Today there are a couple new interviews from the stars of the new Star Trek movie who are probably the biggest fans of The Original Series, Karl Urban (McCoy) and Simon Pegg (Scotty). Urban talked to SFX Magazine about how now is the right time to bring Trek back, while self-described geek Simon Pegg seems to have Star Wars on the mind these days.
Urban: Ready for more Star Trek ‘in HD’
Excerpts from Urban interview in SFX Magazine (via TrekWeb)
SFX: It’s been 17 years since the original Enterprise warped off the big screen. Is the world ready for her return ?
Urban: It’s the perfect time to bring it back and show these characters in their early years and get a bit of a backstory
SFX: How well do you think this movie ties in with the Trek mythos ?
Urban: If you are watching the 60s TV series, it would be like you were listening to it on the radio before and now you are going to see it in high definition.
SFX: Any thoughts on playing McCoy in either movies or a spin-off TV series ?
Urban: I would clearly love to carry on with that cast. We had such a wonderful time shooting, we were constantly cracking up. But it’s too early to speculate. We really have everything going for us.
Full interview in the August issue of SFX Magazine, more excerpts, including what research Urban did for the role at TrekWeb
Pegg wants some of that Star Wars
Simon Pegg is definately a geek and a big fan of all things sci-fi, including Doctor Who (where he had a guest role), Star Trek (where he is now the new Scotty) and Star Wars (something he wants in on too). According to Contact Music, Pegg wants to write for the new Star Wars TV series, but he is concerned that George Lucas may not be forgiving about his past comments about The Phantom Menace. Pegg said:
I might try to wheedle my way back into the affections of Lucasfilm (Lucas’ production company) and write an episode of the new live action Star Wars TV series.
But can Lucas forget this episode of Spaced (written by Pegg)?
Get the Spaced DVD
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First!!
Now the circle is complete…
rd what I like to hear!!
Spaced… totally brilliant….USA dudes…watch it!
Pegg is great. He has a great sense of humor.
Pegg was right. The Phantom Menace was a disaster. My opinion is it has diminshed the reputation of George Lucas and the prequals in general have tarnished the franchise.
#5 Absolutely right. The superhuman Jedi stuff in eps. IV-VI felt real in a way, integral… but in eps. I-III it was only ridiculous, over the top. Then they mythbusted the Force in ep. 1 etc. Just two of many aspects that I hated. However, there were some good moments, and the second half or so of episode III was fantastic, epic… especially the ending… like Greek-tragedy-big-time-epic. But that couldn’t save what came before.
In my opinion the same applies for the new Indiana Jones film. Lucas trashed the Indy franchise with that film too. Pathetic excuse for a “movie”. His latest works seem so completely out of touch with everything, let alone their own history and predecessors.
I wonder if, deep down inside, Lucas knows how much his recent stuff has sucked.
Prequel hindsight alert!
-Lucas shouldve followed the way the originals were made and had diff directors for eps 2 and 3- e.g. Spielberg and someone else (Jackson, Cameron, Scott etc)
-less CGI/More physical FX and sets…
-no or very little Jar Jar in Ep I
-Anakin should have been way older in Ep I – about 20 years old…
or
-Episode II should have been Ep I (and just included a bit of Phantom Menace back story via expostition/flashbacks)..then Ep II = Clone Wars..
-Christian Bale should have been cast as Anakin…
that way Anakins fall wouldve been more powerful had it been the same actor through all the films (and a better actor portraying him)
p.s. Indy 4 was fine…loved the 50s era and the Sci Fi homages
Looks freakin’ hilarious! I must buy a set!
