The USA TODAY has a new ‘cast preview’ for JJ Abrams’ Star Trek , with pictures and blurbs about each of the new crew. Much of it is old news but there are a couple of interesting tidbits. The first is on Chris Pine (Kirk) getting a hair style (and advice) from William Shatner. There is also news from Simon Pegg (Scotty) on what role Chris Doohan (son of James Doohan, the original Scotty) will be playing.
MINOR
SPOILERS
Pine gets new hair and Shatner advice
Here is the blurb on Chirs Pine about his hair and his correspondence with The Shat:
Pine, whose hair has been lightened to resemble Shatner’s 1966 ‘do, says he has not yet met Shatner, but wrote him a letter saying, “I’m not trying to copy what you did.” Shatner wrote back “a very kind letter wishing me good luck.” Shatner Jokes about their correspondence: “I told him to keep his letters to himself. Stop brown-nosing around here. Just act straightforward.
Pine January 2007 (L) and January 2008 (C), Shatner 1966 (R)
Beam me up Doohan
The blurb on the new Scotty (Simon Pegg) also had some news. He revealed that his Scottish accent is being helped by his real-life Scottish wife. But the more interesting bit was actually about Chris Doohan, son of James Doohan. From the Pegg blurb:
[Chris] contacted me shortly after I was cast. We’ve been e-mailing, and we’re hoping to get together and have a drink. I told him I would do everything I could to make my performance a complete tribute to his father. And I think he might be coming on (for an on-screen cameo) in the transporter room.
It is already known that Marlene Forte will be appearing as the Transporter Chief for Star Trek, but usually the transporter room was a two person job. It would appear that Doohan is giving Forte a hand.
“Star Trek” with a Doohan at the transporter console…again
The blubs from Quinto, Yelchin, Cho, Saldana and Urban had the usual (but nice to hear) stuff about meeting and/or respecting their predecessors and Trek’s past. Check out the rest of the USA TODAY “Star Trek” cast preview.
(Images: Wire Image and Paramount)
A Doohan at the transporter controls is only fitting.
this is what we ve bin waitin for
Pine got a tiny wee bit more like Kirk with the new hair. Why not just find an old Shat’s haipiece? ;)
(First? ;) )
not in this life :D
Love the new shot of Pine. Looking forward to his performance :)
DJ Lance says its time to remember what we did today. Are you ready? UhBreak It Down!!!
=h=
Pine got Shatner’s hair? So Bana isn’t the only one to get his head shaved!
; )
#3 That’s what I thought, I’m sure the Shat’s got his ’66 hair at home in a drawer somewhere! (I think it was Bob Justman’s book Inside Star Trek said that the hair pieces were $500 a time and used to dissappear suspiciously!)
It was two-man in Pike’s time. NOt usually in Kirk’s time.
Not gonna copy Shat!
The most Pine news we’ve yet had!
Actually I thought the ’60s Shat hairpieces were pretty d*** good rugs. Especially compared to what came after–those curly monstrosities from the Trek Movies of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. When I faced my own hair crisis I looked at those bad Kirk toupees and the calm acceptance of Picard. I took out the razor and now dutifully do so everyday. Patrick Stewart was right on that one.
That’s an awfully nasty scar on Pine’s left cheek. I wonder what happened. Reminds me of another Trek actor who escapes me right now.
Hey, actors and wigs are ol’ friends. hairpieces are as old as the theatre itself. And receeding hairline is something completely diffrent than being almost 100% bald, especially if you’re to play a womanizer ;) Picard – not much of a ladies man, although some like bald women (like Anij ;) )
^^ I think I remember now. Doesn’t George Takei have a similar scar in the same place?
*sorry, not “although some like bald women” but “some women like bald men”
LOL :D
I’m a little disappointed that Chris Pine will not implement a few subtle mannerisms of William Shatner. Brandon Routh did a few facial expressions of Christopher Reeve and Daniel Craig even took it further with his little Sean Connery impressions sprinkled in some parts of Casino Royale.
I wish we had an edit feature with these posts.
why does pine look compleatly different in the 2 pics?… its like 2 different people!
What’s that about The Shat’s Hair and hairpieces??!!!!
About time! a little more info on our Captain to be!!
