Missed opportunity in the first new Trek film

[Swindle1984]

Something just occurred to me, and I want to see what everyone else thinks of the idea.

In the first of the new Trek films, they changed Khan from a north Indian to a white Englishman. Even though the point of divergence in this universe is supposed to be Spock and the Romulans going back in time, for some reason that completely altered the race of a man born centuries prior, without changing his name. Which would be sort of like casting a Chinese man to play Kunta Kinte, but I digress.

I was more than a little disappointed in the portrayal of new!Khan, and just now something occurred to me, the perfect (and most deliciously ironic) actor to play Khan in the new movies:

Walter Koenig.

If he can pull off Bester from Babylon 5, he can pull off Khan, don't you think?

[Elheru Aran]

It was the second new Trek movie.

And no. He's entirely too distinctive as Chekov.

Pretty sure he's retired from acting as well due to his age.

[Crazedwraith]

Yeah, Elheru's answer is perfect. He's far too well known as Chekov to be anyone else a Trek production. (Even if Bester was probably a better role)

Tangentially, they had thought about casting Micheal Dorn as a Klingon in STID as well but realised it would be too distracting. I can't think on any actors that have been in Prime and NuTrek. (No wait, Peter Weller was in ENT wasn't he?)

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, Elheru's answer is perfect. He's far too well known as Chekov to be anyone else a Trek production. (Even if Bester was probably a better role)

Tangentially, they had thought about casting Micheal Dorn as a Klingon in STID as well but realised it would be too distracting. I can't think on any actors that have been in Prime and NuTrek. (No wait, Peter Weller was in ENT wasn't he?)

Yeah, Peter Weller was some kind of Terran rebel on ENT.

You're leaving out Leonard Nimoy, of course. But Spock is a special case.

Pretty sure that's about it though, aside from bit parts you'd have to go on Memory Alpha to look up. NuTrek has about shot its bolt as far as featuring TOS actors go; they could conceivably feature George Takei as some relative to Sulu (though not after he publicly disapproved of how John Cho's portrayal was done in the last movie, I don't think), and of course Mike Dorn as a Klingon would make sense though it'd be absurd typecasting. I don't think they'd touch William Shatner with a ten-foot pole; he's got too inflated an opinion of himself to accept anything other than a pretty major supporting role.

EDIT: Nichelle Nichols is another possibility as far as TOS actors go, but she's had health problems of late and is also effectively retired from acting.

[Swindle1984]

To be fair, Dorn did play Worf's grandfather in one of the TOS movies; he could play the same character!

And yes, I had a brain fart, Khan was in the second nu-Trek film.

[Elheru Aran]

To be fair, Dorn did play Worf's grandfather in one of the TOS movies; he could play the same character!

The last one, yeah.

Problem is that the nu-Trek universe isn't the same one as old-Trek. There's no guarantee that old-trek Worf, grandfather of Worf, will translate. And with Michael Dorn's prominence, you can't just give him a couple of lines and stick him in the background. He can't be Random Klingon #3 or whatever.

You have the same problem with pretty much all the other Trek actors. Either they're A-listers like Patrick Stewart, guaranteed to get leading or major supporting roles, solid B-listers who you also can't ignore, or simply too distinctive.

I mean... take Nichelle Nichols. I suppose you could play her off in some fashion similar to what was suggested for Takei, that she be some kind of elderly relative to nu-Trek Uhura. But, it'd be pretty straight-up contrived, and pure fanservice-- it wouldn't really serve the plot in any way. And at this point, that's pretty much what's going to happen with almost all the old Trek actors if they were inserted in nu-Trek. They got away with Spock because it was actually integral to the plot, and Peter Weller was a minor character in a few episodes of Enterprise, so nobody remembered that.

[Swindle1984]

To be fair, Dorn did play Worf's grandfather in one of the TOS movies; he could play the same character!

The last one, yeah.

Problem is that the nu-Trek universe isn't the same one as old-Trek. There's no guarantee that old-trek Worf, grandfather of Worf, will translate. And with Michael Dorn's prominence, you can't just give him a couple of lines and stick him in the background. He can't be Random Klingon #3 or whatever.

You have the same problem with pretty much all the other Trek actors. Either they're A-listers like Patrick Stewart, guaranteed to get leading or major supporting roles, solid B-listers who you also can't ignore, or simply too distinctive.

I mean... take Nichelle Nichols. I suppose you could play her off in some fashion similar to what was suggested for Takei, that she be some kind of elderly relative to nu-Trek Uhura. But, it'd be pretty straight-up contrived, and pure fanservice-- it wouldn't really serve the plot in any way. And at this point, that's pretty much what's going to happen with almost all the old Trek actors if they were inserted in nu-Trek. They got away with Spock because it was actually integral to the plot, and Peter Weller was a minor character in a few episodes of Enterprise, so nobody remembered that.

Sort of like McCoy's appearance in TNG?

[Elheru Aran]

Sort of like McCoy's appearance in TNG?

More or less. McCoy's appearance served the plot only extremely marginally, it was pretty much pure fanservice to provide a hand-off from TOS to TNG. Spock's role in the first nu-Trek movie did pretty much the same thing, with the addition of providing the Macguffin and actually contributing to the story.

At this point, an appearance from TOS, TNG, DS9 whatever actors in nu-Trek, even if they weren't reprising their characters, would just be the studios going "here, have a treat, we don't really give a shit about you but we're gonna act like we care, watch the movie have nothing to do with these people anyway".