is Shatner...Kirk?

[JarodRussell]

Kirk is Shatner, just as well as Spock is Nimoy, Indiana Jones and Han Solo are Harrison Ford, Dirty Harry is Clint Eastwood, Frank Drebin is Leslie Nielsen... replace the actors and you destroy the characters. It's simple.

Film and television is a medium of vision and sound, hence a character created for that medium is also defined by his appearance and his voice.


Don't try to argue with Batman or James Bond. Those have originally been created on paper only. Batman's face is a drawing with no resemblence to anybody in real life. And Bond has no face at all. But Kirk, Indiana Jones, et al, those have been created on the big TV/silver screen, their faces, their gestures, their way of speaking, etc... are tied to the actors.

 

[Joker]

Kirk is Shatner, just as well as Spock is Nimoy, Indiana Jones and Han Solo are Harrison Ford, Dirty Harry is Clint Eastwood, Frank Drebin is Leslie Nielsen... replace the actors and you destroy the characters.

Bullshit.

 

[JarodRussell]

Bullshit.

Gesundheit.

 

[trevanian]

Kirk is Shatner, just as well as Spock is Nimoy, Indiana Jones and Han Solo are Harrison Ford, Dirty Harry is Clint Eastwood, Frank Drebin is Leslie Nielsen... replace the actors and you destroy the characters. It's simple.

Film and television is a medium of vision and sound, hence a character created for that medium is also defined by his appearance and his voice.


Don't try to argue with Batman or James Bond. Those have originally been created on paper only. Batman's face is a drawing with no resemblence to anybody in real life. And Bond has no face at all. But Kirk, Indiana Jones, et al, those have been created on the big TV/silver screen, their faces, their gestures, their way of speaking, etc... are tied to the actors.

I might differ on the issue of Bond, just because I think there is a certain issue of appearance and attitude that only Connery and Dalton have hit, and only Brosnan has aspired to (unsuccessfully, probably due to bad writing, since he hit it out of the park in THE TAILOR OF PANAMA, which wasn't even a Bond movie.)

But your other examples are excellent; If Sinatra hadn't turned down HARRY, it would have been something very different, and certainly not as iconic. While I think several people could have played Jones with success, my thought on Solo was and is that no matter how well or unusual Walken or one of the other runnerups would have fared, it would not have combined the charm and two-fistedness that Ford had right from the start. And that is in spite of my feeling bad for Walken, because he missed two shots at what could have been his greatest role, in the original WONKA and the remake. And oddly enough, he could have done the title role in both of them, because of his diverse talent.

I'm firmly convinced that Spock was only illuminated in relief so strongly because of Shatner. The harder he tried and the fast he gyrated, the more he made Nimoy look interesting standing still. So it isn't JUST that Shatner is Kirk and Nimoy is Spock, but that the alchemy of the two actors together is what made the characters so defined and indelible.

I still can't imagine enjoying the sight of Nimoy playing a scene with somebody else as Kirk, (outside of the actress who played Janice Lester that is), which is just one more reason I'm in no hurry to even put a dvd in of TheAbramsThing when it comes to vid.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Chris Pine makes a fine James Kirk.

He would, however, make a pretty poor William Shatner. It's pretty easy to separate the two.

 

[JarodRussell]

I'll post these videos as good examples how a different actor changes a character ENTIRELY.

Geneviève Bujold as Janeway, on the same set, with the same actors, speaking the same lines... yet she creates an entirely different character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIZcDWKyw0

And here a clip from the final Caretaker episode, with Kate Mulgrew as Janeway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM6M2tZsnUs


And well, for me at least, the difference between Simon Pegg and James Doohan, Quinto and Nimoy, Pine and Shatner, Yelchin and Koenig, etc... is the same. The only one who somehow got close to the original is Karl Urban. But still DeForest Kelley will always be the one and only Leonard McCoy.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

"Different" doesn't bother me; sometimes it's also better. I'm pretty impressed with Urban's impersonation of Kelley, but that's one (limited) way of doing it; I was far more impressed with Pine as Kirk basically using what he could of Shatner's mannerisms in one or two scenes but then otherwise ignoring them.

Any confusion I had between Shatner and Kirk was lost in the process of the TOS-based movies, where he pretty quickly ceased to remind me of the character I'd watched on the original television series. I'm more than happy with the recasting Abrams has done, since it enables the franchise to return successfully to the time frame of the original TV series (more or less) which is by far my favorite era of Star Trek.

