Casting J.J. Abrams' Star Trek: The Next Generation Reboot

Don't derail the thread. Take your complaints to Private Messaging.

 

Hey, I did mention that Jean Reno could play Picard...

I'll go for that, too. But then I'd make Worf Asian, and Geordie LaForge white (and change the character's gender.)

Gene was as the others have said he was, plus he was losing it during the time he made TNG (to be frank, he should have just created the concept, characters, and then nothing else); his writing skills had deteriorated, he didn't know how to write realistic people anymore, and he was clashing with people over how the show should go (Melinda M. Snodgrass and Tracy Tormé being the most prominent examples.) At least J.J. wasn't above having Captain Kirk have flaws.

 

I'd keep Worf and Geordi as they are, but Data I would switch to female (played by Summer Glau). If they insisted on having Wesley, I'd do away with the child super-genius as it is just really grating--not to mention the incredulity of him being better than trained and experienced Starfleet officers!

 

^Even better, Wesley can be Leslie Crusher again, so that it won't sound like Mary Sue bullshit.

 

My casting choices:

Captain Picard - Vin Diesel

Where you know him from: The Fast and The Furious, Chronicles of Riddick, the forward from the book "Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons"

Cmdr William Riker, Exec. Officer - Wil Wheaton

Where you know him from: Recurring characters on The Big Bang Theory, Eureka

Lt. Cmdr Data, Ops, Second Officer - Brenda Song

Where you know her from: The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Note: In this timeline, Soong is a traditionalist when it comes to his androids, and also a bit of a perv, so he makes them Asian women rather than having them look like him. (Allows for a Spiner cameo as Soong.)

Lt. Cmdr Geordi LaForge, Chief Engineer - Dulé Hill

Where you know him from: Psych, The West Wing

Lt. Cmdr Worf, Security Staff Chief - Isaiah Mustafa

Where you know him from: He's the Old Spice Guy + misc other roles
Note: In this timeline, Worf's adoptive parents lived in a more metropolitan human environment than in TNG. They still taught him Klingon ways, and he is still Klingon, but he was less of an outsider growing up, and is less surly and standoffish.

Lt. Natasha Yar, Tactical Officer and Bridge Security Ops - Jennifer Lawrence

Where you know her from: The Hunger Games, X-Men: First Class, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook
Note: Actress selection based partially on her carrying off the role of Sela as a primary film villain, later.

Cmdr Beverly Crusher, CMO - Kate Walsh

Where you know her from: Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, The Drew Carey Show, others

Civilian Political Officer "Counselor" Deanna Troi - Hannah Simone

Where you know her from: New Girl
Note: This version of Troi is not nice, and is there primarily to ensure that Federation rules and Starfleet protocols are adhered to during the deep space exploration mission - previous captains have made them feel such positions are necessary. Her past relationship with Riker is what will make her inclined to cooperate with the crew in bending some rules.

Chief Petty Officer and Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien - Ronan Keating

Where you know him from: Goddess, The X Factor UK, the 90s pop band Boyzone

Crewman 1st Class Wes Crusher - Nathan Kress

Where you know him from: iCarly
This version of Wesley is still a bit of a prodigy, and has already attended Starfleet core enlistment training and then served at the Utopia Planetia shipyards where the -D was being completed, working on her. When Dr. Crusher was assigned as CMO for the long-term space exploration mission, he transferred to Enterprise under Starfleet rules that permit families to do so for that kind of mission. Picard feels bad about his involvement in Wesley's father's death, and has asked Chief O'Brien to take the young man under his wing. Wes occasionally knows things about new features of the ship that the older crew aren't familiar with yet. And eventually, this character will be mustanged to officer ranks.

 

Ehhh, I see what you're going for but I don't think this works. TNG is basically a retooling of the Phase II concept that never wound up getting made apart from the bits and pieces that survived into TMP. And the Phase II material was in fact a very deliberate attempt to make something that wasn't just a copy of TOS.

