He did call him Tuvok from time to time. Mr Vulcan was a fond nickname, nothing more. No "refusals" involved. And, as Tuvok often insisted, he was incapable of having hurt feelings.
Bit of a bump here, but I'm watching through VOY again while stuck in the house. By christ he's irritating in Season 1/2. He's creepy, arrogant and completely pointless. Oh, he can cook? Because that's such a rare talent.
actually it sort of is for federation/starfleet people heck, Janeway somehow burned a replicated roast
I think Kes relative age is easy to work out to be fair. They live for nine years, humans are lucky to hit ninety in our time period. 2 is mid twenties. Neelix was supposed to be a teenage twenty something character was the impression given. But that bounces all over the place, one minute he’s young, next minute he’s a grizzled veteran. The casting doesn’t come into it much because they are aliens anyway....Data was what, early forties when he dies the first time? Tuvok is a couple of hundred years old? Odo is about eleven? Kira is in her twenties? Thirties? It took them a while to figure out what worked, and what was a disconnect between the characters in their head and the optics on screen. Once that settled down, things got a lot better.
The problem with Neelix is a wider one; the more there was in the series bible, the less interesting the characters end up; the less, the more room the actors have to create the role.
There are tons of characters who don't understand the basic axiom "YOU are the hero of your own story" Now if i asked the actor who played uhhhwhassisname space ninja on PICARD, who are you and he said "Picards bodyguard" then NO! NONONONO! You're starting off in a hole. So if Ethan said "I'm the ships cook and morale officer " NOOOOOOOOOO Ethan." Now if he answered "A Talaxian who used Voyager to find a better life for himself and his girlfriend that he gaslights." Thats a billion times more interesting. Also, even though its episodic, be thinking about arcs for your character and journeys and such. Troi (when she was at her best) didn't ingratiate herself or play some cheery nut. She acted like a counselor. And one that genuinely cared. And god don't get me started on the advice i'd give Wil Wheaton. Edit: Getting back to Neelix...you've got this alien onboard. How about have him provide an outsiders perspective* and be more right then wrong. Instead of the cheery goofball always sticking his nose in others business. * you know, like Guinan. And for Gods sake, get him a costume that doesn't hurt the eyes.
It would have been interesting (and if they did this already and i dont know about it, I apologize) to give Kira an onstation counter to her tough, 'terrorist', no compromise black and white worldview. Have Leeta be a dabo girl who slept with Cardassians for food for her family. Something along the lines of Kira: You know if I held you down right here in the middle of Quarks and shaved your head, I don't think there's a single Bajoran who would stop me. Leeta: You're welcome to try anytime you'd like.
True. Funny enough, coming right off Stand By Me, he might have had more clout then he realized. "You want me to be this cheery, geeky teenager always trying to please adults?? Do you KNOW any teenagers?....NO i don't want you to write a scene where my mom walks in on me and a girl!!...FFS, just don't be surprised if i play this stuff more surly then you intended." Later in the series, "WAIT....there's a killer videogame going around and its the TEENAGER who is the last to play it??"
I've wrote about this a few times. In my opinion, "Neelix" was a product of bad casting. I don't think Ethan Phillips has a lot of range as an actor (I've seen him in guest parts on other shows pre and post Voyager ). He generally comes off the same way no matter what character he's playing. I can only assume he got the role of Neelix because he had the "look" they were after, and could stand in front of a camera and say his lines. A better actor could have brought so much more to the character. I remember watching a documentary on the "Little House" TV series. Kathering MacGregor who played Harriet Oleson said that after she got the part, she wrote pages and pages of "back story" for her character... Where she grew up, her family, how she met her husband, how she got to Walnut Grove. She got into character, and she got into THE character. Neelix needed an actor who could bring something to what should have beena great character. Just watch Neelix in his scenes. He has no chemistry with Kes, no chemistry with Tuvok, and those scenes where he was supposedly jealous of Tom's affections for Kes just don't work. He was terrible in "Jetrel" (Anything with "slurring James" Sloyan already has issues). The character just had no chemistry. So, I disagree that "Neelix" was obnoxious. I think he was played obnoxious (on purpose or not), by a sub-par actor that lacked chemistry with all of his co-stars, and brought nothing to a part that could have shined... needed to shine for the good of the whole show. "Neelix" reminds me ot the old "Lost in Space" TV show. Most of the 2nd and 3rd season episodes are really bad... but I watch it sometimes. I find myself mentally scraping off the obnoxious stupidity, the bad writing, the bad acting, and latching onto the little underlying thread of whatever it is that is underneath. Then I pretend it's a good as it could have been. This is what one does whe one watches "Neelix".
