Well none of them were in Star Trek 09.
The next "Cadet" Pavel Chekov
- Thread starter Styleset
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That's pretty much where I am. I don't think the character needs to be retired forever, but maybe don't recast him in the Kelvin movies specifically. Nor do I think they should kill off Yeltsin's version of the character. Just mention that he's been transferred to the Reliant and leave it at that.
(Although this concern may be academic at this point.)
Now that some time has passed, another Chekov in another iteration of TOS does not strike me as inappropriate or disrespectful.
(A comparison occurs to me. Hollywood didn't retire Superman after George Reeves' shocking, violent death in 1959, but, then again, they did wait nearly twenty years to recast him in live-action.)
Technically, Chapel was in the background, but they implied, in Star Trek Into Darkness, that Kirk banged her and couldn't remember her name so she transferred to a frontier war zone where she was happier or something or nothing. I thought it was a very disrespectful way to treat Majel's character given that she had just died.Well none of them were in Star Trek 09.
The others got off lightly! In the comic, they based Rand on a background actor from the bridge.
Apparently, when asked why Abrams hadn't included Chapel or Rand, he said he couldn't think of anything for them to do!
If they want to recast Chekov in the Kelvinverse, the thing to do is transfer him to the Reliant but feature his younger brother, who is the same age as TOS Chekov. He would effectively be the alternate version of TOS Chekov but not named Pavel.
In this reality, Piotr exists?
It's funny that the person people think is Chapel has the most Rand-like hair.
Maybe Rand went into medicine in the K-verse.
Just to the frontier, like Bashir.
CAROL: Yes, you do. I'm a friend of Christine Chapel's.
KIRK: Christine, yes. How is she?
CAROL: She transferred to the outer frontier to be a nurse. She's much happier now.
KIRK: That's good.
CAROL: You have no idea who I'm talking about, do you?
That's a fair comment from Abrams, though. There's enough story for the main characters, why bother rehashing every other minor character from TOS?
Yes, except it only seemed to apply to the female characters. If you weren't a mother, a girlfriend, or adjacent to a male character in some way, you were out. Random Vulcan and Sarek instead of T'Pau, Spock in place of Number One, random transporter operator or Keenser instead of Rand.
Rand wasn't a minor character, she was the female lead. Chapel appeared in almost as many episodes as Chekov but she got less screen time because she wasn't on the bridge. I disagree strongly that doubling down on sixties sexism with 21st century sexism was the was to go. In two movies we had three female characters in their underwear.
ST: Beyond was more balanced though.
Sexism against these characters still exists. I was in conversation with someone claiming that SNW Chapel was a Mary Sue, while simultaneously claiming that Spock is not a Mary Sue.
I partly agreed in that she was being billed as an expert in various scientific areas ahead of M'Benga and even took a drug that seemed to give her martial arts skills. But when I googled a biomedical degree, I could see that the areas she was involved with DO form part of a biomedical degree, so she might well be one of the most qualified people on a ship of 200.
Personally, I would have featured Chapel in ST09, I would have had McCoy, after the attack, say something like:
"You, Chapel, you're a biomedical researcher, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, now you're a nurse. Follow me."
Plus her qualifications could have been instrumental in the Khan research in Into Darkness. Abrams didn't care enough about the female characters to research them and write for them. Star Wars had one main female character and that was plenty.
With Rand, I would have had her as Pike's assistant and flipped the scenes with Scotty. So Rand and Kirk are beamed to the planet to place Kirk in the brig and Spock (who isn't waiting in a random cave) persuades her to release him. They then have to go outside to fix equipment in order to do the long distance transport rather than using a shuttle transporter. Far less dumb than what we got.
Rand was never the series lead. Her name wasn’t listed in the opening credits, nor was she ever listed as such in the call sheets.
I doubt there was any attempt at recreating “sixties sexism” in how the movies adapted the source material. When you’re trying to reintroduce Star Trek to a mass audience that doesn’t know much about the franchise, the things you’re gonna key into are the characters people know. That’s gonna be the base seven bridge crew.
From there, it’s going to be significant characters who have some relation to the main cast. For the stories Abrams and crew were telling, Chapel and Rand don’t have that significant relationship. Sarek obviously does - he’s Spock’s father. T’Pau only appeared in a couple episodes, and really is only someone the hardcore fans would get. I’m also sure there’s some character rights payments at play there. That’s why Enterprise wasn’t able to use her and had to create T’Pol.
