J.J. Abrams Reacts To Death of Star Trek Actor Anton 'Chekov' Yelchin (hollywoodreporter.com) 221
On Sunday morning 27-year-old actor Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov in the new Star Trek movies, was killed in a freak accident with his own car in the driveway of his home in Studio City. "It appears he momentarily exited his car and it rolled backward, causing trauma that led to his death," a police spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter. This afternoon J. J. Abrams tweeted a picture of a handwritten eulogy addressed to Anton. "You were brilliant. You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. And you weren't here nearly long enough. Missing you..." Zachary Quinto, who plays Mr. Spock, also tweeted a link to a picture posted in memorial on Instagram, where he called Yelchin "one of the most open and intellectually curious people I have ever had the pleasure to know... wise beyond his years, and gone before his time..."
Stephen King called him a "crazily talented actor gone too soon," remembering Yelchin from one of his last roles in a 10-episode adaptation of King's "Mr. Mercedes". Yelchin will play a mentally deranged ice cream truck driver who's also an IT worker for a Geek Squad-like company named "Cyber Patrol".
Stephen King called him a "crazily talented actor gone too soon," remembering Yelchin from one of his last roles in a 10-episode adaptation of King's "Mr. Mercedes". Yelchin will play a mentally deranged ice cream truck driver who's also an IT worker for a Geek Squad-like company named "Cyber Patrol".
Brilliant (Score:3)
Re: Brilliant (Score:5, Interesting)
He visited a movie set I was working on just before Star Trek came out. I have it filed away in my list of 'really cool shit that happened in my life'. What stands out for me in that memory isn't that I got to meet Pavel Chekov and Kyle Reese, it's that he was a really cool guy. Oh, and as a bonus, he was impressed with what we were doing. I enjoyed calling my parents that weekend and telling them about it.
Farewell Anton, thanks for being a really cool guy.
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Re: Brilliant (Score:4)
Nice to see some personal reflections.
Regardless of what you think of the re-boot it's not fun to see people pass on when they are young.
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As for what I think of the reboot- with this death time to reverse the story line of the original series and bring back the character of Kevin O'Reily, the Irishman that the Russian replaced in the original series.
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Re:Brilliant (Family planning would be brilliant) (Score:5, Informative)
My father died this week. So it makes fathers day confusing for me. He was part of the greatest generation that fought in WWII.
He didn't have much to say about people like you.
Since the Vietnam War black participation in the military has grown. Today, there are more than 2.5 million black military veterans. And African-Americans who make up more than 13 percent of the U.S. population, now account for 20 percent of those serving in the military.
I realize you are just trolling, and sometimes it's funny, just for the shock value. But it wasn't funny today. I doubt it will be funny for a long time.
Wake me up when September ends. I'll let you know.
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I'm sorry for your loss, man.
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They'll install more crescent markers (instead of crosses or stars of David) at Arlington? Other than that, I can't think of any important differences.
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Agreed.
Unfortunately a lot of people believe (rightly or wrongly) the masses want stuff dumbed down to their level. Almost no one is interested in True Sci-Fi: the (social) implications of technology; most people would rather watch total crap like someone else's fake life aka Unreality Shows such as The Kartrashians, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Soaps, etc. instead of living their own interesting life because their own life is boring.
i.e. Look at the most (financially) successful movie of all time. [wikipedia.org] Avatar wa
A tragedy (Score:2, Troll)
A very talented actor is gone, and it will not even save us from having to endure that unnecessary reboot of Star Trek. They'll probably just recast and not even bother to explain in any way. Nobody really gives a shit anymore it seems.
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It's that or you get something creepy like the Fast & Furious movies where they use CGI to add the dead actor's likeness over a body double. As an aside, I recommend watching the film The Congress [imdb.com] which explores such a concept.
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That movie depicts one of the possible futures of our planet. Space is vast and big. We know now that FTL travel is an impossible thing.
But why explore space if we can just put ourselves on drugs and live in a phantasy world?
Computer games are just the beginning. VR is the second step.
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That movie depicts one of the possible futures of our planet. Space is vast and big. We know now that FTL travel is an impossible thing.
One guy writes a paper saying the impossible is truly impossible, and you believe him?
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They *may* have suitable footage in the most recent film to include Chekov's death in the film. If so, some script changes, and minor reshooting later...
Re:A tragedy (Score:5, Funny)
Can't they just explain at the beginning of the next movie that he was on an away team wearing a red shirt?
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Why does it have to be the same few characters on the same ship? TNG was pretty successful having an entirely new cast, playing (mostly) entirely new characters in an entirely new era. And it was brilliant.
