"Our villain will be just as good as Khan!" -Rick Berman
Which statement by a Trek actor/creator annoyed you the most?
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
- Start date
DING DING DING!!!!
WE HAVE OUR WINNER!!!!!!!
I remember he said the same damn thing every Trek movie.
By Insurrection, Berman was the boy who cried wolf.
I always like my artists honest. Could care less about why they do it as long as it's good.
Brennon Braga blaming the failure of Enterprise (and, thus, televised ST) on "fan fatigue" and not taking responsibility for his and Berman's part in mismanaging Voyager and Enterprise.
Ditto. You shouldn't have to swear a loyalty oath and prove your fannish credentials to act on a popular genre show. Doesn't mean you don't care about the quality of your work or aren't giving it your all. Just means you're an actor doing your job . . . and you don't owe the audience anything more than that.
And any grumbling is probably just a result of being pigeon-holed or typecast. No actor wants to be remembered for just one role they did years and years ago. No matter how much they may have appreciated the job at the time.
It is a job after all, and everybody's entitled to gripe about their job now and then.
Stewart may have thought it was just a job, but he is still a professional - he takes the scripts that he is given, there's no reason to think he gave any less than 100% of his effort to it.
I mean, I'm sure he did enjoy playing Picard, but he doesn't have to be a Trekkie, as such, to do it.
I mean, I'm sure he did enjoy playing Picard, but he doesn't have to be a Trekkie, as such, to do it.
I'm sure the fans begging him to say "make it so" and asking ridiculously specific questions about episodes he doesn't have the faintest recollection of even filming gets really old really quick.
Reading this makes me think of Sir Alec Guiness, who initially enjoyed playing Obi-Wan Kenobi so much (and working with Mark Hamil) that he agreed to do both TESB and ROTJ free of charge; however, after many years of fans asking him about playing Obi-Wan, he became bitter and refused to talk about Star Wars because he was tired of hearing about it.
--Sran
I seriously doubt that he offered to do it "free of charge".
That's why. Too many people ignoring the rest of his career in favor of just three movies he did.
Exactly. He didn't mind playing Obi-Wan back in the day, but he didn't want to be remembered for playing a sci-fi wizard in what was (to him) a silly Saturday-matinee adventure movie he worked on for a few weeks back in 1976. He wanted to be remembered for his more serious, dramatic roles.
And he certainly didn't want his entire illustrious career to be reduced to "the guy who played Obi-Wan in STAR WARS."
He certainly never intended for it to become the defining role of his career . . . .
"I made this show so I could retire to some tropical island filled with... naked women. That's Gene Roddenberry. That's his vision."
Precisely. It's interesting to hear Sir Christopher Lee talk about Star Wars, as he seems very appreciative of the opportunity to play Dooku, but I think the perception of his career is different among fans and casual movie-goers. Lee isn't merely Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus, as he's also known for his roles as Saruman the Wise, Francisco Scaramanga, and Dracula. I actually found out the other day that he's the most prolific actor of his time--which I hadn't realized--but I think the general public has a greater awareness of and appreciation for his entire body of work than it does for Guisness' exploits, which is a shame.
An additional thought: I do wonder to what extent Lee's feelings may have been influenced by his close friend Peter Cushing having been involved with Star Wars previously. As Cushing died in 1994, he wouldn't have known about Lee's inclusion in the prequel films, but that doesn't mean the two didn't discuss Cushing's portrayal of Tarkin.
--Sran
I wonder if Lee is also grateful that, unlike many previous horror stars, he's going out on a high note, working on a major films with major directors, instead of being reduced to doing, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space in his twilight years.
Certainly, it's great to see Lee thriving at this point in his career . . . .
Certainly, it's great to see Lee thriving at this point in his career . . . .
I agree. He seems like a such a class-act that it's easy to be happy for him and the success he's had--both recently and over the course of his career; I didn't know much about Lee's work beyond Dracula until I saw him in Attack of the Clones (I saw the Lord of the Rings saga later), but I've been a fan of his ever since. He's high on my list of actors whom I wish had done Star Trek at some point, as I think he'd have been a phenomenal character--perhaps a Klingon or Romulan combat veteran, not unlike Mark Lenard's character from "Balance of Terror."
--Sran
Kinda ungrateful. He achieved a certain immortality with the role since Star Wars has joined Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind and Casablanca as VERY EXCLUSIVE group of movies that will probably still be remembered the next century.
I think I read that a kid approached Guinness for an autograph and that he told him that he would sign it provided that the kid would never see Star Wars again, and that the kid was upset.
That''s pretty funny!
I'm always confounded by this idea that actors are indebted and must appreciate, as if they're forced to do it and that the audience is owed the actor's allegiance by blood oath.
To wit, there have been people from time immemorial who have been involved at the top of the heap or the best of the best: members of a President's cabinet or a key leader in the largest corporation or a player in an important position in a sports dynasty, etc. -- and they simply didn't enjoy their time and wanted out at the first chance they get. And that's their right -- as long as they give it their best, they don't owe anyone anything after that.
Not everyone wants fame and immortality. Some prefer that their strongest work speaks for them, that they do the best they can, and clearly Sir Alec didn't feel that the OT was his best work.
^That may be true to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean Guinness had to agree with fans' feelings; in point of fact, I thought his performance as Obi-Wan was excellent, but that doesn't mean he wasn't capable of better, or that there weren't roles he was more heavily invested in.
It's easy to forget that just because we're fans of various series and genres that the men and women who play the characters we admired may not feel the same way about them. Both Terry Farrell and Nana Visitor were Star Trek fans as children and were excited to have prominent roles on DS9, but Avery Brooks and Colm Meany were ready to move on by the time the series ended. Michael Dorn felt the same when TNG finally died on the operating table (courtesy of Dr. Baird).
--Sran
It's easy to forget that just because we're fans of various series and genres that the men and women who play the characters we admired may not feel the same way about them. Both Terry Farrell and Nana Visitor were Star Trek fans as children and were excited to have prominent roles on DS9, but Avery Brooks and Colm Meany were ready to move on by the time the series ended. Michael Dorn felt the same when TNG finally died on the operating table (courtesy of Dr. Baird).
--Sran