I doubt there was any attempt at recreating “sixties sexism” in how the movies adapted the source material. When you’re trying to reintroduce Star Trek to a mass audience that doesn’t know much about the franchise, the things you’re gonna key into are the characters people know. That’s gonna be the base seven bridge crew.
From there, it’s going to be significant characters who have some relation to the main cast. For the stories Abrams and crew were telling, Chapel and Rand don’t have that significant relationship. Sarek obviously does - he’s Spock’s father. T’Pau only appeared in a couple episodes, and really is only someone the hardcore fans would get. I’m also sure there’s some character rights payments at play there. That’s why Enterprise wasn’t able to use her and had to create T’Pol.
Rand was the female lead, rather than the series lead. She appeared often as Scotty and was more prominent in the cast list but she suffered from very sexist writing and some odd choices. Like when she takes the helm in the Naked Time, they don't leave her there until Sulu comes back. She was paid per episode not per day of shooting like the day players. Why replace her with an extra in the next scene, especially as she comes back on the bridge at the end anyway?
Sure, they had choices to make in the new movies and probably looked at the TWOK era movies rather than the show, which might also explain some of the dodgy characterisation.
Nonetheless, they had choices to make and reasons why they made them. Possibly, paying royalties for a cameo might have been one factor but apart from Gaila, and an unnamed transporter chief who was no good at her job (nothing for Rand to do? Pfft) the new characters they imported were male too. Whatever the reasons, they ended up with a very sexist movie.
They went out of their way to use Chekov, on the other hand, aging him, changing his personality and his qualifications. Only his name and accent (ish) remained the same.
Yelchin was awesome mind you. The pluses come from the performances (except Pegg) and staging, not really the plot and written characterisation for me.
It was a hugely enjoyable bubblegum movie but, as last week's episode of SNW showed, just a few tweaks could have made it less sexist and less dumb.
I do see SNW as an opportunity to do right by existing female characters like Rand, Noel, Mulhall, Masters, and Palamas but as the only major recurring character, and with a background of justice for Grace, who was treated poorly, I definitely want to see Rand reimagined in modern Trek.
This, indeed. They went with what is popularly known about TOS and that meant the 7 characters commonly seen and still used on magazines and such.
The films do a good job of taking TOS and making it modern.
Oh god no. OK, the third one added much needed context but nothing in Abrams movies made them 'modern' except the visuals. The real science and Trek science was wrong and the characters were rewarded for unprofessional, bad decision-making.
I attended the first movie with my friend's 8-year old and his comment was, "That’s not how black holes work." When an 8-year old is unimpressed by your grasp of science in a science fiction movie, that's a fail in my book!
It was fun but it was also DUMB. I prefer Star Trek to be fun and smart.
I disagree strongly but this isn't the thread for it. I didn't find it dumb beyond the space jump and pacing of events.
I found that quite a few story beats in the Sehlat Who Ate its Tail seemed to be taking aim at some of the silly stuff in Trek09, even if the ultimate resolution was improbably simple.
Perhaps a better example of what I am trying to endorse is Andor. Mon Mothma was barely a cameo in RotJ, and a very minor character in the prequels but what a genius idea to place her as one of the three leads showing us three different perspectives of how the rebellion formed.
So yeah, I say give us Sulu, and Chekov but give us Rand too and don't shoe-horn in Chekov before he needs to be there if that means bumping out someone else. Don't do Rand wrong again!
Your Rand passion is admirable if not one I share.
I don't think Sulu or Chekov or Rand should appear. I think Mitchell and Smith maybe, plus Piper.
Ah yes. If it's a choice between the original cast and later cast, I agree. Although, Smith didn't really have much of a personality like Rand, and there is a part of me that only wants Smith to appear if they avoid contradicting New Voyages i.e. don't kill her off!
I don't agree about Sulu though. Roughly 60% of the Earth's population is Asian and yet there are very few Asian characters. I think they should try to big up the established ones.
Sulu wouldn't be a pilot though. I would welcome more Asian representation but Sulu wouldn't be my first choice.
Even in TOS, blue shirts did man the helm and navigation occasionally - they could easily give him a couple of guest episodes to establish how he excels as a pilot during a crisis. Spock is a physicist already so it was an odd choice to have another one but, that said, physics and astrophysics are probably quite important when flying in space. His botany was a more interesting trait and did get used in This Side of Paradise and That Which Survives, but it was portrayed as a hobby more than a formal qualification. Chekov on the other hand could reel off zoological facts. They probably could have worked that into the script as his minor subject at the academy.
Of course he could. Zoology was invented in Russia.
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