Simon Pegg to Play Scotty

In response to yesterday's casting news about Chris Pine possibly taking the captain's chair for the new Star Trek movie, apparently Simon Pegg will be playing the role of Scotty. Simon Pegg is known for his role as Shaun in Shaun of the Dead and more recently for his leading role in Hot Fuzz. "Pegg joins Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, John Cho as Sulu and Zachary Quinto as Spock in the film which reportedly, and logically, 'chronicles the early days of the Enterprise crew.' Leonard Nimoy will also put in an appearance, while Eric Bana signed up this week as the movie's villain, Nero."

The name is Shaun, not Sean!

www.imdb.com is your friend.

Re:The name is Shaun, not Sean!

Other acceptable titles are:

• L' Alba dei morti dementi
• Muertos de risa
• Shaun dei morti
• Shaun et les zombies
• Shaun of the Dead
• Shaun of the Dead - Ein Zombie kommt selten allein
• Tea-Time of the Dead
• Todo Mundo Quase Morto
• Ein Zombie kommt selten allein
• Zombies Party

Re:The name is Shaun, not Sean!

Shaaaaaaaaaaaun [khaaan.com]

Oh noes

The Shat is really going to hit the fan now!

different take on Scotty

Well....He will have less Gravitas -at least less than Doohan had in later years -and less gravity too......

I'm just hoping that he will actually speak with a Welsh accent (cf. Futurama)

After Shaun I wouldn't have been so sure about this, but Simon did a great job of character acting in Hot Fuzz and hopefully he can bring a little of the twinkle-in-the-eye humour that Doohan evinced in the TV series.

-I'm just sayin'

Wrong guy to do Montgomery Scott.

Get a REAL Scot to do it. Ewan McGregor for the win. Sure, it would mean paying him silly money for it, but it would mean Ewan would get to leave his mark on not just one, but the EXACTA of geek icon movie series.

Besides, Scotty always seemed older than everyone except Bones McCoy on TOS.

Although one thing...could Ewan still do the thick-as-porridge Scots brogue he did in "Trainspotting" that required anyone not from north of Hadrian's Wall to put the closed-captioning on when watching the movie? One wonders.

Re:Wrong guy to do Montgomery Scott.

Get a REAL Scot to do it. Ewan McGregor for the win.

Cast Obi-Wan Kenobi as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott?

You do realise you just exploded the brains of at least two distinct sets of geeks, right?

Re:Wrong guy to do Montgomery Scott.

Dude, as a heterosexual female I do not see this as a drawback. Far from it actually.

Re:Wrong guy to do Montgomery Scott.

Dude, as a heterosexual female

what, on slashdot? naaaaaah...

Re:Wrong guy to do Montgomery Scott.

Besides, Scotty always seemed older than everyone except Bones McCoy on TOS.

Give MsGeek a cigar! For completeness: In 1966, Doohan and Kelley turned 46, Shatner and Nimoy 35, Barrett and Nichols 34, Koenig 30, and Takei 29. I had forgotten how much older than the others Doohan was until I checked IMDB last week (The Blonde & I were rooting for Paul McGillion). If we're shooting for "eight years before" ST:TOS, Pegg is just the right age (and so is Pine, who's 27). Spock, of course, doesn't age the way humans do, so should be played by someone just about Nimoy's age; Quinto just turned 30, so that's not too far off. Yelchin is 18, which isn't too far off, but Cho is 35! Well, as long as he looks the part....

Re:different take on Scotty

I read somewhere that James Doohan actually faked his accent while playing "Scotty"...

How strange that it wasn't his own accent. It's almost like he was... acting?

Re:different take on Scotty

How strange that it wasn't his own accent.

As a real Scot, I can tell you it wasn't anyone's accent.
 

English Scotty???

As a Scotsman, I'm somewhat miffed that an Englishman is playing the role... This is almost as bad as Mel Gibson (an Ozzie) playing William Wallace for goodness sake!

Re:English Scotty???

"Brothers and sisters are natural enemies! Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damned Scots! They ruined Scotland!"

-"You Scots sure are a contentious people."

"You just made an enemy for life!"

