Rate your best and worst re-castings!
- Thread starter apepa
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Really dislike the Sarek casting on STD. Nothing like Mark Leonard in appearance and voice, and the STD Sarek always looks like he's smiling.
I thought the makeup gave him a sense of being a 'lookalike' but the actor was just bland.
My problem with Quinto is that in my mind he's forever typecast as Sylar from Heroes. I keep expecting Spock to start cutting off skull caps. Any times Quinto, in any role, uses that intense stare of his I see Sylar.
Best: Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy. He carries so much of DeForest Kelly's flavor in his performance that I resent every moment he's not onscreen. I wish the current movies gave him more to do and remembered that McCoy is the third part of the TOS trinity, not Uhura.
I also really like Chris Pine as Kirk. Kirk is probably the toughest part to recast, but Pine was a real find. He's smart enough and charismatic enough to fill Shatner's shoes. Yeah, they write the character as too much the frat boy, but Pine always plays the material well, and Beyond showed him finally maturing beyond that.
Zachary Quinto I think does a good job as Spock, but I think his big handicap is that he lacks the natural authority that Nimoy brought to the role. Probably because he doesn't have Nimoy's deep voice. Quinto is also let down by the writers who decided it would be a good idea for him to constantly lose emotional control in the new movies. That trick gets old really fast, and it means nothing if it happens all the time.
Worst: Robin Curtis as Saavik is a severe comedown from Kirstie Alley. The one-two punch of Saavik losing both Nicholas Meyer and Alley in her second movie resulted in a big downturn in her popularity, I think. I bet if Alley had stayed in the role, they wouldn't have left the character on Vulcan in STIV.
Simon Pegg doesn't really work for me as Scotty. I don't see Scotty, I just see Simon Pegg. Which is fine (I like Pegg), but I'd much rather see the character than the actor. I really wish they had cast Stargate: Atlantis' Paul McGillion in the role instead. He's genuinely Scottish and he looks like James Doohan (so much so that a picture of Doohan appears in the second row when you do a Google Image Search on McGillion).
Likewise, I'm so-so on Zoe Saldana as Uhura. She does a good job with what she's given, but I wish someone who was more of a Nichelle Nichols type was cast. I think Rihanna could've been a pretty great Uhura, personally. She's got the right vibe for the role, IMO. I mean, for crying out loud, look at this image alone! That's Uhura, right there.
I also really like Chris Pine as Kirk. Kirk is probably the toughest part to recast, but Pine was a real find. He's smart enough and charismatic enough to fill Shatner's shoes. Yeah, they write the character as too much the frat boy, but Pine always plays the material well, and Beyond showed him finally maturing beyond that.
Zachary Quinto I think does a good job as Spock, but I think his big handicap is that he lacks the natural authority that Nimoy brought to the role. Probably because he doesn't have Nimoy's deep voice. Quinto is also let down by the writers who decided it would be a good idea for him to constantly lose emotional control in the new movies. That trick gets old really fast, and it means nothing if it happens all the time.
Worst: Robin Curtis as Saavik is a severe comedown from Kirstie Alley. The one-two punch of Saavik losing both Nicholas Meyer and Alley in her second movie resulted in a big downturn in her popularity, I think. I bet if Alley had stayed in the role, they wouldn't have left the character on Vulcan in STIV.
Simon Pegg doesn't really work for me as Scotty. I don't see Scotty, I just see Simon Pegg. Which is fine (I like Pegg), but I'd much rather see the character than the actor. I really wish they had cast Stargate: Atlantis' Paul McGillion in the role instead. He's genuinely Scottish and he looks like James Doohan (so much so that a picture of Doohan appears in the second row when you do a Google Image Search on McGillion).
Likewise, I'm so-so on Zoe Saldana as Uhura. She does a good job with what she's given, but I wish someone who was more of a Nichelle Nichols type was cast. I think Rihanna could've been a pretty great Uhura, personally. She's got the right vibe for the role, IMO. I mean, for crying out loud, look at this image alone! That's Uhura, right there.
There definitely would have been more impact with the reveal, more of a betrayal of Spock. Especially if Saavik was the mother of Spock's child (a fan theory).
Spend the extra money and get Alley for TUC, pay Walter Koenig less if you have to.
Would it really have been that hard if "Sarek" wasn't Spock's father, the ambassador, with the Human wife?
Just give him a different name, there's only a few minor points during the first season to DIS that would of been different. What was the overwhelming reason for him to be Sarek?
That's the single biggest glaring problem with TUC for me, why were any of the Starfleet officers participating in the "scheme?"
I don't.
Kirk in ST'09 has grown on me, and I've come to appreciate Pine as a actor in works he's done outside of Star Trek. But I still don't buy him as Kirk, most of it is the way the character was written, and certainly not Pine's performance.Beyond was the worse, where Kirk was actively seeking to leave the Enterprise because he was "bored?"
Kirk is (momentarily?)invigorate by the end of the movie, but how long is that going to last, he's still the same character.