Acutually, it’s been 24 years since the ORIGINAL (production-wise) Enterprise (1701) warped, or rather, self-destructed and crashed into Genesis planet. 18 years since the second (1701-A) went to the second star to the right… and 3 years since the original (buiding order) enterprise impulsed off the air. Technically.
i didnt really like Phantom Menace, couldnt stand Episode II at all…..but i LOVED episode 3, i grew up with the original trilogy and the story of vader always intrigued me, i waited 10 years to see episode 3 (im only 17)
the story was good, the effects was good, even the acting was better than the first 2……i think the fact that it bridged the gap to A New Hope (thebest SW film IMO) is one of the things that made it so good.
For me, Episode I sucked for 5 reasons:
1. No “real people” with emotions
2. No central hero to identify with
3. Really odd convoluted plot, based on politics
4. No real villain or threat (other than setting up the sequels)
5. The wonder of the Jedi mythology was lost because it wasn’t re-discovered through the eyes of a newcomer (as with Episode IV). Fantasy will simply never amaze an audience if none of the characters are amazed.
I actually don’t think Jaar Jaar was all that bad. He only seems bad when you surround him with bland, emotionless characters. If you imagine him on the Millennium Falcon — with Leia caring for him and Han telling him to shut up — he becomes something more. Likewise, I believe that if you put C3P0 in Episode I, he would be just as irritating.
I totally agree, re: star wars. Have a look at confused matthew’s youtube reviews of episodes 1-3. He points out many of the problems I have with the first (in star wars chronology) trilogy.
P.S. I think that episodes 4 and 5 are great (though not as good as The Wrath of Khan, obviously).
I think Lucas comforts himself in his billions of dollars that the prequels made for him.
Perhaps it would be prudent of us Trek fans to reserve harsh judgment until we have all seen our prequel and how that works out.
But yeah Phantom Menace and the others sucked.
HAWK THE SLAYER RULES!!!!!!
‘Spaced’ is an awesome ode to all things geek, though you dont have to be one to enjoy it or scifi & fantasy, it does help though! ; )
W…W…Was that the F-Bomb, TWICE. Like I’m so shocked. This is a Disaster!
Eh, I’d rather watch the SW prequels than Insurrection, Nemesis, and Generations.
Also, the prequel trilogy used more model work than the OT. A lot of the so called “CG sets”, were actually real life actors inserted into models.
oops… meant to say 17 yrs for 1701-A…. so here we go, the last on-screen appearances of all previous enterprises:
NX-01 – 3 years
1701 – 24 years (unless you count DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations”, which makes that 12 years, 3 years if you count ENT’s “These Are The Voyages”)
1701-A – 17 years
1701-B – 14 years
1701-C – 18 years
1701-D – 14 years (3 years if you count ENT’s “These Are The Voyages”)
1701-E – 6 years
1701-J – 4 years
11 and 20
When SFX said the “original Enterprise,” they obviously meant the Kirk era 1701/1701A movie version. The original Enterprise (TOS) was never on the big screen.
Correcting myself. Actually, looking back on it, the original Enterprise WAS on the big screen. Last November they had that big screen version of The Menagerie.
It was also on screen much earlier than that when the teaser preview for Star Trek VI came out (the one with the Classic TV footage on the Enterprise and Plummer narrating)
18, Agreed.
20
It’s been 6 years already since I’ve seen my favorite Enterprise (Ent-E)! Ouch! Oh well, I’ve got the DVDs so I suppose I can see it anytime. It just doesn’t seem like it’s been six years already. How time flies.
18, I completely disagree! Generations was the weakest TNG movie but it wasn’t terrible. If you want to see a terrible unwatchable movie watch “The Phantom Menace!” Insurrection was a great film with a classic Trek story about the morality (the heart and soul of Trek) of moving a group of people “to satisfy the demands of a larger one.” -Picard (Insurrection)
Nemesis wasn’t great but it was good and the Ent-E finally got the all-around weapons coverage it should have had since First Contact. Further Nemesis was better than Generations. Star Wars (not a single film) can even compare to the worst of Trek (The Final Frontier). I’d rather see Trek any day than any of the Star Wars films, especially the first prequel film (The Phantom Menage).
