Problem with Kirk's immediate promotion to Captain

I saw a hilarious article with John Stuart on the Daily Show where various politicians were complaining about how modern society is so rubbish compared to when they were growing up and blaiming the current administration for letting society go to the dogs. They cleverly went back through the generations, interviewing various adults about how good things used to be and guess what, they were just as bad if not worse than today (conscription, poverty, racism, unemployment etc).

Trek has always been pretty silly and fans have loved to pick holes in it. Long may it continue.

 

It's odd that you ask this immediately before quoting me about exactly that. I touched on only one of many, many scientific whoppers in the movie, but it happens to be a huge and obvious one on which the entire story hinges.

Your assumption is very generous to the writers. (Especially since it's not presented that way in the comics prequel, which they plotted.) Even aside from the comic, though, it doesn't really fit the information as presented in the (extremely cursory) in-film flashback. If the impending supernova was Romulus's home star (thus threatening other systems only with political instability), then there's no possible way it could catch anyone by surprise: the star would have been leading up to it for a long time and allowed ample opportunity for evacuation prior to the explosion. Supernovae are fairly common (about one every 50 years in the Milky Way), but they don't just happen at the drop of a hat.

(Actually, to be scientifically accurate, the precursor states would have rendered the system uninhabitable long, long before. To be even more accurate than that, it simply wouldn't happen, since stars that go supernova are much, much larger than the kind that support "Type-M" planets.)

So they really were talking about what it sounded like: a different star ("the Hobus star," in the comic) that exploded and then somehow wiped out the Romulan system, heaven knows how many light years away, at superluminal speed.

They are theoretical so far, yes. The key difference between them and black holes, however, is that rather than a singularity at the center, they contain a passage to a while hole at another point in spacetime, held open by exotic matter (i.e., with negative mass). The "red matter" was specifically designed to create a singularity -- the film said so -- so it should've been just a traditional black hole. I find it hard to believe that Spock would've tried to defeat the problem with a method he knew would simply shunt it to another time and place.

(Not that the solution would work as depicted anyway. Black holes are essentially just very deep gravity wells, so yes, they can eat other stars... over vast expanses of time, if the other star is close enough to be captured in a gravitational relationship with the hole. They don't suck up stars (or planets) in the blink of an eye... and as for an explosion, any wavefront that had already escaped the gravitational range would be unaffected.)

I was never a science major myself. (Hell, I took "Physics for Poets" in college.) But honestly, this is common-knowledge level stuff. Getting it this wrong is just embarrassing. (Especially since every decent SF film has a science advisor... there had to be somebody in the process saying "hold on, this makes no sense," and somebody else overruling them saying "so what, the idiots in the seats won't notice!")

That's true, but I've seen enough SF films that do it better than this to know that's no excuse, either.

 

I'm sorry, but did you discuss their misapplication of the many worlds therory in your post? If you did I'm missing it. You spoke of supernovea and black holes in the next part of your pos,t not the Many Worlds Theory.

I thought they were even less common than that. Something like every few centuries in our Galaxy.

I don't think it was Romulas' home star but one near by.

Yes I'm aware of that. Thats why I mentioned a black hole is a componant of a wormhole. The Red Matter is fictional so it can do what ever is needed. Including creating a wormhole instead of a traditional black hole as Spock assumed it would.

In the real universe no, but in Star Trek (where a nebula becomes a solar system in the blink of an eye because of "proto-matter) I dont see why not.

Star Trek movies have rarely, if ever been "decent SF films". Maybe TMP. Thing is Science Advisors can say "that doesn't make sense" all they want. It doesn't mean the writers, director or SFX guys are gonna scrap an idea that works on a dramatic or visual level. The SA doen't have veto power.

There a few, but not many. Most SF films just aren't slaves to science or exposition. Star Trek films are squarely in that corner.