Re:And Korean Sulu

You think that's bad? I hear Zachary Quinto is from Earth. Pssh.

Re:English Scotty???

Yeah, and they cast a human as Spock! Given how underrepresented Vulcans are in the entertainment industry (I challenge you to name one, just one Oscar winner), it's only logical that they should cast a full Vulcan in that role!

Re:English Scotty???

I do believe a one Albert Gore is Vulcan, is he not?

Lets see:

1. Vulcan Attributes
2. Enjoys Science - Check
3. Emotionless robot - Double Check
4. Uses Logic to save the earth -Triple Check

Re:English Scotty???

I used to laugh at Al Gore jokes... until Dec 2000 or so...

Just haven't been as funny these last 7 years... dunno what it is...

Shatner is the greatest

Say what you will about William Shatner, but I just can't ever imagine anyone else playing Kirk. His cheesy, over-the-top style will be impossible to duplicate.

Re:Shatner is the greatest

Say what you will about William Shatner

That sounds like a big fat challenge...kind of like shatner...

Re:Shatner is the greatest

Those who mock the Shatner, those who dub him 'cheesy' or 'over the top' should ask themselves this: at what point during his performance of Kirk do you ever, even for one second, doubt that you are watching the captain of the starship Enterprise?

Shatner - like Doohan - is a method actor. When the camera is on him, he actually believes that he is in command of a starship, and his belief is what drags us kicking and screaming along with him. Love him or hate him, you could never catch him playing it at one iota less than warp 9 [memory-alpha.org]. This new guy? Pwwwpt. He's just an actor. He's not the captain of the Enterprise.

Shatner. Is. Kirk.

Star Trek: The Documentary Series era. Is. Shatner.

let it die

I hate to say it but this isn't 1977. Your typical Trek fan has been gorged to satiety on Star Trek TV and movies. And considering the last efforts, the execrable "Nemesis" and TV's "Enterprise", nausea might be a better word for it than satiety. The cast is irrelevant at this point. Trek must be allowed to die instead of continuing in this horrible parody of life.

Re:let it die

I heard they cancelled Enterprise when Mr. Bakula started calling his tricorder "Ziggy"

Re:let it die

Apparently they've started from scratch on everyone working on this so that there's the slightest chance of this being a decent movie.

What I don't understand is why we need a story on every single person that's cast for a role. Do you think that, maybe in a week, we can just post one story on the entire cast instead?

Impossible.

The problem with making a Star Trek Babies movie is that there is absolutely NO THREAT to any of the characters.

So what if baby Kirk is shot in the head causing him to fall into an erupting volcano at the moment the planet's sun goes nova?

It was all a dream sequence. Or it was a clone. Or a robot. Or the evil baby Kirk from the mirror dimension.

And the more characters you take from TOS, the less the threat is.

It's going to be like there's a HUGE TARGET painted on the one person on the bridge that isn't in TOS. And here is chief security office Ima Goingtodie.

Re:Impossible.

It's going to be like there's a HUGE TARGET painted on the one person on the bridge that isn't in TOS. And here is chief security office Ima Goingtodie.

Well, as long as he's wearing the requisite red shirt...

Re:Impossible.

This is the show that gave us the term, "red shirt," after all.

I thought that was from College Football.

Note for Star Trek Fans: Football is a form of athletic contest between two groups of players, each group fielding twelve* players at one time. The game is divided into a series of downs, where each team lines up on opposite sides of a brown ball called a 'football', and one group tries to take the ball and advance it past the other group, by carying or throwing the ball, without getting tackled. If they advance it far enough, they get more attempts, and eventually score. But if they don't advance the ball at least 10 yards in 4 tries, the opposing team gets the ball.

Secondary Note for Star Trek Fans: An 'Athletic Contest' is an event in which multiple participants compete under a set of rules designed to compare the relative motor skills and/or strength/endurance possessed by the participants, although many athletic contests also include a strategy component.

* If you are not a Star Trek fan, shhhhh.

Re:Impossible.

