Pegg: Star Trek Irony-Free

According to past reports from those who worked with him, Simon Pegg will be providing much of the comic relief in the new Star Trek movie. But in a new interview, the new Scotty makes it clear that we shouldn’t expect ‘sly winks, spoofy nudges or exaggerated references’ to the be providing the laughs.

 

Humor without parody
The comic actor and writer may be bringing the funny in the new film, but the self-described geek wants it to be known that this Star Trek does not mock the past, telling Canada’s National Post the film is "an irony-free zone." The actor went on to say that the film would honor the ‘trek rules,’ noting:

We pay tribute to that world. It’s proper to the pantheon, but J. J. kept reminding us this is not a parody of any kind. We were all keen to avoid playing the actors from the old series, but instead play our characters as we saw fit.

Pegg can hear  you
In a recent interviews Simon Pegg has both corrected the record on if the film was a remake or not and also questioned the "consternation" of some fans. So it is pretty clear that he is keeping up with fan reactions to the film. But it appears he knows that it is hard enough to get Trek fans to agree water is wet and so there will always be some that can’t be pleased. From the article:

The cast feels “a responsibility and an anticipation” to what the reaction of the movie will be, Pegg admits. But he’s also resigned to the fact they won’t please everybody. Especially persnickety Star Trek fans who have quite a movie and TV universe to get finicky about.

More from Pegg on Trek at nationalpost.com.


Pegg’s Trek humor, not ironic
(National Post)

 

 

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I think he’ll be a great Scotty!

It’s going to be wonderful. Once I saw Scotty and the others in the colorized pictures I fell for it. They look great.

soooo… JJ’s Starry Trek is full o’ wrinkles?

Arrrrrr…

Id like to see a scene were he hits the warp reacter to get it to work with that cricket bat he used in Saun of the Dead. That would rule!!!!

4. Ta’ mate… It’s post like that that make me have hope fur mankind…

Take that! Here’s yer’ sticky wicket! Ka-boooooom

Arrrrrr…

Aint it Pegg News

This is precisely what I wanted to see. A bunch of in-jokes with red shirts getting killed in the first five minutes or space clouds or tribbles on a countertop or a long line of cameos by TOS actors playing their grandparents and so on is the last thing this film needs. Let’s keep it realistic, interesting, and a story all of its own. Pegg sounds spot on!

With all due respect to DarthDogg’s excellent suggestion shouldn’t Pegg/Scotty hit the warp reactor with something more Scottish like a caber.

sexy pose.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT THIS TREKKIE…

…I stopped being “persnickety” the year I bought both the STAR TREK “Nitpicker’s Guide” and “Chronology” books and realized that life is too short to get hung up on this type of OCD minutae.

Give me a great “TREK” film with solid writing, acting and directing. The end. I really don’t care HOW it fits into the “established” universe.

But can he change the laws of physics!

That last picture of Pegg is a little disturbing…

#10

Amen Brother! Amen!!

RE: 11. Energize
” But can he change the laws of physics!”

I’m sure that he “Canna change the laws of physics”…
I just hope he drinks some of that “Green”…
IMO Mr. Scott is the unsung hero of TOS and Mr. Pegg is the right guy to play the part.
How much longer?
250 days or so?
I bet that is at least another 500 visits to this site…

On the other hand:

“There’s a lot of little ironies in there that you’ll pick up on if you know the series, and you know the mythology. It’s going to be crackin’!”

– Simon Pegg

Those aren’t Dilithium Crystals, they’re FOLGERS Crystals!!

They should let us know how he loses his finger. Kinda like how we gotta see Indiana Jones get the scar on his lip.

Maybe a targ bites it off?

Blast back to the 1970s:

We’ve replaced Enterprise’s dilithium crystals with Folgers crystals. Let’s see what happens!

Discuss.

Peace. Live long and prosper.
The Vulcanista }:-|

“it is hard enough to get Trek fans to agree water is wet”

Now that’s funny!

“it is hard enough to get Trek fans to agree water is wet”

It’s funny ’cause it’s true, haha!! :-)

#8 – Surely a caber would require the help of some of his subordinates? A bit big for a cramped engine room. I recommend a shinty stick. About the same size as a (field) hockey stick.

#22. Kevin

You mean the water in that Half empty glass?

I had the pleasure of having a drink with Simon Pegg at a gig in London before they started work on trek. We talked about the film and show for hours. He is a REAL star trek fan..and probably visits this site a lot lol!

#17. I met James Doohan at a Star Trek convention in Brisbane, Australia, 1991 (I have a photo with him where I’m wearing a t-shirt with the branding “remote control” … I was so cool in those days lol). Anyhow, James (from the story he told us) lost the finger in the second world war and thus obviously never had the finger for the entirety of TOS and so forth. He therefore acted in a way where that hand was always hidden from full camera view. In retrospect, of course, this is what contributed to Scotty’s particular body language and quirks. I hope that answers, though I’m only relating a story that James Doohan told us all. Ahh, Star Trek conventions, those were great days: the first reveal of the STVI trailer, the costume parade, the surprise appearrance of a Doctor Who actor …

Looking foward to seeing the new Scotty, Sounds like this film is going to be fun…and maybe a new take or look to Trek.

