By the way, going back to casting Vanguard for a moment, I've been picturing Pennington as David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor Who, using his natural Scottish accent.
I haven't read Final Frontier yet, but when I read the Captain April story in Enterprise Logs, I was very happy with the casting of Robert Shaw as April. His voice is somewhat similar to the accent James Doohan used as April in the Animated Series ep, and I think Robert Shaw could do well as the paternal-type character that April is. As for George Kirk, I'll probably just go with Shatner, since often in TV shows, if a father appears once or isn't really a regular character, it is played by the same actor (I'm thinking of JAG and Quantum Leap specifically). This is just a random brainstorm, but somebody once mentioned how Kevin Pollack did a great Shatner impression and...well, I'm not sure what the point if it was back then, but, I don't know, maybe Pollack would be a good George Kirk. Just a random thought.
I thought about Shatner as George Kirk (since after all, he also played the dead body of Kirk's brother Sam in the Original Series), but George is described as being red-haired, and I somehow can't imagine Bill Shatner as a redhead... Robert Shaw as Captain April, though, is inspired. I must have missed that in Enterprise Logs - good excuse to go back and re-read that!
He's a redhead? This I did not know. Isn't he the guy on the cover of Final Frontier? (The one in the center who has black hair?) Was the cover artist just goofing, or what? I appreciate the compliment. It helped that I had just watched Force Ten from Naverone before I read that story. Certainly not the best movie ever, but hey, Robert Shaw is Robert Shaw.
I'm not sure. The guy on the cover to the right of Shatner (the one who isn't a David Copperfield look-alike with pointed ears! ) has red hair, and I'm not sure who else he can be meant to be, but he looks not at all like he could be Kirk's dad, so I always kind of wrote off the cover art, to be honest. Indeed! Besides, the movie features a nice, revealing look at Bond girl Barbara Bach , so it's got that going for it as well, which is nice...
Naw, I like Ewan McGregor better for Pennington. Tennant, OTOH, would make a good Scotty... And I always envisioned Robert April as being played by Michael Palin. Although I never managed to find Enterprise Logs before it got yanked off the shelves...
Oh, he was first described as a redhead a good 18 years before that, in Diane Carey's Final Frontier. However, I always imagined Guy Williams (Lost in Space) as George Kirk.
Hey, that's good! I'm more familiar with Guy from Zorro, so I'd have to exorcise his little faux-Spanish accent, but I could definitely seeing that guy playing Shatner's father.
Considering that Guy Williams' real name was Armando Catalano, I don't think it was an entirely fake accent (although he was born in New York City).
Okay, I just checked IMDB, and according to that, his birth name was Armando, but Guido was one of his nicknames. That must have been where I heard it.
I think it was a joke based on comparisons (in my opinion, unfounded) between his and Shatner's acting style. And, he has red hair, which is probably the only real thing that's going for him here. If it wasn't for that, I would've had to kick Cavit just for mentioning that hack. (I still can't believe some people think he's a good actor.) EDIT: Yes, I do realize that Cavit was joking. But mentioning Caruso in a casting thread is still a kickable offense.
RookieBatman, I just have to thank you again for the Robert Shaw thing. I'm about halfway through the book now, and that "casting" just works beautifully!
No problem, man. Consider it thanks enough that I now have someone to preview the book for me and confirm that he's a good fit. Did you settle on anyone for George Kirk?
Not really...I kind of ended up picturing William Shatner anyway, in spite of the whole red-hair-thing - it just seems to work. I'm really enjoying the book, by the way - you're in for a treat when you do get to read it!