 

It's actually not so much that they misapplied the Many Worlds Interpretation (it's not a theory; it's never been tested), but that they repeatedly beat the drum for it as the latest, greatest, and best scientific understanding of quantum mechanics, and thus the only responsible way to present time travel.

Now, I'm actually quite fond of the MWI, and I've read quite a few good SF tales that use it as a jumping-off point. But it's not new (it's been around for 50+ years), and it's not authoritative (it's still completely hypothetical, and likely to remain so). Moreover, time travel of any sort remains completely fictional (more's the pity), so there are no verifiable rules on how it "should" operate. The most important thing within any given fictional setting is just to take an approach that's internally consistent.

In Trek, it's always been clear that there are both parallel universes (as seen in the various Mirror Universe episodes, and also "Parallels," the TNG ep that O&K like to cite) and time travel within a single timeline, which can be changed and changed back ("Tomorrow is Yesterday," "City on the Edge of Forever," "Yesterday's Enterprise," and too many more to count). What O&K did here was mix the two concepts together, and insist that time travel created a whole new timeline.

(Personally, I don't quite buy it. There are clues to the contrary suggesting that Nero and Old!Spock came from an alternate 24th century to begin with, not the one we're familiar with: for instance, the completely different way stardates are formatted, including the 24th-century date mentioned by Old!Spock's ship. Not that we're likely ever to see this settled in "canon" one way or the other, of course.)

If it was "near by," then we're still talking about several light-years at a minimum... plenty of time to get out of the way, unless (once again) the wavefront was somehow moving at superluminal velocity.

Plotwise, this whole backstory might've made more sense if, say, the "supernova" was not a natural phenomenon but the effect of some superweapon or other (thus explaining its otherwise impossible characteristics), triggered by, oh, it could be anyone, so long as Nero had reason to believe it was Spock and/or the Federation. That would've also made the motivation for his, umm, extreme hostility at least a bit more plausible: a (perceived) deliberate attack is a lot more provocative than "you didn't act fast enough to save me from a natural disaster!"

Saying a fictional device can do "whatever is needed" is very sloppy writing. O&K didn't give us so much as one sentence of exposition about what "red matter" is supposed to be or do, though, so they obviously didn't much care. Regardless, one thing it shouldn't do is behave in contradictory ways depending on the needs of the plot — on some occasions creating a black hole with a singularity that sucks things in (the supernova, Vulcan), and on others creating a passage that sends things through time (the Narada, Old!Spock's "Jellyfish" ship).

"Why not" is because it's just stupid: not merely wrong but obviously wrong, an insult to the intelligence of viewers and thus something that breaks suspension of disbelief. Also because it's lazy, as it's really not that difficult to come up with something more plausible.

(By way of contrast, the concept of instant terraforming is admittedly a bit of a stretch, but at least ST II took the time to set up "protomatter" and its properties properly, and then used it accordingly within the story.)

Granted, this isn't the first time a Trek story has forgotten that the speed of light exists. The climax of ST VII, wherein Soran's missile detonates a star and the effect is immediately visible on a planet several light-minutes away, is another painful example. But that's the sort of thing self-respecting writers should try to avoid, not to emulate.

Well, I disagree. I think several have been, and the track record for the show(s) is pretty good as well. And if it's not a standard every story can live up to, they should at least try. This one didn't.

Moreover, you're now taking a tack I've seen from a lot of other defenders of NuTrek: rather than defending the movie on its own merits, you're making negative generalizations about past Trek in order to argue that this was no worse. That's debatable (I think it is worse), but either way, it's a very different argument from saying the movie was actually good.

Well, obviously. But that just begs the question of what "works on a dramatic or visual level"... and I submit that really glaringly obvious scientific impossibilities don't. There are times they should listen to the advisor, and rewrite.

I read and watch a lot of SF. Talented writers know how to push the envelope of scientific theory without tearing it, to step up to the line without crossing it. Abrams and O&K seem to be unaware any line even exists.

