Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 3 Viewing (Spoilers)

[Maxperson]

It's very much not "like" that lol.

Scotty was not ever a real person. That's genuinely important to remember because clearly there's seemingly some confusion here, given your insistence he is the same as a real person.

He was a character on a TV show

That's different from being a real person.

If I'm not real to you, just another fictional character because I'm a poster on the internet, well, I can't help you there!

But having an actual Scottish accent, rather than... whatever Doohan was doing... plus being a more capable actor (which, sorry, he clearly is imho), and just being more convincing as a "highly inventive, paradigm-shifting engineer" adds up. The first person to play a role is not always the best! (Even ignoring examples with pre-existing characters, i.e. all the Marvel, GoT, etc. examples, c.f. Becky from Roseanne, Ann from Arrested Development, Reggie from Riverdale, Carol (Ross' ex-wife) from friends, and so on.)

It's fine to prefer Doohan, I mean, some people prefer Aunt Viv 1.0 in The Fresh Prince (I am one of them), but you actually can say a new actor in the role is better at it than the originator, because the role is a role not a person. Hell with Shakespeare I am very confident there are even parts written for specific actors at the time that have been played by other actors "better" truly countless times since.

James Doohan made Scotty. He WAS Scotty. The only way to be more Scotty than Doohan is to be a better Doohan doing Scotty than Doohan was.

Other actors can do Scotty differently, and very well, but they can't be a better Scotty than Doohan. At best you can like the differences in the new Scotty better than the original, but that doesn't make him better at being the original than the original.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

James Doohan made Scotty. He WAS Scotty. The only way to be more Scotty than Doohan is to be a better Doohan doing Scotty than Doohan was.

Other actors can do Scotty differently, and very well, but they can't be a better Scotty than Doohan. At best you can like the differences in the new Scotty better than the original, but that doesn't make him better at being the original than the original.

Nah, I've explained my position and none of that actually is against it, logic-wise, it just appears to express the (demonstrably wrong, I would suggest) position that the first person in a role is always the best person in the role.

Doohan made "a" Scotty, but as Quinn shows, you don't have to do an imitation of him. In fact most of the best recasts aren't imitations, with a few exceptions (Urban basically does a loose-but-effective imitation of DeForest Kelly's Bones, but Pine and Wesley aren't imitating Shatner, well, I mean, Wesley was recently but that was pretty meta ("I am know for my... diction")). Of course the worst are where they don't even try and ALSO do something that's boring/annoying, eh, Simon Pegg?

 

[Maxperson]

Nah, I've explained my position of that actually against it, it just expresses the (clearly wrong, I would suggest) position that the first person in a role is always the best person in the role.

It depends on the role. If it's Superman, or Glinda, or another character pre-established before it makes the big screen or TV, then the first person didn't define the role.

If the role has never been done before, the first person defines what the role is. Everyone after that person cannot define the role. They can re-imagine it, but that doesn't make them better than the original who defined it to begin with. It also doesn't mean we can't like the re-imagined version better. Liking the new version better doesn't make it better at being the original, defined version.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It depends on the role. If it's Superman, or Glinda, or another character pre-established before it makes the big screen or TV, then the first person didn't define the role.

If the role has never been done before, the first person defines what the role is. Everyone after that person cannot define the role. They can re-imagine it, but that doesn't make them better than the original who defined it to begin with. It also doesn't mean we can't like the re-imagined version better. Liking the new version better doesn't make it better at being the original, defined version.

I do understand what you're saying, I literally explained the exact thing you're saying in the post you responded to, but I guess not clearly enough? I just disagree very strongly. People after that can play a better, more believable, more compelling version of the character or even define the role. C.f. Rebecca Romjin as Number One for example.

It's just nostalgia to think the original always defines a role forever imo. As I said in the previous post, I'm sure some dude in the 1600s was like "Jesus this Hamlet is trash compared to Richard Burbage! Burbage will always define Hamlet!", but...

 

[Morrus]

James Doohan made Scotty. He WAS Scotty. The only way to be more Scotty than Doohan is to be a better Doohan doing Scotty than Doohan was.

Other actors can do Scotty differently, and very well, but they can't be a better Scotty than Doohan. At best you can like the differences in the new Scotty better than the original, but that doesn't make him better at being the original than the original.

Nah. Lots of characters have been played by multiple people. While I agree that Doohan is the best Scotty, it’s not just because he was the first any more than Lewis Wilson is the best Batman because he was the first. Same for Sean Connery and a hundred others. Such as Pike—the best version of him is Anson Mount, no question. And he’s the third (at least) person to play the character.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Such as Pike—the best version of him is Anson Mount, no question. And he’s the third (at least) person to play the character.

I probably should have lead with that example. < slaps forehead >

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A drain that large would have been noted by other stations and he would have been found out long before he was.

I was assuming it was masked as part of medbay's general CPU draw (which we know is significant, actually SNW has noted this a couple of times) but yeah that's a good point - it can't have been like double-digit or something (I assumed the power rather than CPU draw was closer to negligible, hence 0.15% or w/e).