Just wondering if Pine will wear contacts to change his eye color…
#3 – The hairpiece escaped The Shat it escaped in 1971 and is rumored to be now living in Argentina
Didn’t they use Shatner’s old hairpieces for the tribbles?
>;>}
About Chris Doohan: that would be cool if he was at the transporter controls and/or in Engineering. And, I was not exactly ecstatic about Simon Pegg as Scotty, but it sounds like he is going to give it his best, and that sounds very good to me.
Oh, no. Not the toupee conversation.
The hair is nice. Better still, this kid is a kick-!#@ actor.
Is there actually any proof that Shatner wore a hairpiece?
Hopefully Pine will at least have Shat’s posture: chest out, always standing straight up. It’s very distinctive in TOS, perhaps to project his alpha-male awesomeness to those nearby. Heh. Frakes tried it in TNG seasons 1-2, but sort of gave it up after they got the new, looser uniforms.
Pine contacting Shatner? A Doohan in the film? Even Crawley with a part and visitations from cast members?
It seems we get more and more reassurance that those who be involved in this here new film are making an effort to keep canon in their own way- and I mean canon on the more contextual matters in the familiarity of the original actors and characters.
Trek needed to boldly go forward. For the 90s shows, while bonny in many ways, gave us the same look over and over again. ENT may have flopped but I think it was a decent experiment to be different than prior Trek.
On the non-human side, I’ll hope that tech Trek in the film isn’t tha star, but I’ll also hope the tech is something we haven’t seen before which makes sense to have in another few centuries, something moreso than phasers and transporters (which never ever worked right anyway as part of a plot point- maybe that’ll be addressed with Doohan and a new transport chief to work the critter.) It’s academic to say, but science fiction is supposed to show us what we could have and do based on what we know now… and boy do we know more now.
I always wondered why, given our own diversity of governments and cultures, that the Trek cultures weren’t more subdivided like us- in appearance and in structure. At best we got, what, maybe two governements per planet?
Hey- hooked on phonics has paid off for me! Hadn’t even blabbed an “arrrr” yet.
‘Course tha whole film may just be a projection Riker plays in tha Holodeck in order ta muster up tha guts ta confess ta Picard that he’s the one who plugged up tha captain’s loo… learns tha lesson that Number One’s number two was less fretful than havin’ a Rommie time-gunnin’ for ya…
arrrr….
I’ma little worried, if Pine is not referencing Shatner’s performance as Kirk, yet he’s supposed to be a younger version of the same character.
I’m not saying he should go overboard, but his performance should at least evoke Kirk as we know him, and bringing in the Shatnerisms we know so well only makes sense. Even McGregor made sure we knew that he was supposed to be Obi-wan by emulating some elements of Sir Alec Guiness.
We should know Kirk by his stance, posture and attitude, and those come from Shatner.
IMO, Pine is the luckiest guy to be alive right now.
It would be awesome to play Kirk. I’m 32, too old to play the character, and I unfortunately have a thinning hair line. But with a rug, I look much younger. Fantasizing…
BTW, my wife thinks I’m sexy anyway. At least I got’s the musc-els.
^17 Sulu was better
I dunno, but it looks like Pine has added a few avoirdupois – no doubt to pay further tribute to The Shat
:-)
I’ll tell you up front, that if Chris Doohan is at the transporter console, I’m going to cry like a little girl. No, it’s not logical. I’m just warning ya now.
That January 2008 pic of Pine is really spooky. Will they Bryl-Cream his hair, like early Kirk, too?
Somebody get me a time machine. I want to be in line in May, 2009, and watching this film. NOW! :-)
McGregor did Guiness proud. He nailed the portrayal. That’s the paradigm example of how to do it right.
Pegg’s great but I really wonder why McGillion didn’t get the part?
Pine also needs an eyebrow job.
He also is in danger of being upstaged by many others in this great cast, therefore he had BETTER play it big- and Shatneresque.
#32 – Good point.
IT’S NOT A CANON HAIRCUT!!
OMG!!!! STOP THE FILMING NOW!!!
I still don’t think Pine looks like Kirk, and I have little confidence (so sue me) that he’ll convince me that he is Kirk. If he’s not Shatner/Kirk like in his approach, is he really Kirk? Then again, if he plays it broadly is it just a parody of Shatner/Kirk, something we’ve seen a thousand times from a thousand lame stand-up comedians?
