So long as he doesn't sound like Nicholas Cage in Con Air, we'll be just fine!
Facts about... unnamed Ben Cumberbatch character
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Hahaha! So true!
But I do hate it when actors are forced to fake an accent for no apparent reason. Mostly, they do it badly, and it annoys me to no end.
I can't recall ever having heard Cumberbatch faking an American accent. I'm not saying he's not capable, but...you know, it would be weird.
^But, as far as we know there is no reason that Mitchell MUST have an American accent, right?
I mean, let's not forget the greatest crime in the history of casting in all of Trek: The casting of a Canadian actor for an Iowan character. How dare they??
I mean, let's not forget the greatest crime in the history of casting in all of Trek: The casting of a Canadian actor for an Iowan character. How dare they??
"Sabataaaaaage!"
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69cIEiutWTY[/YT]
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69cIEiutWTY[/YT]
I mean, let's not forget the greatest crime in the history of casting in all of Trek: The casting of a Canadian actor for an Iowan character. How dare they??
I've been a fan for thirty-five years and never heard that one.
On the other hand, at least we were able to understand Deanna Troi with her Betazoid/Greek accent.
Well, there is no reason that Hugh Laurie's TV character "Dr. Gregory House" (from House) couldn't be British, or Simon Baker's TV character "Patrick Jane" (from The Mentalist) couldn't originally be from Australia -- they didn't NEED to be American-born characters with American accents.
However, even though there was no real story requirement that House and Patrick Jane be American, the makers of those TV shows probably felt American characters would "sell" better with an American audience, and both of this actors do pretty good American accents.
I think both of those characters work very well as Americans.
That being said, I agree with satyrquaze when he said:
I feel that J.J. Abrams' version of Star Trek has been re-imagined enough here that Mitchell could be British if they wanted to include Mitchell's character (some may disagree that AbramsTrek is really a "re-imagining", but I say it is). In Abrams re-imagined universe, if they want to include Mitchell they may as well just make Mitchell British, if the actor they want is British.
Plus, this film does not need to appeal to a purely American audience -- and even if it did, Americans should be OK with a Britsh-sounding villain/antagonist. Accents always make a antagonists seem more villainous.
^But, as far as we know there is no reason that Mitchell MUST have an American accent, right?
I mean, let's not forget the greatest crime in the history of casting in all of Trek: The casting of a Canadian actor for an Iowan character. How dare they??
To my undying shame, I cannot for the life of me tell Canadians from Americans! It all sounds the same to me.
Then again, during my days in the US, people constantly mistook me for an Aussie, and I don't sound like one at all.
Also, I am not claiming that people from England or Australia or what have you can't play Americans. I simply don't approve when it's pointless (in Mitchell's case, he is not established as an American), or when the actor doesn't know how to do it properly.
I don't know if Cumberbatch knows how to emulate a non-regional American accent, but if he does, good for him. But I like his real English just fine.
Hugh Laurie does an excellent job....an example for a truly appalling performance would be poor Kate Winslet (otherwise a fine actress) in Titanic. Her "American" was really bad.
They can circumvent this by letting the actor in question talk the way he does in real life (toning it down a little bit because otherwise the Americans won't understand half of it), if the character does not need to be an American at all.
^And they end every sentence with "Eh?".
When the invasion comes that is how you know.
When the invasion comes that is how you know.
Just be careful. Things get foggy when you travel to Minnesota.
On the other hand, at least we were able to understand Deanna Troi with her Betazoid/Greek accent.
Boy, that accent was so dumb, especially in the light of her mum speaking like a regular American. Marina Sirtis could have toned it down until she reached her normal inflection. Her mother's supposed to be an alien anyway, and there's always the universal translator to excuse different accents...such as Spock and his dad in STXI.
As for Khan being English...of course, why not, but the ethnicity should match, shouldn't it? You can't get any whiter than Cumberbatch, and as far as I know, Khan is not an English name. If they brought in Khan, they could have picked an Englishman of Indian descent. They didn't.
Since I am hoping that it's not Khan, but Mitchell....scratch that, anyone but Khan will do fine. That story has been done to death, and it wasn't that good to begin with, anyway.
Since Khan essentially stopped being Indian in Wrath of Khan, and all his followers turned white/blonde too, I think there's wiggle room. In both the Eugenics Wars novels and Enterprise's Augments story, they were a diverse lot of superbabies. Pretending Khan was one of the English ones and not Indian is something I can deal with.
As the old joke goes, that's how Canada got its name.
The guy in charge of giving the Country a name put a bunch of letters in a tuque (a knit hat), and as he pulled them out, he called each one out like this...
"C", eh?
"N", eh?
"D", eh?
......
Back on Topic...
I think it would be best for Cumberbatch to be a new character, BUT if he is an old TOS character, then I would rather it be a lesser-known antagonist rather than an iconic antagonist (iconic such as Khan or Gary Mitchell or Gary Seven).
It may be artistically difficult to improve on those characters in the eyes of the fan-audience, who have a certain expectation of those characters' personalities. However, a relatively lesser-known antagonist might be easier to mold into what they want for this movie.
As I said elsewhere, I think (if they wanted to go with an existing character) someone such as Arne Darvin could be a good choice. Mind you, I'm not saying the movie should be a Tribble movie, but the character of Darvin (i.e., a Klingon spy infiltrating the federation government) could be interesting used in other (non-tribble) stories.
I know an American woman who married a Brit and moved to England. Their son was born and raised in England, so he has a British accent, although his mother has an American accent. Even in my own case, my mother has a Greek accent, but I have an American accent.
There is no reason to believe that there are not different accents on Betazed (just like on Earth), so it certainly is possible for Deanna to have a different Betazoid accent as her mother.
Ah, but the original takes on making Deanna an alien was shaving her head (Deanna Troi and Will Decker were loosely based on Ilia and Decker from "Phase II) or giving her three breasts (DC Fontana admonished Gene Roddenberry, asking if he imagined them horizontally or vertically). Instead, Marina Sirtis was asked to develop Deanna's alienness via "gesture and voice", then the makeup team added black-irised contact lenses.
Mrs Troi was waaaay after the fact. Majel's take on Mrs Troi was Aunty Mame. Not Marina's fault.
Ha! That was my original point. Have you heard Marina's "normal inflection"? Her British accent is very thick. She mined her Greek heritage for the Betazoid accent; I think it's quite good. (I can't imagine Majel having to mimic it, though.)
^ IIRC, the only reason Troi's accent started out like that is that the show runners didn't want two British voices on the show at the same time (Marina's and Patrick Stewart's) so they made her make up an accent.
As for why she didn't do what she later did, i.e. just use a neutral American accent? Probably because the original "fake accent" was devised before Lwaxana was even thought of, so no one had any idea what Deanna's parents would sound like or if they would ever even appear at all.
As for why she didn't do what she later did, i.e. just use a neutral American accent? Probably because the original "fake accent" was devised before Lwaxana was even thought of, so no one had any idea what Deanna's parents would sound like or if they would ever even appear at all.
No "probably" at all. That's exactly what happened.