Generations was passable, but for a TNG movie, you’d think they’d do something different with the characters. But, as the movie goes, it’s basically a really big season final episode. Data is really the only character that changes in the movie.
Phantom Menace is unfairly bashed. It has great action sequences. The settings are amazing, and Qui Gon is an excellent character. The last hour or so is more exciting than most movies that come out in a year.
The prequels aren’t as bad as so many people claim. I like them
Look, Phantom Menace was bashed because Lucas introduced Jar Jar and a ten year old kid who turned out to be able to fly an interplanetary fighter. It was completely unbelievable, like the dancing Ewoks and Manthong Shia swinging with the monkeys in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.
Lucas has a brainfart and throws in this cutesy kid stuff and it ruins what is otherwise good SF and science fantasy.
Keep Lucas as far away from Star Trek as humanly possible.
The prequels were a complete mess. You know what would have rocked? Since it was so politically inclined George should have let Tom Clancy rewrite it.
And Anakin was a joke in all of them. I’m not sure if it was writing, acting, or directing. I had no connection at all with Anakin. I didn’t care if he turned to the darkside. No emotional impact at all.
Ok. On a scale 1 to 5 with 1 being horrible and 5 being fantastic. the star wars films are rated as follows. Episode 1. (1) Episode 2 (2) episode 3 (4) episode 4 (5) Epsode 5(5) Episode 6 (5) The first was just plain stupid. 2 was barly watchable. # 3 was the best of the first 3. 4 5 and 6 were all fantastic. I hope The new star trek movie rates a 5 as veing fantastic as that would be so great. Heres to the new movie with high hopes.
27. Do you know what might be worse than being bad, though? They were, for the most part, boring. Especially Phantom Menace. I could probably edit together the good parts of the prequel trilogy (according to me) into a 15-minute movie.
Maybe its because I was pretty young when Ep1 and the prequels came out, but they aren’t all that bad. Episode one has some cool sequences (pod racce/darth mual duel) but the movie overall sort of sucks, I’ll admit that. It is a little better looking back on after the new trilogy has been completed, but it was not very good…a victim of too much hype. Ep2 isn’t great, parts are, parts aren’t. Sure the guy playing Anakin didn’t act so well but the dailogue given was just as bad. But some parts of 2 were pretty good. Episode 3 was awesome all around. Compared to the originals, they aren’t that much worse. Some of the dailogue and acting in those is just as bad as the prequels, but people grew up with them so they are the holy grail. It’s just the cool thing to do, hate on the prequels. The best SW movies are 3 and 5, imo.
21
Yeah, I know… just bored on a Sunday I guess.
Kids love Jar Jar. Back in the day critics complained about everything from Threepio to Chewbacca. The Ewoks get worse press than Jar Jar.
Also, compared to crap like X Files, and Hulk, the new Indy was excellent.
13. Jamie.
That’s pretty insigtful. I knew the prequals were bad but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Though I did pick up on the wooden acting.
One thing that noticed. There were parts, in the originals where action happened but there was no music, like when the X-wings were making a run down the Deathstar canyon. Then when the music kicked in, it had real impact. In the prequals, no scene filmed didn’t have music. All that music made it feel over-produced.
I would still rather watch ep.1 through 3 than 85% of the piles of crap coming out of hollywood these days….
Picture this cliche…. hero/badass who is so good looking, can get any chick, svelte and don’t forget fashionable knows 325 ways to break a femur, can shoot two pistols at two opposing targets with 100% accuracy at the same time steering a posh sports car traveling at 90mph with his knees, never breaking a sweat, always looking COOL no matter how dangerous the situation is.
Now picture this… regular guy, teacher/professor, finds himslef in a situation he didn’t look for, doesn’t know if he’s going to survive to 150 foot drop from the waterfall, reluctant about getting into fire fights and high speed chases, amazed at when something saves his hide.
