Matt Damon as Kirk in Star Trek XI? 594
GiggidyGiggidy writes "Our friends at IMDB.com are reporting that Matt Damon has been cast to play a young James T. Kirk in the new Star Trek Movie directed by J.J. Abrams. Is this the end of the Star Trek series we fans know and love, or the beginning of something bigger and better for the series?"
Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Funny)
Other casting???
honestly, isn't it time for a real good laugh [stonetrek.com] at this tired old series?
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:2)
Affleck, though...
I can't stand that smug sack of shit! How about him playing "Ensign Ricky"?
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot:
Khan Noonien Singh -- Mel Gibson
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:2)
Don't you mean this [khaaan.com]?
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Funny)
At least that would mean he could be the first motherf**ker to see new galaxies... Or find a new alien lifeform... and f**k it.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't Shatner have this pretty well covered?
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Funny)
Chris Rock - Computer Voice
Jason Mewes - Mr. Spock
Kevin Smith - Montgomery Scott"
My thoughts EXACTLY. This HAS to be done. I'd pay BIG money to see this.
You need to get Alan Rickman in there as well though. He is after all the only one with experience in space.
****, ****, ****, ****
Mother****, ****
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.
.
My Jungle loooooooooooove.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Lousy acting, lame plots, almost no finish. Sorry, but it simply doesn't live up to today's standards.
I thought DS9 was the gem in the group, but almost no one agrees there; oddly, some geeks just can't handle a coherent plot.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:2, Funny)
He is his age now.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not make a series where a crew get to go out of the galaxy. In the Star Trek Universe our galaxy was seeded with life that would generally turn out humanoid. That saves on special effects, but now that is not a problem.
Here is my idea: Star Trek: Magellan - named for the great traveller. Set decades after Voyager; a colony fleet is sent to the Large Magellanic Cloud - a satellite galaxy of our own. Take a vast and fast carrier ship (The Magellan), running on autopilot for, say 50 years. The crew wake up, ready to explore and terraform and colonise. The crew is interesting. Holograms now have sentient rights, and there are borg members (like the Klingons in TNG, they are no longer enemies). Communication with our galaxy is slow and difficult. They meet real aliens, not just humanoids with different foreheads.....
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's get this straight from the start:I am not a troll. I really like the ST Universe, and liked a lot TNG and DS9, but here's a crazy idea: let's create something new. A new sc-fi series, with new characters and new stories and it is not based on a universe that lasted for 40 years.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, yes. But the problem is that creativity happens rarely, and what you often get is warp drive/phases/the federation etc. simply re-packed with different names, so why not use the original? It is a known fictional universe, which means that much is 'given', and you have an established fan base. Also, I feel that there could be a lot of creativity based on Star Trek, especially
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember when science fiction was fun and the characters two dimensional? Remember when they travelled at sub light speeds around the solar system where there was no artificial gravity? Clarke's 2001, A Fall of Moondust, Rendezvous with Rama, Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones" and many more. We have the technology to make a coherent near future SF TV series, using the actual properties of our planets, with Lagrange colonies, pioneer colonies, mining operations on Mercury, slow freighters and liners using economy orbits and fast (expensively anti-matter powered) "Federation" ships busy about the system.
How many of us learned the basic (incorrect) properties of the planets from those books? Now let's do it again with Mercury's real day, and a non-tropical Venus. Settle the moons and adventure in space.
It is not for us. It is for that Aspergers 14 year old guy who is awkward with girls but knows the ABCs of Relativity; the one in the generation coming up fast behind us. Let us relive SF through his (yes his) eyes.
There can still be a 7 of 9 character so that he will have an imaginative, once removed from reality, sex life.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)
It got cancelled, and the movie did really poorly at the box office.
As geeks, we should'a been out there supporting Joss and his "new sc-fi series, with new characters and new stories and it is not based on a universe that lasted for 40 years".
I personally feel bad that I only saw the movie twice at the theatre.
We bitch about nothing good on, but then don't support it when it shows up.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen. Notice how most people talk the talk, but have second thoughts about walkin' the walk? In my hometown, many people complained about there not being any 'real' cinema. I actually went out and did something about it, screening films in a local cultural center once a week, with no admission cost.
