Would Wesley have worked if Wil Wheaton were younger?

[Morpheus 02]

i saw VH1's "i love the 80's" episode with TNG.

Wil Wheaton was there making fun of the dialogue / character they gave him.


He seemd like a good guy, and innocent of the blame for his character.

i sat there thinking...were the casting people thinking of him in Stand By Me when they wrote his character that first season? (i.e. picutring a 12 year old boy instead of a 15 year old teenager)


Would Wesley have worked if they were able to get Wil to work on TNG RIGHT AFTER filming Stand By Me (i know in reality it wouldn't have worked)?

 

[Kegek]

Wesley might have worked had they gone with the original idea, that is, Leslie Crusher, a girl spin on the boy wonder. But even then I have my doubts... an average, sometimes stupid kid who is also a genius so extraordinary that intergalactic intelligences declare he's the next Mozart and the first human in the history of the race they're really interested in?

Nobody can really carry the kind of conflicted baggage that comes with poorly written dialogue and ludcriously overblown expectations. Had Wesley been written as a normal kid, like, for instance, Jake, the character might have been more salvageable. As it is he wasn't particularly likeable until the Fourth Season and beyond, when we'd get fairly solid Wesley episodes treating him like a real person (cf: 'The First Duty') and in small doses.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Even younger?

He would have been like The Milky Bar kid on Galactica 80!

A little older would have been more interesting, an eager space cadet straight out of the Academy.

 

[kitsune]

I agree Wesley would've been more tolerable as Leslie.

However, LaForge should've been way more proficient than Wesley. No matter how intelligent the kid is, he shouldn't have a deep and intimate knowledge of every ship system without going through the Academy.

 

[SmoothieX]

Nobody can really carry the kind of conflicted baggage that comes with poorly written dialogue and ludcriously overblown expectations. Had Wesley been written as a normal kid, like, for instance, Jake, the character might have been more salvageable.

The powers at DS9 did pretty well with Jake. He came out as a kid without a Mom, light years from home, trying to grow into a man. He had his lousy moments (who doesn't) but in general I think they pulled him off well.

If Wes was 12, they couldn't have had him be as smart and adolescent as they did. They would have to have gone more with the "seeing the universe through the eyes of a child" angle.

 

[sbk1234]

Just give the kid some flaws and he would have been likeable. Write him as a kid, and not "boy wonder."
I think that's why they were able to do so much with Jake and Nog.
For that matter, how about they started him off as a troubled, angry kid, still holding a grudge about the death of his father, and his experiences on the Enterprise would help him develop into a character who becomes a respected member of Starfleet?

 

[SmoothieX]

^ I agree. Wes was a walking after school special. I know they were trying to go for this kid who grew up in a utopic society and wouldn't understand lots of bad stuff, but it came off soooo corny.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Wil Wheaton is a talented actor, as seen by Stand By Me. It was the character of Wesley that was flawed, as was the way in which he was written. If he had been written as a teenage boy and not a know-it-all, he would have been stronger. As a model, TPTB should have looked at Mr. Midshipman Hornblower for his character, especially in regards to his role as Acting Ensign.

He should have been curious, willing to take risks, had self-doubt and stand up to his mother every now and then. But then again Beverly Crusher was just as week a character as Wesley (No fault on Gates part, however).

 

[Kegek]

But then again Beverly Crusher was just as week [sic] a character as Wesley (No fault on Gates part, however)

The problem with Beverly Crusher, particularly in the first season, is that she was just two stock characteristics: Wesley's mother, Picard's potential lover. She wasn't anything on her own, which was part of the reason she was dropped in the second season.

Subsequent growth of Beverly - giving her an interest in dancing and theatre - was taken from Gates' own intersts.

TNG really wasn't an ensemble show, anyway. One of its strengths is ultimately it shifted attention away from Wesley (and dropped him in the fourth season) towards the characters that did work - most successfully and importantly Picard, Data, and Worf.

 

[Vanyel]

The Laughing Vulcan said:
A little older would have been more interesting, an eager space cadet straight out of the Academy.

That's my take on it too. Wesley as an 18 or 19 year old ensign straight out of the Academy ready to make his mark on Starfleet as it newest boy wonder assigned to the Federation Flag ship only to find out that his mother is the ships CMO. That I think that would have made him a more interesting character. He would still the have wonder of it all being a new experience for him, an eagerness to please and show off his abilities to impress the senior staff and a bit of a conflict with his mother in that he's showing her that he's a man and not her little boy anymore.

 

[Udat]

Kegek said:

But then again Beverly Crusher was just as week [sic] a character as Wesley (No fault on Gates part, however)

The problem with Beverly Crusher, particularly in the first season, is that she was just two stock characteristics: Wesley's mother, Picard's potential lover. She wasn't anything on her own, which was part of the reason she was dropped in the second season.

Subsequent growth of Beverly - giving her an interest in dancing and theatre - was taken from Gates' own intersts.

TNG really wasn't an ensemble show, anyway. One of its strengths is ultimately it shifted attention away from Wesley (and dropped him in the fourth season) towards the characters that did work - most successfully and importantly Picard, Data, and Worf.

I like what you say here, but I do think Riker was an important figure too.