 

You aren't thinking of this from a logical point of view. What if the last scene was of Kirk being a Lieutenant, and the film was open ended for the next chapter and his next step toward becoming the Captain. Then somehow the film bombed and no more movies would be made... then you have a film that leaves people hanging with no hope of ever resolving this, and the studio just wasted a ton of money they'll never make back. Considering how risky Star Trek as a franchise was with its success rate, that was not a risk they were willing to take. Kirk is to be the Captain in the end, so Kirk was captain at the end of the story. How he got there is a different issue and if you agree with that or not, but it would be a little silly for the writers to presume that the door was wide open for sequels and assuming they could take as long as they want (despite the enthusiasm and ultimately correct prediction by the studio.)

I find it irritating that some fans have decided that they expert writers and therefore know all about what is best for the franchise suddenly.

 

^ AFAIK, the cast are all contracted for two more films after XI.

As for the final scene: If my idea doesn't work, why not a flash-forward?

 

That's what I mean by this "(despite the enthusiasm and ultimately correct prediction by the studio.)" But my point was regarding the writers reasoning (and a reasoning that Orci has mentioned before.)

That's the final scene.

To you perhaps. But to most fans, seemingly not. And that's only because you assume they are wrong. Funnily enough, a real astronomer (not a lawyer who pretends to be a scientist, not an average joe, an Astronomer who is likely going to be a little more educated than you or I in these areas) did a review of the Science of the new film

http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/09/bad-astronomys-review-of-the-science-star-trek/

Throughout his nitpicks, here is what he concluded with.


I would love to see more movies made like this, or even (egads!) a new series with this cast. There’s a rich history here, and the way the plot was handled there is a rich parallel history, too.
I’d love to see that history unfold boldly once again.He mentions the black hole a few times in his review, but never says anything against their use for time travel. Any nitpicks with them seem to be minor at best.

Then I suppose we should stop studying them because obviously we know 100% sure what they do, correct?

Yeah, the film nearly broke my bank as many times as I saw it!

Your complaints merely boil down to "Why couldn't they please me and me alone," really. There is no factual merit to them "going past the breaking point" or what not. What they did do is write a film that made lots of money, most Trekkies and fans liked (more so than most of recent Trek of past 20 years,) and harmed no one in the process, nor made something as "detrimental" as you think. On to Star Trek 2

 

They're entitled to beleive that. But you said they misapplied it, which it different than loving it so much they want to marry it.

I was reading stories about MWI before I knew there was a MWI.

Well they're aren't they? COTEOF created a new timeline that split because of McCoy. The future from "Yesterdays Enterprise" was also created through time travel (Enterprise C). The main difference between those and ST09 is no one changed it back. Who knows. Maybe both those Universes are still out there. Or perhaps the universes we "return" too in those episodes are yet another spliti in time.

So in COTEOFyou have
Universe A) The one Spock records from the GoF.

Universe B) The one where Edith lives (some say this is the Mirror Universe)

Universe C) The one Kirk and Spock return to after changing the the course of history so its more like Universe A but things are different because Kirk, Spock and McCoy did changed the past in a subtle ways.

And of course from that point on we follow the adventures of our heroes in Universe C) until the next split.

And Jim Kirk's middle initial is "R" and Data graduated from the Academy with the class of '78. Those were never explained by canon either. The writers said it was the old Universe and thats that.

I think it was more "you failed to make good on your promise and my wife and homeworld died."

Spock said it was supposed to create a blackhole. Thats the do. The how. yeah they skipped that part. The supernova "black hole" and the passage through time are the same event. The other uses of red matter (on Vulcan and the Narada) both created traditional black holes. Only the Supernova-Red Matter combo seems to created time travel. Though it's possible that the latter black hole my have lead to different points in time as well.

Im sure it did for some viewers. The majority probably didn't give it a second thought.