Guess what? NONE of the people, both men and women, who complained about lack of options in town, have shown up during the ten months I've been screening films, sheepishly delivering a barrage of chronic excuses:
- "I was busy"
- "I forgot (and went out on the town)"
- "I don't have time" (but they do have time to go out on the town on that same night, week in and week out)
- "Etcetera"
Fortunately, I have built up a modest but loyal audience, mainly composed of college science students (astronomy and oceanography).
But if I hear any more complaints from poseurs, I'm gonna laugh in their face, spit in their eye and piss in their ear.
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:2)
SciFi isn't all sharks with lasers attached to their heads. How we deal with each other as groups and individuals is just as important as the technology in good SciFi. Otherwise, you might as well just read a catalog of weapons from the 2400AD Sears catalog.
That aside, when I think
I liked DS9. (Score:5, Insightful)
And TOS was damn good when it was released. It doesn't look that as cutting edge now, because the edge has moved on.
The problem is that the Star Trek franchise has not kept up with the edge. Now they're afraid of the edge. They don't want to make a show that small core will love for years and years and years. They want a show that almost everyone will sort of like and probably watch every week. They want "Friends"
They want "episodes", not stories.
They want light, cute actors, not developed characters.
Re:I liked DS9. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's one Problem with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the original idea behind "Andromeda" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you watch the show, especially the episodes when they were still using one of the writers from Bab 5, you can even see how some of the "Andromeda" aliens mapped to the Star Trek species they were based on.
In short, Roddenberry WANTED to trash the Federation and run the universe from a point of collapse and chaos. What happened was that his notes got used to start a new show, the "Federation" got renamed the "Confederacy" and it was treated to a decent special effects budget and not much else.
If you watch it as a post Federation show, and mentally map some of the alien species to their Trek counterparts, the show actually becomes watchable.
After all, Shatner taught all of us to look beyond the acting.
Re:I liked DS9. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure Ron Moore was in agreement with that, and that's why he moved on to Battlestar Galactica. You can't skip and episode of that show or you will be pretty lost. It also is pretty edgy, dealing with modern day ideas of terrorism, military power, and political espianage. And although this point gets argued, I'd say it has the best FX of any Sci-Fi show on TV right now.
Re:I liked DS9. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I liked DS9. (Score:3, Interesting)
An ongoing story arc and significant character development was precisely what happened to DS9 toward the end!
Their 'ongoing story arc' was actually "lets write some different aliens into the war so we can drag it on.. while we're at it, let's make them really powerful yet totally unknown!" Which, to me, screams 'plot device'.
And the 'significant character development' was just the writers getting more and more obvious about the (previously) subtle character archetypes: Cisco as the re
Mod parent up. (Score:4, Insightful)
Particularly with how Dax was killed by evil ghosts while on a quest to save the Orb of Prophecy so The Emissary could perform the Rite of X and seal the Portal of Y.
They ran out of real story so they tried to stitch in a DnD plot line and they ended up with the standard fantasy cardboard characters.
Re:I liked DS9. (Score:3, Insightful)
Star Trek is too expensive to make to only appeal to a small core.
Star Trek has never had developed characters.
Re:I liked DS9. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, Yes! (Score:3, Informative)
The action should change the personalities. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with Star Trek is that the action is the means for the characters to "win". Yeah, that sounds really basic and stupid, but think about it for a moment.
Some naive, young cadet leave Star Fleet Acadamy for his/her first space ship assignment. That character SHOULD have a completely different outlook and
The rest of the Cast (Score:2, Funny)
Jason Mewes as Scotty
Ben Affleck as Bones
Ophrah Winfree as Uhura
John Cho is Sulu
Yakov Smirnoff as Chekov
Imagine the dialoge.
Re:The rest of the Cast (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Star Trek, Enterprise drives you!
Re:The rest of the Cast (Score:3, Funny)
Meanwhile, aboard the Millenium Falcon... (Score:5, Funny)
Obi-Wan Kenobi looks pained.
Luke: What's wrong?
Obi-Wan: I felt a great disturbance in The Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror. I fear something terrible has happened.
When paradigms collide... (Score:5, Funny)
Seven of Nine: That was merely a spurious fluctuation in the tachyon matrix containment field. I have compensated.