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There is a saying... Life must go on. Sadly people die, however the rest of us who is alive should continue. Now his death is a great loss as he probably didn't peak his acting career and his friends and family will miss him.
Now if you don't like the Star Trek movies... Don't watch them. Enough Lower sales will either kill the series or cause a rework.
You didn't like it. Then stop eating it and classify it as bad fan fiction done on a huge budget.
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They can kill him off in the next one, in a "transporter accident", yeah, that's the ticket.
Sir, Chekov's dead. He was shouting something about nuclear wessels.
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Nah, I can appreciate parodies -- Galaxy Quest was awesome!
NuTrek, however, is a goddamn travesty of plot holes that wreck the entire concept. (Why fly starships when we can just fucking beam to Qo'nos now?! Why give a shit about anything when we can cure death with magic Khan blood? Fuck you, Abrams!)
Neutral (Score:5, Insightful)
He exited his car while it was in neutral on his steep driveway, and he got pinned between his car and the brick mailbox. This goes to show how incredibly easy it is to make one tiny mistake and pay for it with your life. If I had to guess, I would say he was trying to hop back into the car to stop it. It could have happened to any of us - in one instant, before you realize, it's too late. RIP and if anything can come of this, hopefully the rest of us can learn to take one extra moment to make sure that what we think of as a mundane, simple thing is not overlooked.
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Steep driveway, a Manual transmission and not applying the parking fully or at all. He may have walked a long way before the car picked up momentum?
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You would think. Back to the car with the engine running. Ear buds in maybe?
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He might have foolishly tried to slow or stop the car, or maybe he was walking to the mailbox to get mail after exiting the car, its possible it did not start rolling immediately and picked up speed before he heard it coming.
So here is your PSA. When parking a car with a manual transmission always set the parking break AND leave the vehicle in first gear or reverse. This protects you in case the parking break should fail and if you make it habit to do both its very like you will always remember to do at l
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Unfortunately this type of accident isn't uncommon - it happened locally recently. In that case the car door was open and pushed them back - they caught a leg under the car when falling down and then the door continued to drag them down the driveway into some large immovable object (I think it was another car - can't remember the details). They couldn't get out of the way of the door and moving sideways wasn't an option because of a fence.
As the thread person points out. In the blink of an eye something
Re:Neutral (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing this is the place:
https://www.google.com/maps/pl... [google.com]
Security fence and what not as mentioned some articles. Looks like the drive sloped down away from the mailbox when rotating around using google earth 3D.
The article is slightly wrong and the brick pillar is the one on the other side, without the mailbox. If you look at it from this angle:
https://www.google.com/maps/@3... [google.com]
There's a different story here [latimes.com] where you can tell it's the corner towards the house. It slopes down in both directions, fence on two sides, brick pillar in the corner, car comes rolling down the driveway, seems like a tough spot to get out of because you got nowhere to go.
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That makes sense now -- the driveway slopes away from the road. He may have stopped at the top, then got out to grab the mail or close the gate, or whatever. Whether he was caught off guard or deliberately tried to stop the car doesn't really matter -- he was screwed either way. If he had been aware AND tried to get out of the way, then he might have been okay, but it's understandable to have a knee-jerk reaction to try to protect your vehicle and/or property. Definitely not worth trying, though.
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But I can easily see h
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That's not likely what happened. He could have put the car into neutral instead of park... or he could have put it into park w/ out a parking brake on. On an incline, the transmission is all that prevents a "parked" car from rolling if there's no parking brake on. Transmissions can break under the strain and release the car from "park." Either way, the car was not likely moving when he exited the vehicle.
If it was in neutral, when and whether or not the car would start rolling would depend on the level
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I'm curious to know if he had one of those new Dodge cars. There was an article (maybe even here?) saying the shift lever didn't operate like a standard automatic shifter and many people were shifting into neutral when they thought they were putting it in Park.
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Yes, from reports and pictures it looks like he was driving a newer Jeep with that awful electronic shifter.
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Learn from It... (Score:2)
We should celebrate his life and work, and take the most important reminders we can from his unnecessary death at only 27 years old. It is fitting, and not only because learning and growing and facing the evils of life with hope were always at the core of Star Trek.
There are three I see: (1) life is short and can be over at any time, (2) we should build every day on the work we leave behind, because see #1, and (3) use your parking break and never get out of your car without verifying that it is holding it
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Welcome to the 27 club. It's a curse that claims mainly musicians - Amy Winehouse, Brain Jones, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Robert Johnson,
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The 27 club is only for those that intentionally terminated themselves.
