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Does it bother you both new Starfleet Captains were depicted as fools?

posted 9 years ago by hollankreil
5 replies | jump to latest

Stiles and Esteban didn't remotely impress as commanders.

Fluoride does not prevent tooth decay. It does render teeth detectable by spy satellite -JL

[–] mike_cable 9 years ago

Not really. Styles was looking forward to ending the Enterprise's reign as the flagship of Starfleet with the Excelsior, so I imagine the character was deliberately made to look like a fool when it all went pear-shaped on him.

I don't think we had much of a chance to really get to know Esteban. He was commanding a small science vessel, so maybe he wasn't regarded that great a captain in the ranks!

[–] alliemack30 8 years ago

I didn't have a problem with Esteban. He was correct in worrying about the safety of the crew when beaming something from the surface aboard. His priority was safety and commanding the ship, not the scientific research part. The only thing I fault him for is not sending additional security down with David and Saavik.

[–] mike_cable 8 years ago

You make a very valid point, I now remember his concern about his crew going down onto the surface. And yes, back in the TOS days, we'd often have a couple of red-shirts accompanying the main crew.

I'd also like to add to my first post above that the Styles character was played by the same guy who played Howard in Hill Street Blues at the time, and was a cocky gung-ho tactical team leader character and he often brought comic relief and also had a big weakness around women which contradicted his tactical role. So it would have been a delight for fans at the time to see him in Star Trek, and he very much carried on that persona in this film.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (9347176) 8 years ago

Stiles was very much full of himself and it was obvious that he didn't like Kirk being in a position of authority over him. James Sikking did a great job with the character and actually, I'd like to have seen him in a bigger role. I always thought that disabling Excelsior was a writing gaffe.

Esteban was by-the-book sterile. The eye rolls from his helmsman were and are hilarious. You can just tell that being assigned to Grissom is about the most boring job in Starfleet, no matter what Mr. Adventure thought of Uhura's post. Saavik was assigned to Grissom only because of her direct involvement and familiarity with the Mutara sector. Plus, David wasn't Starfleet, so it shouldn't have mattered to Esteban if he went to the Genesis Planet's surface. I never understood Esteban's trepidation to allow them to go down, especially after they located the torpedo tube.

-Rod

[–] jschillig 8 years ago

I've said before I'd have LOVED to see more of Styles and the Excelsior. (He's given a brief scene in the novelization of Star Trek IV. He's ordered to be the last line of defense against the probe, and eagerly jumps at the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the fleet after the humiliation Kirk and Scotty have caused him. He even thinks how glad he'll be that everyone will talk about him and the Excelsior instead of the Enterprise's heyday and James T. Kirk. But Styles is no more successful than the other ships--his ship is, once again, disabled before he even gets out of spacedock.)

James B. Sikking did such a great job of portraying an arrogant and full-of-himself captain (in only the few scenes we see him in) that it's a shame we didn't see more of him. I imagine he'd have been even MORE resentful of Kirk and the Enterprise after Kirk's so-called "punishment", which was more of a reward to Kirk and everyone KNEW it. That resentment and rivalry might have filtered down to his officers during the time he was still in command of Excelsior, creating a situation where Excelsior was the Slytherin to the Enterprise's Gryffindor.

A situation like that could have been mined for plenty of comedy--and drama as well. I seem to remember (from David Niven's autobiography, of all things) an account of a British field commander and a French one in World War I who hated each other's guts. This dislike filtered down into their regiments, creating a lot of dislike and distrust between the two units. The Germans attacked this weak link and damned near won the war as a result.

So if there was a rivalry like this, and an outside force exploited it...well, a story like that might have given us a better Star Trek V than the one we got.