Ethan Peck cast as DSC's Spock

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Actors are just actors. They don't need to look exactly like the character.

Agreed, I'm much more worried about how a character is written/directed, than who plays them.

Ethan Peck looks perfectly decent as Spock, and I'm sure a few copied mannerisms would help:

I can't help but feel ambivalent about recent news; interested but very sceptical. Both major stories have a lot of potential to backfire. Spock and Picard are two beloved, well-established characters. Do we really trust them with the current creative team? This is not a team that has proven itself, but they will be handling franchise dynamite after only 15 episodes of practice. 15 somewhat divisive episodes. Also, why has the fresh team so swiftly resorted to using established characters for a huge crossover already, employing them for ratings, bringing the USS Enterprise already, and making Spock central to things? Hopefully these concerns are for nothing. But... past series did not feel they had to reference the "trinity" of Kirk/Spock/McCoy so deeply, series like Voyager stood on their own merits. Why does Hollywood currently feel we need to revisit specific famous characters all the time?

To state some worries in clearer terms:

- Do we trust that Spock having some life-changing grand adventure before TOS, won't alter his characterisation in a that will not prove divisive?

- Do we trust that Jean Luc Picard having some grand adventure after TNG, won't alter his characterisation in a way that will not prove divisive?

Again, it strikes me as a bit uncomfortable, that people who have made a grand total of 15 episodes worth of Star Trek material, are messing with the established work of others so swiftly. Where are Rene Echevarria, Naren Shankar, Brannon Braga and Ronald D Moore in all this? No involvement of any kind from any of the writing team that made Picard what he is? Indeed, since most of the old guard are still alive, very successful, and still working in TV (Shankar is running The Expanse, Moore ran Battlestar Galactica, and Braga is on The Orville), why isn't there more general engagement between the two generations?

In terms of design team... No Okudas? No Greg Jein, Rick Sternbach or Doug Drexler? I think a lot of us would love to see what they would contribute to the 23rd century in terms of a few designs, even if it was a couple of guest pieces. Surely even for the current FX department, these people would be like the equivalent of highly specialised consultants? They made the Star Trek visual style, and what's more, unlike Star Wars's Ralph McQuarrie, they are all still around. These people are a resource.

 

[Tuskin38]

Dollar store Spock.

This feels insulting some how

 

[SPCTRE]

an interquel

 

[Midquest]

How about this? (EDIT because Imgur problems)

 

[jaime]

How about this?

Spock wears eyeshadow. Not Lippie.
He looks like the aliens from Galaxy Quest.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Voyager and Ds9 both have episodes which are sequels to TNG episodes.

And to TOS: "Blood Oath", "Trials and Tibble-ations", "Flashback".

 

[SPCTRE]

series like Voyager stood on their own merits

oh yeah, back then they knew better than t-

 

[Therin of Andor]

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[jaime]

And to TOS: "Blood Oath", "Trials and Tibble-ations", "Flashback".

The anniversary episodes aren’t sequels as such...though Trials kind of is as it’s leaping off point. Flashback isn’t...it just uses movie era characters. Blood Oath is tricky...given the Klingon stuff in DS9 , it’s not really a sequel, but is reintroducing those characters.
Compare to stuff like the Barzan wormhole follow up in Voy, or any of the Marquis stuff that was explicitly designed as an ongoing narrative, I wouldn’t call it a sequel as such.

 

[jaime]

oh yeah, back then they knew better than t-

It’s really not remotely comparable, especially the stuff from caretaker. There’s a difference between the odd cameo, or recurring character, and tying your whole plot for a season of fifteen totally and one hundred percent to a mast of what went before.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

oh yeah, back then they knew better than t-

I made the mistake of trusting that people would not do the blindingly obvious but completely inaccurate comparison with guest appearances, and take my point completely out of context, but alas, looks I overestimated the diplomacy of the internet again.

I think we can all distinguish between single-episode guest star dropping in for a few minutes, and basing an entire story arc around a member of the original series like they are an idol.

How long did Quark turn up for in the Voyager pilot? Like 45 seconds? Did he do anything remotely important?

To make an obvious comparison, that was like Oz turning up in one episode of Angel. This is like a young Luke Skywalker having an unknown adventure 2 years before A New Hope.

You arn't being pedantic, because pedantry actually requires your details be right.

 

[Trekkin]

Q had a longer and more complex arc in VOY, than Harry did. So did Barclay, come to think of it.

