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Nimoy May Be the Star of the Next Trek Film?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 31, 2007 08:02 PM
from the anyone-but-shatner dept.
from the anyone-but-shatner dept.
ajs writes "Moriarty, over on Ain't It Cool News is running a column about the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. In it, he discusses some theories about where the movie is going, but doesn't reveal his sources. He claims that Nimoy's Spock, not the younger versions of the original Trek trio, will be the primary star of the film; and that the movie will make some very substantial changes to the Trek lore in a way that is internally consistent with what went before, but opens up many more options for future franchise films or series. If he's right, there are some pretty substantial spoilers in the column." Obviously, as unverifiable speculation this should be taken with a grain of salt. Live long and prosper.
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Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I know, this is the scoop on the neck pinch
It was invented for the episode "The Enemy Within" by Leonard Nimoy, who felt that Spock was too dignified to render someone unconscious by striking them over the head with the butt of a phaser.
This comes from Memory Alpha [memory-alpha.org] but I recall reading the same explanation 20+ years ago so I think it's likely the correct one.
Parent
Young Spock is only 30 (Score:2)
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He's 76 years old. Kind of hard to do action scenes, ain't it? What will he be doing the whole movie? Debating Vulcan philosophy?
Well, just last year they came up with something new in the motion picture industry... what was it they called it? Oh yeah... a Stunt Double!
My silliness aside... Shatner and Nimoy (and Kelley) had stunt doubles for TOS... so no big deal.
On top of that, it was always quite rare for Spock to exert himself physically - and most of the time that he did, it was usually very understated moves because of his character's far greater than human strength. Mark Lenard played Sarek's "fight" scene in a similar w
The changes the movie will make. (Score:2, Funny)
There will be a tachyon anomaly that will give all the old characters characteristics of the new actors that play them.
Baseless speculation (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Cool.
I didn't RTFA, but.... (Score:3, Funny)
Hopefully it will not be a musical Aaaahhh [youtube.com]!
Although if Captain Kirk shows up, even properly aged, he can sing amusing songs [youtube.com], now and then.
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Forget Alien vs. Predator, here comes Spock vs. Yoda.
Get ready to rumble!!!!
I hear Joe Pesci will play Yoda.
Departing from canon -- good thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
I appreciate that die hard fans will be upset by that, however my feeling is that Star Trek has basically had about 12 plot lines that have essentially been recycled in various guises throughout all the seasons. They've finally flogged that deceased horse one too many times.
The fundamental issues I see is the utopian nature of the universe Roddenberry created. Ignoring the probability or possibility of human nature being so utterly warped into an utopia (I personally can't suspend my disbelief that far), as a basis for a TV or movie it's all very nice and all, but it makes for dull writing and little drama.
You're left with creating drama by have characters behave out of character by alien possession or secret starfleet order etc etc etc. Or time travel (which is a clichéd story, almost always in any medium - paradox, protect timeline, yawn blah blah, seen it a thousand times)
No, Star Trek needs its ass kicked. I'm not entirely sure that JJ Abrams is the best guy to do that, but he's probably better than anyone who's been in charge of that franchise for the past 20 years.
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Are you people writing this down? It's gold I tells you.
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Yeah, I know it's Hollywood and originality is too much to expect.
ATTN: Moderators (Score:4, Interesting)
Star Trek has been out of new plot ideas since about season 4 of TNG. It was apparent when they made DS9 into a Babylon-5 ripoff, it was obvious all throughout Voyager and and it should have been apparent to even to a retarded 3-hour-old tribble after the Nazi episode of Enterprise. Departure from canon = good.
Sincerely, a former Trek fan.
Parent
Oh good grief no. (Score:2)
(Mind, I've got nothing against a good time travel yarn. Operative word being "good".)
Nimoy may be the star... (Score:2, Insightful)
Burying Itself In Its Own Plot (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, the biggest problem the Star Trek franchise has is its own fans.
There's a big difference between being respectful of a story and hamstringing yourself to meet some fanboy's idea of "canon." There are long and drawn-out discussions all the time in Trek fandom about how this one inconsequential element of some story doesn't mesh with years of backstory which is itself internally inconsistent. They can't seem to let go of these whiny nitpicks.
Look at the new Battlestar Galactica -- Ronald D. Moore took the old BSG "canon" and completely ignored it. He realized that from a storytelling standpoint it would be too limiting to bother sticking with the old story -- after the destruction of nearly every human being, going to a "casino planet" is a betrayal of what could be an incredible storyline. RDM took the essence of what BSG was -- humanity is on the run against an insidious and implacable enemy and reduced it to its essentials. The result is infinitely better than what came before.
I hope J.J. Abrams has the pure chutzpah to do just that with Star Trek. Reinvent the franchise. Give it new life. Change things around and craft a story that can attract a new generation of fans rather than appealing to the people who spend all their life studying the minutiae of the shows.
