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Why Are We Accepting a Recast?

UWC Defiance said:
Hey, Kirk's been recast as well. Remember the chick who played him when he was in Janice Lester's body? :lol:

If you're going that route - there's quite a few TOS fight scenes that could be included as well (Even including Spock in Mirror Mirror). ;)
 
Frontier said:
Before we get side-tracked into a debate over the semantics of "is it a recast" or not, let's table that and look at the basic facts of things; new actors are playing Spock, Chekov, et cetera. While Nimoy may be reprising his role, thus putting the film into a gray area of "is it a recast?" the end of the day, we've got someone besides Koenig playing Chekov, someone besides Shatner going to play Kirk.

If they (TPTB) had tried to do anything like this; have other actors portray the characters in a substantial manner beyond the occasional flash-back or sci-fi induced guest star (Spock in TSFS, young Picard in 'Rascals') we would have thrown a RIOT! Pure and simple!

Now though... we're just swallowing it.

WHY?

I mean, the idea of Nimoy back again has me teeter-tottering on the fence, because that just seems awesome, but... the fact that someone else is playing Spock too, and that, it's quite likely that if the film is a financial success, those other people will go on to take OVER the role with no involvement of the original actors... it just makes me angry! :mad:

If after "The Motion Picture" the Paramount execs had said, "you know, we need a fresh new crowd for this" and forced a recast back then, making Kirk and Spock young again... it would have been a massive issue, and truth be told I don't think it would have worked. The loyalty at that time was so strong, and such attempt would have been met with hostility by the fans. So how come we're not fighting this now? It doesn't really make sense to me how we can just be ok with this. :vulcan:

If TPTB announced a new Next Generation film, featuring Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville's Lex Luthor) as Jean-luc Picard... would we just go along with that, too? Maybe Samuel L. Jackson as Benjamin Sisko? Where do we draw the line? If the actors don't really matter to us, why do we go to conventions? Why do we collect autographs? Why do we care about the other projects they do? Are we so willing to replace them when they're too old, or have passed on? :vulcan:

Somebody explain to me why we're now, today, open to what 20 or 30 years ago would have been a treasonous concept, inciting our Trekkie brethren of the day to action?

Because it's no big deal, and any normal person SHOULD accept it. Yes, the classic cast are icons. But so are Superman and James Bond, and many actors have played both.
 
PowderedToastMan said:
UWC Defiance said:
cardinal biggles said:
Beyerstein said:
There's no way a TOS recast will work.

It's just going to look like a fancy costume party and come off incredibly weird and awkward onscreen.
Been there, heard that, got the T-shirt. Don't you have any new arguments?

It's not an "argument" - it's an unsupported assertion and it's wrong.

Some folks don't want to accept the fact that there won't be more 24th century Trek for many years if ever - the further the studio goes toward redirecting the Franchise, the less impetus there ever will be to go back and recreate the creative and ratings cul-de-sacs they got into.

IOW, no more 24th century ever. Live with it, guys.
but instead of just admitting that they only want one kind of trek and reject all others...they confabulate these 'ironclad' logics that are essentially saying 'i think this way and therefore everyone on planet earth will too so do what i want'

when was the last time i said anything about only wanting more 24th trek?

As much as you accuse me of clinging to one kind of Trek I could just as easily say you're blindly supporting this any Trek is better than none notion, that I should support whatever they're doing because it's what they're doing? I mean, J.J. abrams comes out at comicon and basically says "but i really wanna be doing star wars." I proud that I didn't support enterprise the whole time it waded through four embarrassing seasons.

To me, I have no reason to get excited about Trek XI and every reason to fear it.
 
If they did a recast for TMP...I highly doubt anyone would really have batted an eye. Trek, while popular, wasn't nearly as popular as it got later on. Also, it wasn't around as long as it is now. If anything, people would have just seen TMP as a reboot (like a lot of TV shows made into movies are) and just accepted it as such.

But, what do I know. I'm still angry as hell that they re-casted Captain Pike in Kirk-era parts of "The Menagerie!!!" I boycotted Trek for years after that. The character of Saavik won be back...take a guess how well that worked out.

;) :p
 
To me, I have no reason to get excited about Trek XI and every reason to fear it.

Fear it? I'm just going to assume you're blowing some smoke here. If you're seriously that worked up over this you need some help.

Trust me you can't "kill Trek" more then its been killed. This at least has a chance of bringing it back.

It seems so far the original actors that are still with us aren't having a fit... why should you?

"but i really wanna be doing star wars."

And thats not what was said or implied at all. The actual remark is quit innocuous. And what now everyone who works on Trek must hold that first and foremost before anything else. One can be fan and not be an addict...

Sharr
 
Kirk was recast in TOS anyways. Go back and watch any fight scene and you can see an actor who is not Shatner playing Kirk in those fights. Different build and hair and all right there. So Kirk has been recast and fans have accepted it for 40 years now. :D
 
Sharr Khan said:


"but i really wanna be doing star wars."