On the flip side....IF Phillips had misgivings, he was probably right to swallow them. Given what nearly happened to Wang and did happen to Lien.Given how Mulgrew treated Ryan and how Beltran got marginalized. And man, look at Beltrans pre and post Voyager career. I had seen four of his movies pre Voyager (And not Bugsy or Nixon) I havent seen him since.
Of course, Wesley wasn't supposed to be a 'normal' teen, not that we can really predict what 'normal' is by 2364... or did you mean Wil Wheaton just arranging more sex scenes for himself?
You mean the Ensign Harry Kim character? The studio wanted to beef up the Voyager crew... the main ensemble specifically, and the Kim character was set to be killed off. "When the Voyager writers devised Seven of Nine, one established cast member had to go to free up the money. Rather than kill off the irritating, self-obsessed, and undoubtedly lice-ridden burden Neelix, they chose Kes. But that wasn’t the plan at first -- they wanted to kill off Harry Kim. Garrett Wang landed on People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. Looking to capitalize on this, they kept Harry Kim alive." Voyager needed complex characters that could carry complex storylines. TOS had Spock (and could have benefitted from one or two more), TNG had Data and Worf, DS9 had a whole slew of aliens to write interesting things for: Quark Worf again, Odo, not to mention Sisko's involvement with the Bajoran Prophets. Voyager had almost none. Neelix and Kes weren't particularly interesting characters and you all know how I feel about Phillip's terrible interpretation and portrayal of Neelix. B'Elanna wasn't a particularly interesting character either. The only decent "alien" was Tuvok, and I really like that character, but since Tuvok was a Vulcan and just a Vulcan, there was no conflict or controversy, and like the rest of the bridge crew, nothing unusual to write about.
Neelix is the guy who makes you feel bad for not liking him. Neelix is the kind word at the worst possible time. Neelix is the hanger-on when you really need your personal space. Neelix is the acquaintance who never seems to pick up on the cues that you're uncomfortable that you suspect actually reads them perfectly.
He was? I always thought we were to perceive Neelix as analogous to a human late 40's, it has honestly never even crossed my mind that anyone wanted us to think of him as any younger than 45. One of the many things making his relationship with late teens Kes off-putting. That's a missed opportunity. How much more interesting it might have been if both of those characters were successfully presented as mid-20's...
It was something I remember from back in the day, back when the doc was gonna be Zimmerman. It may even be in the caretaker novel. There’s this sort of idea hanging around the edges, that you can see echoed later too...Neelix is a refugee, taking up a sort of ‘street living’ survival, that makes sense next to the LA Gangs idea with the Kazon. He’s amazed by so much water on Voyager and stuff like that... but I don’t know concretely where the idea was from. I am only ninety percent sure it is t just something I imagined. I remember them also basically being fascinated withe idea of him looking cute like a bush baby too. This all works better in some episodes than others...and we never really get a concrete idea of how old Neelix really is. I suppose a young actor may have looked daft under all the make-up, and you need a certain level to break through the mask (see Auberjonois) that we weren’t likely to get from a young actor. It was a complete mish mash.
I never thought of him as anything except as a middle-aged dude hitting on a much younger woman - he had the sort of dopeness that you could sort of get away with in your early 20s but make him look a bigger loser as a middle-aged character.