Uhura...glorified extra or female lead?

[C.E. Evans]

The title of this thread pretty much says it all. With Star Trek XI, will Uhura once again be relegated to just sitting pretty in the background and saying "Hailing frequencies open, sir" a few times or will she be a bit more of a female lead this time around?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Glorified extra, I hope.

"Ensemble cast" stuff barely works for ongoing series. In a two-hour movie, you've GOT to focus on one or two key characters. You can have strong supporting characters, provided that they don't overshadow the leads, but you can't have more than two or three leads. (IMHO, obviously!)

 

[Kegek]

I think she'll have a couple of scenes but nothing major. Not quite glorified extra, more mere supporting character. From what I've seen, Zoe Saldana is a pretty good actress.

But I think Cary's right: This isn't an ensemble movie, nor should it be. IMHO.

 

[Tulin]

She's about thirty years too young for a desert fan dance.

 

[Kinnison]

LOL.

Well, there IS a middle ground: supporting character. This seems most likely to me.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Enterprise is the female lead. (And the closest thing there's ever been to a main character for all of Star Trek.)

But for anyone but Kirk, Spock and the main villain to have a shot at any character development, we'd have to send all this back to TV, where Star Trek really belongs. Movies are dessert, but TV is the meat & potatoes.

 

[Kinnison]

TV is salad. Blueprints are meat and potatoes!

 

[archeryguy1701]

She'll be an extra. While I'm sure JJ will make some changes to how things work, when was the last time a regular character in a TOS movie important, aside from Kirk, Spock, and McCoy? I expect this to be the same.

 

[Akiraprise]

She really can't be a lead. I would guess the leads (or at least main characters) are Old Spock, Young Spock, Kirk, McCoy, and Nero. The rest of the cast won't have a lot of screen time.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I do wonder how much "quality screen time" Sulu, Chekov, and Urura will get. Will we only see them on the bridge and that's it?

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We do know from the latest spy picks that at least John Cho (Sulu) does more than just sit at his helmsman console for 2 hours of screentime...in those it looks like he is on a planet on some sort on an away mission (judging by the way he is dressed.)

 

[Mutara Nebula 1967]

Jackson_Roykirk said:
I do wonder how much "quality screen time" Sulu, Chekov, and Urura will get. Will we only see them on the bridge and that's it?

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We do know from the latest spy picks that at least John Cho (Sulu) does more than just sit at his helmsman console for 2 hours of screentime...in those it looks like he is on a planet on some sort on an away mission (judging by the way he is dressed.)

The Die Hards must be mellowing since they didn't blast you for saying AWAY mission instead of LANDING PARTY.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^
^^Ha Ha! That's funny because that exact same thought occurred to me as I was hitting the "OK, submit" button, But I was too lazy to edit it afterwards.

I grew up on syndicated TOS in the early 1970's (in fact I never even heard of Star Trek prior to watching my first episode -- which was Space Seed by the way), so I consider myself a bit of a purist. However, I liked most of TNG also.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I think that the terms aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

"Away missions" would include "Boarding parties" and "reconnaissance missions" (in shuttlecraft) and "landing parties" on planetary bodies and "diplomatic missions" and all varieties of things.

"Landing party" is just one subset of the general category "away mission" in other words.

 

[Jack Bauer]

I'm sure she'll get at least one big scene and one minor one and a glorified extra in all the other places.

 

[Sci]

Cary L. Brown said:
"Ensemble cast" stuff barely works for ongoing series. In a two-hour movie, you've GOT to focus on one or two key characters.

Tell that to the producers of The Royal Tenenbaums, Love Actually, Mystic River, The Magnificent Seven, Magnolia, Pulp Fiction, Crash, The Great Escape, M*A*S*H, or The Godfather.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Sci said:

Cary L. Brown said:
"Ensemble cast" stuff barely works for ongoing series. In a two-hour movie, you've GOT to focus on one or two key characters.

Tell that to the producers of The Royal Tenenbaums, Love Actually, Mystic River, The Magnificent Seven, Magnolia, Pulp Fiction, Crash, The Great Escape, M*A*S*H, or The Godfather.

Okay, then...