And thats not what was said or implied at all. The actual remark is quit innocuous. And what now everyone who works on Trek must hold that first and foremost before anything else. One can be fan and not be an addict...

Sharr

He said he was "more of a Star Wars person" or something. you can say it's not what he implied but it still kind of is. And why does the guy directing the new Star Trek movie have to come out babbling about Star wars at all? whadda jerkoff
 
Anyway yeah, my thinking that a TOS recast could turn out disastrous is COMPLETELY DUMBFOUNDED.

After all J.J. Abrams is a HOLLYWOOD MOVIE MAKER. He can make -ANYTHING- work right? yeah.

and big budget Hollywood action movies all turn out so well! The new Star Trek movie is by the guys who wrote TRANSFORMERS. We saw all the great character development in that right?!
 
As a New Voyages fan, I've already survived and fully accepted one recasting of TOS. James Cawley is as much Kirk to me as Shatner ever was, and the further he gets from mimicking Shatner, the better his portrayal becomes.

I don't need Shatner, or a Shatner impersonator/clone to play Kirk. I just need an actor who is passionate about the part, and willing to make it his own.
 
Beyerstein said:
and big budget Hollywood action movies all turn out so well! The new Star Trek movie is by the guys who wrote TRANSFORMERS. We saw all the great character development in that right?!

Yep! :D
 
why accept now when yeah i would have protested a recasting during the movies.
because now it isnt possible to have a lot of the original cast.
doohan and kelly are gone and shatner may not work as kirk for a lot of people any more.

so really the only way to get new stories on film is to take this path.


and the story is set in a time period we havent seen before
but there has been some interest in.


and they are not taking the original cast away.
star trek is still on tv and dvds.
 
Jack Bauer said:
Kirk was recast in TOS anyways. Go back and watch any fight scene and you can see an actor who is not Shatner playing Kirk in those fights. Different build and hair and all right there. So Kirk has been recast and fans have accepted it for 40 years now. :D
wasnt some of the shots were we see the back of kirks head while another character speaks a couple of times shatners stand in.
 
He said he was "more of a Star Wars person" or something. you can say it's not what he implied but it still kind of is. And why does the guy directing the new Star Trek movie have to come out babbling about Star wars at all? whadda jerkoff

He was asked a question and gave an honest answer. And no the there was no such implication that he would prefer to "Do Star Wars" that's your own paranoid delusions as work there.

I'm more a Babylon 5 fan then a Star Trek fan. Does it mean I shouldn't have an interest in Star Trek as well?

Beyerstein said:
and big budget Hollywood action movies all turn out so well! The new Star Trek movie is by the guys who wrote TRANSFORMERS. We saw all the great character development in that right?!

Lets hope Trek turns out as "bad". That'd be an (arguably) argument you know, if like the film failed miserably or something when in truth it did exactly the opposite.

Trust me you can't judge how someone's gonna handle one set of material based on another. And then a director shapes that material how he sees it. Bay had alot if not everything to with the look an feel of Transformers.

Sharr
 
Cases in Point:

Joel Shumacher- Batman Forever (sucks) to Phantom of the Opera (great).
Shrek 1-2 director (great), The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (sucks).

Also,

Pike became Kirk.
Number One became Spock.
Boyce became Piper became Mccoy.
 
BolianAdmiral said:
Frontier said:
Before we get side-tracked into a debate over the semantics of "is it a recast" or not, let's table that and look at the basic facts of things; new actors are playing Spock, Chekov, et cetera. While Nimoy may be reprising his role, thus putting the film into a gray area of "is it a recast?" the end of the day, we've got someone besides Koenig playing Chekov, someone besides Shatner going to play Kirk.

If they (TPTB) had tried to do anything like this; have other actors portray the characters in a substantial manner beyond the occasional flash-back or sci-fi induced guest star (Spock in TSFS, young Picard in 'Rascals') we would have thrown a RIOT! Pure and simple!

Now though... we're just swallowing it.

WHY?

I mean, the idea of Nimoy back again has me teeter-tottering on the fence, because that just seems awesome, but... the fact that someone else is playing Spock too, and that, it's quite likely that if the film is a financial success, those other people will go on to take OVER the role with no involvement of the original actors... it just makes me angry! :mad:

If after "The Motion Picture" the Paramount execs had said, "you know, we need a fresh new crowd for this" and forced a recast back then, making Kirk and Spock young again... it would have been a massive issue, and truth be told I don't think it would have worked. The loyalty at that time was so strong, and such attempt would have been met with hostility by the fans. So how come we're not fighting this now? It doesn't really make sense to me how we can just be ok with this. :vulcan:

If TPTB announced a new Next Generation film, featuring Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville's Lex Luthor) as Jean-luc Picard... would we just go along with that, too? Maybe Samuel L. Jackson as Benjamin Sisko? Where do we draw the line? If the actors don't really matter to us, why do we go to conventions? Why do we collect autographs? Why do we care about the other projects they do? Are we so willing to replace them when they're too old, or have passed on? :vulcan:

Somebody explain to me why we're now, today, open to what 20 or 30 years ago would have been a treasonous concept, inciting our Trekkie brethren of the day to action?

