Star Trek Babies
J.J. Abrams is doing a new Star Trek movie. New, but about the original characters--Kirk, Spock, etc. The original cast is too old (or too dead) to play the roles, so for the first time (?) the crew will be portrayed by others.
The Star Trek series was about adults. The top officers tended to be in their 30s or 40s. I always put Kirk in his mid-30s.
The movies were done years later, and even though the crew was getting a bit long in the tooth, they did some of the best work in The Wrath Of Khan and The Voyage Home.
Now the casting breakdowns are out and we know what the new movie is looking for. Kirk will be mid-20s, while Bones and Scotty will both be around 30. This is ridiculous. Kirk at 25? He's hardly out of cadet school. How can he be a captain? And do we need a doctor on the ship who hasn't finished his residency?
Some heroes are meant to be young. Spider-Man is barely a man. But the characters in Trek have been around the block a few times, and it should show.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:17 AM
3 Comments:
One of the advantages to writing a Star Trek movie, as opposed to say a series set in Victorian England, is that you can mask inconsistencies with technological development and write around it ("God Jim!, We've been transmogrified into younger healthier buffer bods!")
While the previous exchanges on this blog we've had here about the universal translator and parallel planetary development show that the Trek Aficionados are a tough crowd, it could develop a following as long as it is not pure hack job and at least superfically tries to make the science sound right.
By the way, want to bet that that the new Star trek villains in this series would be a form of religious extremists engaged in suicide attacks.
Normally I am a continuity fanatic, but with ST one really has to give that up. Not only because Khan Noonien Singh did not in fact rule Asia from 1993 to 1996, but because the ST authors themselves have almost ZERO interest in consistency with their own established backstory.
If I were to let my continuity fanatic side through, I would argue that we already know about Kirk's "bookworm" days at the Academy, when he got beat up a lot [cf. Where No Man Has Gone Before, Shore Leave]. We also know about the nervous young Ensign Kirk [Obsession], and about Lieutenant Kirk who spent considerable time in a deep-cover mission on a primitive planet [A Private Little War].
To be consistent, any new "prequels" should flesh this out.
But as I said, "Star Trek" and "consistency" can't be used in the same sentence.
P.S. I just read N.E. Guy's final prediction above, and my heart sank. It sounds so plausible. But then I decided we are safe, because the Rick Berman machine, which has controlled the ST franchise since around 1990, has finally been vanquished by the Forces of Light. The honorable J.J. Abrams will not turn the new movie into a commentary on modern politics (or else I'll eat my Lost DVDs).
My favorite continuity error occurs just a few minutes into the very first episode of ST:TNG. Riker is in the holodeck, and as he exits, he asks the computer how to get where he is going. The computer tells him to turn right. He turns left and yet reaches his destination.
The usual explanation is that this is simply a blooper -- Jonathan Frakes and/or the director made a mistake.
But some fan (I forget who) suggested a much better explanation. In the real world, Riker would know his right from his left. Therefore, this is a clue to the audience that Riker is still in the holodeck. And since he has never discovered the error, we must conclude that the entire ST:TNG (other than the first few minutes of its first episodes), and all of ST:DS9, ST:V, and the Picard movies are hallucinations generated by a malfunctioning holodeck.
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