But the set up was for terraforming an existing planet, not creating a new planet from a nebula.

Oh I've enjoyed many of the Trek film but the SF elements are pretty weak through out. I would hold any of them up as great SF. Good Action films in a SF setting though.

Good is a debatable as worse. I enjoyed the film and had a fun time watching it. So from my POV its good.

As a Star Trek film I think its valid to compare it to other Trek films, because they've set the standards. It's not going on my top 5 Science fiction films list, because its not that good, but it is on my top 5 Star Trek films. Why? Because I like it better than the six of the others.

Maybe, but I dont think they see it that way. They're focus is more on what entertains rather than what science says is possible. Its nice whn those two needs converge, though.

 

I'm mystified by the argument that fans or casual movie goers would have been traumatised if Kirk wasn't a captain by the end of the movie. My suggestion was that we should see that he was now on 'the path to captaincy' i.e. that he will now become the man that he is destined to be. It wouldn't require much imagination and in fact Spock Prime could even use those very words to reaffirm that the universe is back on track. Making him a captain earlier with so little experience is potentially branching matters out even further rather than puttingnthem back on track.

And just because 'dumbed down' sells doesn't make it less dumb - it just makes it profitable! That can indeed be held up as their goal but smart can sell too and I don't think that smartening up this movie with a few simple tweaks would have made it less commercially viable.

And FYI - I did enjoy the movie and it has far fewer flaws than the Star Wars franchise although I give Star Wars more rope because I've always considered it to be a children's franchise with lower standards of 'realism'.

 

How can anyone complain about 'scientific whoppers' from anything in the Trek universe, with a straight face? Seriously, it's like complaining that there was too much faux magic in Harry Potter.

 

Who said we had a straight face?

 

No, I didn't. What I wrote was that they "failed to grasp" it, which I'll stand by... the way they described it in interviews doesn't reflect what it actually is.

Perhaps they said that in interviews or other dicta, but nothing on-screen establishes it clearly one way or the other. If there are alternate Trekverses abounding (as you yourself just postulated), then OldSpock could easily have come from one of them. That's certainly the way I prefer to think of it.

Any way you slice it, Nero's motivation just doesn't add up in terms of justifying his actions. Perhaps he just went insane, as many have argued, but then why did his crew keep following him?...

He stipulated at the beginning and the end that he enjoyed the movie. That's his prerogative, of course. But as for the science, although he gave them props for the HALO jump, other than that he basically said they got everything else wrong, including: Vulcan's sky; McCoy's "blood will boil" remark; the uselessness of the giant laser drill; the misdepiction of the black hole(s); and the Enterprise's escape from same at the end. He said their portrayal of the supernova "physically pained" him.

IOW, the writers got almost all of the science wrong, including major plot points. If someone enjoyed the "roller-coaster ride" so much that they just don't mind this, hey, to each his own. But I don't think it's exactly unfair to notice and be bothered by it.

I think you're needlessly personalizing this. We all want something we'll find personally entertaining, of course, but I don't see how I'm being especially selfish or demanding here. And at any rate my motivations aren't the point; that's just you trying to deflect the discussion. What I want is simply something written to please intelligent audiences, rather than dumbed down to be accessible to idiots. I've seen children's films that manage that handily (e.g., anything by Pixar), so it's hardly an unreasonable thing to ask of Star Trek.

Me, too.

Hear, hear.

Once again, we're on the same page, although comparing to Star Wars is definitely damning with faint praise. (I always thought of Star Trek as SF, while Star Wars is fantasy... a whole different set of rules.)

Actually, J.K. Rowling seems to have thought out the rules of how magic works in the Potterverse a lot more carefully than Orci & Kurtzman thought out the science in this picture.

 

How many complaints have you heard from non-fans or fans about the fact that he was the Captain (don't confuse this with some of the complaints of "how" it would have happened?) Non-fans will expect to see and hear Captain James T. Kirk. Most fans obviously don't mind. Guess what wins? *Captain* Kirk.