Oh, and Bujold/Mulgrew proves nothing about whether recasting is desirable or even acceptable - a single example is just that, a single example. There are just way too many examples to the contrary in movies and television.

 

[JarodRussell]

Oh, and Bujold/Mulgrew proves nothing about whether recasting is desirable or even acceptable - a single example is just that, a single example. There are just way too many examples to the contrary in movies and television.

As such? James Bond? Connery's Bond, Moore's Bond or now Craig's Bond are almost entirely different people. Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne is not at all like Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne.

You won't find a good example where two different actors play the same role reading the same lines. I think that Boujold/Mulgrew comparison is an excellent example for how great those changes of the character are. Otherwise you wouldn't need a recast if a character is entirely independently from an actor.

Indiana Jones would be an entirely different character had he been played by Tom Selleck. And the nuKirk would also entirely different had he been played by someone other than Chris Pine.

Any confusion I had between Shatner and Kirk was lost in the process of the TOS-based movies, where he pretty quickly ceased to remind me of the character I'd watched on the original television series. I'm more than happy with the recasting Abrams has done, since it enables the franchise to return successfully to the time frame of the original TV series (more or less) which is by far my favorite era of Star Trek.

I thought that was called character development, and that character development was a good thing because it keeps a fictional character alive and realistic. The way I see it, regress and stagnancy is desired here. And then again, the character of nuKirk is different from the original Kirk, the script already says so.


So there, Shatner's Kirk is still the one and only Kirk.

Had they done a proper prequel, where you could really say that the character on paper, the character in the script, is the same, then maybe a new actor would have a chance. But not Chris Pine, because in my eyes he's nothing like Shatner and totally miscast.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

You won't find a good example where two different actors play the same role reading the same lines.

No, and you won't find such an example in the TOS Star Trek series and the new version either - so it's irrelevant and the point is moot.

I thought that was called character development

In this case it's called "self indulgence." Even Nicholas Meyer said that he had to do take after take with Shatner just to wear the guy down enough to deliver a credible performance rather than overacting.

If the later TOS-based movies are your idea of good you're welcome to them - I'm sticking with TOS itself, where the judgment of people who knew how to tell stories and direct and produce television still held sway over the egos of the stars...most of the time.

So there, Shatner's Kirk is still the one and only Kirk.

Nope. Nearly four hundred million dollars first-run box office (we're not even into DVDs yet) and millions of satisfied viewers - including the majority of long-time TOS fans who've bothered to express an opinion - disprove that. Star Trek is moving forward again, with the original characters successfully recast, and it's way past time.

And wonderfully enough it hasn't done any harm to fans of the original cast whatever, since every single one of their performances is recorded for posterity and available on DVD.

Everybody wins.

As I've already pointed out, Pine is a fine Kirk but not a Shatner impersonator - if you want that, catch Kevin Pollack's act.

 

[Captain Roberts]

Kirk is Shatner, just as well as Spock is Nimoy, Indiana Jones and Han Solo are Harrison Ford, Dirty Harry is Clint Eastwood, Frank Drebin is Leslie Nielsen... replace the actors and you destroy the characters. It's simple.

Film and television is a medium of vision and sound, hence a character created for that medium is also defined by his appearance and his voice.


Don't try to argue with Batman or James Bond. Those have originally been created on paper only. Batman's face is a drawing with no resemblence to anybody in real life. And Bond has no face at all. But Kirk, Indiana Jones, et al, those have been created on the big TV/silver screen, their faces, their gestures, their way of speaking, etc... are tied to the actors.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[T'Girl]

Shatner is Kirk. No matter how many time TPTB recast the role, Chris Pine or whoever replaces HIM, they'll be, at best, following Shatner.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Seeing other people play Kirk is difficult for me. Pine, Cawley, etc, do fine jobs, but the role will forever be linked to Shatner's timeless work. I have never been interested in Shatner's other roles (TJ Hooker, Denny Crane, etc) but when I think of Kirk, I think of Shatner first, second, and third!

 

[seigezunt]

Can you seperate Kirk/Shatner, or do you see them as blurred?

If you haven't seen this yet, you might want to read it; it could help.

Shatner at Fametracker Fame Audit, where his occupation is listed as "super-indestructible icon."

"...By that yardstick, Shatner's had ten careers. He's had twenty. He's had entire careers before breakfast..."

from that site:

Serves as Chairman on the American version of Iron Chef, a show that totally misses what's cool about the original Iron Chef, which, ironically, is cool in the exact same way William Shatner is

So very true.