Crew age and nu-Trek
- Thread starter YARN
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Chekov was simply retconned from 13 to 17. That's all. It's the new normal. Or not, I guess.
Enraged "Star Trek" fans protest in front of Paramount Studios gate after finding out four years were added to the age of Chekov in Abrams' hit "Star Trek" movie. "Runied the experience for me," sobs one fan. Shouts of, "You raped our childhoods," could be heard from other fans. Some held placards that said, "17 = 13 in Abramsverse," "Who Mourns for Chekov?" and "Four Less Years!"
When asked to comment about the protesters, Abrams said, "Pedantic geeks, every one of them. I've had it. Scew 'em, I'm going to go direct the new 'Star Wars' movie."
Enraged "Star Trek" fans protest in front of Paramount Studios gate after finding out four years were added to the age of Chekov in Abrams' hit "Star Trek" movie. "Runied the experience for me," sobs one fan. Shouts of, "You raped our childhoods," could be heard from other fans. Some held placards that said, "17 = 13 in Abramsverse," "Who Mourns for Chekov?" and "Four Less Years!"
When asked to comment about the protesters, Abrams said, "Pedantic geeks, every one of them. I've had it. Scew 'em, I'm going to go direct the new 'Star Wars' movie."
Heck, it's not like ST hasn't had chronology problems before. Remember how "The Squire of Gothos" required TOS to take place in the 28th century? (Trelane was 900 light-years from Earth, and due to lightspeed time lag was only caught up with early 19th-century events like Napoleon's reign and Hamilton's assassination. Plus the music he played on the harpsichord was 19th-century.) Then there's Molly O'Brien somehow being 3 years old barely a year after her birth, a classic case of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome. Then there are TNG: "Rascals," "Tapestry," and "The Chase" all assuming that Picard's Academy career would've been about 30 years earlier when it was really more like 40.
YARN
Fleet Captain
An amusing caricature, but no one here said that age discrepancies ruined Star Trek.
The discussion here has primarily been about whether there IS an age discrepancy, not whether it is good or bad. There was considerable debate on this point (indicating that those saying "No" have a vested interest in the discussion).
When the opposition was presented with the facts, they retreated from the ground of the factual to offer a familiar sort of jurisdictional objection - "Irrelevant!," "It does not matter," "Who cares?," "Only a movie!"
And who is enraged? The grumpy nu-orthodox led by brother Dennis are the ones who entered this thread looking to squelch heretical questions. If the question matters so little, why bother?
You've been asked on at least one occasion before to refrain from doing that. Warning for trolling; comments to PM.
Yeah but most people don't even have 3-4 youngsters capable of such greatness.
I'd like to at least think he's the same Pavel Chekov of the TOS universe, so I guess if I had to come up with an in-universe explanation for the four year difference in age it would be a transporter accident.
It's not like transporter accidents were rare in Trek, and they did peculiar things to people and their physiology. Since all bets are off on history after the Kelvin was destroyed, maybe Pavel was born at the same time as in TOS, but at age three or four, while being transported to visit his aunt on a moon base, an accident aged him four years. He beams up a four year old, and materializes in front of his aunt as an eight year old.
Upon a thorough exam, it was found he was sound and stable in every way, but the aging could not be reversed because the "pollutants" from the malfunctioned transporter matrix buffer affected his DNA. He's still Chekov, with the same personality and ambitions, but he's a bit more intelligent and has curly hair. He also has a four year gap between his physical age and his memories.
It's not like transporter accidents were rare in Trek, and they did peculiar things to people and their physiology. Since all bets are off on history after the Kelvin was destroyed, maybe Pavel was born at the same time as in TOS, but at age three or four, while being transported to visit his aunt on a moon base, an accident aged him four years. He beams up a four year old, and materializes in front of his aunt as an eight year old.
Upon a thorough exam, it was found he was sound and stable in every way, but the aging could not be reversed because the "pollutants" from the malfunctioned transporter matrix buffer affected his DNA. He's still Chekov, with the same personality and ambitions, but he's a bit more intelligent and has curly hair. He also has a four year gap between his physical age and his memories.
