My biggest fear? KIRK

[Franklin]

I have a feeling that when all is said and done, we'll be admiring Pine's Kirk, and it'll be Quinto's intepretation of Spock we question more. That is, Pine will steal the show. Just a feeling.
Over the years, "Shatner's Kirk" has become a hammy caricature of Kirk in the minds of many. That's way over-rated, especially in the early TOS episodes.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I have a feeling that when all is said and done, we'll be admiring Pine's Kirk, and it'll be Quinto's intepretation of Spock we question more.

I can certainly imagine that.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Oh, I am sure Shatner's going to be getting a lot of jabs when the Pine comparison reviews start pouring in. I'm a little tired of it myself since it was his contributions to Trek's success are immeasurable, but people are who they are.

 

[PowderedToastMan]

before i saw the 20 minute press preview my biggest fear was Kirk and Pine. But not any longer...quoting myself:

http://trekmovie.com/2008/11/20/anthonys-thoughts-on-the-la-star-trek-movie-presentation/

Spoiler: Analysis of Pine and Kirk from 20-min preview

James T. Kirk: Chris Pine
Going into the preview, the thing I was most concerned about was the portrayal of Kirk. With all the talk about bringing a little Star Wars into Trek, I was concerned that Kirk would be turned into Han Solo. Nothing is wrong with Solo. Harrison Ford and George Lucas created one of the coolest characters in popular culture and the heart of the original Star Wars trilogy. But Kirk is not Solo. Kirk is not a reluctant hero and he is not a rogue. Now to be sure, this film does start off with Kirk being a bit of jerk, but from the four scenes shown, it is clear that Kirk goes through an arc. The out-of-control (and a bit uncouth) Kirk in the bar is not the determined and thoughtful Kirk you see with elder Spock on the frozen planet. And when Sulu (someone Kirk just met) falls off the drilling platform miles above Vulcan, Kirk does not hesitate, he just jumps after him. If that were Solo (unless it were Chewie), you know that he would jump, but he would give some kind of quip like "I didn’t buy into this" before he went. Kirk’s fast action is the kind of selfless heroism that defines Captain Kirk, the man who would do anything for his ship and his crew. And the key to making this all work is the outstanding portrayal of Kirk by Chris Pine. His much lauded character work to date (in films like Smokin Aces) is put to good use as he creates very real versions of these different stages of Kirk’s growth. You buy into him as the character of James T. Kirk. Pine finds the best of Kirk that was embodied by William Shatner, and yet he never once slips into a parody of Shatnerism.

Pine helps Kirk earn the chair​

So at times in this film, Kirk is different than the Kirk we know. But that is the point. He is on a journey towards Captain Kirk. And after the preview I had no more issues, and since then all i have learned only reinforces that belief. Kirk is in safe hands.

 

[Franklin]

Oh, I am sure Shatner's going to be getting a lot of jabs when the Pine comparison reviews start pouring in. I'm a little tired of it myself since it was his contributions to Trek's success are immeasurable, but people are who they are.

I don't think he'll get jabs. None that he deserves, anyway. His work as Kirk stands on its own. And, for the most part, it's very good (hell, he created an icon).
The thing is, Shatner played the character so often and so long, that like any actor who's played a role for a while, some of the actor inevitbably gets into the character. By the time of TUC, that was not so much Shatner being James T. Kirk as Shatner and Kirk as one person. (If you get what I mean.)

 

[trevanian]

I have a feeling that when all is said and done, we'll be admiring Pine's Kirk, and it'll be Quinto's intepretation of Spock we question more. That is, Pine will steal the show. Just a feeling.
Over the years, "Shatner's Kirk" has become a hammy caricature of Kirk in the minds of many. That's way over-rated, especially in the early TOS episodes.

I think of the early Kirk from CHARLIE X and BALANCE OF TERROR as being the understated, wholly credible Kirk (go to your quarters or I'll pick you up and carry you there), that it was only the episodes with fantastic aspects that brought out the ham at first (which is as it should be. Is it likely that we'll see a mirror-universe Kirk in the film, no.)

The Spock thing just seems very absent. The snippets really make me think of something between a Super-8 trek movie and Chevy Chase and Kevin Nealon as Spock, but I don't know if that is bad direction or bad casting or both.

 

[Alrik]

I fear that the original (and mostly typecast) actors became these characters and only they can credibly play them...not just Kirk.

But Kirk may be the hardest to emulate.

I didn't like how the new actor said he didn't try to mimic Kirk. That's precisely what he should have been doing.

