I just watched the Bujold footage available on Youtube. A very flat portrayal of Janeway. Hard to know how she would have grown into the role from this little bit, though. Berman goes out of his way to be polite about it all, but you can tell they were glad to be done with her. Thank heavens they came to their senses and grabbed Mulgrew.
Geneviève Bujold, The Original Janeway..
- Thread starter srombomb
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She was just not right for the part, Kate Mulgrew fits the role like a hand to a glove.
Janeway came off reedy and shrill as hell. I think you'd REALLY have to cast the Janeway role right, and Berman and Co. never did it right. Kate Mulgrew is a good enough actress, but I just don't think she ever really "sold" the Janeway character. According to Berman and Co., women of all types from Lindsay Wagner, Bujold, and Mulgrew. Personally, I think someone like Wagner, who was maybe more comfortable with a sci-fi genre and audience, might have been better.
I just saw the clip on YouTube... Bujold was great! I can see how some may think she's "wooden", but to me, she was calm, controlled, and cautious, in the situation... just what a Starfleet Captain should be... in a tense situation with the unknown on the Bridge, if the crew is uncertain of afraid, they should be able to look to a Captain who is stable, calm, and collected. That was what I saw here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIZcDWKyw0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIZcDWKyw0
Geneviève Bujold is an excellent actress. I've seen her in a great deal of movies not to believe otherwise. She simply was not the right person for Captain Janeway. Instead of bitching about Berman, perhaps you should thank God that he and the other producers finally saw fit to hire Kate Mulgrew.
Man, this is one opinion I certainly DO NOT agree with. By the way, I do recall other Starfleet captains - Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Archer coming off as shrill or over emotional.
If Star Trek was real, I might agree that Nicole Janeway could be a better captain than Kathryn Janeway ... but as a TV show ... no one was going to watch that.
If you watch Robbie McNeill/Tom Paris's eyes the whole time during the Bujold clips, he's got this "Crap, we're so canceled" look to him. He and everyone else looked much more comfortable and confident with Mulgrew. And even if Nicole Janeway was more like what a Starfleet captain should be, Kathryn had brass balls and was willing to take insane risks that actually paid off once in a while (of course, this is canceled out by the fact that her insane risk taking stranded them in the first place). It made much better TV for sure, and it was possibly even better leadership for the situation Voyager was in.
I think this is the first time I've seen this clip with completed SFX. Bujold doesn't seem nearly as bad with the normal ship sounds and music. Too bad we can't see Mulgrew's version of this without the SFX to compare.
In that clip, she does seem better than she has in other clips - I agree with Akiraprise that the standard sounds and music probably help somewhat. The clips I've seen before, the scene where Janeway shows Tom and Harry around the bridge, and the scene with Janeway and Tuvok in her ready room, are more of what I've based my feeling of she is just not right for the part.
From the perspective of actually having a Starfleet captain, you're right, you do want a Captain who is stable, calm, and collected. But from the perspective of the audience watching this, that person would have to have some kind of reaction, even if it's just a momentary slip of the mask. We want something humanizing to them, something that makes us acknowledge that these are people just like us.
The way it seems to me, based upon all of the clips I've seen is that Bujold latched on to the idea that Janeway was a scientist, so her portrayal became scientist first, captain second. It'd be an interesting way to go (If you look, you'll see I've suggested that Janeway should have been the ship's science officer, not captain, but forced into the role by the actual captain's death), but from the perspective of who Janeway is, she is just as much captain as she is scientist, having trained to be both, not one or the other.
I actually quite like Bujold in the part. Not easy to judge from a couple of scenes though, is it? You need a few episodes.
+1
It is tough to judge just from a few scenes. And it is hard to separate it from Mulgrew's Janeway.
I bet if she stayed, she would have ended up being fine, but the show and Janeway in particular would have gone in a very different direction.
john titor
Captain
Granted she gave a very flat portrayal but Janeway was horribly unsympathetic character. Possible the most incompetent annoying character in all of star trek, yes even beyond Neelix because he was just a chef.
They weren't trapped because of any risk-taking. They were kidnapped by the Caretaker then opted not to destroy the array in order to protect the Ocampa. No gambles involved...
Would you like some cheese with that whine? Seriously, do you have any substance to that opinion or are you just here to troll?
Seriously. This is a thread about Bujold, not a thread about "OMG Janeway sux lolol"
Excellent post with excellent points.
