Star Trek film has political message (Spoiler)

[Pholus]

25. There is one critical difference between New and Old Kirk.

Might even be timeline alteration consistent, but they are not the same person...

New Kirk seems uncultured and inexperienced. His theme seems to be that his urge to act without regard for rule or precedent is a counterbalance to inertia in the federation. He's more of a punk prematurely put in a position he really hasn't earned by odd strokes of chance and a single large lucky break.

Old Kirk had impulse and cunning all right, but driving it was compassion and belief in the ideals of the federation. Additionally, it was always plain (like in the Court Martial episode) that he was the captain because of a relatively short but exceptionally distinguished service record. But he did his time and went through a career path that ended in command.

This is not Chris Pine's fault, but New Kirk is not as vibrant as old Kirk and his violation of the Prime Directive is for selfish personal reasons -- saving one member of his crew. Old Kirk certainly run roughshod over the prime directive in TOS and caused no end of agony for the fans, but he always had moral and ethical sounding principles -- he had a larger picture in mind each time.

Sorry to say it, but old Kirk was far more intellectual than new Kirk...