, but acknowledges that it's trying to be better.
Whereas Picard seemed above all that; he saw humanity as perfect and himself as well with not one scintilla of self-doubt.
This is also one of the reasons why I'm firmly on Team Kirk. Picard is too perfect. Picard is who we aspire to be, sure. But Kirk is relatable because he isn't perfect, because he's flawed and doesn't always make the right decision. He's also just more fun than Picard. Kirk is a little...I dunno, dangerous. He's a risk-taker. Every time Picard has to take a risk, he does it with this grave, serious-as-death look on his face. When Kirk takes a risk, he sits on the edge of his seat with anticipation. Gotta love that.
EDIT: Granted, Picard had kids and families on board to consider. While it made for interesting, more diverse stories, having kids and families on board a starship that is liable to be attacked and certain to explore dangerous unknown regions of space never made much sense to me.
I can see why Picard believed money did not exist in his time since the insurance policies would bankrupt Starfleet.
Short answer... yes! It was unprofessional, almost amateurish. But I understand that this was done this way by the filmmakers to create a climax between these two characters and to give Decker the motivation he needed to do what he did in the end, when he says that he wanted to merge with V'ger as much as Kirk wanted the Enterprise.
Unprofessional and could have been handled 100% better. In most other films and stories, Kirk would have been the antagonist or bad guy. Especially in TOS!
If you don't die a Captain, you live to see yourself become a jerk Admiral.
If you don't die a Captain, you live to see yourself become a jerk Admiral.
This was an issue that actually plagued the writers of the story, even when the story was developing as a pilot script for Phase II, there was some question about the measure by which Kirk is able to rescind in rank to Captain, or indeed whether it was even necessary. In some drafts, they avoided the question by having Decker be a first officer whose been taken from his own upcoming command and put on Enterprise because of the emergency situation (ie, Enterprise herself was not to be his Captaincy), the assumption being simply that Kirk was already still the caretaker Captain.
But the question of why Kirk demotes *himself* back to a Captain still worried the writing team. Some suggested maybe he should be a Commodore rather than Admiral, as TOS' own presecedent established that a Commodore could command a ship without requiring a reduction in rank, while another draft made him reluctant to step back down but being ordered to do so by Fleet Admiral Nogura. As we know the issue was still murky even in the finished movie.
But the question of why Kirk demotes *himself* back to a Captain still worried the writing team. Some suggested maybe he should be a Commodore rather than Admiral, as TOS' own presecedent established that a Commodore could command a ship without requiring a reduction in rank, while another draft made him reluctant to step back down but being ordered to do so by Fleet Admiral Nogura. As we know the issue was still murky even in the finished movie.
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Yeah, they probably should have just left him a captain, plenty of captain-ranked officers have desk jobs in the real world, so I don't think audiences would have objected to that, then the production wouldn't have had to jump through quite as many goofy hoops to get "Captain Kirk" back onto the bridge of Enterprise. Even better would have just to have him overseeing the refit, Spock and McCoy can still have left for different pastures, and the only thing that really changes is Decker needing to override Kirk in the wormhole.
Perhaps the writers did consider leaving Kirk at the rank of Admiral. You'll notice that in TMP and TWOK, he has much larger quarters than he's ever had before...suggesting that those are the ship's flag quarters.
In ST VI, when we see his quarters as a Captain, they are much smaller, more along the lines of standard crew quarters.
In ST VI, when we see his quarters as a Captain, they are much smaller, more along the lines of standard crew quarters.
Good point.
And as others have said (and TWOK confirms), an admiral doesn't need to supplant the skipper of a ship in order to be on-board and in-charge as the overall "mission commander". 
Bigger quarters? It's a two-room suite just as in TOS, only with sliding doors between the two rooms rather than a half-height partition with a decorative grille. Heck, it even lacks the TOS extra doors at the ends of the two rooms that might suggest further facilities (if only wardrooms or bathrooms).
Also, Spock had the same sort of quarters as Kirk, both in TOS and during his captaincy in ST2:TWoK. The difference in rank and position did not appear to mean a difference in berthing.
Why Kirk gets that single-room set in ST6:TUC, I don't know - it doesn't look as if it could be one half of a two-room suite, as the only door other than the entryway from the corridor is a very narrow one.
(Would flag quarters exist? Perhaps Pike abused those in "The Cage", before being told to move down to the facilities actually reserved for the CO. TOS never showed a suite larger than Kirk's or Spock's, but the extra doors at the ends would allow for three- or four-room suites to "exist" easily enough. Perhaps some of the diplomats in "Journey to Babel" got those, while others had to settle for Kirk-style ones, and Kirk himself had to move temporarily down to Deck 5 which he otherwise doesn't call home...)
Timo Saloniemi
Also, Spock had the same sort of quarters as Kirk, both in TOS and during his captaincy in ST2:TWoK. The difference in rank and position did not appear to mean a difference in berthing.
Why Kirk gets that single-room set in ST6:TUC, I don't know - it doesn't look as if it could be one half of a two-room suite, as the only door other than the entryway from the corridor is a very narrow one.