At its core, Star Trek is Horatio Hornblower in space -- a valiant young captain and his intrepid crew going out an exploring a new frontier. The new film should be true to that spirit, but if J.J. Abrams just sticks to what comes before, he's passing up on an artistic opportunity.
I've been a fan of Star Trek all my life, but the franchise grew stale and repetitive. This is the chance to give it new life, and in order to do that J.J. Abrams will have to royally piss off a lot of Star Trek fans who indignantly demand that the series match their vision of what Star Trek should be. If he does it right, a whole lot of Trekkers will be calling for his head, but the franchise will (dare I say it), live long and prosper after years of neglect.
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Cheers.
Not "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven"! (Score:2)
Have you seen any of that? They have him getting a JOB. That is beyond stupid. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a script or camera or editing room.
Re:Burying Itself In Its Own Plot (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
A reboot for the best (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is: Startrek is really old. That is not said that it is bad - I quite enjoyed TOS when it ran on TV, and I rather liked most of the "sequels" (like TNG, DS9, Voyager, etc.) to a certain degree. I loved the movies. But Startrek, or rather the Startrek universe has become the equivalent of really old code. The kind of code that was written when C was at it's peak and because the application was good and functional it just has been extended and rewritten over the time. And now you are standing in from of 50k lines of code, some in C, some in C++, some ported from C to C++, all written by several dozens of different editors (with different styles and paradigms) with over the last two decades. And someone had the bright idea to use assembler to squeeze some out some MS from an inner loop. Short, a demonic cross between a patchwork quilt made from used yarn and spaghetti-code. And now you are supposed to implement that new shining feature - without breaking anything.
The Startrek universe is riddled with minor and major plotholes and inconsistencies. Of course, many of the got patched and re-patched when the popped up, but every time a new story is added to the canon some more or less obscure fact will exist to prove the inverse. Of course, the tools to patch them up exist - including the dreaded RETCON - but still there is too much too contradictory information.
So what would you, the programmer do, if faced with the demonic code mentioned earlier and the prospect of managing it for the next forseeable future. Use the well-know way and write on or be bold and pull the plug and start from (almost) scratch?
Re:A reboot for the best (Score:5, Funny)
Are you, perchance, a Perl programmer?
Parent
I thought Nimoy would have made a great Magneto (Score:2)
Also, I'm not a big trekkie, but I thought Nimoy had a literally emmy-level performance in that episode of STTNG, where he played an aged Spock on the planet of the Romulans. I suppose he probably never even got considered though.
- Alaska Jack
Am I the only one... (Score:2)
Been there, done that, it didn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of trying to redo the same old story with whats left of a aging and thinning available cast, they should take a hint from "The Next Generation" and move further in to the future with a new series and new characters.
Or give us a movie based on DS9
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Bring back the TNG universe in a series (Score:5, Insightful)
Star Trek: TNG was by far the most expansive and interesting universe, and has always been far and away the fan favorite. I don't mean by self-styled critics who ramble on about emotional dynamics and relationships. Star Trek: TNG was popular because first and foremost because of Patrick Stewart, but second because it, like the Original Series movies, cast the ordinary in the extraordinary.
Teenage boys and middle aged men and women did not watch Star Trek: TNG for character development and intricate relationships. They watched it because it rose above the trash on the rest of television, because it had ethics and virtue and told us what was right and what was wrong, and set things right by the end of every hour. Star Trek: TNG was a Greek morality play in a fantastically imaginative, yet intimately believable universe.
It was NOT Dawson's Creek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer in space. It NOT not a campy western in space.
Until the caretakers of the franchise look back and understand this, they will continue to fail to recapture that success.
Re:Bring back the TNG universe in a series (Score:5, Funny)
Can I get a second?
but I agree with everything else you said.
Parent
Re:Bring back the TNG universe in a series (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a pretty distorted view of history. Star Trek failed for the same reasons many TV shows fail. Some of them air in the wrong time slot, some of them fail to find sponsors, some of them are gutted by shortsighted producers ... Star Trek arguably experienced all of the above. The difference is that most canceled shows don't continue to maintain and grow a fan base for years after the show stops airing. The phenomenal success of Star Trek happened long before TNG -- and I daresay long before you were born, judging by the assumptions you make. People were paying good money to go to Star Trek conventions throughout the 1970s. They put a cartoon on Saturday mornings. I knew more than one kid who would watch the reruns religiously, trying to write down a copy of every Captain's Log that came out of Kirk's mouth. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" only happened because Paramount had a brand-new Star Trek TV show featuring the original cast in the works, when somebody realized they stood to make a lot more money by releasing it to theaters instead. People lined up around the block to see "Star Trek: TMP" -- a movie based on a show that hadn't aired in 10 years.
That said, TNG may have been a decent show, but like you say yourself -- it was mainly popular because it rose above the level of most of the crap on TV. That doesn't make it good Trek. The original Enterprise didn't need no damn social worker ... one drunken country doctor was good enough for them, 'nuff said.