Sorry. Late to the party. But this really caught my attention.

Pine SHOULD be mimicing Shatner???

I can't dissagree with you more. That is like saying Keaton and Christian Bale should have mimiced Adam West when playing Batman.

Okay, maybe that's a bit over the top, but still it's like saying Bale should have modeled his Batman after Keaton. Or that Daniel Craig should have been trying to be more like Connery's 007.

Sure, mention Captain Kirk and your mind's eye sees Shatner...the only actor to play the part until now. Has everything written until now been based on Shatner's portrayal? Sure, he's been the only reference there has been. But if STAR TREK is going to be introduced to a new audience, than someone else was going to have to step into the role and make it his own. Does it erase everything that Shatner has done? Not if its handled correctly and that this portrayal is a younger Kirk growing into the character that we were introduced to in the 60's.

 

[trevanian]

Okay, maybe that's a bit over the top, but still it's like saying Bale should have modeled his Batman after Keaton. Or that Daniel Craig should have been trying to be more like Connery's 007.

Craig IS trying to be like Connery, but it is like Jack Palance trying to be Cary Grant, just not gonna work, the surface texture ain't quite palatable, and the charisma quotient is way the hell off as well.

The dif with all your examples is that they are characters that lots of folks have played. Nobody else has played Kirk, so regardless of whether people want to admit it, Shatner IS Kirk on all TV and film trek, both when he is good and when he is bad.

 

[Captain Pike]

I rather like Daniel Craig as Bond. For me he's the best one since Connery.

I haven't seen Quantum of Solace yet though, but Casino Royale was great.

 

[trevanian]

I rather like Daniel Craig as Bond. For me he's the best one since Connery.

I haven't seen Quantum of Solace yet though, but Casino Royale was great.

You might want to wait a bit, since I thought QOS was the best attempt at a Bond movie since the Dalton era (in spite of Craig), but I also found CR to be pathetic and ridiculous.

And hearing that Craig wanted to play Kirk back in 07 or so was enough to make my blood run cold (had read that expression a lot, but never experienced it till then.)

 

[Alrik]

The dif with all your examples is that they are characters that lots of folks have played. Nobody else has played Kirk, so regardless of whether people want to admit it, Shatner IS Kirk on all TV and film trek, both when he is good and when he is bad.

But it is precisely my point. If STAR TREK can still tell good stories, and James T Kirk continues to be a character that we want to follow more, than someone new was going to have to step in and take over the reigns. (Sorry, for me a CGI Shatner/Kirk isn't even a option. That would piss me off WAY more than recasting the part.) Should STAR TREK live long enough, it is very possible that many more actors may sit in the Captains Chair. If its good Sci-Fi and its true to its roots, what is wrong with letting it live on? I'm sure Dr Who fans are pretty happy it wasn't left to wither and die

 

[Captain Pike]

As a fan I am indeed happy Dr. Who is still going and I like the new actors playing the lead, although the show frequently makes me want to hurl due to what I perceive as awful, awful writing and poor supporting characters. Also, I wish they'd aim it a bit less at children, as I was always a fan of the era I believe to be the pinnacle of the show's run - the heady, adult horror oriented days of Phil Hinchcliffe

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I'm one of the biggest Kirk fans alive and I have to admit I wasn't upset at all that Captain Kirk was being recast. In all honesty I was far more incensed at the idea of Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger being recast than I ever was Shatner's Kirk... At least I was until I heard that Billy Bob Thornton and Jackie Earl Haley are both being considered for that part... Kinda hard to piss on that kind of talent.

 

[CaptainStoner]

yes, but now Spock is just another nerd.

Yes, but only Spock is Herbert.

Spock is not Herbert. He reaches.

 

[Longinus]

I hope people would stop making those Batman comparisons. Reasons for it being completely different have been pointed out often enough.

Fact is that Shatner has been Kirk for decades, and it will be difficult to buy another actor in that role. Sure, it can be done. For all my dislike for Star Wars prequels, one thing was spot on: Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan, I could totally accept that it was the same character than the one portrayed by Sir Alec Guinness*. I hope that the same thing happens with Pine's Kirk, but my greatest fear is that this will be another Anakin Skywalker instead.

*) Great difference in age helped there a lot, though.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Fact is that Shatner has been Kirk for decades, and it will be difficult to buy another actor in that role.

For some folks, I suppose. By 1989 I was finding it difficult to buy Shatner in the role, and watched them retire the TOS-based movies with some relief a few years later - the entire thing had become ridiculous.