And for non-American nerds, Football is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players. It is the most popular sport in the world. Football is a ball game played on a rectangular grass or artificial turf field, with a goal at each of the short ends. The object of the game is to score by manoeuvring the ball into the opposing goal. In general play, the goalkeeper is the only player allowed to use their hands or arms to propel the ball; the rest of the team usually use their feet to kick the ball into position, occasionally using their torso or head to intercept a ball in mid air. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

At least they'll be ready...

...for alien zombies.

Maybe now

I've never seen an episode of Star Trek, or any of the movies. I loved Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz though. Maybe I'll check this one out when it's on Netflix.

I might just give this a chance...

When I heard of the movie project, I could do nothing but groan. "No more, Nemesis and Enterprise ruined it" was my thought. The franchise had been going down ever since the Dominion war in DS9. But, as time went on, and more details came out, I paused, and thought on it a bit. Rather than rehashing an existing concept, or trying to "expand" with jelly-sex-rubdown scenes, the producer is actually trying to reinvigorate things, but not by some highbrow concept that blew up in our faces with Enterprise and Voyager, but with a return to what makes the show stick with us after all of these years. It wasn't the TNG intellectualism, or the DS9 anti-heroism, or Voyagers attempt at survivalism, or Enterprises horrible attempt at merging all 3. It was the original series, sticking to the basic storytelling engine based on classic westerns, using Freudian psychology paired with Jung archetypes, all with the "Bandwagon to the Stars." By ripping away the layers of overdone polish and returning to the core essence of the show, then maybe, just maybe there stands a chance. Every casting choice made shows a deep understanding of this core concept. The actor choices being ideal canidates for the archetype or the psychological core element of the role being played. This gives me hope for the series I have not held for a very long time.

Nero

So the villain is called Nero, eh?

I suppose violins will be well represented on the soundtrack.

Stop it already - Let Kirk rest in peace!

Is the science fiction genre so fscking bankrupt for ideas that it needs to rehash ToS? ToS was a good enough series in its time, but who is this abomination of a movie designed to appeal to? What demographic wants to see this? Who wants to see Kirk played by anyone but Shatner? The man has all but ruined the role for anyone else. Why not take these actors and cast them in roles they can make their own instead of hamstringing them with the legacies of Nimoy and Shatner?

It's just like the abysmally stupid "Bionic Woman" nonsense; some bonehead executive decided to trot an old standard (for which some people have nostalgia) of carbonite and to "reimagine" it for a new generation... whatever the hell that means... Or the moronic Underdog movie. Or one of any other cinematic turds splattered across the big screen in the past few years. Damn.

There have been worlds of awesome science fiction written in the past few years that could easily be adopted to the big screen. For example, "The Golden Compass" is being released this winter and looks promising. However, what do we usually get? More of the same unimaginative crap that's driven people away from the major networks and theatres.

Re:Stop it already - Let Kirk rest in peace!

From my admittedly small sample size of three, people familiar with the trademark are not pleased with this.

And the chances that, sooner or later, these three people will pay good money to see it are... what, 100%?

Zachary Quinto as Spock?

I guess instead of the Vulcan mind meld or that nerve pinch that Spock uses, he is just going to use his fingers to take the top half of the skulls of Aliens.

Not Who I Expected

When I heard the guy from Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead was going to play Scotty, I immediately thought of Nick Frost.

Nick Frost would have been great.

Starfleet Academy?

So with the pick of comedic actors (from what I've been reading; I don't recognize any names other than ZQ), is this going to be the long-predicted Starfleet Academy movie, with Academy as in 'Star Trek does Police Academy'?

Icooooooooon!

Slashdot really needs a Star Trek icon. If BeOS and the GIMP can get one, why can't the canonical nerdy TV series?

I'm tagging this one startrekneedsanicon

Eric Bana?

When Eric eats a Banana he becomes....

I'm commenting because of Pegg

I like Pegg but I've pretty much given up on all things Trek. From the stories I've heard, there's not a decent script associated with the project. That always astounds me to no end. No decent script?! That's like opening a fine restaurant without any thought given to the menu. That's like getting an orchestra together and giving no consideration to the program. Scripts are movie embryos. Without a good script to work from, the whole project is lost. It is an incredibly rare experience to have a bad script turn into a good movie. The best example I can think of is the original Star Wars where it was a collaborative effort to tell a great story. You typically need a champion to push things through and act like a general. If the general listens to advice you have Original Trilogy Lucas or LOTR Peter Jackson. If the general doesn't listen to anyone, you have nuTrilogy Lucas or Uwe Boll.