Which scenario is more believable and more importantly…. more entertaining from a story point of view?
The first scenario is your average hollywood pile o crap of the month.
The second is Indiana Jones 4.
I’ll take Indy please.
OK, I don’t have the facts to back up this statement, but consider this (hypothetically):
Over half of the people on the planet Earth were not born when we last saw the characters of original series in a movie.
Far fetched? I think not. I’m guessing that at least 3 billion people have been born since 17 years ago.
Yeah, if you are like me, you might be feeling old right about now. I saw the other day that the median age in my town was 35 years old. I’m 40. Somewhere along the line, suddenly more people are younger than me than older.
Yeah, that stinks. But it beats the alternative, I guess.
I think the Ewoks are much worse than Jar Jar. At least Jar Jar isn’t a typical Gungan – he’s clumsy and childish but the rest are professional & kinda cool. The Ewoks are FRICKIN’ TEDDY BEARS, who were written in as a stupid replacement for Wookiees. That’s irredeemably bad. The only good thing about the Ewoks is that they gave Warwick Davis his first role in films.
What I like about the Indy and The Mummy films is that they’re fun, and have some nice characterization and stunts. Compared to other lame actioners like The Hulk, where you don’t care about anyone, and just wait for the story to be over.
“I think Lucas comforts himself in his billions of dollars that the prequels made for him.
Perhaps it would be prudent of us Trek fans to reserve harsh judgment until we have all seen our prequel and how that works out.
But yeah Phantom Menace and the others sucked.
”
Thank you 15 for being the only one to take the time to think that this movie could end up being just like phantom menace. Everyone was looking forward to that before it came out, I remember the hype. Since nobody outside of the cast or production crew has seen any of this that means all of the good stuff is comming from them, we’re being fed the whole “this movie’s gonna be awesome” thing from the people who made it. Im not saying it’s gonna suck for sure, but if it follows how most prequels go, it should be somewhere between Final Frontier and Generations in quality. I just hope this breaks that trend.
26 said in regards to Generations “But, as the movie goes, it’s basically a really big season final episode.”
You are absolutely right about that. It was more of a Series Finale than “All Good Things…” Don’t get me wrong “All Good Things…” was a great episode but it didn’t bring the series to a conclusion. The ship and crew were still together and they were flying off to another mission. In “Generations” the ship was destroyed and the crew had to move on and you didn’t know what the future would bring for the TNG crew, like a series finale.
I believe that “Insurrection” was the second best TNG film and a great addition to the Trek franchise. It was all about morality and it had a classic Trek story to tell.
“Nemesis” could have been much greater but ultimately turned out fairly weak. It was nice to see Romulus and the new (and better, IMO) CGI Romulan capital city (which the books have name Ki Baratan) and the Romulan Senate. I also liked how, for the first time, the Romulans wore different styles of clothing. The Romulan military had a distinctive uniform that differed from what civilian Romulans were wearing, and the Romulan Senators had distinctive robes that brought back memories of the Roman Senate (if any of you have seen any Roman documentaries you know what I’m taking about). This is entirely appropriate since the Romulans were concieved to be very Romanesque and to be basically Romans in space. The costumes for the Romulans were well conceived and added a sense of realism to the Romulan Star Empire that had been lacking before. (If you watch “Unification” or “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” and look at the Romulan costumes you will see that everyone dressed very similarly and only the pattern on the military’s uniforms allowed them to stand out.) Nemesis finally showed what the Romulan system looks like and a new Warbird was introduced. The concept of the Remans had great potential but was executed poorly and it was hard to care about Shinzon which reduced his effectiveness as a good villian. I do not blame Tom Hardy for this, he did an excellent job, I believe that the director and possibly the writers are responsible. The wedding scene in the beginning was great to see and it was about time that Riker and Troi finally got together. The movie showed great interaction between the crew and it was clear that they had been friends for quite some time. This is even more clear in the deleted scene where Picard and Data are talking about family in Picard’s quarters. This scene should never have been deleted and this scene alone could have made the movie a lot stronger. The movie still wouldn’t be as good as “First Contact” or “Insurrection” but it would have been a lot better.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to go on so long I just wanted to say what I liked about Nemesis and what I disliked.