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RIP and if anything can come of this, hopefully the rest of us can learn to take one extra moment to make sure that what we think of as a mundane, simple thing is not overlooked.
Thanks, but no thanks. That I might get a costly dent and paint job is plenty to make me remember the parking brake, if you genuinely worry it might kill you then you'll end up a basket case. Freak accidents happen but if I was worried that every car might be a drunk driver that'll ram me or that every person I pass by might be a recently released mental patient off their medication I'd be a nervous wreck before I got to work.
At some point you have to realize that living to see tomorrow is not 100% certain
Re:Neutral (Score:5, Interesting)
For what it's worth, the reports say that the car was a recent model Jeep Cherokee. Recent Chryslers vehicles have an incredibly stupid automatic shifter.
http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a28121/nhtsa-investigates-jeep-dodge-chrysler-shifters/ [roadandtrack.com]
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/02/09/2033249/jeepchryslers-new-gearshift-appears-to-be-causing-accidents [slashdot.org]
It's entirely a drive-by-wire shifter that acts more like a joystick, and what you do is that you essentially dial in the gear you want, at which point it always goes back to its default position. So people are having a heck of a time telling when it's in Park, because if they didn't dial it correctly, they'll get Neural instead.
Mr. Yelchin may very well have been the latest person to discover this the unfortunate way; there were already 30 injury reports back in February.
Re:Neutral (Score:4, Insightful)
For what it's worth, the reports say that the car was a recent model Jeep Cherokee. Recent Chryslers vehicles have an incredibly stupid automatic shifter.
What's astoundingly pathetic is that they had push button automatics which left absolutely no doubt about which gear you'd selected in the 1960s, my first car was a 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix (2dr) which had this feature. So there is actually a superior interface which Chrysler has used in the past which they could have used here. It would have been both retro, and superior to the garbage they finally did implement which has been injuring and perhaps even killing people.
Marchionne will be remembered as an incompetent douchebag who killed both Fiat and Chrysler.
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For what it's worth, the reports say that the car was a recent model Jeep Cherokee. Recent Chryslers vehicles have an incredibly stupid automatic shifter.
What's astoundingly pathetic is that they had push button automatics which left absolutely no doubt about which gear you'd selected in the 1960s, my first car was a 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix (2dr) which had this feature. So there is actually a superior interface which Chrysler has used in the past which they could have used here. It would have been both retro, and superior to the garbage they finally did implement which has been injuring and perhaps even killing people.
Marchionne will be remembered as an incompetent douchebag who killed both Fiat and Chrysler.
You might want to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] on that topic.
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You might want to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]... on that topic.
OK, I did. The word "button" appears once in the article, under the section on "mechanical causes". To wit:
Perhaps you could explain why you found that relevant?
The vintage Chrysler push-button automatics didn't even have a "park" setting, so they left absolutely no doubt as to whether the vehicle was in park or not: it wasn't. My 1960 Dart had a driveshaft-mounted parking brake.
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Some consumers worship change believing that every change is an "innovation."
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Marchionne will be remembered as an incompetent douchebag who killed both Fiat and Chrysler.
and Chekov :P
The Chrysler 200 had a differently weird shifter (Score:2)
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It's the Windows 8 start menu of gear shifters.
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I rented the same thing. It freaked me out.
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Yeah, I ran into this in a recent Chrysler 200 rental as well. And to make matters worse, they mount it up on the dash, just below the similarly-sized rotary volume control for the stereo. Utterly moronic.
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"Park" is not a parking brake.
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And there was a voluntary recall, and his Jeep was one of the ones affected [gizmodo.com].
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Actually, it's much much much more likely to happen in an automatic. Most automatics will stop themselves when placed in park, unless placed on a steep enough slope. That makes it far more likely that you'll forget, and fuck up in an automatic.
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Looks like he was driving a newer Jeep with the terribly designed electronic shifter which were effectively recalled because of so many reports of people thinking they put their cars into park actually put them in neutral instead.
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Which you never is able to use if the engine is left running when you leave the car shortly to do some minor thing like checking the mailbox at home.
It's also important to ALWAYS use the parking brake since if it's left unused it can get stuck and be useless when needed.
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It's only the last decade or so that automatic gearboxes have come to a real world efficiency that MATCHES manual gearboxes, but they aren't by any means much better than manual gearboxes. The manufacturer figures presented are for most of us unobtainable.
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The dual-clutch gearboxes on 100k+ sports cars like the Nissan GTR or Porsche 911, and especially race cars like F1, do easily match and exceed the capabilities of even the most capable professional drivers.
