If Pine had been Shatner

[jayrath]

What changes would we have seen during TOS?

First up: "RETURN OF THE ARCHONS."

While investigating, Kirk and the landing party find themselves in the midst of "Festival." The captain leads all in a full 24 hours of debauchery. "Dude, relax," Kirk tells his first officer. "It's for the good of the body, if you know what I mean!"

Spock resists, but Kirk -- teaming with Landru -- tears down the Vulcan's facade with a devastating display of logic. Kirk and Landru high five each other.

Next episode?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I didn't know he would have script approval.

 

[jayrath]

"CHARLIE X"

A young orphaned man is brought on board the Enterprise. Confused about life and responsibility, he seeks out Kirk. "Dude, you're my effing twin," cries the captain. The two go to the lounge hit on women. When Uhura sings "Charlie's our new darling," Spock explodes in a fit of jealous rage. "You're emotionally compromised," shouts Charlie. Kirk says, "Charlie, good job. That's how I did it. You're now first officer."

 

[Captain Pike]

Why should there be any difference to the script just because an actor is different?

 

[KobayashiMaru13]

DONT CURSE PINE WITH SUCH A THING!!

if pine was shatner, then pine would rapidly lose his sexyness just as shatner did!

 

[Nerys Myk]

Curse you Craft Services!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

If Pine were Shatner...TOS episodes would run only a little over thirty minutes long, as Pine simply delivers dialogue like any other human being without...all...the...startsandstopsandNONSENSE of Shatner!

 

[Kirk1980]

I don't know if he'd have had the charisma to make the series successful. Part of what Shatner gets mocked for also contributed to people knowing the show when it came time to rebroadcast.

 

[A beaker full of death]

If Pine had been Shatner

Couldn't have been. Back then leading men were MEN. They also had to be good looking.

 

[Nerys Myk]

If Pine had been Shatner

Couldn't have been. Back then leading men were MEN. They also had to be good looking.

And some even liked MEN. Good looking men.

 

[Iowagirl]

If Pine had been Shatner, there wouldn't be a thread called "If Pine had been Shatner" because Kirk wouldn't have become famous and an icon, no one would remember TOS, Abrams wouldn't have had the idea to make a film based on it, and no one would know who that Pine guy is.

 

[A beaker full of death]

If Pine had been Shatner

Couldn't have been. Back then leading men were MEN. They also had to be good looking.

And some even liked MEN. Good looking men.

I was referring to Pine's juvenile appearance and bearing, not his sexuality, as to which I am blissfully ignorant.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They also had to be good looking.

And Shatner was always among the prettiest of young leading men on TV, with his lashes and button nose and pointy little chin. Pine, if anything, is a bit more masculine.

 

[T'Bonz]

^
Nah. Pine is the more "girly" looking of the pair. Not a slap at Pine, by the way. But I found Shatner to be more masculine.

My only issue with Shatner's looks is that he looked a lot like my dad, so I was never one of those girls who got a crush on him. Yuck!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Ah, I knew boys who had a crush on him, and I think half the guys in Trek fandom still do in one sense or another.

Look at some of the rugged guys who were on TV at the same time (mainly cowboy stars, of course, as the TV western still held sway in the early 1960s) - Chuck Connors, James Garner, Hugh O'Brian, James Arness, Lloyd Bridges - and you get a sense of how far from the "manly man" media image Shatner was back in the day.

Shatner was in the same mold, if not of similar temperment, as Jeffery Hunter (King Of Kings being flippantly referred to at the time as I Was A Teenage Jesus), part of the rise of the "boy/man" image in Hollywood and was almost always cast on TV as a sophisticated youth - a young doctor, or lawyer - rather than in parts requiring toughness.

You can see the image he projected, and that was thought to exemplify his particular appeal, in the sort of soft, pensive photographs selected either by his publicist or by the studios he worked for:

He's scarcely less feminine in that second shot than Patricia Breslin.

In the late 1970s Shatner's two most publicly worshipful female fans, Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, wrote a "biography" titled "Where No Man..." in which concern with the ambiguity of Shatner's image was palpable. They went so far as to posit the rather overwrought and ahistorical notion that Shatner's presumed popularity represented a paradigm shift of sorts in the American perception of masculinity, relying for supporting data upon a completely unscientific polling of Trek fandom and neglecting the context - bracketed in time by talents like Dean and McQueen - in which he worked as a young actor.

It's only by looking back forty years and contrasting his age and image then with a couple of generations of ever-younger media idols that Shatner is credibly a mature or masculine presence.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Couldn't have been. Back then leading men were MEN. They also had to be good looking.

And some even liked MEN. Good looking men.

I was referring to Pine's juvenile appearance and bearing, not his sexuality, as to which I am blissfully ignorant.

Whos talking about Pine's sexuality? I'm talking about the manly men of Shatner's generation.

 

[A beaker full of death]

So... your original comment was just a non-sequitor? I was referring to maturity, and you brought up sexuality.

 

[Nerys Myk]

So... your original comment was just a non-sequitor? I was referring to maturity, and you brought up sexuality.

It was joke/comment about manly leading men in Hollywood also being gay. The maturity (physical or mental) of the leading men of Shatner's generation is hardly the same across the board. The whole actors were real men back then, comes across as silly posturing based on nostalgia.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Not posturing. Hollywood men - and women - used to look like adults. Now, actors of comparable age seem to be cast because they look like teenagers. For every George Clooney we get five Leo DiCaprios.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not posturing. Hollywood men - and women - used to look like adults. Now, actors of comparable age seem to be cast because they look like teenagers. For every George Clooney we get five Leo DiCaprios.

I think DiCaprio gets cast becase ( and I hate admit it ) he happens to be a good actor. Of course he first gained fame when he was a teenager usually playing teenagers. The guy's 35 now and I dont think anyone gonna mistake him for 15. Same for actors like Matt Damon, Johnny Depp or Joaquin Phoenix. Or even Robert Downey Jr who got a decade on those guys.

Shatner was about Pine's age in the TZ episode "Nick of Time". I don't think he looks all that much older.