Trek 90210

[Gangsta_Author]

I could see a plausible (animated) podcast or a graphic novel series aimed at 'Tweens, that blend into each other set in the early part of "Star Trek Online". You ~could~ set them up as stand-alone stories set in-between the major events set forth in canon. An animated or graphic novel approach would give the author far greater story-telling latitude in environments within every era of Trek that just wouldn't be budget-effective any other way.

 

[Wingsley]

Chris Pine - 29
Zachary Quinto - 32
Karl Urban - 37
Zoe Saldana - 31
Simon Pegg - 39
John Cho - 37
Anton Yelchin - 20
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/thread

I never scrutinized the "new" castmembers' ages like this.

Maybe the real take-home point about TOS, TNG and now NuTrek is that Hollywood never learns.

 

[Nevyn]

Star Trek could easily become Twilight, instead of Vampires & Werewolves...Vulcans & Klingons.

Good Lord, no!

 

[DevilEyes]

Everyone talks about 90210 on this forum like it was some kind of hip, sexy show, but as I recall it was actually pretty tame and full of heavy-handed moralising and "very special episodes" (come to think of it, maybe it was kind of like Trek after all...)

That's my memory of the one or two episodes I've ever seen of it, which put me off it for good... mostly for the heavy handed moralizing aspect (WORSE than Trek... maybe comparable to TNG at its worst). That, and the actors being incredibly annoying.

 

[sex_of_nine]

"Star Trek: The Continuing Mission"
"Second Star To The Right & Straight On Til Morning"

3 September 2374 to 3 September 2380

A mini-series depicting the complicated state of the U.F.P. Stories depicting the long term civilian and Starfleet sides of the fallout of Admiral Leyton's failed coup, The Dominion War, and general minutiae of day to day life, both on and off-campus.

Stories from the personal/professional life perspectives of embedded contributors to The Federation News Service & personal logs / intimate anecdotes of current/past Starfleet Academy cadets.

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Hmmm..."Star Trek" meets "Vampire Diaries"? Give it five seconds & an author at fanfiction.net will find a way to accomodate you.

The beauty of fan fiction, the bliss of Microsoft Works/Microsoft Word and the fun of just having fun with explicitly-detailed Slash/Het stories that Pocket Books would never allow Peter David or any other of their commissioned writers to submit.

 

[therealfoxbat]

Star Trek 90210...

It could work...

Justice League 90210 (AKA Smallville) is in its ninth season...

 

[TJinPgh]

Star Trek 90210...

It could work...

Justice League 90210 (AKA Smallville) is in its ninth season...

Star Trek (2009), 90210 and Smallville... proof that the youth of today will watch virtually anything if you put a girl in a bikini and a shirtless guy in boxers in it.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Chris Pine - 29
Zachary Quinto - 32
Karl Urban - 37
Zoe Saldana - 31
Simon Pegg - 39
John Cho - 37
Anton Yelchin - 20
-----------
/thread

I never scrutinized the "new" castmembers' ages like this.

Maybe the real take-home point about TOS, TNG and now NuTrek is that Hollywood never learns.

When Hollywood makes boatloads of money, it has no motive to learn anything but how to do the same and make more boatloads of money next time, too.

 

[Kegg]

I don't see the problem. The actors age skew a little younger than usual, but we're still talking late twenties/thirties for the whole cast, with the sole exception of Chekov, and one of Chekov's defining characteristics is he's the young, fresh-faced kid in the cast - it wouldn't make sense for him to be a lot older than he is.

John Cho is 37?!?!

And older than George Takei was when he was originally cast in the role.

 

[ngc7293]

Reading the OP and not the second post, I am taking this as Trek in general. If you haven't already, look at Stargate:Universe. That show's original intent was young actors in space (ie 90210)

Think about it. If it worked for BSG will it work for Trek? ............probably not. I figured it was worth saying.

 

[Kegg]

But it HAS worked for Trek. Trek has got young actors and put them in space. You know, comparatively. Being in his late twenties (and with his character as 25 in the movie) Chris Pine is the youngest actor to ever play the leading role in a Star Trek production.

What more do we need, Star Trek Babies?

 

[Tarek71]

They think they will make more money with a younger cast and a younger appeal. Thats it. Of course the characters are too young and too inexperienced to have some of these positions on a ship. That should go without saying.

I remember doing research for writing and I looked at the ages of naval captains and XO's to get an idea as to the general range for characters. If I recall, Cruiser captains ranged in age from 44-51 with an average of about 46.5 and the XOs were from 37-45 with an average around 40.9.

Most of the Trek shows were pretty close to that. At the time they were originally cast Avery Brooks, Patrick Stewart and Scott Bakula were especially close to the average for an officer at a rank of 0-6 and with this sort of command. Shatner was a tad underage and the Kirk character was even younger. Obviously they went even younger still to make not only a 25 yo Kirk a Captain but even have the other youngins in for important positions.

On the whole Trek has been good at not having people who are too obviously age inappropriate for most jobs, allthough there were exceptions. But this time they went younger for very obvious demographic reasons. It is what it is. I am not going to not watch it for that reason.

But lets hope that most of the captains, xo's, chief engineers and chief medical officers on the other ships that are encountered are more age appropriate and experienced. Experience counts for alot. But since box office and profits count for alot more in Hollywood, we'll see.

 

[TJinPgh]

But it HAS worked for Trek. Trek has got young actors and put them in space. You know, comparatively. Being in his late twenties (and with his character as 25 in the movie) Chris Pine is the youngest actor to ever play the leading role in a Star Trek production.

What more do we need, Star Trek Babies?

Well, depends on why it is that you believe Trek made so much money.