If only they had given Chris Pine brown eye contacts, he may have been more familiar as Kirk.
Onscreen, he looked more like one of the marionettes from Team America;
https://images.fandango.com/r1.0.40...epository/fandango/86349/teamamerica_pic2.jpg
Onscreen, he looked more like one of the marionettes from Team America;
https://images.fandango.com/r1.0.40...epository/fandango/86349/teamamerica_pic2.jpg
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I said this when '09 was announced. Paul McGillion was who I envisioned as the new Scotty from the word go, and when they went with Pegg, I said "Why? You have this other guy right here!" Which they did. McGillion is in '09, buried in a thankless cameo role doling out assignments to the cadets as they bug out to the fleet.
Would have been fine with JJ Abrams staple Greg Grunberg as Scotty too:
http://www.aveleyman.com/Gallery/2017/G/tve31011-20070212-1775.jpg
http://www.aveleyman.com/Gallery/2017/G/tve31011-20070212-1775.jpg
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Best: Chris Pine. Second Best: Chris Pine. All the rest of the Best: Chris Pine.
Worst: Maybe if he didn't get so much praise then Carl Urban wouldn't grate on me so much. It's like back when people would try to tell me Christian Slater was Jack Nicholson reincarnated.
And Robin Curtis. Yeah.
Worst: Maybe if he didn't get so much praise then Carl Urban wouldn't grate on me so much. It's like back when people would try to tell me Christian Slater was Jack Nicholson reincarnated.
And Robin Curtis. Yeah.
I want to see him run for President just to hear him smack talk like The Rock in the debates.
Yeah, I agree. If it had been Alley as Saavik, audiences familiar with her character really wouldn't have seen the twist coming. In the finished film it's unfortunately, "Who could this traitor be? Hmm... Could it perhaps be the brand-new character who 90% of the crew has just met?"
Plus, it would've been really interesting to see Alley return to the role after nine years away. Especially to give her character an unhappy ending.
But come to think of it... Vulcans are very long-lived and Valeris would likely have lived to see the Federation and the Klingons form a long-term alliance. Has anyone ever done a story about Valeris in the 24th century during the peaceful era of TNG?
We're agreeing more than we're disagreeing here. Pretty much all of my problems with Pine's Kirk come down to the writing.
Yeah, the fact that they gave McGillion a cameo in the finished film shows that he got really close to getting the role of Scotty. I hadn't heard of him before the lead up to ST09, never having watched any of the Stargate shows, but as soon as I saw his picture and watched a few clips of him acting, I thought he was perfect for the part. But I guess Abrams wanted to get a few more names into the cast.
I wouldn't go that far.
I don't live in the United States or the Middle East, so The Rock Vs Trump In a presidential debate would just be good television to me
I really liked the 2nd "Senator Creetak"
The newer movies can't have the actor's play the old actors, or it would be a parody. For instance, Chris Pine can't just play "Shatner's Kirk." It wouldn't work. The Urban McCoy comes off as parody quite often, especially in Beyond, but I still find him likeable, as I do most of the others. I just don't see them as younger versions of the original cast.
With that, there's one that I don't care for at all, though: Spock. Nimoy's Spock has many different emotions beneath the surface...the whole range, actually. He had pride, snark, sadness, compassion, etc. The most rare emotion of Spock was anger. It was all very subtlt, and effective.
It feels like Nu Spock has only one hidden emotion: Rage. He's often seething underneath. I feel like Vulcans are suffering in Discovery, too, but for different reasons. Sarek (For some reason, now pronounced "Sārĭk")is wildly different from the original. He's very compassionate, and reflective, and vulnerable. And the show seems to think that being Vulcan means speaking awkwardly, and monotone.
The TOS-TNG Sarek is serious, walks with an air of respect, is confident, sophisticated and courteous. Both Nimoy's Spock and Leonard's Sarek have a depth and balance that is not present in the newer versions.
The newer movies can't have the actor's play the old actors, or it would be a parody. For instance, Chris Pine can't just play "Shatner's Kirk." It wouldn't work. The Urban McCoy comes off as parody quite often, especially in Beyond, but I still find him likeable, as I do most of the others. I just don't see them as younger versions of the original cast.
With that, there's one that I don't care for at all, though: Spock. Nimoy's Spock has many different emotions beneath the surface...the whole range, actually. He had pride, snark, sadness, compassion, etc. The most rare emotion of Spock was anger. It was all very subtlt, and effective.
It feels like Nu Spock has only one hidden emotion: Rage. He's often seething underneath. I feel like Vulcans are suffering in Discovery, too, but for different reasons. Sarek (For some reason, now pronounced "Sārĭk")is wildly different from the original. He's very compassionate, and reflective, and vulnerable. And the show seems to think that being Vulcan means speaking awkwardly, and monotone.
The TOS-TNG Sarek is serious, walks with an air of respect, is confident, sophisticated and courteous. Both Nimoy's Spock and Leonard's Sarek have a depth and balance that is not present in the newer versions.
We reach!