Bujold did come off pretty wooden in the Voyager scenes she shot (though as others have said, it did somehow seem a little better with the music and FX and whatnot in there). However, I have no problem with the idea that she might be a fine actress overall (I haven't seen her in anything else, personally), just not right for this character and this setting.
George Clooney is, IMO, a fantastic actor. To use my favorite of his movies (and among my favorite movies, period) as examples, his performances in the three Ocean's movies were superb. And yet, this same actor in Batman & Robin was just abysmal. It's like it didn't matter whether or not he was actually giving a good acting performance... you couldn't even TELL if he was giving a good performance, cause every time he said or did anything, it was just ridiculous. He just made an awful awful Batman, not due to lack of acting talent, but just because it simply wasn't a role that meshed well with his look/voice/style/everything.
As for Mulgrew, I do think that was a lucky sequence that landed her instead of Bujold in the role. While I have a decent sized stockroom full of problems with the Janeway character (at times I loved her, at times I just hated her), none of them stemmed from Mulgrew's acting. She did the best she could with the material she was given (which, quality-wise, was at times VERY up and down).
Everyone keep saying that Bujold's Janeway was what a Starfleet SHOULD BE, even though Mulgrew was better for the role.
What exactly should a Starfleet captain be like? Shouldn't it depend upon the individual who sits in the captain's chair? And as I recall, Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Archer had committed a great number of mistakes, themselves. Why is it that Janeway is the only Starfleet captain who is severely criticized by the fans? Is it because she is a woman?
What exactly should a Starfleet captain be like? Shouldn't it depend upon the individual who sits in the captain's chair? And as I recall, Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Archer had committed a great number of mistakes, themselves. Why is it that Janeway is the only Starfleet captain who is severely criticized by the fans? Is it because she is a woman?
Are you kidding me? Archer gets shit on all the time, it seems.
Bujold seemed wooden and unsymonated to Mulgrew who Janeway started as what a captain should be and then lowered her guard. Bujold won't have suited that as her voice (she can't help what is sounded) Mulgrew had passion, Bujold it just would not work. I can't see bujold giveing the stuff needed to see Kes go. We got the one that was right for the part!!!!
Bujold does come off rather stilted, and some of it is due to her very thick accent. Honestly, I would love to see these same clips with sound effects, looping and other refinements. It might not come off as poorly. If you watch behind the scenes footage of film shoots, the lack of ambient background noise alters the whole feel. Bujold is an excellent actress and when her casting was announced, I was actually pretty happy.
Also, Star Trek dialog is not like the average show. There's a formality to the speech patterns and when coupled with technobabble, it can be a real challenge. We don't see more than a fraction of the bloopers of Trek, but you can imagine it's tough to get into that rhythm cold. I understand what Berman meant, if this was a film, she'd have time to work out the character, her speech patterns and get used to the tech. Acting is a learned skill and not every actor (few in fact) can just snap into a totally different kind of role without adequate preparation. Bujold, had she the time to prepare, would have made the character hers.
I'm also curious as to how Lindsay Wagner would have done. She is also a really fine actress and used to the TV grind. When she was younger, she wasn't much for SF (she did Bionic Woman for the moolah), but now that her income is derived mostly from Sleep Number Bed commercials, she might have mellowed a little. :-) She has the softer side which might have worked as Janeway and without the Hepburn-nasality of Mulgrew.
Still, Mulgrew did fine in the role starting out. Once they let her bring her own personality into it later on, she was outstanding and was the glue which held the show together at times.
Also, Star Trek dialog is not like the average show. There's a formality to the speech patterns and when coupled with technobabble, it can be a real challenge. We don't see more than a fraction of the bloopers of Trek, but you can imagine it's tough to get into that rhythm cold. I understand what Berman meant, if this was a film, she'd have time to work out the character, her speech patterns and get used to the tech. Acting is a learned skill and not every actor (few in fact) can just snap into a totally different kind of role without adequate preparation. Bujold, had she the time to prepare, would have made the character hers.
I'm also curious as to how Lindsay Wagner would have done. She is also a really fine actress and used to the TV grind. When she was younger, she wasn't much for SF (she did Bionic Woman for the moolah), but now that her income is derived mostly from Sleep Number Bed commercials, she might have mellowed a little. :-) She has the softer side which might have worked as Janeway and without the Hepburn-nasality of Mulgrew.
Still, Mulgrew did fine in the role starting out. Once they let her bring her own personality into it later on, she was outstanding and was the glue which held the show together at times.
You must be the only object on planet Earth with the ability to draw breath that has ever had that particular opinion. Bujold was terrible.
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