Casual viewers dont really care about the character ages. Its simply one thing that modern audiences like - they want to see young and impossibly pretty actors in their movies, although in fact the actors are nowhere near as young as their counterparts - John Cho is roughly 20 years older than Sulu - although Pegg and Urban are about the right age.
My personal preference would have been to leave Chekov out of the first movie and use one of the missing women instead. Janice Rand could have slotted in quite nicely as a security guard or Pike's yeoman (or both). I understand why they wanted to use Chekov straight away but they leave Robin out of all the early Batman movies. Cramming all the big 7 into the first film was not all that necessary. If Chekov was missing, fans would have accepted it in a heartbeat and non-fans would not care either way.
My personal preference would have been to leave Chekov out of the first movie and use one of the missing women instead. Janice Rand could have slotted in quite nicely as a security guard or Pike's yeoman (or both). I understand why they wanted to use Chekov straight away but they leave Robin out of all the early Batman movies. Cramming all the big 7 into the first film was not all that necessary. If Chekov was missing, fans would have accepted it in a heartbeat and non-fans would not care either way.
Entirely correct. The "family" idea among the seven is a bit overplayed this early, too. Hence, their somewhat contrived union. It was hardly that organic in TOS.
Thinking back on it, your post rattles a memory that back in the late 1970s, a lot of fans did make it clear to any powers-that-be (to the extent they could influence anything at all) that they wanted all seven major characters in any Trek movie, and they had to be played by the TV actors.
This was different, now, of course.
Wouldn't it be much simpler to assume Chekov simply misstated his age in "Who Mourns for Adonais," that for some reason he said 22 when he was 26? Maybe he wasn't using Earth years. Maybe he had some reason to pretend to be younger than he was.
The simplest solution of all would be just to ignore the "Twenty-two, sir" line in "Adonais" and assume he said 26 instead, or maybe 25 depending on where in the year it fell. Heck, there are plenty of other numbers and minor details in Trek that we simply have to ignore, like "James R. Kirk" and the timing discrepancies I mentioned in several above posts.
It would definitely be much better to ignore the line in "Adonais". I'd prefer it. He was just seventeen. You know what I mean. Or to give equal time, people can ignore the line about being just 17 in ST09. It's their preference.
I was only being facetious in making up my reason for the difference in ages. I mean, if one wants one, any reason works, really. It's sci-fi.
No, they can't. Walter Koenig was 30 when he did "Who Mourns for Adonais," so it's just as easy -- maybe even easier -- to accept him as 26 in that episode as the stated 22. But there's no possible way to accept Yelchin's Chekov as only 13. It's hardly a symmetrical situation.
Or ignore the the 17 and just assume Chekov got into the academy early. They can't make everyone enroll at the same age. If there was an Ocampa wanting to join they'd be long dead before they could enroll. So Chekov's 13 instead of 17. Worked for Doogie Howser.
Then again, the movie turns that into a virtue: the heroes don't just meet - they are destined to meet, come hell or high water (and the movie gives us plenty of both), and in most universes destiny has to take implausible routes to achieve this.
Only in the original TOS universe did the heroes meet realistically; the nuMovie universe is another of those "mirror" worlds in Trek where everything else is reshuffled to make the one piece fit. If Ben Sisko goes over from one universe to another, the destination is tailored to have a Ben Sisko -sized hole there, no matter how unlikely that is. If both Dr Bashir and Major Kira go, the universe caters for those two. And if Spock goes, the universe suddenly bends over backwards to accommodate this, regardless of what it does to the lives of the people native to that universe...
Supposedly such upheavals would be over by the end of the first nuMovie. And by supposedly I of course mean hopefully.
Timo Saloniemi
According to the script and novelization of Wrath of Khan, Scotty's nephew Peter Preston was just 14.
If I can accept a 55 year old James Cromwell playing a mid 30's Zephram Cochrane then I think I can manage accepting a 13 year old year old Chekov plated by a slightly older actor. It certainly makes the "I can do that" running through the ship scene much easier to accept. Just think of him as Wesley Crusher who actually went to the Academy instead of becoming an acting ensign.
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