#24. The Last Maquis

No, the water in that Half full glass. ;-)

In space water is not wet.

>;>}

Persnickety? Trekkies?? Heck no.

As long as JJ includes exploding consoles, plaster dust and I-beams falling from the ceiling, and nuclear powered starships with bursting steam pipes then I’m sure this will film be a crowd-pleaser.

I kidz because I love.

In spaced, no-one can hear you get wet.

Lets hope he does’nt play it as slapstick like when Scotty hit his head in Star Trek V.

Actually, Pegg is my greatest concern. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but he looks the least like the original character. At a minimum they should have dyed his hair. Even though Scotty looks like James Doohan the actor, that’s what Scotty looks like. They’ve seemingly gone to great pains to make the rest of the actors resemble their predecessors, why not Pegg? I could even handle the receding widows-peak as long as it was the right color (after-all Scotty’s hair was combed forward in TOS except for early 3 where it was swept back like Pegg’s – simply a different style).

As for his role, well Scotty was always the comic relief (lest we forget “I’s Green”). As long as they keep it appropriately in-touch with the writing for Scott in TOS (“Does it make a good mix with Scotch?”), all will be fine. I don’t think he’s telling us anything that shouldn’t be there … I hope.

Also, I think it’s appropriate that Pegg is the most outspoken. It is precisely the elements that surround Scotty that are going to be the most visibly apparent in the new movie. In particular, Main engineering has never been adequately established in TOS, except in what I would consider non-cannon technical manuals. I am looking forward the most to how Main Engineering is realized in the new film and hopefully how it ties into the set we’ve all come to know as Main Engineering. With so much better understanding of how the engines should work and be designed in subsequent movies and series, this set alone proves to equally as instrumental to the plot as in later years and will likely sport a redesign to reflect that. I fully expect to see major engineering areas that TOS did not have the budget to explore. For instance, will the set we know be considered a saucer section hub for impulse engineering and a much more impressive warp engineering facility will be located in the primary hull? Or will the traditional set be located in the secondary hull and simply be one third of a much larger complex? I can’t wait to see, for the ship’s technical vagaries will finally have a budget to make them official cannon!

I just hope Pegg will look the part for which I’m sure he will otherwise be fine.

#33 –

Haven’t there been photos floating around for months of Pegg with dyed-brown or -black hair? I highly doubt we’re getting a blonde Scotty, a la Daniel Craig’s Bond.

I’m just wondering if Pegg’s lurking about, just waiting for his moment to make his presence known.

Like some sort of geeky, ginger-haired Batman….

When I was a kid in the 70s, I liked “being” Scotty when “playing” Star Trek with my friends. That meant I’d get to be super serious and report on the most grave difficulties, but then also pull out some tools and start fixing it. For my friends and I, Scotty was at his best when the situation was most dire. “I’ve GOT to have thirty minutes!” “I can’t beam up a fly!” “Thirty seconds later, POOF! – Once it’s activated, there’s no stopping it.” “It’s the M5 unit, it’s deactivating systems all over the ship!!”

Love him so very much :)

#33. I still don’t understand the big deal over his hair color. Even if it hadn’t been dyed, even if he wasn’t wearing contacts — the posters show brown eyes and hair — the GIST of Scotty is there. He has the humanity, the humor, and the sense that he might go apoplectic at any moment.

Hair color? Seriously?

It’s.

A.

Movie!

The fact that Pegg is the ONLY actor in the teaser posters who hasn’t been painstakingly styled in some way to be at least *evocative* of the TOS cast strikes me as an odd choice, but it also could be an indicator that it was rushed through, and what we’re seeing isn’t his final look. Time will tell.

#39. Jon, you are probably posting on the wrong site.

That’s the whole point. It is a movie. If you were watching a scene and the actor suddenly went from wearing a red shirt to green with no explanation, you would notice. Sure it’s the same actor giving the same performance, why would you care?

And what if they put Batman in an orange suit instead of a black or gray one? What if they re-booted Superman into a green suit? Would you care? It’s the same thing.

#41
Superman’s suit is iconic.
Scotty’s hair is not.

RD, they did dye his hair. There have been pictures of it on here. His hair is also obviously darker in the new promotional posters. Where have you been?

nahQUN: Funny, but in all seriousness I think Scotty was supposed to have all his fingers. He had all of them in TAS. In Star Trek V, you see his missing finger for a split second when he opens the ration pack, but that’s pretty much filed under goofs.

#42- Exactly, Sarah.

And, no I’m not posting on the wrong site. I love the original Star Trek, but the show was not made great by hair color, funny accents, or even the specific look of Romulans or Klingons. No, the show was great because of it’s vibe, the feeling that it evoked, the story it created, the universe that it posited. If the movie sucks, it will be because JJ Abrams didn’t understand those things, not because he had a different vision for the exact tone of red for the shirts of engineering.

j