See my earlier point.

Tired and unmerited slam. Yet nothing to do with this.

Yes, and is he, who is degreed and knowledgeable in this, posting on this forum or on his blog continuously talking about how "cringeworthy" it is? Nope. So what does that tell you? (Answer: it is not the issue you think it is.)

Not true. Plus, he even explains why Vulcan's sky could be like that.

"Every movie gets this wrong."

Which is nothing. You would really hate it if he reviewed all other Trek too.

You really don't think that all the sudden he had "physical pain" do you? And he goes on to say he looks forward to more and loved it. So yeah, basically it isn't what you're hoping for.

IOW not really, but then it isn't anymore "far fetched" than the rest of Star Trek.

You only let it bother you to whatever extent you wish it to.

No. I'm discussing your points,

And it wasn't. Considering most Trek fans and their non-Trek family members and friends like it, are you implying something about them?

Let me know when that happens for once.

 

You're offering an out-of-story reason here: the producers' impressions of audience expectations. However, putting something in a story for out-of-story reasons without there being a good in-story reason is bad storytelling. And what this whole thread has been discussing is how deficient and downright unbelievable the in-story reason is.

His words, not mine. Did you link the essay without reading it? Obviously it's a metaphor, but it indicates just how glaringly wrong the writers got it.

People keep saying this. Sorry, but it's not true. Past Trek shows and films have had occasional scientific whoppers and/or plot flaws, of course, and I've mentioned a few. But Trek used real SF writers and real scientific advisors, and listened to them. The mistakes were the exceptions, not the rule; they never dipped consistently to the low level this film manifests from beginning to end. Believe me, if "the rest of Star Trek" were this bad, I would never have become a fan in the first place.

Not necessarily. I believe I've said more than once that IMHO an actual smart Star trek film could and would have appealed to a wide range of people and made a handsome profit... thus, more's the pity that this film didn't take that approach. The problem isn't that audiences are actually stupid; the problem is that the filmmakers apparently expected them to be.

 

Yes, I don't think the fact that most non-fans have heard the phrase 'Captain Kirk' means that they are incapable of comprehending that he wasn't always a Captain nor that in an origin story he might not be a Captain. I also recall that ST II-IV featuring ADMIRAL Kirk were very popular. If this was really a concern for them then they displayed very childish logic.

 

Which is exactly why in this case they are successful at what they do critically and financially (and its a response to your question.)

No, because you're forgetting if it's "good" or not is subjective. Not factual. Why in the world should they not do something that most people would like? What about the people who think it was good in-story reason? Or is it supposedly still a "fact" that it is "bad?"

Whole thread? Wouldn't be sure about that.

Yes, considering I had to correct a few things you stated (Vulcan's skies, omitting the silence in space, etc,).

One part of it, the supernova. Like I said, you would be spinning if he started going through all of past Star Trek and wouldn't have too much to defend from the "intelligent" franchise you think it was.

I hope you really don't believe that.

Not to the extent you probably are imagining. Star Trek is not scientifically accurate except for a few pointers here and there (Unless you believe that sound in space, inconsistent warp factors, time traveling around the sun, moon exploding and producing a shockwave for light years, meaningless techno babble, etc, are all "intelligent" and accurate.) The "advisors" services obviously came in handy now and then, but other than that, not too much.

Bias will do that for you.

Correction, more's the pity that you didn't feel it took that approach.

Is that Star Trek 2 is too far away!

****************

That isn't what I said. Re-read what I said please.

He was still "Captain Kirk" regardless to people's eyes. He was still in command. He still had a crew behind him. Do you guys honestly think there was mass disappointment that Kirk was Captain in the end and that it didn't "work?" Or was it just that it didn't work for all three of you personally. Let's be clear here please.

