Would anyone have preferred if she returned as an older Chapel instead?
The Daughter of the 5th House
- Thread starter 2takesfrakes
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I loved Majel Barrett in STAR TREK: The Motion Picture. She looked great for an old lady and her acting was normalised. I enjoyed seeing her and her scenes ... it was nice. But like Diana Muldaur returning to STAR TREK as Dr. Pulaski, it wouldn't have worked having Dr. Chapel on. As old ladies, neither actress really seem to belong in STAR TREK, anymore ...
I can't really see that working beyond a one-off, unless they somehow developed an arc involving her or established that she was related to one of the main characters.
Lwaxana was at least a more dynamic character.
Majel Barrett was 46 during principal photography for TMP. How is 46 "old"?
It's more than 30. For some folks, that's too old. It's a Shame they don't appreciate that the finest wines need more time than that to become their best.
Gates McFadden is about 70. Does that mean Trek has no further use for Dr. Beverly Crusher in any capacity or format?
"old lady", lul, Someone aged 46 is neither young/old but middle aged.
Holy crap, dude. Are you 15? That's pretty harsh.
JFCOASB, that's obnoxious.
I just turned 55 a week and a half ago. I guess that makes me ancient. The Queen of England is 92 and still on the job, with all her mental faculties intact. Is she old? Yes. Is she an "old lady" in the derogatory sense you mean? Definitely not.
Have some respect for your elders, because barring illness, accident, or something else, you'll get there some day.
There's an old Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy is berating Linus for his security blanket. She asks him what he's going to do when he's 10, 20, or even 30.
His response: "Don't be silly. People don't live to be that old."
I guess we have Linus on the boards.
*facepalm*
Lwaxana was a manufactured character to give Majel something to do. Also she was one of those details to flesh out the characters' lives (Deanna's) like Riker playing a trombone. Given that, she did it well, but the character served no SF or dramatic purpose and could easily have been done without. I wish she'd made some attempt to take on Deanna's accent.
I thought so at first, but by the end of the series two of my top ten episodes were Lwaxana episodes: "Half a Life" and "Dark Page." That's down to both the writing and Majel's contributions. She very definitely served dramatic purposes in both, and I wouldn't want those episodes excised. Indeed, I'd jettison most of the entire series before standing for that.
Or at least they should have given Deanna's father a more exotic background. Unless Deanna was raised on another planet or in an area of Betazed with that accent, it's ludicrous that she should have it when neither parent does.
At least Picard's accent is easily explained, given the long cross-cultural history between England and France, and his mother did have a French accent. But Deanna has an exotic accent for no damn reason other than the actress has an accent and TPTB wanted her to dress it up a bit. And Majel Barrett refused to use an accent, so they were left with throwing in a line about "I see you haven't lost your accent" and never bothering to explain how she got it in the first place!
I noticed that during the final season and in the movies, she became a lot more drawly and sloppy with it. By the time she started making cameos on Voyager I just wanted her to shut up and not speak.
I don't like when actresses and actors fake accents, I feel I get pulled out too much, to me it just feels so very unnatural. I love hearing his or her real voice and I prefer even if she's playing a different nationality to just talk like herself, I find it's like they put too much effort into their accent and too much emotion gets lost.
Like OMG have you seen 13 Days? Kevin Costner was just so very distracting to me, I just couldn't stand hearing him talk, but Bruce Greenwood didn't fake an accent and he sounded just perfectly fine, I didn't need him to try to mimic John Kennedy's accent to make me believe he's playing him, you know what I mean?
Like OMG have you seen 13 Days? Kevin Costner was just so very distracting to me, I just couldn't stand hearing him talk, but Bruce Greenwood didn't fake an accent and he sounded just perfectly fine, I didn't need him to try to mimic John Kennedy's accent to make me believe he's playing him, you know what I mean?
Some people are good with accents. Some aren't. Meryl Streep is fantastic with accents. I've heard some actresses go all over the place in the same sentence (ie. Nicola Bryant in Doctor Who).
It's just annoying in TNG that there was never a satisfactory explanation for Deanna's in-universe accent. And when Marina Syrtis gradually slipped back into her own accent, I have to wonder why she bothered with the more exotic one in the first place.
If you want to try to make sense of one family's accents, listen to a conversation between Duke Leto, Lady Jessica, and Paul Atreides in the Dune movie (Jurgen Prochnow, Francesca Annis, and Kyle MacLachlan). None of them have remotely the same accent, yet there are possible in-universe explanations for it.
It's just annoying in TNG that there was never a satisfactory explanation for Deanna's in-universe accent. And when Marina Syrtis gradually slipped back into her own accent, I have to wonder why she bothered with the more exotic one in the first place.
If you want to try to make sense of one family's accents, listen to a conversation between Duke Leto, Lady Jessica, and Paul Atreides in the Dune movie (Jurgen Prochnow, Francesca Annis, and Kyle MacLachlan). None of them have remotely the same accent, yet there are possible in-universe explanations for it.
