Quote from: GinaDouglas on May 09, 2009, 12:14:44 AM
I saw it tonight and it was on par with Wrath of Khan. It was a good story, even a key scene in a turbolift.
I guess my biggest beef is that Scotty and McCoy were way too young and Sulu a little too old. Scotty and McCoy were a generation older than the bridge crew, and Sulu was significantly younger than Kirk.
Actually, except for Sulu, the age relationship of the main characters were all within reason to the characters in TOS in 1966.
The age relationships are not as "off" nearly as dramatically as you might think.
(I worked it out in a direct comparison for another board some months ago)
the first season was supposedly 2266, but it was also supposed to have been a couple of years into the five year mission (except the one with Gary Mitchell in it)
So Kirk was, in the first season about 33 and had been in command since 31. Nimoy was the same age.
De Kelly was 46, and playing a character that - according to your (correct) source was supposed to be 39.
Jimmy Doohan was also 46 but that's pretty irrelevant to playing 44. Knock a couple of years off of each character for the "first mission" age.
Takei was 29 - whereas Cho is 37...He's an obvious outlier here. And Sulu, in TOS, was said to be 29
Memory Alpha doesn't have a specific date for Uhura, simply saying "in the 2230's" - Nichols was 33 when TOS premiered and so she was almost as old as Shatner and her character would have been of a similar age.
So if you consider 4 years apart to be "same generation" then Shat, Nimoy, Takei, and Nichols were all essentially the same age.
Keonig too, he was THIRTY in 1966 and thus 31 when he started playing the 22 year old Checkov in TOS.
So, to summarize so far, here are the ages of the characters as of the "first mission" which might parallel (somewhat) the time frame of the film (actors age adjusted down two years likewise):
Kirk - 31, Shatner 33
Spock - 32, Nimoy 33
McCoy - 37, Kelly 44
Scott - 42, Doohan 44
Sulu - 27, Takei 27
Uhura - 31 (?), Nichols 31
Chekov - 19, Keonig 28
(but by the TOS scenario, Checkov would still be in the academy for 2 or 3 more years at this point)
In the film...
Kirk - 25 (based on dialog in the film), Pine 28
Spock - unknown (32 by TOS timeline), Quinto 31
McCoy - unknown (37), Urban 36
Scott - (42), Pegg 39
Sulu - (27), Cho 37
Uhura - (33?), Saldana 30 < Uhura having the most indeterminate character age in TOS anyway
Chekov - (19), Yelchin 19 < albeit he shouldn't have been out of the academy yet
Soooo....
In TOS, McCoy is 6 years older than Kirk - in the movie Urban is 8 years older than Pine
In TOS, Scott is 11 years older than Kirk, in the movie Pegg is 11 years older than Pine
In TOS, Kirk, Uhura and Spock are of similar ages, ditto Quinto, Saldana and Pine
In TOS, Keonig played a character 9 years younger than himself - in the film, Cho plays a character 8 years younger than himself.
Now, there are other problems with this of course - since Kirk is getting the E 6 full years before he should (and the notion of a cadet being promoted directly to Captain is THE major plot hole in the film but, alas, there it is) SHOULD mean that all the other characters are 6 years younger as well, i.e.
Spock - 26
McCoy - 31
Scott - 36
Sulu - 23 (and you can't buy Cho as a 23 year old)
Uhura - 27ish
Chekov - 13! (was supposed to be 22 in 2267, if this is not 2264 as in TOS but 2258 then he'd be 13. On the other hand, he is the one character besides Kirk actually stated on film (17) and that puts him 8 years younger than Kirk whereas in TOS Chekov would have been 12 years younger)
So we have to simply not notice that (a) Checkov is at least 4 years too old (and the alternate timeline can't explain that) and Sulu is at least that much too old as well.
The rest are fine because it only makes sense if you are doing a series of films that you ask the main characters to "play young" in the first one to make up for real life aging between films.
Dang. What a geek-splosion...I don't know whether I should be ashamed of that lol.
