And there are still, presumably, DOZENS of people on the Enterprise alone more qualified to command a starship than the guy that was 30 seconds from getting kicked out of the Academy.

I don't really think you're in any position to complain about the way in which people disagree with you. I listened to two hours of people trying to enjoy a movie while you complained about the tiniest of nerd issues.

Kirk being promoted to captain makes perfect sense in the context of the movie. A bunch of officers died, Kirk proved that he was talented and a leader, so a decision was made.

Now, I'd understand your complaint if Kirk was, say, a Starfleet ROTC dropout or something.

Nero's shortcomings as a villain are well documented and agreed upon. I would have liked to see ideas for what a better villain would have been, but OK, that's fine.

What I take issue with is things like the discussion of the ship itself. Three people on the podcast thought the ship looked awesome, and one person didn't, so the commentary for ten minutes became about why that person didn't like it, which turned out to be 'because it doesn't look like a 20th century aircraft carrier.'

Don't get me wrong, I liked the commentary, and I liked that a critical face was turned towards it, but way too much of the commentary went towards you or people having to disagree with you.

Of course Star Trek is just a movie. But there's this whole spectrum of plausibility. If Kirk had sprouted wings and flown across the galaxy, I think we'd all be on the "not buyin' it" side of the argument.

I'm freely admitting that I'm the weirdo here. I have no problem accepting spaceships and suspiciously humanoid aliens and time travel and black holes that don't work at all like black holes, but show me a large, hierarchical organization that doesn't work like a normal large, hierarchical organization and I call bull. That's me, that's my quirk.

You know what I like though? Pie. Apple, pumpkin … mmm. Pecan. Yeah. I sure could go for a nice slice of pecan pie right now.

Who's with me?

Fuck me? Fuck you! All I said was that I like pie! You're the one who kept harping on the subject! I would have dropped it if you'd just let me have my opinion!

"It's just a movie" should be the Godwin's Law of movie discussions.

Of course it's just a movie. It's still worth talking about. "It's just a movie" is another way of saying, "It's not worth talking about." If that's your opinion, fine, but perhaps you should refrain from participating in a movie commentary forum.

And, as we've already discussed, Star Wars is a space fantasy. The nature of the magic beans is far different. That being said, you're right! The fact that Luke gets an X-Wing and is a flight leader instead of Wedge or Biggs DOESN'T make sense. And it's a weakness in the story of Star Wars. And to be stronger, there SHOULD'VE been some justification of why Luke turns out to be the very last, desperate hope of the Rebels.

Right, but my point in the commentary was that the the level of justification for your magic bean determines what genre your story exists in. If I levitate in midair, it's a fantasy. If I levitate after waving a wand, it's a wizard-style fantasy. If I levitate because I have an antigravity generator, it's science fiction. If I levitate because I'm actually at the center of a rotating space habitat, it's hard science fiction.

The neatness of Star Wars is that it mixed elements of fantasy and science fiction, but because it contains fantasy elements at all, it automatically lends itself to that common denominator of magic beans.