Picard and Riker are thus really heirs to the Kirk and Deckard characters conceived for Phase II, and in this sense it's probably a good thing that Phase II didn't happen because the transformation of Kirk that it involved would have been confusing -- the ideas needed a new character. Likewise Data is a conceptual descendant of Xon, who had been conceived as the inverse of Spock (a non-human trying to understand humanity rather than a half-human trying to repress his humanity); and Troi is a successor to Ilia. McCoy would have stuck around in Phase II and really could have had a spiritual heir in Pulaski, if not so much in Crusher (I do wish Pulaski had stuck around longer, she was far more interesting), but that's the closest thing to real continuity.

Some nice ones!

I'm intrigued by the idea of Troi as a "political officer," which reminds me of Spaceship Orion. Not sure I'd necessarily want it for a Trek series, but it does make me curious about the story concepts you alluded to in another thread.

 

Great casting ideas.

Terry O'Quinn might make a good Picard, and not just because he's bald, though he is probably a little too old now. Would have been a good Lost connection in any case.

I'm trying to imagine what a JJverse Enterprise-D would look like...

 

It'd be around five miles long, with a crew of over 10,000 and piss-poor shields. The ship would never leave the Sol System as its transporters allow them to visit planets all across the quadrant.

 

There would simply be no need for 'TNG' spin off.

What could happen is if the current JJ Abrams / NuTOS era of movies becomes tired, Star Trek gets put on hold for a few years and is rebooted again with a fresh cast and production, quite possibly re-written and produced in a way that is relevant with the viewers and media technology found in the year 20-twenty-something.

The concept of Captain Kirk and Spock in a star ship getting into adventures has that longevity and is well established in popular culture.

The TNG concept is: "Trek 100 years in the future and without the popular characters". It is indeed a clever idea back in 1986 where you could not reboot/remake Star Trek due to the aging TOS cast still making movies.

 

Thanks! I wish I could take credit for the Troi-as-political-officer idea, but I read somewhere a while back (couldn't tell you exactly where) that that was the original idea for her character. And I really wish they had gone with that, because as they ultimately presented her, she needed more to do, I think. Guinan was frankly a better counselor, which mostly left Troi with stating things about people's emotions that were obvious about half of the time and being the ship's Dana Barrett whenever some alien entity wanted to possess and/or knock up a member of the crew. At least until they finally figured that out, put her in a normal uniform, and started giving her some regular duties.

The idea does fit nicely into some of my other concepts, though - which I may break down and begin writing and sharing stories with any year now.

NEED? True. But there's no NEED for TOS, either. As a fan, it neither feeds nor shelters you.

Regarding the weaker meaning of "need" which is really a strong want, I disagree - there are many, many people who cut their teeth on TNG and only came to TOS through it. To them, TNG is the real deal, and TOS is a prototype, and those people will want to see stories with *their* crew again. And if they're willing to pay more than it will cost to produce those stories and it can be done without diminishing the estimated value of the TOS IP (which is what really matters most to the owners of the intellectual property involved) then it WILL happen.

 

Me like this a lot, especially the new version of Troi who's a political officer that ensures that the rules are followed.

 

When required, LaForge would fix the warp core by climbing on top and repeatedly kicking it.

No more tech-babble solutions.

 

This is what the JJverse Enterprise-D might look like:

 

That's a beautiful ship, might make a nice JJ-version of the -E, actually. But it lacks the whole awkward saucer-way-above-the-nacelles hotel-in-space looks-like-it-is-going-to-fall-over-forward aspect that always made the Galaxy-class "special". How about this:



(Sourced from: http://edxcal.deviantart.com/art/JJ-Enterprise-WIP-124774892 )

EDIT: OR BETTER YET - http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=151586&page=4

 

Not sure who created this one...

 

^The same guy who created the Enterprise-D in my previous post (and that was the one I was going to post, but couldn't find-great job in posting it yourself.)

 

That is the one I always envision as the Abramsverse Enterprise-D. I actually found the pics (I have more) several years ago and saved them to my hard drive.

 

^Actually, here's the URL of the guy who did them: madeinjapan1988

 

I was just thinking the other day how much I'd like to see Simone Simmons as a recast Beverly Crusher.

 

We need FARAN TAHIR as Picard. Robau (that sounds french, right?) can be his long distant ancestor. He can have the Kelvin in his case of little ships

I think this is the best idea I've ever had.