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Rambly thoughts about ST castings brought over from Tumblr
i am having feelings on these star trek reboot castings. these are all my own feelings and based entirely on vibes.
+ kirk: far be it from me to compliment shatner, but paul wesley doesn’t have the easy, warm charm that shatner brought to kirk and that chris pine had a great variation on. while i like most of the aos!st cast, pine was the only one who had me fully on board with him as a variation on the characters from the original show. i truly love pine’s kirk, even if shatner IS kirk. as for wesley, he’s nothing like kirk at all and i think he was miscast.
+ spock: okay, i’m the world’s biggest fan of mr. leonard nimoy z”l, so it’s no surprise that i wasn’t super crazy about zachary qinto’s version of spock. he was missing that undercurrent of warmth and steadiness that was so essential to the original character. ethan peck is further proof that literally no one is going to be an acceptable substitute for mr. leonard nimoy z”l and my final feelings on the matter are: i like whatever character ethan peck is playing, but he’s not spock. (this goes for most of the aos cast: i adore anton yelchin’s little baby angel ensign, but he wasn’t my garbage son. john cho can do no wrong, but i didn’t feel like he had really anything to do with the character george takei created. simon pegg is a fun presence onscreen but that’s not scotty, etc.)
+ chapel: i still don’t know what’s going on here. the character in snw bears ZERO resemblence to the one from tos. less than zero. they are actively opposite. unless the writers are going to, like, have her undergo a brain transplant that explains her personality change, it’s inexplicable that they made this decision. that said: i like jess bush’s chapel SO much. i just wish they’d given her another name.
+ uhura: celia rose gooding is the only one of the snw cast that i can convince myself could conceivably grow into the character we know on tos. she doesn’t have nichelle nichols’s confidence, but then she isn’t supposed to. she’s so young that i can believe she’d change that much. it’s the opposite with aos: i like the character zoe saladaña was playing but she didn’t seem like uhura to me.
+ m’benga: we didn’t see much of tos’s m’benga, so i think the casting could have gone in a lot of different directions. i’m glad it landed on babs olusanmokun–i like his performance a lot and i’m so glad he’s part of the show.
+ janice rand: i know she hasn’t appeared on snw but she SHOULD. of all the characters who deserved to be explored!!! where is my yeoman rand??? she better show up in season 3!!!!
i need to ponder why this kind of casting bothers me so much when it comes to star trek but i’m fine with three thousand different people playing elizabeth bennet or sherlock holmes. otoh, i will never accept a hercule poirot who’s not sir david suchet. so is it a matter of “the first version of experienced of this particular character was so formative to me that i can accept no other?” idk. all of it is subjective and NONE of it is logical.
+ kirk: far be it from me to compliment shatner, but paul wesley doesn’t have the easy, warm charm that shatner brought to kirk and that chris pine had a great variation on. while i like most of the aos!st cast, pine was the only one who had me fully on board with him as a variation on the characters from the original show. i truly love pine’s kirk, even if shatner IS kirk. as for wesley, he’s nothing like kirk at all and i think he was miscast.
+ spock: okay, i’m the world’s biggest fan of mr. leonard nimoy z”l, so it’s no surprise that i wasn’t super crazy about zachary qinto’s version of spock. he was missing that undercurrent of warmth and steadiness that was so essential to the original character. ethan peck is further proof that literally no one is going to be an acceptable substitute for mr. leonard nimoy z”l and my final feelings on the matter are: i like whatever character ethan peck is playing, but he’s not spock. (this goes for most of the aos cast: i adore anton yelchin’s little baby angel ensign, but he wasn’t my garbage son. john cho can do no wrong, but i didn’t feel like he had really anything to do with the character george takei created. simon pegg is a fun presence onscreen but that’s not scotty, etc.)
+ chapel: i still don’t know what’s going on here. the character in snw bears ZERO resemblence to the one from tos. less than zero. they are actively opposite. unless the writers are going to, like, have her undergo a brain transplant that explains her personality change, it’s inexplicable that they made this decision. that said: i like jess bush’s chapel SO much. i just wish they’d given her another name.
+ uhura: celia rose gooding is the only one of the snw cast that i can convince myself could conceivably grow into the character we know on tos. she doesn’t have nichelle nichols’s confidence, but then she isn’t supposed to. she’s so young that i can believe she’d change that much. it’s the opposite with aos: i like the character zoe saladaña was playing but she didn’t seem like uhura to me.
+ m’benga: we didn’t see much of tos’s m’benga, so i think the casting could have gone in a lot of different directions. i’m glad it landed on babs olusanmokun–i like his performance a lot and i’m so glad he’s part of the show.
+ janice rand: i know she hasn’t appeared on snw but she SHOULD. of all the characters who deserved to be explored!!! where is my yeoman rand??? she better show up in season 3!!!!
i need to ponder why this kind of casting bothers me so much when it comes to star trek but i’m fine with three thousand different people playing elizabeth bennet or sherlock holmes. otoh, i will never accept a hercule poirot who’s not sir david suchet. so is it a matter of “the first version of experienced of this particular character was so formative to me that i can accept no other?” idk. all of it is subjective and NONE of it is logical.
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I’m kind of the opposite, I like SNW!Spock. His voice is soothing to me lol.
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Understandable! Those are the best formative characters to have!
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I think there's a strong difference between actors picking up a literary character - everyone is a spinoff of a non-visual character - and actors picking up a previous actor's role. It's like, I could never imagine accepting anyone other than Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor as Xena and Gabrielle, no matter how "good" the casting. Lucy is Xena, Xena is Lucy, and so forth. I don't feel that strongly about all adaptations and reboots, but I also think this is a challenge for reboots, because instead of everyone having a book character we all reference internally, we're referencing Nimoy or Shatner's performance *specifically*. Mea culpa, I think this is why the Shadow and Bone SOC cast doesn't work as well for me - because I experienced the audiobook version of the characters first and their delivery was the mold.
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The complaints about Chapel have been puzzling to me because I like TOS Chapel fine but she's a very 1960s character? From a Doylist perspective, I just don't see how you put a meek lady nurse into a 21st century show without making any changes whatsoever. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to watch that. Similarly if Janice Rand shows up, they might update her from hot secretary a bit and I'd be pretty fine with that.
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I feel bad for him, because I don't think he's a bad actor, but he hasn't found his role yet, imo.
My complaint isn't that I want a Chapel who acts like the original. My complaint is that (unlike the AOS movie series), this show is supposed to fit into the same canon as the other shows, and there is ZERO continuity between the two characters. There just...shouldn't be a Chapel character at all! They should have just invented a completely new character!
Similarly if Janice Rand shows up, they might update her from hot secretary a bit and I'd be pretty fine with that.
I think they can maintain her personality while changing the context around her, which was always the problem with TOS. It was never a problem with her character, it was always a problem with how her character was treated. That is what I want to change if they bring her on SNW.