Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical?

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by LobsterAfternoon, Jun 14, 2013.

  1. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    "Saavik, have you changed your face?"

    "It's still regulation, Admiral."
     
  2. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Had they gotten Tom Hanks as initially intended, he would have been a lot closer to the TOS Cochrane I guess.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    The other cases have an excuse too: It's not real, they're hiring actors to pretend to be these people, and they'd be pretty foolish if they made physical resemblance a higher priority than talent. Obviously the ideal is to find someone who's as close a physical match for the other guy as possible (or close enough to pass as family if you're casting a sibling) while also being the best actor you can find and the one who has the best chemistry with the other guy. But the odds of getting both of those things at once are extremely low, and if you have to choose between resemblance and talent/chemistry, obviously resemblance is going to take a back seat. Hell, I take it back. That's not even an excuse, because there's nothing to excuse. It's just basic, common-sense good casting. Resemblance is nice, but it's not more important than getting the best performer.

    Although, granted, sometimes there can be too little resemblance. I definitely would've preferred Hanks to Cromwell as Cochrane.
     
  4. Yeoman Basha

    Yeoman Basha Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Hmm. Well, at the age of 50 my blue eyes are still blue. But everybody's different.

    I'm sure the writers could come up with some gobbledegook explanation for why Jim Kirk's eye color changed and why his height shrunk by three inches. But to me, it would feel forced. It's all make-believe but I want to be able to suspend my disbelief while I'm watching the film. I can do that as long as Pine and Shatner don't appear in scenes together.

    And I also agree about Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy, which was one of my problems with that film. It's like they got an actor who was about the same height and build as Patrick, then shaved his head and figured: Hey, they're practically twins! Forget the fact that the two men's faces were completely different and their voices sounded completely different too.

    We all have our little pet peeves and things that take us out of the story. This is one of mine.
     
  5. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    I have Hazel eyes. Yet people often think they're blue or brown. It's all a trick of the light.
     
  6. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    As I said, they did put a prosthetic nose and chin on Hardy to increase his resemblance to Stewart. So they weren't as careless about it as you imply. They did the best they could with the face they had.

    But, again, would you have been happier if they'd cast someone who looked just like the young Stewart but couldn't act worth a damn? What's more important, appearance or performance?
     
  7. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    I thought Tom Hardy did a great job with the material he was given. He wasn't the weakness in Nemesis, the script was.
     
  8. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Although I joked with my family while watching that Hardy didn't much resemble Stewart (who does look like 20something Patrick Stewart? 70something Patrick Stewart. The poor guy was born old, I think), I was able to suspend my disbelief and enjoy Nemesis. Likewise Nimoy and Quinto's Spocks, despite one having earlobes and the other not (and FWIW, I'm almost certain they built up Nimoy's nose in the meeting-of-the-Spocks at the end of STXI, so he would closer resemble Quinto)

    Slightly off-topic, I'm curious how X-Men: First Class will handle Ian McKellon and Matthew Fassbender in the same movie as Magneto, when they look and sound absolutely nothing alike.
     
  9. SonicRanger

    SonicRanger Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Except Chekov is the one we know is a different age, about 4 years older in nuTrek... but since his birth is after the timeline change, that's allowed. But that means nuTrek Chekov is not actually oldTrek Chekov. A different kid with the same name born to the same parents but at a different time.
     
  10. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Mama and Papa Chekov were convinced the universe was ending when they heard about what happened to the Kelvin and decided to get "busy" five years earlier. :rofl:
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Either that, or he was lying about his age in "Who Mourns for Adonais" for some reason. Or he was using some other planet's years rather than Earth years.

    Although I'm inclined to agree with the "cross-temporal older brother" theory, because Chekov Prime never seemed to be anywhere near as much of a genius as his counterpart.
     
  12. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    It'll all be explained by Magneto's machine. It explains Tyler Mane and Liev Schrieber. It can explain everything!
     
