The re-casting of an established franchise will always generate a lot of interest… doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Bond, a young Darth Vader, an updated Jack Ryan… or even casting for an established franchise in another medium (ie. comic book movies). When we feel like we already know the characters, we develop more of a vested interest in who the “new” person will be to take that character over… and it’s no less true for the new Star Trek.
We already know that both Leonard Nimoy and Heroes Zachary Quinto will both be playing Mr. Spock (at different ages), and it appears they’ve now landed their Pavel Chekov. Yahoo News gives us this:
Director J.J. Abrams is putting together his bridge crew for the 11th film in the “Star Trek” franchise. Anton Yelchin, whose recent credits include “Alpha Dog,” is in negotiations to play Pavel Chekov, the Russian-born navigator of the USS Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk. Yelchin, similarly Russian-born, will join Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy, who will both play the role of Mr. Spock. Casting is under way in New York and London for Kirk, Bones, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, the film’s villain and the Federation captain. Abrams is expected to sign bigger-name actors for the latter two parts.
Whooaaa…. this dude is YOUNG. I actually though this guy did a respectable job in Alpha Dog, so talent isn’t an issue here… I just didn’t realize they were going to go THAT young. Anton is like 18 years old.
Granted, in the show Chekov is supposed to be younger than Kirk anyway, but I guess this took me a little by surprise. Upon further reflection, I guess it does make sense… but still… 18. Wow.
Some 18 year old kids working on Aircraft carriers and I know of some piloting Navy Subs – not completely by themselves but close to it. He’ll do good, if you watched him in the short lived Showtime series ‘Huff’ you’d agree. I do thing the casting so far is good.
That’s the kid from Huff??? God he was annoying. I totally hated the way he acted. He was one of the reasons I stopped watching Huff. I hope he doesn’t get too much screen time in Star Trek.
I’m surprised the Chekov character is part of the relaunch as he did not come aboard until Season Two of the original series.
He must a small role ie at the Academy or in the lower bowels of the Enterprise.
Yelchin showed a LOT of talent in Hank Azaria’s Showtime series “Huff,” and he seems to only be improving as an actor.
This is the way that Hollywood has been going for a long time. It makes me nuts too. In order to get a teen audience, we will hire teens for the whole cast. I LOVED how Transformers got around that one. One line of dialog.
‘They hire right out of high schools these days.’
Yep. There you go. The Pentagon flew down to Sydney, shopped around and brought back all the blonde computer analysts they could find with no university education, credentials, experience. Makes sense to me.
But again, Star Trek could use the same kind of one liner to fix this problem. ‘The Federation hires right out of 1st grade these days.’ Problem solved.
Off the point just a little bit, did anyone else notice that in a lot of these situations, the only time Hollywood doesn’t hire a teen actor is if the lead role is, um, a teenager?