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Why TOS was canceled (Score:3, Insightful)
I read Shatner's book about his years with the Star Trek TV show. He said that the reason the show was canceled was ratings... more specifically, the way they used to do ratings at the time.
In the days of the original series, ratings were simple: what show has the most peop
darn (Score:5, Funny)
they both got that eyebrow raise
"DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE SPOCK IS COOKING?"
the vulcan nerve pinch could segue into a chokeslam and a powerbomb followed by a pummeling by a folding chair
Bah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead he established a future, established an inconsistent past, then screwed with new releases of the movies depicting the future to even it out.
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Re:Don't pull a Lucas! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say it's more true that you can't have Spock with out McCoy, since it was their ever-present banter (and to a degree, rivalry since Spock's logic and McCoy's emotionalism often came into conflict usually resolved by Kirk) that was so entertaining.
McCoy: "It's a song, you green-blooded Vulcan. You sing it. The words aren't important. What's important is that you have a good time singing it."
Spock: "Oh. I am sorry, Doctor. Were we having a good time?"
McCoy: "Why you green-blooded, pointy-eared
Of course, that still leaves you with the same problem. DeForest Kelly is long gone as well.
Parent
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I'd say it's more true that you can't have Spock with out McCoy, since it was their ever-present banter (and to a degree, rivalry since Spock's logic and McCoy's emotionalism often came into conflict usually resolved by Kirk) that was so entertaining.
I agree with you 100%... though of course, to be more accurate, it was Spock acting illogically under the pretense of making logical remarks - to either incite McCoy or win some banter/argument that McCoy started. Nothing logical about it ;-) As much as Spock would pretend he was being logical... which made it even more humorous, because Nimoy managed to deliver the lines deadpan - and then give McCoy that sly, slightly understated "Go ahead, come up with a comment to top that!" look.
This is a dynamic I
Re:Don't pull a Lucas! (Score:4, Funny)
{sigh} given Paramount's history with the franchise, I really don't think they'll ever get it right.
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McCoy: Mr Spock, you said a while ago that there were always alternatives.
Spock: Did I? I may have been mistaken.
McCoy: Well, at least I lived long enough to hear that.
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Spock: I made an error in my computations.
McCoy: Oh? This could be an historic occasion.
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Kirk: You're suffering from a Vulcan mind-meld, Doctor.
McCoy: That green-blooded son of a bitch! It's his revenge for all those arguments he lost!
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Spock: Your attempt to improve the species through selective breeding.
McCoy: Oh now wait a minute - not our attempt, Mr Spock. A group of ambitious scientists. I'm sure you know the type - devoted to logic, completely unemotional - !
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Kirk for the, uh, whatever [thyla.com], and McCoy for the racial banter.
You don't need any of them for Star Trek. (Score:3, Insightful)
But they aren't required for a "Star Trek" episode or movie or series.
There is so much material out there. Why don't any of the "writers" use it? Look at what most people consider the "best" Star Trek movie. You know which it was. And it was written with the restriction of being based off of a single episode.
Why does it always come back to getting the original cast into the "new" material? I'm sure that people here can come up with ten di
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's set aside the characters for a minute. (Dr. Hologram and Boobs-in-a-Catsuit being the only ones who were even remotely interesting.) The concept of Voyager was horrendously mis-executed. As Ron Moore once said:
I've said this to Brannon for years, because he and I would talk about the show when it was first invented. I just don't understand why it doesn't even believe in itself. Examine the fundamental premise of Voyager. A starship chases a bunch of renegades. Both ships are flung to the opposite side of the galaxy. The renegades are forced to come aboard Voyager. They all have to live together on their way home, which is going to take a century or whatever they set up in the beginning. I thought, This is a good premise. That's interesting. Get them away from all the familiar Star Trek aliens, throw them out into a whole new section of space where anything can happen. Lots of situations for conflict among the crew. The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and Sternbach and Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn't going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn't going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn't happen. It doesn't happen at all, and it's a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. Voyager is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spic-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn't act like this.
Source [mania.com].
Re:Time travel, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a complete retread, why bother? There is so much left unexplored in the Trek Universe, now if he was giving me the story of Kirk's younger brother, who rebelled and became a smuggler, then we might have something. Tell me the story of the people who aren't military officers, much loved by their quadrant spanning government.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Roddenberry's dream was that in the future, humanity will be perfect. We'll all have worked out our differences, and there will be no crime, poverty or disease. In fact, there will be no money, because everyone will have whatever they need, thanks to replicator technology. All conflict must therefore come from encounters with alien species that aren't as evolved as we are.
But that dream just doesn't fit reality. Looking back over the last several thousand years of re
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Right, right, I'm with you...
Oh. Heck, I thought you were going to say we should put them together in one large, well-insulated box, and then drop it to the ocean floor. In the process we'd probably rid ourselves of 85 percent of the people who use the word "canon" to refer to something not related to the Roman Catholic Church.
Re:fuck it (Score:3, Interesting)