Not to mention the younger Spock, who actually did the hard work of destroying the Narada, and Sulu, who saved Spock from being blasted out of space. The only thing Kirk did was put the Enterprise in the right place at the right time; after that, everyone else did the job of saving everything.
Hell, isn't that all the Captain is SUPPOSED to do? As Bones put it once "Your people know their jobs." Kirk has clearly demonstrated command ability and it's a credit to him that he has such a competent crew to fall back on; if Starfleet is going with the more grounded "astronaut/soldier" motif instead of the space navy thing, then Kirk is just an upstart mission commander with a knack for solving problems and doesn't
need to have that much experience in the first place.
But if the captain is good for essentially nothing beyond the odd good decision, what has Kirk done that's demonstrated that he's any better than any of the other lieutenant-commanders or commanders in Starfleet? The only reason the Enterprise survived the initial attack around Vulcan was because it had information nobody else had (the plot hole-tastic 'lightning storm in space' comments) and because Sulu took an extra minute to jump them to warp. After that, it only survived because Nero didn't want to kill Spock. Kirk was then thrown off the ship for blatant insubordination, and when he returned he provoked a superior officer (remember, whether we're going by initial or field ranks, Spock outranked him), to the point of throwing around personal insults, then made the only two actual decisions of his in the film; to go to Earth, and to beam aboard the Narada and rescue Pike. Now, he does to his credit rescue Pike, and he helps Spock get to the jellyfish, but after that it's Spock and Sulu who actually do all the hard work of defeating Nero, with Kirk then ordering the Enterprise to stick around just long enough to get his ship nearly ripped apart and have to blow up his engine core to escape.
Kirk made one good call, and even that is counterbalanced by the fact that he then nearly got his ship destroyed. As a 'coming of age' story it might've worked, tempering his brashness with the realisation that hasty decisions could get people killed and ships destroyed, and Kirk deciding that maybe he does have a thing or two he could stand to learn, after all. But in terms of justifying his immediate promotion to captain of the Federation flagship, going so far as to displace a pre-existing superior officer, it's a premise that fails from first principles. Kirk has great instincts, but they need to be tempered by some better life experience, with someone over him who can ride herd on him. He should've either been left as first officer under Spock, or had Pike and his wheelchair parked alongside the captain's chair for the next few missions, just to slap him whenever he does something potentially deadly.
What he said.
Been following this thread for a while now, only now had time to reply.
No, it makes no sense. None what so ever.
Going from cadet to captain is just, well, a cop out.
So, hes the son an infamous starfleet Exec Officer, he a rebel, hes a Harry Potter-esque celebrity due to his father and he happens to live in Iowa of all places. He then enters the academy and rescues his captain, barely saves a starship, kills the villain and gets a great friendship out of it.
And that warrants instant captaincy of a brand new state of the art starship?
Ok, now heres my problem with this, and we all seem to be saying the same thing. Cadet to captain with no field experience to speak of apart from teh above. Hmmm, imagine that happening in the Navy or Army etc. It wont, exactly.
There was no experience apart from maybe the occaisonal field exercise at the academy and the above situation he was given to act in.
So to give him the reins of a starship as barely a graduate is absurd. That last scene seemed to be shoehorned just to say, heres captain Kirk. Why, surely he wasnt the only cmmand orrientated officer in the entire fleet. So, all the command pursuing commanders, lieutenants and cadets are all killed, leaving just one person to take over the ship from a well respected captain?
Sure he was a good officer given the situation, but that doesnt warrant instant promotion. What would you feel like if your mate at the Army made major right out of training just because he stopped a bomb blowing up the camp while at a war game? Or you avert the sinking of an aircraft carrier when your in the Navy and instead of a medal of valour for fast thinking and bravery, you get the ship its self.
I get the fact that Abrams and co were trying to tell a story of a quick rise in the ranks, but hey, not that quick. Instant promotion
?
I was expecting at least a mention of a few years going by when we see the promotion scene. Which would be fair, it makes more logical sense to me at least.
It just ended too suddenly. ''Heres the five year mission" WTF. Are you crazy, a 20 something in command of a ship for five years with no experience to speak of. Riiiight.
I wouldve prefered a three part movie series, and at the end of part 3 we finally see Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. Of all people, JJ couldve pulled this off, especially with writers such as Orci and Kurtzman.
First part we basically see what we saw in this movie. Second part, we see kirk become a Lt and briefly posted on another ship for a limited time, then back to the Enterprise as Exec Officer under Pike before taking over command in part 3 when Pike is either exposed to radiation or gets promoted.