"The Royal Tenenbaums" wasn't a movie I cared for, at ALL. I don't personally accept that as a good example. It was, in my opinion, a cluster of overwrought overacted hystrionics, not a believable, immersive show about people I CARED about.

"Love Actually" is one I've never seen. Nor do I have any desire to, from what little I know about it. So I'll withhold judgement on that count. Same for "Mystic River." Feel free to expand on those if you wish, of course.

"The Magnificent Seven" was an exception... but it's not as though they were starting from a vacuum. That movie was basically a western version of "The Seven Samurai" which was based upon stories told for centuries in Japan. So, effectively, you have hundreds of years of development time behind that one. It's really kind of an exception, in other words. PLUS... can you imagine that becoming a "series?" Each character had their own little arc (with none getting the full "star treatment") and it was really mostly just an action-adventure flick.

"Magnolia?" Never even heard of it. I suspect my life is just as well-off for that, too. But feel free to explain about it if you feel like it.

"Pulp Fiction" is a bad example. Ask anyone who the main characters in "Pulp Fiction" were. They'll name TWO CHARACTERS. Uma Thurman played a SUPPORTING ROLE, as did everyone else. It was NOT an "ensemble" piece. Travolta and Jackson were the stars.

"Crash" was one of the worst movies I've ever seen ("Open Water" was worse... ). My girlfriend hated it so much that she wanted us to leave early and get my money back, but I insisted that we see the whole thing. Yes, it was "acclaimed" but as far as I'm concerned, it's just two hours of my life I'll never get back.

"M*A*S*H?" Well, if you're talking about the MOVIE, you're talking about two stars... Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland, with a SUPPORTING CAST around them. It was not an "ensemble piece." As for the TV show... go back and look a the first couple of seasons of M*A*S*H. It GREW into a true ensemble, but it took YEARS of growth and metamorphosis to do so.

And "The Godfather?" A very small cast of MAIN characters. A father and his sons. Everyone else was really supporting cast, though several of them saw additional development beyond being "cameos" obviously.

"Ensemble" casts are things like "FRIENDS" (for example) where there is no single "star" and everyone is an equal.

Star Trek... the original... was not an ensemble cast. It starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. (They eventually elevated Deforest Kelley to that "star" level, too.) But that was IT. The other folks were SUPPORTING CAST.

 

[Kegek]

Cary L. Brown said:
"The Magnificent Seven" was an exception... but it's not as though they were starting from a vacuum. That movie was basically a western version of "The Seven Samurai" which was based upon stories told for centuries in Japan. So, effectively, you have hundreds of years of development time behind that one.

While Samurai stories (including vast ensembles) are indeed very old in Japan, the plot for the film was only loosely based on a brief historical account. Seven Samurai is far more an ensemble film in any event than Magnificent Seven (though it's also three-hours long).

"Crash" was one of the worst movies I've ever seen ("Open Water" was worse... ). My girlfriend hated it so much that she wanted us to leave early and get my money back, but I insisted that we see the whole thing. Yes, it was "acclaimed" but as far as I'm concerned, it's just two hours of my life I'll never get back.

I thought it was excellent, but that's IMHO. For an example of another excellent ensemble film, I am submitting 12 Angry Men.

But the example I gave, and most of the film examples discussed here (except The Magnificent Seven) aren't the kind of film this will be. This is a film where all the characters work together (rather then be involved in a series of small, seperate stories) and there's clearly one who is the hero - Captain Kirk. Thus I'm really expecting the kind of division one gets in these movies - there's our core leads (Kirk, Spock, maybe McCoy), and then there's the supporting cast, who are important but not equal.

 

[Patrickivan]

I'm going to say:

Glorified Extra!

NO!!!!

Female lead!.

NO Wait! My first answer.

NO- I changed my mind. Glorified Lead, or Extra Female!

My final answer, because I'm a man, is:

Extra Female. There can never be enough females!

 

[sbk1234]

If we want it to be true to the series, she'll be a glorified extra.
Open those hailing frequencies, Baby!

 

[JPSEric]

Glorified extra definetly. Star Trek is a boy's club after all so she'll be given a particularly snazzy line or action to give a nod to all the girlfriends, if any or any females at all, in the audience.