Because it's no big deal, and any normal person SHOULD accept it. Yes, the classic cast are icons. But so are Superman and James Bond, and many actors have played both.
Look, I'm not fundamentally opposed to anyone else ever playing the part of Kirk... but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP THROWING OUT THIS TOTALLY UNRELATED "SUPPORTING ARGUMENT."

James Bond was a work of prose, based loosely upon a real British agent. The movies are actually two steps away from the source material.

Superman is a comic book character.

In neither case was the original representation "recast" as we're describing here.

The closest analogy would be when the folks at DC comics attempted to "redefine" Superman a few times. They made "Electric Blue and Electric Red Superman." They made "long-haired Superman." They made "Superman as a TV Anchorman." Each time... it's failed, and they eventually went back to the source material, and when they did that, they regained the audience that they'd lost.

The trick here is to realize that you CAN recast Kirk... but that you have to do so in a way that recognizes what characteristics make Kirk who he is.

Being played by Bill Shatner isn't it... not exactly. But the "New Voyages" Kirk... James Cawlsey or whatever his name is... has NOTHING in common with the James T. Kirk of the TV series, and I can't watch him and think, even for a second, that I'm watching the same character. What I see is someone with far too much money to waste, pretending he can do a "better job" but not really doing so at all. I'd MUCH prefer if they'd treated this the same what the "Starship Exeter" does, with him playing a different character in name, not just in portrayal (his "Kirk" is UTTERLY DIFFERENT than Shatner's Kirk... it IS a different character!)

This is not an argument against recasting Kirk. What it IS, is an argument in favor of (1) determining what characteristics made Kirk who he was, at the core, and (2) finding an actor who can play that character, with those characteristics, and make up believe we're seeing the same character.

Recasting is not impossible. It's ultimately inevitable if these characters are ever to be seen again. I'm not sure we NEED to see these characters again, but I don't mind... if the character I see, with the name James T. Kirk, isn't actually a new and different character whose been given the same name in order to "bait and switch" audiences into watching.
 
Though that being said, I still have a bad feeling that Trek fans may outdo the Bond fans when the new Kirk is announced.

Bond fans? They'll be worse than evangelicals when The Last Temptation of Christ was announced.

Seriously, this obsession with Shatner as Kirk borders on cultish. This is one of the reasons the general public rolls its eyes at Trek fandom.
 
Frontier said:
Before we get side-tracked into a debate over the semantics of "is it a recast" or not, let's table that and look at the basic facts of things; new actors are playing Spock, Chekov, et cetera. While Nimoy may be reprising his role, thus putting the film into a gray area of "is it a recast?" the end of the day, we've got someone besides Koenig playing Chekov, someone besides Shatner going to play Kirk.

If they (TPTB) had tried to do anything like this; have other actors portray the characters in a substantial manner beyond the occasional flash-back or sci-fi induced guest star (Spock in TSFS, young Picard in 'Rascals') we would have thrown a RIOT! Pure and simple!

Now though... we're just swallowing it.

WHY?

I mean, the idea of Nimoy back again has me teeter-tottering on the fence, because that just seems awesome, but... the fact that someone else is playing Spock too, and that, it's quite likely that if the film is a financial success, those other people will go on to take OVER the role with no involvement of the original actors... it just makes me angry! :mad:

If after "The Motion Picture" the Paramount execs had said, "you know, we need a fresh new crowd for this" and forced a recast back then, making Kirk and Spock young again... it would have been a massive issue, and truth be told I don't think it would have worked. The loyalty at that time was so strong, and such attempt would have been met with hostility by the fans. So how come we're not fighting this now? It doesn't really make sense to me how we can just be ok with this. :vulcan:

If TPTB announced a new Next Generation film, featuring Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville's Lex Luthor) as Jean-luc Picard... would we just go along with that, too? Maybe Samuel L. Jackson as Benjamin Sisko? Where do we draw the line? If the actors don't really matter to us, why do we go to conventions? Why do we collect autographs? Why do we care about the other projects they do? Are we so willing to replace them when they're too old, or have passed on? :vulcan:

Somebody explain to me why we're now, today, open to what 20 or 30 years ago would have been a treasonous concept, inciting our Trekkie brethren of the day to action?

Yeah! And I for one hope that they keep Sean Connery playing James Bond and Michael Keaton playing Batman and Christopher Reeve playing Superman and...
 
^ And none of those actors you name were the first to play the role. Barry Nelson played Bond in the 1950s tv movie of Casino Royale, Adam West played Batman 20+ years before Keaton (even before him there was some guy in the 1940s serials, whose name escapes me) and George Reeves and Kirk Alyn played Superman before Chris Reeve.
 
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