Do you think Kirk was made captain early
- Thread starter startrekrcks
- Start date
Actually considering how automated those starships probably are, it's probably easier to command one of those than a 19th century sailing ship. Not to mention the tremendous technical skill everyone around you has.
You just have to sit back and let the technology and your crew of geniuses do all the work.
Also completely ignoring that Kirk isn't a real person, so they might compress time or take dramatic license and that there's a huge fucking difference between a character in a space opera and person in the real world, yeah.
Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter are pretty special too.
Heroes of epic fiction are like that.
I think it was a stupid idea.
But technically, Kirk didn't go from cadet to Captain, he went from Lieutenant to Captain. He only skipped two grades in rank.
But technically, Kirk didn't go from cadet to Captain, he went from Lieutenant to Captain. He only skipped two grades in rank.
He went from cadet to Captain. He had no commission because of what he did in the simulation. And even then, he would have just been an Ensign.
The age old argument. So he's fictional. So it's a science fiction movie. Still he's just supposed to be a human being. He can't breath in a vaccuum or shoot fireballs from his ass either.
Yes, and its based on a series where teleportation devices split people into Jekyll and Hyde, then put them back together.
Or send them into alternate dimensions where they still exist but they're all evilllll. And again, get them back home in an hour or so.
Really, on the list of licenses Trek takes with the "real world", Kirk's promotion ranks pretty low.
Why is it that everyone throws logic for everything out of the window, just because they are beaming?
Because its a much bigger break from reality than a fast promotion and indicative of the fact that Star Trek is science fantasy that takes HUGE breaks from reality whenever it would make a good story?
I'm ok with Kirk getting split into Jekyll and Hyde and then put back together again, and I'm ok with him getting promoted at an unrealistic pace.
Edit: And it's not the beaming part, nice that you focus on that side of the transporters. The TELEPORTING is the most realistic thing about transporters. It's the splitting people into Jekyll and Hyde and transporting them to alternate dimensions where they all have evil twins stuff that is REALLY wild, not "just" the teleporting.
Transporters are perhaps the ultimate sign of what type of universe Trek inhabits. One that plays by one rule only: tell a good story.
They aren't going for realism and they never have.
Star Trek is fun, pulpy adventure fiction and it always has been.
It didn't bother me. I was too busy enjoying the story.
2. SOMEONE 'SHOP A SOMBRERO ON IT!!!
I love the new movie, but have said this from my first viewing.
In TOS, Kirk graduated with the rank of Lieutenant. So he probably did the same thing here. Uhura definitely did, and she wasn't even command material. (In the novelization, Kirk *is* a Lieutenant, and is constantly referred to by that rank.)
The only reason Kirk wasn't wearing command gold is that the ceremony was interrupted by the crisis at Vulcan.
Source? I have never heard this.
The problem is that you are dealing with 2 hours of movie rather than 26 hours of television. If at the end of chunk 1 ("chunk" being either a movie or season) most people are going to want Kirk as Captain
Television would allow you to fill in a lot of the blanks that movies by necessity have to skip over. The alternative (from a movie point of view) is to jump forward part way through the story to a time when our characters are older and perhaps more ready to command. But then it leaves the audience asking "what happened in those missing years?" and disengaging from their relationship with the characters.
At the end of the day, a movie is just not suited to telling such a time spanning story in such a way that is satisfactory to all. Compromises had to be made - and so they were.
Television would allow you to fill in a lot of the blanks that movies by necessity have to skip over. The alternative (from a movie point of view) is to jump forward part way through the story to a time when our characters are older and perhaps more ready to command. But then it leaves the audience asking "what happened in those missing years?" and disengaging from their relationship with the characters.
At the end of the day, a movie is just not suited to telling such a time spanning story in such a way that is satisfactory to all. Compromises had to be made - and so they were.
I've just realised there is a precedent set within the Star Trek universe for cadets still at the Academy being referred to as Lieutenants*, this precedent being Saavik. It may be the case that command track cadet's are given a provisional rank of Lieutenant in relation to the rest of the cadets in their group (since it seems that they train them as a single crew in ST:II at least) and when they graduate, they keep that rank.
Since Kirk seems very close to graduation already (something that people seem to have inferred), it's likely that he was close to becoming a Lieutenant anyway. Since it may of just been the Kobayashim Maru case that was the last thing done (a case that could have ended in Kirk's favour anyway), it wouldn't be much to guess that he was going to be a Lieutenant anyway, thus wasn't promoted from a cadet rank.
*the novel Starship Troopers does create a rank called '3rd Lieutenant' which is below 2nd Lieutenant, for the specific purpose that when sent out to battle to test the officer cadet's command skills, the cadet has an actual rank and thus authority to give orders to soldiers from rank of private to platoon sergeant. Perhaps this 'Lieutenant' rank for cadets is a similar case?
Since Kirk seems very close to graduation already (something that people seem to have inferred), it's likely that he was close to becoming a Lieutenant anyway. Since it may of just been the Kobayashim Maru case that was the last thing done (a case that could have ended in Kirk's favour anyway), it wouldn't be much to guess that he was going to be a Lieutenant anyway, thus wasn't promoted from a cadet rank.
*the novel Starship Troopers does create a rank called '3rd Lieutenant' which is below 2nd Lieutenant, for the specific purpose that when sent out to battle to test the officer cadet's command skills, the cadet has an actual rank and thus authority to give orders to soldiers from rank of private to platoon sergeant. Perhaps this 'Lieutenant' rank for cadets is a similar case?
Apparently even saving the Earth isn't enough for some people. It's as if Starfleet already have a list off what promotions you can earn for sector/quadrant saving events. One would imagine it might be something like this:
-Saving a Founding Member Planet=Graduation/Promotion of 1 Rank
-Saving a Member Planet=Commendation
-Saving President=Commendation
-Saving entire Federation=2 ranks, if you have a clean record.
so on and so forth, etc., yadeyadeya
Yes, and if I'm a medical student and save some guy's life, or maybe a bus full of them, I get to be head of a hospital. It's that easy.
Has it ever happened? A medical student saving a bus full of people with medical knowledge? Also a matter of scale is also important in this case. A better comparison would be if a medical student had come up with a cure for a disease that's threatening an entire country. Would he not deserve something pretty major for that?
Woah, dude, in what fantasy world do you live in?
He'd probably be getting a Nobel price, the 1 million attached to it, and a hand shake. But not a hospital.
Same goes for Kirk. He'd be getting a commendation and would be hunted by the press for the rest of his life, but he'd stay Ensign, or Lieutenant.
As I said, what they did with Kirk in this movie is a nerd's wet dream.
Are we not discussing the reward for saving an entire planet? That's pretty fantastical in the first place. Besides, it's hard to guess, since a medical analogy only very loosely fits a military one, and there's (as far as I know) no precedent for this kind of thing, unless you can come up with an example?