(Would flag quarters exist? Perhaps Pike abused those in "The Cage", before being told to move down to the facilities actually reserved for the CO. TOS never showed a suite larger than Kirk's or Spock's, but the extra doors at the ends would allow for three- or four-room suites to "exist" easily enough. Perhaps some of the diplomats in "Journey to Babel" got those, while others had to settle for Kirk-style ones, and Kirk himself had to move temporarily down to Deck 5 which he otherwise doesn't call home...)
Timo Saloniemi
When Meyer made Star Trek IV, he wanted to increase the "submarine" feel of the starships, so he deliberately made all the starship interior sets look smaller and tighter. I suspect Kirk's smaller quarters are just an aspect of that choice and that Meyer wasn't worried about continuity with the original TV show or his previous movie.
...In-universe, it might be that refitting all the newest doodads into the ancient design took up so much space that everybody had to give up a square meter or three.
Out-universe, it would have been a case of building a new set from scratch. The ST2/3 quarters were gone for good, converted to elements of TNG sets. Throwing together generic pieces of set wall or remaining st piecves (replicator, shower stall) at random angles to create a space big enough for filming was the affordable way to go, no doubt.
Timo Saloniemi
Out-universe, it would have been a case of building a new set from scratch. The ST2/3 quarters were gone for good, converted to elements of TNG sets. Throwing together generic pieces of set wall or remaining st piecves (replicator, shower stall) at random angles to create a space big enough for filming was the affordable way to go, no doubt.
Timo Saloniemi
As noted, that's the idea. Kirk's motives aren't supposed to be purely heroic in the beginning; he's wrestling with his own issues here as well as the external threat--and McCoy justifiably calls him on it. A big part of Kirk's character arc in the movie is his learning to work with Decker and rise above his own ego--as when he steps aside and lets Decker try to get through to the Ilia-probe instead of Kirk trying to seduce it himself as he might have done back in the day.
Kirk isn't supposed to be some perfectly professional role model; where's the drama and conflict in that? And, honestly, TMP needed more of that kind of emotion and humanity, instead of being quite so cool and "cerebral" . ....
It's also in character with the Kirk we saw on the original series, who occasionally let his own emotions and issues get the better of him, but always rose above them when it counted. (See: "Obsession," "The Conscience of the King," "City on the Edge of Forever," "The Naked Time," etc.)
There is a school of thought that Decker's position was that of a 'caretaker' Captain until the "new" Enterprise was officially launched (whether under his command or somebody elses.) That part at least is not entirely without precedent in real-life militaries. If this were in fact the case, then Kirk coming in and taking back the chair was a matter of technicality, and one probably born of the urgency of the V'ger crisis, although it would make Decker's reaction/dummy spit about having her taken away from him quite disproportionate.
Of course, when we first see Decker in engineering, he's wearing Captain stripes. So, that he definitely gets demoted isn't even in question, because when we see him later he's clearly wearing Commander stripes, and Kirk the Captain stripes. If being the caretaker came with a promotion too, then possibly Decker was less miffed about Kirk retaking the Enterprise, then he was that he (seemingly) got busted back down a rank too?
Of course, when we first see Decker in engineering, he's wearing Captain stripes. So, that he definitely gets demoted isn't even in question, because when we see him later he's clearly wearing Commander stripes, and Kirk the Captain stripes. If being the caretaker came with a promotion too, then possibly Decker was less miffed about Kirk retaking the Enterprise, then he was that he (seemingly) got busted back down a rank too?
I don't see any reason to believe that Decker's assignment to the Enterprise was intended to be anything other than permanent. If the V'Ger crisis had not happened, Decker would have kept the center seat. The only reason Kirk took over was because it was an immediate emergency situation.
We simply don't know anything about what Decker's prior career was like. And until we do, we can't judge him.
We simply don't know anything about what Decker's prior career was like. And until we do, we can't judge him.
In terms of straight dialogue, Decker and Decker alone is directly and originally associated with the ship and her upcoming surprise mission: the other heroes just sort of happen to be aboard, whether by Kirk's design or Starfleet's, we often can only guess.
That is, Scotty might have been happy being left ashore to refit the next ship; Uhura might have been up there only to sort out the software bugs inherited from the TOS 5YM; Sulu might have received a mystical summons from Kirk to be aboard at this hour; etc. But Decker is being ousted against expectation. To interpret him as superfluous to the future of the ship and the rest of the bunch as integral to it is thus also something going 180 degrees against expectation (or should be, were we not so accustomed to thinking in terms of the familiar hero crew vs. the guest stars).
Timo Saloniemi
That is, Scotty might have been happy being left ashore to refit the next ship; Uhura might have been up there only to sort out the software bugs inherited from the TOS 5YM; Sulu might have received a mystical summons from Kirk to be aboard at this hour; etc. But Decker is being ousted against expectation. To interpret him as superfluous to the future of the ship and the rest of the bunch as integral to it is thus also something going 180 degrees against expectation (or should be, were we not so accustomed to thinking in terms of the familiar hero crew vs. the guest stars).
Timo Saloniemi
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