One last (and short) thing: I liked how they continued the unique costume design for the Romulans in ENT but I wish they had designed a new uniform for ENT so that there would be a clear difference between the 22nd Century and the 24th century.
41, let’s hope not. We need this film to be a blockbuster and it can’t afford to flop. I hope that it’s a lot better than “The Phantom Menace,” which was one of the worst films I have ever seen.
It would be awesome if the main baddies in the ST XII would be Kirk-era Cardassians.
Were Lucas to have had the inspiration to re-record Jar Jar Binks’ voice and vocalization with say… a non-accented klutzy voice laid down by a great actor such as James Cromwell, or even Rick Moranis; then Jar Jar would have come off completely differently, and perhaps would have been acceptable.
At least that’s what mee-sa think-sa.
I must say though… I can REALLY see Pegg as Scott already. Something about his eyes is exactly right….
Jared, no: 15, said: ‘Perhaps it would be prudent of us Trek fans to reserve harsh judgment until we have all seen our prequel and how that works out’.
I think that bad and disappointing work, regardless of who made it, deserves criticism. And the Star Wars prequels clearly qualify as bad and disappointing work. The technology Lucas employed to make the prequels is not quite there yet. The special effects, backgrounds, etc would look much better if more physical sets had been built with less reliance on green screen (apparently, the J. J. Abrams approach). I’m particularly thinking of the scenes of the halls in the Jedi Temple and the opera house. Incidentally, as technology improves, Lucas can go back and correct this.
The love story in episode 2 is poorly written and unconvincing. What I cannot accept is that Anakin tells Padme that he has murdered men, women, and children; nevertheless, she marries him! Then, in episode 3, Anakin falls to the dark side by killing MORE children, which suddenly bothers Padme. I fail to see how Anakin was a genuinely good person to begin with, as we were told in the original trilogy. Consequently, I was neither surprised nor concerned with his fall to the dark side. I just couldn’t begin to care about the character. Besides, why is Anakin special? Granted, he is the ‘Chosen One’, and has by far the highest midichlorian count; however, this doesn’t seem to translate, in any perceptible way, in differentiating him from any of the other Jedi. We are told he is very young and a great pilot; but we don’t see him doing ANYTHING that no other Jedi can do. And, somehow, Obi-wan defeats him in a duel by taking the high-ground: yes, what looked like 10 feet was enough to thwart the chosen one!
Returning to Star Trek, as for ‘our prequel’, well, we’ve already had the prequel to Star Trek. It was Enterprise. And it was awful: mired by poor scripts, lack of imagination, tired repetition and bad acting. I will, of course, reserve judgment on J. J. Abrams’s ‘Star Trek’, to which I am very much looking forward.
Finally! Someone besides me who likes Insurrection. It is actually my fav of the next gen films. As Loyal said, it is a true morality tale, something I think TREK films, in general, shy away from for more action oriented films.
Wow, everyone’s been pretty judgemental about the last few Star Wars movies considering the quality of the last couple Star Trek movies…
Please don’t encourage Lucas to go back and tinker with his films… the tinkering with #4,5 and 6 was uncalled for.
Doug,
Only something that is perfect cannot be improved. I can very much understand people complaining about some of Lucas’s changes to episodes 4, 5, and 6 which alter the story; e.g., the Han-shot-first furore. However, I cannot understand people complaining about improving the special effects in general. Nostalgia seems a petty millstone on progress. If we can make something look better and more convincing, that should be a motivation to action. Hence, I support the TOS Remastering project, and will buy the DVDs if, and only if, they are released on blu-ray in widescreen.