  13. Yeoman Basha

    Yeoman Basha Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Regarding the prosthetics on Hardy, fair point. They did try. It just didn't work for me.

    On your second point, I never would have written the clone story in the first place, unless I could get Stewart to play a double role, which wouldn't have worked there.

    I agree that acting ability is most important, but for me, when you're talking about two characters who are supposed to be closely related or worse, literally the same person, the appearance of the actors matters a great deal.

    The Nemesis screenplay is riddled with so many problems it's hard to know where to begin, but I don't believe the clone story was necessary or even added that much to the story beyond the cliche "I'm you're evil mirror" trope. Shinzon could have been Picard's son and it would have had just as much dramatic effect, if not more.
     
  14. Yeoman Basha

    Yeoman Basha Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Well, any color is going to be affected by how the light is hitting it. But using that as a rationalization for how Pine's bright blue eyes could be confused with Shatner's dark hazel eyes is just...pushing it. At least for me.

    If having two actors who look different with different eye color playing the same character doesn't bother you, great. Unfortunately it bothers me. For me, it's like seeing a character who's flying through the air and I can see the wires holding him up. It's like a giant neon flashing sign announcing that this is all fake and it takes me out of the story. But that's me.
     
  15. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    I just see it as the screenwriters returning to the original character concept of Chekov being smart enough that he was a protégé of Spock.
     
  16. Captain Clark Terrell

    Captain Clark Terrell Commodore Commodore

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    Technically, he was his half-brother.

    --Sran
     
  17. Captain Clark Terrell

    Captain Clark Terrell Commodore Commodore

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    I've always thought Chekov was "book smart" but didn't have much in the way of common sense. Taking that into consideration, it's not hard to see how he managed get himself into so many trouble spots.

    --Sran
     
  18. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    My real rationalization is it's just a movie and it shouldn't matter. Just as the discrepancy between Quinto and Nimoy's earlobs, Saldana and Nichol's builds or Pegg and Doohan's hair lines should't matter.

    You might want to avoid watching the James Bond series. They've had six different actors playing him over the course of the series and none of them look alike! Also Roots, LeVar Burton and John Amos, who play Kunte Kinte at various ages, look nothing alike. Ever notice that Kirstie Alley has green eyes and Robin Curtis has brown eyes?
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    You'd think the fact that you're watching it projected onto a flat screen, or that the characters have cameras pointing at them without being aware of it, or that there's music playing in the background without the characters noticing that either, or that a lot of them look and sound like actors you recognize from other roles, would be enough to announce that it's fake.

    Just watching TV or movies at all, or watching a play, or reading a book, or experiencing fiction in any form, requires some suspension of disbelief. You always know that it's not real, but you choose to play along with the illusion. You exert your own imagination by choosing to ignore the evidence that it's illusory. Just like you did when you were a child and pretended your backyard was a jungle or an alien planet or whatever.
     
  20. Yeoman Basha

    Yeoman Basha Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Re: Would Spock Prime think Kirk and a young Kirk Prime look identical

    ...Or hearing a laugh track when you're watching a sitcom. Of course it's all fake, but most of us are still able to "tune out" a lot of this stuff and still lose ourselves in the story for an hour or two. And at least for me, the ability to do that, to suspend my disbelief for a little while is important.

    Just because it's all fake doesn't mean that the filmmakers shouldn't make some effort to keep it "real". We all know that the Enterprise doesn't really fly through space, but that doesn't mean we want to see the wires holding up the model as it flies by. And when we're watching Klingons, we don't want to see the prosthetics coming off the actors' faces. There are limits to how "fake" a movie or TV show can get before it starts to lose the audience, a line that cannot be crossed without going into parody.

    We all have different ideas about where that line is. For me, seeing two actors who obviously look (and sound) very different -- but I'm supposed to believe they are clones, or the same character at a different age -- crosses that line.