There's no compelling script associated with the project, a story so good it stands up and demands to be told. I've heard the same thing about Indy 4, some lackluster shoddy tatter of a script that isn't even fit to use as an arse-wipe and we're supposed to be exited about the movie that results from it? Pass. This is going to be Transformers or Matrix 2 and 3, Van Hellsing, or any other craptacular, heartless, brainless, mirthless Hollywood exercise in pandering commercialism.

Shaun of the Dead was B+, almost A material. The few deficiencies with the plotting and production were fixed with the next project, Hot Fuzz. That was solid A material there. That's quality mindless entertainment, not fillet mignon and a ridiculously expensive wine but a big, juicy burger with all the trimmings and beer to wash it down. The rest of that crap is McDonalds crap, indifferently assembled and plopped on the tray like a freshly pinched loaf.

With Bobby Lee as Sulu

Hotdog!

Let it die in peace..

I'm a trek fan though I am not really looking forward to this movie. After the flop of Nemesis things just seem to keep going down hill. After hearing that Paramount auctioned all the Star Trek props, I wonder what they will use in this movie..

For future refrence

When one of these lists-of-unknowns rolls out invariably again, can one of you brilliant posters roll out a web page with jpgs of these folks and get yourself modded informative! Ahhh, please. It's a drag to copy and paste and search repeat.

Mr. Scott is James Doohan

The ladies were all sleeping with Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy did a decent job as Spock, but Mr. Scott is the ideal we all dreamed of being -- the guy who makes things work while having impossible demands made on his resources and abilities. James Doohan did a brilliant job with him. From the Trouble with Tribbles - "He called me a tin-plated dictator with delusions of grandeur? So that's when you hit him, Mr. Scott? No Sir. He called the Enterprise a garbage scow and that's when I hit him." to the Andromedans and "What are you drinking, Mr. Scott? It's, um, well it's green!"

RIP James Doohan, you inspired me to become an engineer and it was a pleasure to meet you briefly.

I haven't been inside a US theater in a decade, but I'll probably go see this out of loyalty to "classic" Star Trek[1]. I will change my mind if Mr. Scott is tainted.

[1] The best Star Trek movie was the first one. The long scene where Kirk was being brought up to the Enterprise via shuttle was for us real (and older) die hard fans and I *loved* it. Amazing that a "You Must Be New Here" scene actually made it to the big screen ...

OT: Simon Pegg on Derren Brown

For Simon Pegg fans, there's an entertaining clip [youtube.com] of him from Derren Brown's show, where Derren messses with his mind a bit. (A great demonstration of hypnosis, suggestion, NLP, and such techniques.)

It really got me into Derren Brown; very classy and entertaining fellow; I'm surprised he's not known in North America at all (or am I...)

Scotty drinks a beer at the Winchester

Now we need a cameo by Ed: "Can I get any of you cunts a Romulan Ale?"

falcon rocket

Elon Musk will play the villian. He will try to cremate Scotty and launch him into orbit with a Falcon rocket. On a side note, Richard Branson should be cast as Moonraker in the next James Bond movie.

Chekov???

Can someone explain to me how Chekov is going to be in this movie?

I was under the impression that Chekov was significantly younger than Kirk and the gang. I know that Koenig is really only a few years younger than Kirk, but if they were at at the Academy together that doesn't say much for Chekov's career in Star Fleet to be an ensign when one of his classmates is already captain the fleet's flagship. Even if Chekov was in his first year and Kirk in his last, I would think Chekov would have at least made lieutenant.

Am I the only one who thinks this is odd?

Re:Who???

Most of his major roles have been in British movies and series, such as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Spaced that hasn't really been major successes outside Britain - that's probably why you haven't heard of him.

Re:Script Link

I would like to see Nick Frost deliver that line to the Borg queen. That would be... fascinating. :P