 

[Kegek]

Yes, Riker was certainly an important character - but less important than Picard, Data and Worf in the later seasons. Although, arguably, the show began as a Picard, Riker and Data vehicle. TNG never really shoved its supporting characters to one side, and Riker was somewhere in-between the core of Picard, Data and Worf, and the supporting characters of Geordi, Beverly and Troi.

Wesley, of course, is unique as the only character on a Star Trek show to be demoted from regular to recurring character on the same show (and no, Troi's role as recurring character on Voyager or Tasha's two alternate or past appearances do not count).

 

[Red Ranger]

People,

As some have already pointed out, the contrary would've been better: if he were an older character, written as a fresh-out-of-the-academy ensign on his first deep space assignment, a capable young officer who wasn't a boy genius. Perhaps they could've given him one other distinction: youngest graduate of the Academy at that time.

If they insisted on making him an acting ensign, if he were written like the young midshipmen in the film "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World," that would've been better than the naive boy genius angle.

Red Ranger

 

[Trekker4747]

As some have already pointed out, the contrary would've been better: if he were an older character, written as a fresh-out-of-the-academy ensign on his first deep space assignment, a capable young officer who wasn't a boy genius. Perhaps they could've given him one other distinction: youngest graduate of the Academy at that time.

I agree. I think Wesley became a capable character and could've added a lot to the show (if he continued to be there) once he was in a uniform, actualy probably before that when the show "tightened up" at the start of the third season (and probably even in the second season) but that first season Wes did a lot to damage the character making him a wide-eyed, goofy (guh-huh) kid wearing terrible sweaters.

After much, much, reflection over time I really do think that Wesley was a good character, overall, but it's very, very hard to get over the first season episodes and I really don't think it was Wheatons' fault, he had done "Stand By Me" before TNG so he was already a pretty capable young actor. TNG was just a bit... "silly" in the first season so he was probably intentionaly directed to be a goofy idiot/prodigy child.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Kegek said:
Yes, Riker was certainly an important character - but less important than Picard, Data and Worf in the later seasons. Although, arguably, the show began as a Picard, Riker and Data vehicle. TNG never really shoved its supporting characters to one side, and Riker was somewhere in-between the core of Picard, Data and Worf, and the supporting characters of Geordi, Beverly and Troi.

Wesley, of course, is unique as the only character on a Star Trek show to be demoted from regular to recurring character on the same show (and no, Troi's role as recurring character on Voyager or Tasha's two alternate or past appearances do not count).

According to the TNG Writers' Bible (if i remember right), Riker was supposed to the regular Away team leader -- taking on the action role that Kirk usually did but shouldn't have. So that should have put some of the focus (particularly off-ship action) on Riker...but they dropped the idea that the Captain was too valuable to risk on away teams.

Unfortunately, TNG showrunners didn't have the same sense of able to create compelling characters (especially recurring) as DS9 did -- otherwise, we might have been able to appreciate Geordi, Crusher & Troi & Riker much more.

 

[Jack Bauer]

People might've hated him more if he was younger. "He's just a small kid and he's saving the ship every week! Is everyone else just stupid or what?'

 

[Kegek]

People might've hated him more if he was younger. "He's just a small kid and he's saving the ship every week! Is everyone else just stupid or what?'

That really was the reason they hated him to begin with. Wesley as the kid who saves the ship, regardless of age, would be an annoyance.

Unfortunately, TNG showrunners didn't have the same sense of able to create compelling characters (especially recurring) as DS9 did -- otherwise, we might have been able to appreciate Geordi, Crusher & Troi & Riker much more.

Well, TNG's issue with the supporting characters isn't entirely because it wasn't as good as DS9. As Ira Behr noted, it was because the shows had different priorities - DS9 was far more character oriented than TNG, and did science fiction plots - which TNG did fairly regularly - were very rare on DS9, especially in the later seasons.

That, and DS9's characters where generally created without clearer dramatic goals - Geordi, for example, was just the 'black blind guy whose name is an homage'. Not at lot of material there. The character thrived on Burton's charisma and being written as one of the show's straight men - specifically, the straight man as Data's friend.

Dax, for instance, was created as the young woman who was also Sisko's former elderly mentor. Unevenly executed, but a solid dramatic idea.

TNG also had a very respectable recurring cast - including future DS9 castmember O'Brien, potential (and rejected) DS9 castmember Ro Laren, and future DS9 recurring characters Gowron and Keiko.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

I must be one of the only people who thought Wesly was OK just as he was. Since I was already in my 40s and a father when the show premiered, I could appreciate the idea of a Mozart-like Menschkin. Once the Traveler revealed his somewhat supernatural nature, the seemingly miraculous events that followed made more sense.

 

[Epsilon IX]

I don't think it would have worked if he was any younger. I think the age he was when the series debuted was borderline. The Wesley Crusher character did get better as the series progressed, esp in episodes such as "Final Mission", "The First Duty", and "Journey's End".
If I were to have it my way, Wesley/Leslie would have been either a midshipman on cruise or a recent academy graduate who was posted to the Enterprise as his first assignment and perhaps his mother did pull some strings in the process. I'd also make him bright and quick-witted but NOT a boy genius! It would have been interesting, however, to have seen the Leslie Crusher character on screen instead.

 

[Zeppster]

Wesley sucked because he was badly written. It was a lot like the vision of the show. They wanted him to be a little more naive than everyone else. When most kids in shows seem less naive then the adults.