 

Devon, I really don't see what your problem is here. You keep trying to personalize this, to get little digs in, to accuse me of some sort of "bias." Why? Is it that important to demean people who disagree with you?

I didn't like the film. I'd hoped to, but I didn't. I haven't hidden that, obviously. It's not the result of any "bias" or any personal shortcomings on my part, though; on the contrary, I've written extensively about the reasons I didn't like the film. There are a lot of them. In all fairness, I've also mentioned the aspects I enjoyed (not so many).

Obviously this is a "subjective" view... as is any analysis of fiction or any other kind of art. That doesn't mean it's all random and relative, though: even a subjective judgment can and should be grounded in clear and consistent principles and criteria. I've tried to do that.

This particular thread is about debating the merits of one especially implausible aspect of the film: Kirk's instant promotion to captain, leapfrogging countless other qualified officers, on the basis of a single mission, and one moreover for which his claim to credit is questionable. I'm hardly the only person to have noticed this implausibility, which is inconsistent with everything we know about Starfleet, everything we know about real-world military promotions, everything we know about the life history of the (prior) Jim Kirk, and everything we know about plain old common-sense organizational management.

You've argued that the filmmakers wanted him to be captain at the end. But that much was obvious (or they wouldn't have done it), and it says nothing about how they got him into that position, or for that matter whether their desire to do so was worth the effect on the story.

Some people weren't bothered by this story element (or by any of the film's other violations of credible story logic). That's their right, of course, and some of them have posted their own views here. Most of it seems to come down to people liking the film despite elements like this, though... rather than to defending these story elements in their own right. That seems to be what you're doing, as well.

The thread has also digressed into discussing the myriad distortions of basic grade-school science on which the story relied. Nobody's really disputing that these distortions were there (including the article you linked). Again, however, quite a few people say that they liked the film despite these scientific FUBARs... and I'm not out to judge anyone because of that. People are perfectly entitled to have different aesthetic standards and expectations. I'm just trying to explain my own.

You seem to go a bit further that that, however. Rather than just disagreeing with me and stating your reasons why, you keep going off on tangents, taking cheap shots, and generally derailing an otherwise civil discussion. What's the point of that? What do you gain by trying to belittle and discredit people who disagree with you about art?

Moreover, you (and a few others) have taken to denigrating Star Trek in general, the better to lower the bar against which this film is measured... which strikes me as an exceedingly odd thing to do on a Star Trek fan site. Are you not a fan of the original series, of the material which provided all the inspiration for this film you say you enjoyed?

I've never claimed Trek was perfect. Any episodic TV series will inevitably involve all sorts of compromises, creative, financial, and otherwise. However, it was very, very good. It was the best SF seen on TV to that time, and for many years thereafter. It consistently tried to introduce the audience to new and thought-provoking ideas, to stretch the boundaries of the scientific imagination, to pose serious moral dilemmas and political allegories. It set out to be challenging both intellectually and emotionally. It also had some of the best-thought-out design work and most effective special effects that a TV budget could buy, and fundamentally changed how audiences think about such things.

In short, it set the bar very high, and if it fell short as often as it succeeded, at least it tried. So did many of the movies that followed, and at least a couple of the successor TV series.

This movie did not try. This movie set out to be nothing but a big-budget summer spectacular that would make a lot of money, with a lowest-common-denominator plot driven by the insane actions of a cackling villain, and a story that took the most direct possible route between fancy action set-pieces, even if that route made no logical sense whatsoever. Like a roller-coaster ride, it may be fun but it doesn't actually take you anywhere.

In my opinion, of course. If you disagree with that, then explain why. If the movie "works" on your terms, then make it clear what those terms are. But stop trying to make it about me, because it's not.

 

I liked the film because it completely ignored any attempt at scienctific plausibility in favour of a good story and because it completely ignored any kind of logical training structure to ensure the team made it to the bridge of the Enterprise by the end.

In retrospect, these are the two constants in any Trek production.