Oh My (Score:2)
I know... (Score:5, Funny)
Almost there! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Almost there! (Score:5, Funny)
I think Rick Berman's motto should be: "Never Give Up! Never Surrender!" [imdb.com]
Joss Whedon would be a good writer for it (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not use Joss Whedon as chief writer and use the gang of two to fill in "Star Trek" details and to organize it into three-acts?
My goodness, Firely/Serenity were so good!
Don't skimp on space, ethics, and phaser fire, though....
Durka-Durka-Stan (Score:5, Funny)
Now, get Sinise. (Score:4, Interesting)
Now they need to sign Gary Sinise as McCoy. Hopefully, they can keep Affleck out. He has the superficial look and the emotionless demeanor necessary for Spock, but brings nothing else.
Re:Now, get Sinise. (Score:2, Insightful)
But that's exactly why he'd be the right choice. I mean, come on, like Bill Shatner brought such depth and character to the role... The shallowness is part of the "camp", and Affleck will be able to do that with perfection.
Re:Now, get Sinise. (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends how they're going to position it. Sinise is fifteen years older than Damon, so it's a bit of a stretch to suggest they'd be classmates at Starfleet Academy together (which seems to be the rumoured premise.) However, Kelly was eleven years older than Shatner, so the timelines bascially line up if it's a post-Academy thing, or is Bones isn't actually a classmate of Kirk's.
Re:Now, get Sinise. (Score:3, Funny)
If that's the storyline, then it's too bad Sean Penn is too old to play young Kirk and Ray Walston is too dead to play young McCoy. Then all you'd need is a few Pat Benatar lookalikes and a naked Pheobe Cates to have a very watchable movie.
superficial look and emotionless demeanor? (Score:5, Funny)
Affleck has nothing on Little Buddha.
Re:superficial look and emotionless demeanor? (Score:5, Funny)
I think Keanu lacks the personality and range of emotion required for the Spock role...
Re:superficial look and emotionless demeanor? (Score:5, Funny)
Kirk: Spock any readings on the enemy vessel?
Spock: Whoa!
Re:superficial look and emotionless demeanor? (Score:4, Funny)
Even Better (Score:5, Funny)
Kirk (drawing his phaser): Phasers on Stun!
Spock: Not necessary Captian. . . I know Kung Fu.
Re:Even Better (Score:3, Funny)
Re:superficial look and emotionless demeanor? (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno, this could be the role Hayden Christansen was born for! He could use BOTH of his facial expressions...
Re:superficial look and emotionless demeanor? (Score:3, Funny)
Spock: There is no spoon.
At first. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:At first. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:At first. (Score:2)
Re:At first. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:At first. (Score:2)
No, Matt by himself plays one good role and he plays it in every frickin movie he's ever been in. He's like John Wayne or Kevin Costner (sans Bull Durham). You model your screenplay around Damon, not the other way around. And knowing the Damon part, I have my doubts as to how good a Capt Kirk he can be.
Affleck on the other hand is a bordeline decent actor and can play different roles to some degree but like Chevy Chase, he doesn't seem to know how to turn down a part.
Re:At first. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Matt Damon's acting is painfully identical in Good Will Hunting, Bourne Identity, and Dogma, despite the character being very different in all three movies.
"Besides Damon will make at least as good a Kirk as Val Kilmer was Batman."
Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better about the decision. Maybe if Damon would make as good a Kirk as Kilmer made a Chris Knight...
Re:At first. (Score:3, Funny)
The only good Batman was Adam West!
Re:At first. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:At first. (Score:5, Funny)
Indiana Jones: Han Solo with a whip (and a cool fedora)
Blade Runner: Han Solo retiring replicants
The Fugitive: Han Solo on the run
Air Force One: President Han Solo
Indiana Jones 4: Han Solo in diapers
Re:At first. (Score:3, Funny)
"As... a... young Kirk, I.... believe... he would..... do... really well! ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAA...
Auditions went fast (Score:5, Funny)
I thought this was just a rumour a few months ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I thought this was just a rumour a few months a (Score:2)
Maybe he won't be such a good choice after all if they are looking for an actor more like Shatner?