The automatics on cars that mere mortals like myself drive? Not so much. A skilled driver in a manual Civic, a Mazda 3, or even an MX-5 will outperform the auto every time. And before anyone jumps down my throat about the EPA numbers for autos exceeding the manual in some cases these days; note that
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Two transmissions are faster than one. Shock!
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You work under the assumption that the car had a park position on the gear lever. Manual gearboxes don't.
And there have been reports of electronic parking brakes releasing themselves without user interaction.
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Automatics don't have an easily-available "park" position either, if they're Jeeps. On those stupid things, you have to push the shift lever upwards three separate times to shift into P: once to go to neutral, once to go to R, and once to go into P. They don't have a tradition multi-position lever like any decent car, because it's cheaper to make a crappy lever with two microswitches.
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Shit happens, especially if you're in a hurry and not paying full attention. And depending on the car, "Park" might not be an option. I've also seen the parking paw break before, or even on an automatic have the car left in neutral and tried to stop it by pushing back on it (thankfully my father was able to get in to hit the brake before it got ugly on that one - I was between my 88 Mustang and my cousin's 86 Chevy C/K truck with no space to run
Re: Dogs and Kids (Score:2)
How many kids die every year when someone leaves them in a hot car to gamble at a casino or run into Walmart? How many dogs have died the same way?
These deaths are almost all preventable by vehicle design. It might take a few hours of coding effort at most. Modern cars all have built-in microphones for handsfree. They could be used to detect an occupant in a parked vehicle and enforce safe limits to temperature, or sound an alarm. Of course, human nature being what it is, the clown-drivers would just use this as an excuse to stay longer in the casino and forget the car is running out of fuel.
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Fuel shouldn't be a problem: the car should detect the temperature's too high and the occupants are in danger, and automatically open all the windows. As long as the battery is barely working, this will work.
Blame it on ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blame it on ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too soon.
Darwin Award (Score:2, Interesting)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is he dead and all of the Kardashians still alive?
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As my king ant said, how are all these bad people still alive and not the good people? :(
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Just-world fallacy (Score:2)
Because of the "Just-world Fallacy" [wikipedia.org].
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As Marcus commented in Babylon 5
"I have come to rejoice at the unfairness of the Universe. Because if it was truly fair it would mean that all bad stuff that happens to us would be because we actually deserved it."
This is indeed one of those times when the fact that life is never fair gets driven home hard.
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Checkov was always terrible at the helm,...... (Score:2)
Something something, nuclear wessles.
Things happen to people with Russian background (Score:2)
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Try a lobotomy, then reconnect your parser with a MOSFET to regulate the gain.
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Anyone that knows what car model it was and if it has an electronic parking brake?
There have been reports of cases where the electronic parking brake has released itself due to a software bug on some brands. And all it takes is a glitch in the software.
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I believe it was a Jeep, and it was most probably one of those stupid Jeeps that had a shitty shifter design that's just basically a 3-position forward/back lever, where you have to look at a tiny indicator on the dashboard to see which position (P, R, N, D) is selected, rather than looking at the actual shifter position as you do in almost every other automatic-transmission car ever made. There've been a LOT of problems with people accidentally leaving this in the wrong position (like neutral) and having
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He is dead, that is the only fact that cannot be manipulated.
"He's Fred, Jim."
"I'm a doctor, not an escalator!"
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They have medications for your condition.
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And even if you don't want to carry more passengers, there are still better choices (Miata)!
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without sacrificing the ability to carry passengers
Passenger.
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Presidents can't bring back Jobs. You can't force companies to come back or stay. You can entice them to come back, but it's ultimately their choice. Walls? That's why Ladders and Shovels were made.
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I know necromancy, I have the best spells. I have the best, but there is no better spell than ph'nglui mglw'nafh trump r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
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Well, he'll bring back jobs for illegal immigrants which is all he hires anyway.
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As another poster mentioned [slashdot.org] -- and which seems like a compelling theory -- it could well be that the real cause of the accident was a very poorly designed shifter.
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I'm sure he didn't think it was in neutral, he thought it was in park. Automatic drivers have, for decades now, been taught that there is no "parking brake", only an "emergency brake", and that to park the vehicle, all you have to do is shift the transmission into "park". This has been done by society at large, and by the automakers themselves by making these brakes obscure in many automatic models. Very, very few people actually set their parking brakes in an automatic. I do, but that's because I drove
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"Excuse me, sir! Can you direct us to the naval base in Alameda? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels."
I know it was the wrong Chekov, but it was absolutely hilarious!!!
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