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Cast the Characters of Trek Literature

For anyone who's intersted her's my list, based off of David Mack's, with a couple changes I made myself. I hope these changes get a better reaction.

My Vanguard Cast List
Starring:
Edward James Almos as Commodore Diego Reyes

Jodi Lynn O'Keefe as Lt.Cmdr. T’Prynn

Ewan McGreggor as Tim Pennington

Morgan Freeman as Dr. Ezekiel Fisher

Jet Li as Lt. Ming Xiong

Parminder Nagra as Cpt. Rana Desai

Billy Bob Thorton as Cervantes Quinn

Katherine Heigl as Anna Sandesjo

Robert Wisdom as Ganz

Guest Starring

Paul Ben Victor as Cmdr. Vondas Milonakis

Emily Kuroda as Dr. Hua Sun Lee

Callum Blue as Lt. Kevin Judge
Catherine Bell as Cmdr. Atish Khatami

Special Guest Stars
Amanda Tapping as Capt. Hallie Gannon

Jude Law as Thanashal ch'Shonnas

Monica Belluci as Lt. Oriana D’Amato

Sir Ben Kingsley as Captain Adelard Nassir

Jack Black as MCPO Mike “Mad Man” Illuci

Alyson Hannigan as Ens. Vanessa Theriault

Liev_Scheiber as Ens. Stephen Klisiewicz

I've got one of these for each series, and Destiny, and I know I've posted some, but I'm not sure which so if you want to see anymore let me know and I'll post them.
 
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If I recall correctly, Captain Desai is of Indian descent, not east Asian.

^^Yes, as the name "Rana Desai" should make evident.
As Sci said, the name doesn't necessarily mean anything. I mean, if you were told a character was named Al Giardello, Yaphet Kotto isn't the first person you'd think of to cast based on the name............. :guffaw:

I remember a whole big discussion with Marco about the fact that Captain Kalena Hoku of the Mjolnir was an Aryan blonde instead of Hawai'ian.
 
Edward James Almos as Commodore Diego Reyes
Possibly. Marco and I had talked about EJO as the inspiration for this character, but his prominence on the new Battlestar Galactica made us think that we might want to force ourselves to think differently so as not to turn Reyes into an Adama clone.

Jodi Lynn O'Keefe as Lt.Cmdr. T’Prynn
If that works for you, okay, but I don't see it.

Yeah, I could see this working. He's not quite as imposing a figure physically as I'd imagined, but attitude can go a long way in that regard.
 
I tend to see EJO as Reyes, but I don't see Reyes as being an overly-similar character to Adama. Reyes strikes me as being considerably less selfish and more humble, for instance.
 
Yeah, I just think he fits more in terms of appearance than him playing Adama on BSG.
 
I tend to agree, in terms of character. But the voice and description are totally Olmos, and I think it's too late to change that impression.
 
Edward James Almos as Commodore Diego Reyes
Possibly. Marco and I had talked about EJO as the inspiration for this character, but his prominence on the new Battlestar Galactica made us think that we might want to force ourselves to think differently so as not to turn Reyes into an Adama clone.

Jodi Lynn O'Keefe as Lt.Cmdr. T’Prynn
If that works for you, okay, but I don't see it.

Yeah, I could see this working. He's not quite as imposing a figure physically as I'd imagined, but attitude can go a long way in that regard.
As you can probably tell, I was in the middle of watching the third season of Prison Break when I put that together.:lol: And the next time I read Vanguard, Wisdom kept popping into my head when I got to a Ganz part.
 
I think nearly everyone sees Reyes as Edward James Olmos.
Well, chalk me up as one of the minority that doesn't. Oh, he would do fine in the hypothetical Vanguard film, but like Dave and Marco said, I think the Adama comparisons would weaken Reyes as a character in his own right.
 
I think the Adama comparisons would weaken Reyes as a character in his own right.

And I absolutely agree with you. But I think it's a damn near inevitable comparison. I can "see" and "hear" Elias Vaughn without thinking of Sean Connery as Marko Ramius, even though that's who the character was modeled on. But I cannot hear anything other than Olmos' voice in my head when I read Reyes, and the character's description is dead on. While his character is no really anything like Adama, the looks and speech pattern are inescapably Olmos.
 
See, even though I think of Olmos as playing Reyes, so to speak, I don't think of Reyes as really being any more like Adama than I think of Shran as being like Weyoun. (Or, for that matter, any more than I consider Forrest Gump to be like Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan.)
 
I tried to imagine Olmos as Reyes and I couldn't. So I gave up, and decided to just imagine him based on the text, without feeling the need to hyopthetically cast every single character in every single story.
 
Mostly, I do that, too, Steve. I rarely, if ever, "cast" a character as I read them. Despite the prevailing views, I absolutely cannot imagine Sean Connery or Burt Reynolds as Elias Vaughn, they're both antithetical to the voice I hear in my mind, and only bear a slight resemblance in build and beard. Same for Calhoun - no actor captures my imagination's view of the character.

Reyes is one of the few times that from the very first page, the image of an actor popped into my mind, and I haven't been able to shake it.

[Edit: Wow, I finally made Captain.]
 
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I tried to imagine Olmos as Reyes and I couldn't. So I gave up, and decided to just imagine him based on the text, without feeling the need to hyopthetically cast every single character in every single story.
I rarely do that, as a reader or as a writer. I'll come up with actor templates for these threads for grits 'n' shins, but most of the time, the only occasions when I hear an actor's voice for a character, it's one where the character has been played by an actor.

There are occasional exceptions, of course. I always hear Harry Morgan for David Gold, Keith Hamilton Cobb for Lokor, and Arlo Guthrie for Sonek Pran.
 
I remember a whole big discussion with Marco about the fact that Captain Kalena Hoku of the Mjolnir was an Aryan blonde instead of Hawai'ian.

Well, of course, there's Leila Kalomi, who was conceived as a Polynesian love interest for Sulu, but then ended up becoming a love interest for Spock and getting portrayed by the blonde Jill Ireland, and yet without her name being changed.
 
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