Too Old!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too Old!!! (Score:2)
Obligatory Quote from Team America (Score:3, Funny)
To boldly blow like no man has blown before (Score:5, Funny)
Beam me down:
IMHO, Matt Damon has become so typecast that he plays the same character in every movie. I don't think he's changed his style in any role from Mr. Ripley, Mr. Bourne, Mr. Loki, Mr. Hunting, and Private Ryan. Matt Damon fans can argue till they're blue in the face, but I just cannot see him joining the ranks of George Takei, Leonard Nimoy, and Patrick Stewart. What next, playing the role of Lance Armstrong?
Beam me up:
So Matt Damon will always be Matt Damon. So what? William Shatner will always be William Shatner and its worked for him! Now the question remains: will Matt Damon be able to follow the framework of Mr. Shatner's drawn-out, studdering, overacting character? Lets go to the footage!
William Shatner [Star Trek]: You.... killed my... son... you... Klingon... bastard
Matt Damon [Team America]: Maaaaatt Daaaamon
Maybe Damon will make an excellent Kirk. Besides, this being an odd-numbered Star Trek movie, it has every right to be a steaming heap of Ferengi dung and still keep the movies going strong. So maybe I should just watch the previews, eat my popcorn, take a nap, and wait for the sequel.
--
"A man is asked if he is wise or not. He replies that he is otherwise" ~Mao Zedong
Re:To boldly blow like no man has blown before (Score:2)
Sadly, the last movie (Nemesis) proved that 'rule' to be merely coincidence for 2, 4 and 6. (I don't count 8, beciuase, for my money, it sucked too)
Re:To boldly blow like no man has blown before (Score:2)
Re:To boldly blow like no man has blown before (Score:2)
This is wrong on so many levels (Score:2)
What's next, Steve Buschemi as McCoy?
spock is the hard role (Score:3, Insightful)
How about Shatner as Damon? (Score:5, Funny)
Will: Do you LIKE... apples?
Clark: Yeah.
Will: Well, I GOT... her number how... DO you like... THEM... apples?
Can We fire Rick Berman? (Score:4, Insightful)
just my thoughts
Re:Can We fire Rick Berman? (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno about you, but for me, the appeal of Star Trek was always the interaction between the characters of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and to a lesser extent, Scotty and the other bridge crew. Their friendships felt genuine and it was fun to watch them tested by various forms of ridiculous melodrama. "Next Generation" was a decent show from time to time but I never got that feeling from it, and all the other series and all the movies since "Khan" -- especially when they started playing it "for action" -- seemed like mindless fanboy garbage.
Don't trust IMDB (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't trust IMDB (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't trust IMDB (Score:5, Informative)
People connected with Star Trek (not fans, but insiders who actually work for Paramount) have said that it is not true that Damon has been cast. Given that the story line is supposed to either take place at Star Fleet Academy or maybe just afterwards and those at Star Fleet Academy would be 18-22 years old, this seems highly unlikely. Somebody may be pulling IMDB's leg. IMDB does not always get things right and just because they say it's true, that doesn't mean it really is, especially for a film that hasn't even started shooting yet.
Reusing the characters was mentioned on Slashdot . (Score:2)
It would be nice if the producer would acknowledge it.
Go ahead and slam me.
If it is a flashback episode... (Score:2)
Maybe we could learn a bit more about JT Kirk. His horse, his live on the farm.
Maybe...
It's no loss regardless. (Score:2)
I was afraid it was MacCauley Culkin... (Score:2)
Matt Damon will be much better than MacCauley Culkin.
Let's see Ben Affleck as Spock (Score:3, Funny)
YTMND already had a say (Score:2, Funny)
New Voyages (Score:5, Interesting)
This was never confirmed. (Score:5, Informative)
There's also this. http://stxi.blogspot.com/2006/07/taking-red-pen-t
I want Ben Affleck (Score:4, Interesting)
Kirk - Ben Affleck
Spock - Tom Cruise
McCoy - Matthew McConaughey
Scotty - Hugh Jackman
Uhura - Halle Berry
Yeoman Rand - Tricia Helfer
Nurse Chapel - Pamela Anderson
Checkov - Wil Wheaton
Sulu - Daniel Dae Kim
"the rock" dwayne johnson as spock (Score:5, Funny)
brings new excitement to the vulcan nerve pinch move
"do you smell what the spock is cooking!"