If you believe that it was mostly kids who went to see the film, then, yeah, I guess shoving a bunch of pinup models into the roles probably had the desired effect.

On the other hand, if you believe that it was the action and the special effects, then the age of the actors isn't important. Look at the Indiana Jones and Die Hard films, for example. Ford and Willis aren't much younger than Shatner but their respective movies in 2008 made a ton of money.

I personally think it was a combination of the two, though I don't know how well that bodes for the longevity of the new leg of the franchise.

As I've said before, I, personally, thought the story line of this last movie was extremely weak. It relied heavily on special effects and a story that only worked because every person who saw it already knew what to expect by the end of the film (in stark contrast to the entire purpose of the film, but, I digress).

Action movies are great fun and frequently do well for an installment or two. To have any kind of run beyond that, though, you need characters you can identify with and strong story lines that keep you wanting more. Neither really existed in the last film and only time will tell if it exists in the next.

If, on the other hand, it's the pinup models they put in the roles that matter, then I probably wouldn't get to used to any of the current actors as they'll probably be replaced before we ever get to know them.

In either case, I don't see any of these current actors playing these roles a decade down the road, let alone four of them.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Well, depends on why it is that you believe Trek made so much money.

If you believe that it was mostly kids who went to see the film, then, yeah, I guess shoving a bunch of pinup models into the roles probably had the desired effect.

On the other hand, if you believe that it was the action and the special effects, then the age of the actors isn't important. Look at the Indiana Jones and Die Hard films, for example. Ford and Willis aren't much younger than Shatner but their respective movies in 2008 made a ton of money.

Star Trek, Indiana Jones and Die Hard make big bucks for the same reason: they are reasonably well-managed big-name brands that people recognize, and can get placement in movie theaters and millions of dollars in marketing because they inspire confidence that there will be a return on investment.

The age of the actors isn't a defining factor. But it doesn't hurt to be young and pretty.

Of course the characters are too young and too inexperienced to have some of these positions on a ship. That should go without saying.

I remember doing research for writing and I looked at the ages of naval captains and XO's to get an idea as to the general range for characters. If I recall, Cruiser captains ranged in age from 44-51 with an average of about 46.5 and the XOs were from 37-45 with an average around 40.9.

The general public neither knows nor cares about any of that. Also, it's science fiction! We're expected to believe that stuff like FTL travel and transporters are possible. Those are far less plausible than a 25 year old starship captain.

Action movies are great fun and frequently do well for an installment or two. To have any kind of run beyond that, though, you need characters you can identify with and strong story lines that keep you wanting more. Neither really existed in the last film and only time will tell if it exists in the next.

Complete baloney. Star Trek really stands out in the brainless action-movie crowd by having relatable characters who are worth following in their own right. Sure beats the puerile brats of Harry Potter or the emo idiots of Twilight.

 

[Tarek71]

The general public neither knows nor cares about any of that. Also, it's science fiction! We're expected to believe that stuff like FTL travel and transporters are possible. Those are far less plausible than a 25 year old starship captain.

Well I certainly dont think they know about "46.5" or "40.9" but you will notice that they didnt cast a 12yo child actor to play Captain Pike or 7 and 8yo's to play Sulu, Bones, Scotty, etc. Because at some level, there is a plausibility factor to consider.

Even the average dopey US popcorn muncher who thinks France is a country in North America and George Washington became President in 1492 is going to have problems with the kiddie crew. Not that audience ignorance should be used to justify writing to lowest common intellectual denominator.

As for the idea that "well we let them wank about FTL, so shouldnt they be allowed to wank about everything else"? Of course they can. They can have the Enterprise be a Giant Lollipop crewed by munchkins from the Lollipop guild. But should they? I dont think so. Its not a matter of whether they are allowed to. Obviously they are.

For myself, I dont think they should deviate from plausibility unless they have to, and they didnt have to in this case. Im willing to cut slack in science fiction when it comes to things like FTL in order for them to be able to tell the stories they want to be able to tell. You allow for at least some bending of the science in science fiction. But that doesnt justify pre-school Admirals, even though it is science fiction and they are allowed to do have child Admirals if they want.

In fairness to Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman, they did a better job with a number of others. At 53 and 46 years of age respectively, Bruce Greenwood and Faran Tahir (Robau) were fine. As were the senior officers at the Academy. They all seemed age appropriate.

Experience matters, and generally speaking senior officers are substantially more experienced and older than the junior ones. That just makes logical sense and deviating from it isnt justified simply because transporters are implausible.

 

[TJinPgh]

Star Trek, Indiana Jones and Die Hard make big bucks for the same reason: they are reasonably well-managed big-name brands that people recognize, and can get placement in movie theaters and millions of dollars in marketing because they inspire confidence that there will be a return on investment.

Yes, because they all have a track record of doing so. If they believed that Trek was going to do well, it's because they had 10 movies that made a profit. Not because they had a reason to believe this one would do something different. Especially given Abrams' lackluster track record on the big screen.

Complete baloney. Star Trek really stands out in the brainless action-movie crowd by having relatable characters who are worth following in their own right. Sure beats the puerile brats of Harry Potter or the emo idiots of Twilight.

Oh, please. If people related to the characters in Star Trek that would be a pretty pathetic statement on those who saw it (then again...).

The characters were as shallow and one dimensional as any I have come across. Especially for a big budget "epic."

I can't see how somebody would WANT to see themselves in any of the characters as written in this film, let alone be the reason they like the film.

Sorry, but the name "Star Trek" got people in the door. Pine's bulge and lots of explosions kept them watching.

 

[Treker]

The federation seems to human dominated.

As long as they keep the aliens rolling in I'm all for it.

Who doesn't want to hear the story of the young cadet seducing the blue Andorian babe? lol