Actually, I feel that way about the whole cast (except for maybe Quinto, who seems born to play Spock). Either it ends up being unrecognizable as the Trek I know, or it’ll be a parody of the originals. I’m sure this matters not to Abrams, as he’s looking for something to appeal to a mainstream, non-Trekker audience, but that’s my $.02.
I don’t want to dump on other people’s enthusiasm for this movie, but I’m going to need a lot of convincing, and good word of mouth, before I see this movie.
“It just wouldn’t be the Enterprise without a Doohan at the transporter controls.”
“I’m not trying to copy what you did.”
Wouldn’t be possible anyway.
Oh, and judging from your posts so far, the Shat’s hair (full or in pieces) still seems to be much more interesting than those Pine tidbits…;-) But to be fair, the information on Pine don’t actually qualify as “news”.
What!
You mean, those ’66 Bobby Darrin Hairstyles were freaking TOUPEES!!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
“You have raped my childhood!”
That would mean that Senator Vreenak was right about the Shat all along…
“It’s a Faaaake!!!!!!”
I’m glad to hear we won’t be getting a Shatner impression. That wouldn’t be legitimate art.
No surprise that we don’t get alot of news from Pine, as nearly everything of substance is a closely guarded secret. My guess is, as the movie premiere draws nearer and the real hype begins, “Captain Kirk” will be unleashed a bit.
Pine resembles Shatner’s Kirk close enough for me. I think he’s a whole lot cuter looking to than even Shatner was in his prime too. I’m really looking forward to seeing him play Kirk!
Even if it’s mainly repeated old news, nice to see Trek XI getting media coverage.
A Doohan at the transporter controls is just the way it should be. ^_^
#31 – Somebody get me a time machine. I want to be in 1966 when TV wasn’t about a commercial every 7 minutes and movies about greenscreen plus CGI and Star Trek was not just another rip-off of itself.
Pine looks a bit thinner (hairline receding) in the new pic versus the old pic. Don’t joke about the hairpieces unless he goes the way of plugs he may be wearing a Travolta (new term for hairpiece) sooner than later.
that scar on his cheek is NOT CANNON. Im going to consult with my experts aboard the U.S.S.HelloKitty to confere we may have to boycott this movie
It’s interesting seeing the slideshow.
It makes it easier for me to see the resemblance of the original to the new, and they are closer to how the cast originally looked than I thought.
RE: Kirk’s performance by Pine:
I suspect there may be one or two shatnerisms, but if he plays Kirk straight and believable, it would be far better than simply immitating Shatner.
I doubt he’s ignoring Shater’s Kirk, just playing him in his own way.
It’s the only way to avoid an unintended parody.
The few sketchy rumors we’ve heard so far is that the Uniforms are close to the Original Series, and the Bridge of the Enterprise apparently “feels” like the Bridge of the Enterprise.
I seem to remember someone saying something to the effect that we would be surprised at how faithful to the original series they were.
Things will be different, but I think we’ll get a good movie out of JJ.
I’m surprised people are favorably referencing Ewan McGreggor’s performance in the SW Prequels. I love McGreggor, but those weren’t exactly his finest hours. The ‘references’ to Guiness DID come across as parody (to me and most I know anyway) and it’s exactly the kind of thing I hope Pine is going to avoid.
Daniel Craig really made Bond his own throughout Royale, and I hope Pine can muster that kind of unique portrayal of Kirk – keep the broad strokes, but avoid the Shatner Stammer™.
Gotta do something about those blue eyes.
have you guys seen pine’s old interviews? His mannerisms reminds me of shatner….
And I want Shatnerisms they are Kirkisms. We have Pegg doing Doohan, Sylar doing Nimoy why not Pine doing Shatner (at least a little bit) it’s what makes the character dynamic and not just another bland Trek captain. He can certainly bring his take but even Craig was imbuing Connery Bond in his performance.
Boy the Next Genie fans really don’t like Shatner do they?? You guys get your film in 40 – 50 years or so, so chill
#16:
A little? Routh spent 90% of his screen time ignoring the rest of the scene to mug to the camera painfully begging us to acknowledge his similarities to Reeves. I expected him to actually break the scene and ask the audience “Isn’t it amazing how I can pretend to be him?”