Bring Star Trek back to its roots. (Score:3, Interesting)
Star Trek is about exploration of space...exploring new interstellar mysteries, new star configurations, new planets, new formations.
Star Trek is about science...its advantages and disadvantages, and what limits there exists in science, and if machines can be made to reach human status.
Star Trek is about society...how relations between humans evolve, what new structures can society have, how science affects the structure of society.
Star Trek is about ecology...do we destroy a planet because there are the bad guys (and take a whole new ecosystem down) or we find other ways to solve the problem?
Star Trek has lost all the above after DS9! It all became an mindless adventure in space in Voyager/Enterprise...and thus the audience lost interest.
A Star Trek show does not need to be dumbfounded or appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to be successful. A Star Trek show needs to be intelligent and thought-provoking.
The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine series where exactly that. Through clever story telling, the following subjects were negotiated:
-god and religion (in the episode where Picard was thought to be a god).
-language and the process of thinking (Darmok; one of the best episodes of TNG)
-if machines have rights (the episode where Lt Cmdr Data was on trial)
-if machines can interact with people (when Data was in a relationship)
-terrorism (many episodes, including TNG where the terrorists could appear out of thin air)
-political systems (many episodes, especially in DS9, from imperialistic Cardassia to semi-socialist Bajor)
-economic systems (the double episode in DS9 where Sisko goes back in time and gets sheltered in a homeless area)
-spying (the role of Darak in DS9)
-new races (many of episodes)
-new interstellar phenomena (for example a Dyson sphere)
-relationships (father-son in Picard-Crusher, Sisko and son, O'Brien and wife etc)
-war and its consequences (too many episodes to list)
-archeology (when Picard chased ancient artifacts)
All the above topics, and many more, were presented, some times naively, but most of the time in a very clever way, within a clever story. And Then Star Trek was successful.
What did we get with Enteprise, for example? and endless stream of save-the-world adventures, with none of the essence presented in TNG and DS9. And a silly story about an alien race hellbent to destroy Earth (the Xindi), no matter what...at least the Borg wanted to assimilate us, and that was interesting.
So, here is a message to Star Trek producers: if all you want is a cash cow, don't bother and let it die. If you want to share a message (along with profit, I don't deny that), then bring in interesting people to write the show and let them deploy their ideas.
And don't be politically correct, for Christ's shake! remember that the first interracial on screen kiss was between Kirk and Uhura!
A bigger problem is J.J. Abrams (Score:3, Interesting)
That's right! The producer of such wonders as the CIA recruitment video, "Alias" Where the guy playing the psychopathic creep father of the main character just 'happens' to look [geocities.com] like Bush [geocities.com] when made up and lighted just so, (and always at those emotionally intense points where the insertion of subliminal ideas works best!) Ah, Alias! The CIA boasted merrily of the sudden huge spike in the number of resumes received from young people wanting to look pretty and act like psychopaths for the American government after Abrams' dippy spy show started airing.
And "Lost", Abrams' other wonder-show where, like "Alias" the story idea is kinda neat and fun to watch, (like eating high MSG corn chips), but where the writers' collective grasp of and insight into the human condition is weak and shallow at best and where the emotional hooks are so incredibly obvious and formulaic, I could found myself actively complaining to the television set.
So, Homeland Security sellout and purveyor of shallow Walmart characters. . , do we want this man contributing to Star Trek?
I know my answer.
-FL
Ben Affleck as Spock? (Score:2)
Re:As said in Team America... (Score:2)
KHAAAAAAAN! errr...
Re:Star Bleccch (Score:2)
Next you'll be claiming that they added "Two of Thirty Eight" to the cast of ST:V just to appeal to teenage boys.
Shatner as the new Kirk (Score:2, Funny)
Easily explained. He's played by Shatner, but he's really James T Kirk at age 19. He looks awfully old because that "Deadly Years" virus has had another outbreak. The bloated appearance is because he took part in a fraternity stunt and swallowed a live tribble (which has since bred many new generations his belly, throat, and cheeks). That awful complexion? From an unfortunate amorous encounter with a cute Horta co-ed. The pa
Re:Shut up 'Maaatt Daaaamon' fags (Score:3, Insightful)