Besides, who says Picard won’t just be a similarly recurring character? Spock certainly doesn’t look like he’ll be a regular.

And you know what former Buffy main characters ended up being super important in Angel? Three of the leads. (And If it wasn’t for an actors drug problems, they all would have been Buffy characters.)

Plus two more additions later, when you count in Spike and Darla’s inclusion. Whom you may recall, were both raised from the dead just to make that possible. Which is about as ‘deviated from their original characterisation’ as you can possibly get.

The show ended up fine.

 

[Jinn]

I made the mistake of trusting that people would not do the blindingly obvious but completely inaccurate comparison with guest appearances, and take my point completely out of context, but alas, looks I overestimated the diplomacy of the internet again.

I think we can all distinguish between single-episode guest star dropping in for a few minutes, and basing an entire story arc around a member of the original series like they are an idol.

How long did Quark turn up for in the Voyager pilot? Like 45 seconds? Did he do anything remotely important?

To make an obvious comparison, that was like Oz turning up in one episode of Angel. This is like a young Luke Skywalker having an unknown adventure 2 years before A New Hope.

You arn't being pedantic, because pedantry actually requires your details be right.

Well, the Barcley comparison seemed to work fairly well.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

@Hela - And it was about 700% more believable in the case of Angel. Cordelia knew Angel. Wesley knew Angel. Spike was Angel's bloody grandspawn. It wasn't a great comparison for that reason; but the point still stands, the prior appearances in Star Trek were mainly guest appearances. Even Q appearing in a couple of guest episodes that reference the previous one is not a pre-written 'arc'.

 

[Trekkin]

@Hela - And it was about 700% more believable in the case of Angel. Cordelia knew Angel. Wesley knew Angel. Spike was Angel's bloody grandspawn. It wasn't a great comparison for that reason; but the point still stands, the prior appearances in Star Trek were mainly guest appearances. Even Q appearing in a couple of guest episodes that reference the previous one is not a pre-written 'arc'.

‘Pre-written?’ arcs. Not...really how time works. For us, anyway.

Star Trek never planned any of their arcs, if that’s what you mean. When the writers created Farpoint, they had no idea that All Good Things... would eventually exist. Q and Picard arcs there weren’t planned either, they were built on the fly. It’s still an arc.

The giveaway is that all the original writers were long since gone, and everyone thought show would be dead by the end of S1 if they were lucky.

Star Trek didn’t even tend ‘pre-write’ they’re bloody two-parters. I’m not gonna start giving a shit about that now.

Also: Pretty certain Sarek knows Spock. As did Pike. And presumably, his sister knows him just as well as his other suddenly introduced sibling.

As we know absolutely nothing about Picard’s thing, I have no idea how you managed to calculate a comparable ‘believability’ at all. But such is life.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Star Trek never planned any of their arcs,

I think the later series of DS9 and s3 (at least) of Enterprise had more of a plan to their arcs, but even the dominion arc in DS9 (planned from s2 onwards) was interrupted by studio execs and producers - that’s why we had all those shenanigans with the Klingons (referenced in such a meta way by Quark in “way of the warrior”).

I love your point about Q and Harry Kim in Voyager as well btw

As for DSC it looks like Pike might be around for the whole season - if not he’s just a guest star (like Scotty and McCoy on tng and quark on voy, and Barclay on voy, and Riker on voy, and troi on voy and the Borg Queen on voy. Wow Voy had a lot of guest stars).

Maybe we’ll only see Spock on a recording left for Michael - it might just say “If i don’t make it back don’t tell anyone about Sybok”

 

[Phil123]

I hope they use his real hair and not a piece. Makes it look more real, and the Vulans less cookie cutter.

 

[Gepard]

How about this? (EDIT because Imgur problems)

John Mulaney?

 

[Therin of Andor]

The anniversary episodes aren’t sequels as such...though Trials kind of is as it’s leaping off point. Flashback isn’t...it just uses movie era characters. Blood Oath is tricky...given the Klingon stuff in DS9 , it’s not really a sequel, but is reintroducing those characters.

You have a very narrow definition on "sequel".

 

[Trekkin]

Wow Voy had a lot of guest stars).

Riker is extra special, because Will and Thomas ended up on DS9.

He’s a bit of a slut, that Riker. Took a ride on every Berman-era bicycle.

You have a very narrow definition on "sequel".

How on earth can Flashback not be a sequel to TOS and Star Trek TMP-V, when parts of it are literally bits of Star Trek VI?

It’s three layers of sequel!