I'm more than happy to see young actors take over the roles of these characters and begin the original TV series time period (more or less) over again.

 

[Kirk1980]

Well, what was wrong with seeing an older Captain Kirk? He can't always stay young...

And honestly, I think the classic Trek crew remains unique in that for twenty-five years we were allowed to watch them grow older in their roles without the 'worry' that they'd be replaced by younger actors.

We basically got the chance to watch them in their prime to their retirement. I honestly think that was pretty cool.

 

[Cranston]

Well, what was wrong with seeing an older Captain Kirk? He can't always stay young...

And honestly, I think the classic Trek crew remains unique in that for twenty-five years we were allowed to watch them grow older in their roles without the 'worry' that they'd be replaced by younger actors.

We basically got the chance to watch them in their prime to their retirement. I honestly think that was pretty cool.

The idea of seeing them later in life is wonderful. But the way it actually played out on screen, it did indeed become ridiculous. For the most part, we didn't see the characters mature in an organic way; we saw them shoehorned with increasing strain into the same roles (and even jobs) that they'd had 20+ years earlier. They went from being competent officers serving together in a large organization to being a clique of people too cool to let anyone else into their little club.

I would have loved to see the later adventures of Kirk, or Spock, and/or some other characters if done differently. The Hornblower analogy so often bandied about would have been a great model; that's a character who we followed from age 17 to his 80s. But the thing is, he kept moving. And as he got older and his duties evolved, the kinds of stories changed somewhat to fit.

But in the TOS movies, the characters didn't grow, they stagnated. They sat doing the same bloody jobs they'd done 20 years earlier (especially poor Chekov, content to lay in course corrections into old age as he did as an Ensign). And as it went on, they did the same things over and over, but as charicatures of their former selves, with increasing cheese and swagger instead of getting on with their bloody lives.

And the uniforms didn't help.

 

[trevanian]

. The Hornblower analogy so often bandied about would have been a great model; that's a character who we followed from age 17 to his 80s. But the thing is, he kept moving. And as he got older and his duties evolved, the kinds of stories changed somewhat to fit.

I read the Hornblower books in the numbered chronological order, and as a result I came damn close to giving up on them, since the early stories (most of which were written in later years) I found to be pretty rotten. It wasn't till after I'd trudged through them all that I realized the ones I most liked were the first 3 published (the ones that would be 5-7, I guess.)

In retrospect, I think the way Forester jumped around in time filling in pieces in Hornblower's life wasn't a whole lot more inspired than GL's prequel SW stuff; a lot of it just seemed like a way to justify research rather than being thrilling writing, like the first few were, plus some bits (like the older Hornblower's very casual adultery while off in Russia or someplace like that) seemed wrong character-wise.

I've owned and reread those three originals for a long while, but haven't even reread any of the others.

With all that gasbagging out of the way, I will say I think you're right about the TOS characters not developing to the degree they could have, but I think that has to do as much with being stuck in Starfleet as anything else. If you'd kept them out of Starfleet for the later films, you could have eliminated a lot of time spent establishing various bits and instead focused on the characters interacting with one another (on the BOP, hopefully) and taking responsibility for their own actions instead of always having to break rules while working for 'fleet.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, what was wrong with seeing an older Captain Kirk? He can't always stay young...

And honestly, I think the classic Trek crew remains unique in that for twenty-five years we were allowed to watch them grow older in their roles without the 'worry' that they'd be replaced by younger actors.

We basically got the chance to watch them in their prime to their retirement. I honestly think that was pretty cool.

The idea of seeing them later in life is wonderful. But the way it actually played out on screen, it did indeed become ridiculous. For the most part, we didn't see the characters mature in an organic way; we saw them shoehorned with increasing strain into the same roles (and even jobs) that they'd had 20+ years earlier. They went from being competent officers serving together in a large organization to being a clique of people too cool to let anyone else into their little club...
But in the TOS movies, the characters didn't grow, they stagnated. They sat doing the same bloody jobs they'd done 20 years earlier (especially poor Chekov, content to lay in course corrections into old age as he did as an Ensign). And as it went on, they did the same things over and over, but as charicatures of their former selves, with increasing cheese and swagger instead of getting on with their bloody lives.

And the uniforms didn't help.

All true. Kirk did have his moment in ST:TWOK, but of course the more Shatner's influence on the series grew the less willing he was to see his character portrayed as anything other than in the prime of life. It was ridiculous.

The studio should have retired the series after ST IV (no chance, I know; it was too successful).