STAR TREK by JJ Abrams - new photos

[Pbartender]

The cast does, overall, look too young.

Heh... That's mainly due to Hollywood's propensity to cast twenty-somethings as teenagers.

Note the actors' actual ages:

Chris Pine - 28
Zachary Quinto - 31
Karl Urban - 36
Simon Pegg - 38
John Cho - 36
Anton Yelchin - 19
Zoe Saldana - 30

Yelchin as Chekov is the notable exception, but seeing as Chekov was always the considered by far the youngest member of the original bridge crew, it's entirely credible that they cast someone who's at least ten years younger than the others.

 

[Pbartender]

I think Umbran's point was that Shakespeare's works were often based on existing stories. Shakespeare's Hamlet or Othello or Romeo & Juliet are, basically, remakes of the earlier stories, legends, and plays about the same characters and events; you object to different takes on the same material on principle, but what makes Shakespeare any different from J.J. Abrams in this case?

Or any different from Gene Roddenberry, for that matter... Gene's original pitch for the show referred to the ship's captain as a "space-age Captain Horatio Hornblower".

...Horation Hornblower, a literary character who was inspired by Admiral Nelson.

 

[Silver Moon]

I really like the casting for McCoy and Scotty.

Yep, not much choice there, I'm pretty sure that Deforest Kelley and Jimmy Doohan weren't available.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Not even Battlestar Galactica?

Especially not Galatica. They took a fun show I still enjoy watching episodes of and twisted it into something dark and ugly and I have zero desire to watch it.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Or any different from Gene Roddenberry, for that matter... Gene's original pitch for the show referred to the ship's captain as a "space-age Captain Horatio Hornblower".

...Horation Hornblower, a literary character who was inspired by Admiral Nelson.

As is common in pitching ideas they person pitching compares it to something people are familiar with. If the series had been called Horatio Hornblower it would have been wrong. I have no problem with recycled ideas as long as they they call it something else.

 

[horacethegrey]

Really cool photo of Quinto as Syl- er, Spock.

And a close up photo of John Cho as Sulu.

 

[DonTadow]

Especially not Galatica. They took a fun show I still enjoy watching episodes of and twisted it into something dark and ugly and I have zero desire to watch it.

I am glad I never got the chance to see the first galactica, because i too would probably feel like you. If you're going to make a completey different show, call it something different, don't pimp the franchise name for marketing.

It's easy for a comic book to wiipe out 5 to 10 years of history, but to wipe out 40 years and still have interesting stories to tell... that's going backwards. As a fan of star trek i'd love to see a good story about the dominion wars, the end of the borg, other characters in the current history. INstead it seems like a starsky and hutch retread. It can't possibly capture the 60s flavor that made the show, nor will it have an actor as charasmatic as william shatner at the helm. So what we get is a pretend version of the tos with a special effects budget.

 

[Mallus]

I am glad I never got the chance to see the first galactica, because i too would probably feel like you. If you're going to make a completey different show, call it something different, don't pimp the franchise name for marketing.

nBSG is actually a great example of what I was talking about. The original was a fine children's show, and I loved it when it first aired and I was ten. The new show takes the same (wonderful) concept and the same characters (well, at least in name) and makes them into one of the finest dramas in recent television history, entertainment suitable for that ten year old boy now grown into an almost forty year old man.

It would have been a shame if that concept had only been executed once, in all it's seventies disco scifi glory. Some things should be remade and reinterpreted.

 

[Ranger REG]

I fear it is impossible to keep the old bridge design. It just doesn't work anymore.

What do you mean? All they have to do is go down to Radio Shack and buy them switches, buttons, and mechanical knobs.

In a way, I agree with the other posters. It looks too iPod-y.

 

[Orius]

Agreed. Whats the premise that requires the characters to be so frickin' young?

They're supposed to be in their Academy years or something, IIRC.

I fear it is impossible to keep the old bridge design. It just doesn't work anymore.

But then, I am actually a fan of the idea of "reimagining" Star Trek - "fix" the storyline where it needs fixing (plot holes, inconsistencies, ambiguties). And possibly even change the story where it just sucks (several parts of Voyager, Enterprise or the movies )

I can't agree on the bridge design, cause it's a classic. But then, if we can just say the Enterprise was retrofitted before TOS, then that works. I swear they changed the bridge in every movie from TMP to VI anyway, so I guess that can be overlooked a little.

Toss out some of the crappy parts of Voyager? Yeah. Keep the Hirogen though, they weren't bad. Enterprise, check, dump the whole TCW. There were a few pieces of that that were ok, but not enough to mask the TCW for the continuity rape that it was. Really, much of Enterprise that wasn't TCW was pretty good, except for the inevitable filler episodes.

As for the complaints about the bridge, I can certainly understand them. But really, in this day and age of scifi, can we honestly take the Original Series cardboard sets and dated sound effects (which I love BTW) seriously at face value?

Except that bridge is kind of a sacred cow. And it's a bit jarring to go from very modern style effects to the Enterprise bridge of TOS and the movies.

Another hintie-poo for those who might still 'not get it':
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children = right way to do it
Final Fantasy: Spirits Within = wrong way to do it

I'd say they were both wrong. AC was nice eye candy, but really the plot was near-incomprehensible. Too much in the way of fast-paced action scenes that made little sense and voilated the laws of physics.

I suggest a fork if you want to discuss this further.

As a fan of star trek i'd love to see a good story about the dominion wars, the end of the borg, other characters in the current history. INstead it seems like a starsky and hutch retread. It can't possibly capture the 60s flavor that made the show, nor will it have an actor as charasmatic as william shatner at the helm. So what we get is a pretend version of the tos with a special effects budget.

No one...can play...Kirk like...Shatner did.

I'd like to see them do a return to the post-DS9 situation, but then they tried that a bit with Nemesis and look how well that turned out.