It'd kind of weird seeing all this talk about #Kirk being "Old" in the early 80s #StarTrek movies

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

It is kind of funny to think that the Kirk going through his mid-life crisis is ten years younger than Picard was when he first took command of the Enterprise-D. He's actually not much older than any of the leads up until nu-Trek. The first couple Trek movies are one of Trek's few stabs at something like realism when it comes to aging/promotion in the military, with the implication that you can't just stay at the same post or rank for decades.

Although, as others have mentioned, it's not about Kirk's age in and of itself (he does after all end up going on another five year mission). Kirk's crisis in The Wrath of Khan is pretty much an extension of his feeling replaced and out-of-step with a Starfleet that has changed since he was a Captain. And since commanding a starship is all he really wants to do, that's a problem.

[CrypticMirror]

McCoy even directly calls it out "Get back your command before you really do get old", he tells Kirk.

It makes sense that Starfleet has moved into a consolidatory position in the era though. The Organians have apparently vanished, leaving the Klingon-Federation situation unresolved and them in a cold war situation guarding borders. They've also got to crunch the data on the big push for exploring the frontier and follow up on the initial discoveries of the TOS era, and that takes a lot of manpower in and of itself to avoid overextending themselves. Starfleet is also prepping for a new big exploratory push and paradigm shift in how it is performed with the proposed Excelsior class, so Starfleet does seem to be in a holding pattern in the movies era. While that is certainly a normal thing for militaries and institutions to do, go through big periods of activity followed by pauses to analyse data and renew equipment and doctrines, it is not something that comes easily to Kirk. He's probably in the wrong position at the wrong time for his personality type.

[CharlesPhipps]

I agree that he hated the job, but where is the evidence that he was rubbish at it?

I'm mostly referring to TMP as his decision to handle the V'Ger entity was to replace the captain, accidentally get some people killed, reassemble his old team, and nearly get the ship destroyed by leaving the Parking Brake on.

Plus as Chief of Naval Operations, its his fault that Earth is undefended.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Plus as Chief of Naval Operations, its his fault that Earth is undefended.

Especially when the Enterprise is the only ship in range!

[CharlesPhipps]

Plus as Chief of Naval Operations, its his fault that Earth is undefended.

Especially when the Enterprise is the only ship in range!

Deliberate?

DUN DUN DUN

[Makeshift Python]

It is kind of funny to think that the Kirk going through his mid-life crisis is ten years younger than Picard was when he first took command of the Enterprise-D.

That's what I like about the conception of Picard is that he's essentially who Kirk might have been if he hadn't retired after the Enterprise-A. We're seeing a Picard who had already had his Kirk years with the Stargazer.

The whole "getting old" is kind of funny in retrospect, because we see through Bones you can live up to a healthy 137. Cut to DS9's "Distant Voices" where Bashir turns 30 and refers to it as "the long march to middle age".

[clearspira]

It is kind of funny to think that the Kirk going through his mid-life crisis is ten years younger than Picard was when he first took command of the Enterprise-D.

That's what I like about the conception of Picard is that he's essentially who Kirk might have been if he hadn't retired after the Enterprise-A. We're seeing a Picard who had already had his Kirk years with the Stargazer.

The whole "getting old" is kind of funny in retrospect, because we see through Bones you can live up to a healthy 137. Cut to DS9's "Distant Voices" where Bashir turns 30 and refers to it as "the long march to middle age".

And welcome to either one of the biggest informed attributes in Star Trek or the best example of TNG season 1 early instalment weirdness besides Data getting drunk - because Bones is the ONLY example we see of a human living that long naturally. Every other piece of evidence we have, from Bashir's comment here, to Scotty's retirement, to Kirk's mid-life crisis, to the general stated ages of the older characters; the humans in Trek have a current day human lifespan. The most we can say is that they are guaranteed to reach their life expectancy in better health than we are.

[Makeshift Python]

Don't forget "The Survivors", where the character Rishon is supposed to be 82, even though the actress playing her was only 55. That along with Picard being considerably older than Patrick Stewart's actual age is supposed to show that humans at certain ages look younger than their 20th century counterparts. Kind of like how a 30 year old today looks much younger than 30 year olds did a hundred years ago or less. Sean Connery was 31 years old when he first played James Bond, but today he'd look like he just hit 40.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

It is kind of funny to think that the Kirk going through his mid-life crisis is ten years younger than Picard was when he first took command of the Enterprise-D.

That's what I like about the conception of Picard is that he's essentially who Kirk might have been if he hadn't retired after the Enterprise-A. We're seeing a Picard who had already had his Kirk years with the Stargazer.

And of course in Tapestry we see an alternate version of Picard who has apparently spent decades as a junior grade lieutenant. Overall TNG actually seems pretty consistent on just how slow the climb up the professional ladder can be in the 24th century.

[Fianna]

Starfleet doesn't seem to have any sort of up-or-out policy. Someone rises in rank as far as they're willing and able to, but once they reach a point where they'd be unqualified for a superior position, or would simply not desire one, they can remain at that position indefinitely.