Star Trek's Recasting vs Star Wars' CGI

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Which one do you think has come out better up to this point? I kind of like Kirk in Strange New Worlds, and I thought CGI Luke was fun! What do you think though?

[Winter]

It all depends on the situation. I think in long terms effect having a recast is the best choice, just get someone who can capture the feel of the original actor and you're set but some times the CGI de-aging is the better choice. Take a look at a film that cast the original actors in prequel which most would argue is a solid enough film but the actors all being obviously older makes the movie hard to take seriously at times.

Red Dragon.

This film got three of the actors from Silence of the Lambs back and they are all obviously not as young as they were before but they manage to recapture what made their performance in SOTL so great. This film would benefit greatly with the De-aging effect as it would make the actors look like they did in the first film without losing their performance.

Or an example of CGI being used to include an actor who sadly passed away to honor them Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This is done in one scene to give Harold Ramis a proper farewell to the series and was well recieved by fans.

But then there are cases where it's not needed and diminishes the work like in Rogue One. Guy Henry looks enough like Peter Cushing that the CGI was just not needed and many pointed out just triggered Uncanny Valley. It hurt the film as a whole and was just silly to include it.

By contrast the scene with Luke at the end of season 2 of the Mandalorian, while not looking the best, was enhanced as it was Mark Hamill reprising his iconic role and looking more or less as he did in the original Trilogy.

Hence why I say it depends, if the new actor looks and sounds enough like the original then go for it but sometimes if it's scene meant to take place before other films or shows and it's the original actor or being used to honor someone who has passed away then go for it.

[clearspira]

SNW Kirk is a parody of Kirk's most superficial elements. Shatner put in a better performance than he is given credit for, particularly by Paramount who clearly hate his guts.

And frankly, I am not in favour of bringing actors back from the dead without their expressed permission. I wouldn't want my face still associated with shite like Disney Star Wars.

Then you get something like The Flash movie where they brought back George Reeves, a man who maybe/maybe not committed suicide over this role. I do not approve over that lack of taste.

[stryke]

Recast, recast, recast.

Sure SNW Kirk is imperfect but I'll take a thousand SNW Kirks over what they've been doing to Luke in the SW shows.

[Thebestoftherest]

I personally feel both are bad and the bets option is C. Do something new, both universes has billions of people each of them tap full of potential, and stop with this whole "only ten people in this universe ever matter's" thing.

[stryke]

I personally feel both are bad and the bets option is C. Do something new, both universes has billions of people each of them tap full of potential, and stop with this whole "only ten people in this universe ever matter's" thing.

The phrase 'good luck with that' springs to mind. People like what they like, and shifting them from that mindset is bloody, bloody excessively hard so it's no wonder that the path of least resistance of re-using the old and familiar with a bit of a new spin is so often the chosen option. Trying new things is risky, and it takes a lot to get your audience to be invested.

Take Batman. He's been recasted a bunch so I'm going to use him as an example but speak about the comics rather than the live action/animated stuff cause it serves as a good showcase of what I'm talking about.

Now I've been following online comics discourse for two decades now, and at least once every couple of months you'll get the following thread post or comment. The general gist of it is 'Batman sucks, DC sucks for not trying new characters which I'd totally support' this will then get commented and/or upvoted to high heaven. Meanwhile in those two decades, plenty of times have I seen DC repeatedly putting out new characters, sometimes really great ones, with hot new writers and gorgeous art that legit get amazing reviews... and no one buys the actual issues, the comics featuring Batman keep on being by far the best sellers out of the comics that they put out, and the new comic is cancelled due to lack of interest, and maybe the characters gets killed off in the next crossover crisis event. So DC puts out more Batman comics, cause that's what sells, people say that DC sucks cause they don't do any new characters, and so the circle of life continues.

The cynical take, one I've occasionally proscribed to, is that people who most talk about comics online don't actually buy comics, or at least don't in meaningful numbers to make any kind of market impact, and those that do just like Batman cause he's a familar well supported character that they love, and so they buy Batman without caring what the terminally online might think about that. This isn't just a DC thing, and I'm sure you can think of similar examples to this.

The more accurate take is just that the familiar is confortable, and if you have an audience that already likes something then you really need to put the work in to get them to like something different. If given the choice between Kirk or a Bolian called Norv a lot of people will pick Kirk as they know Kirk, and so they're really going to need to be convinced that Norv is worth their time to get invested in.

Hell, just look at how hard DS9 had it back in the day. It wasn't always a cult classic critical darling it is today, it was constantly in ratings trouble, forcing them to do a number of stunts to try to capture the sceptical audience's interest up to and including a familiar character like Worf, and that was just down to them being on a starbase rather than a starship.

[hammerofglass]

The cynical take, one I've occasionally proscribed to, is that people who most talk about comics online don't actually buy comics, or at least don't in meaningful numbers to make any kind of market impact, and those that do just like Batman cause he's a familar well supported character that they love, and so they buy Batman without caring what the terminally online might think about that. This isn't just a DC thing, and I'm sure you can think of similar examples to this.

I've suspected this about most online conversations about any media for a while. If I spent a quarter of the time most of these people seem to spend talking online about comics/shows/games whatever I wouldn't have any time left to actually read watch or play them.

[stryke]

I've suspected this about most online conversations about any media for a while. If I spent a quarter of the time most of these people seem to spend talking online about comics/shows/games whatever I wouldn't have any time left to actually read watch or play them.

I think there's two aspects to that. The first is that it explains why discussion spaces trend negative is that they attract those who are getting more entertainment from complaining than actually engaging with it.

The second though is there are large number of people in office jobs who either don't give a smeg if they use monitored internet, or use their phones, numbers now swelled by working from home, who spend a decent percentage of their time skiving by chatting shit online rather than actually working.

Then I'm self employed so technically I'm in that second group right now and really should be doing something more productive anytime that I'm on this forum so hey

[hammerofglass]

I've suspected this about most online conversations about any media for a while. If I spent a quarter of the time most of these people seem to spend talking online about comics/shows/games whatever I wouldn't have any time left to actually read watch or play them.

I think there's two aspects to that. The first is that it explains why discussion spaces trend negative is that they attract those who are getting more entertainment from complaining than actually engaging with it.

The second though is there are large number of people in office jobs who either don't give a smeg if they use monitored internet, or use their phones, numbers now swelled by working from home, who spend a decent percentage of their time skiving by chatting shit online rather than actually working.

Then I'm self employed so technically I'm in that second group right now and really should be doing something more productive anytime that I'm on this forum so hey

Insert blue collar grumbling about real jobs here.

[McAvoy]

This is where the Abramsverse got right for the most part. I can see Kirk in Chris Pine and I think if he had better writing we could better see that. Karl Urban was fantastic as McCoy (crossing my fingers he makes a cameo in SNW). Quinto's Spock was good. I could deal with the others. Though I would say SNW Scotty was better IMO.

SNW TOS characters outside Pine feel like Trek fan movies of the same characters.

Luke in Boba Fett and Mandalorian is OK. In Boba Fett he did feel a little wooden but it was serviceable.

I think the gold standard at least between Trek and Wars is Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan. From day one he felt like Alec Guinness.