So, I have been wondering if a new Trek movie with a young Spock and Kirk will also have a young Gary Mitchell in it. I sure would think so, as he seem ed to a very close friend to Kirk, and he was the helmsman, and I think he was also the XO. Also, if memory serves me right, Dr. Mcoy wasn't the ship's doctor, I believe it was Dr. Piper. Maybe it cold be explained that Piper is getting ready to retir, and introduce Mcoy on episode 4 or 5. Also are they going to have an actress play Yeoman Rand? And If I remember right, wasn't Sulu in the science department before he became Helsman?
Didn't we just do this one a couple weeks ago? Not that I mind a redux, I just want to make sure I am not having Deja Vu.
Sulu was in science. Lee Kelso (the man strangled with the electrical cable telekinetically by Mitchell) was the helmsman. Gary Mitchell was the navigator. It is also pretty closely implied in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" that Kirk, Mitchell, and Kelso all three make up a tight circle of friends whereas the Kirk/Spock friendship is still developing.
Yes, he'll be portrayed by Johnny Knoxville Dr. Piper is a figment of your imagination - it's an outlet for your repressed memories of "Uncle bob" that used to give you candy and.....stuff. Jessica Simpson. Actually, in the new movie he's going to be the hair dresser...or maybe it's interior decorator, I forget. ==================================== Seriously, if we expect the new film to go to that length to sync up with the details of WNMHGB it will crash and burn. You notice that none of the other episodes of Star Trek ever bothered to explain the difference in doctors or why sulu was now a helmsman? I love the notion of Mitchell being there because he can be the "witty guy"....but I tell you this with all my heart..... If any of the Big Three that the general audience knows about - often the ONLY thing they know about trek - isn't there, you run a huge risk of making an insular fan film and not a movie with a broad audience. As for your continuity concerns, all you have to do is mention in the novelization that McCoy had an emergency n Earth, or some Starfleet confrence or some such to go to ...that any any other seeming inconsistancies. satisfies the geeks, and keeps the movie mainstream.
Nowhere in 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' does it say that McCoy was NOT on the Enterprise (naturally, as the character hadn't been written yet). One could easily surmise without contradicting canon that he was on the ship even though he wasn't CMO. In my screenplay, I handled it with just a line of dialog:
In one of the other threads I figured it could be explained away with a line of dialog about how Kirk just managed to get McCoy to postpone his shore leave another few months, read: until WNMHGB.
I like Paladin's work but at the end of the day, McCoy HAs to be in the movie. Period. Even if we never know what the deal was with any other doctor.
Dr. McCoy was important to my story and that was the most logical explanation I could see for his being on the ship before WNMHGB: he simply wasn't the CMO. (Perceived) canon be damned, Dr. McCoy has to be in the movie, even if it doesn't fully square with one episode of TOS.
I just thought of something: Why not have the movie be based loosely on the episode "Where no man has gone before" and Gary Mitchell can be played by Matt Damon? The Movie can start where Kirk is the replacement for Capt. Pike. (the ship could be in for a re-fit. and the crew could be issued new uniforms) to help explain any changes. Also Dr Piper was just about to retire, and Mcoy comes aboard.
^^^ I mentioned in the other thread that I thought one good way to make a movie was basicly to re-tell WNMHGB. The downside to this is that to all the die hards, the details of the plot are already known. I wonder if the incident Gary refers to about almost dying in the protection of Kirk could be worked into the film?
It doesn't need to be "explained away." Anybody who cares about this can come up with their own justifications anyway. Trying to address all these obscure nitpicks is the one thing that will doom this script more than any other. Fuck canon. The details, anyway. Just make me a good Star Trek movie.
Agree Quas, but I'd add that for some of us, the obsessing and associated rationalization is part of the fun. I like when something appears to violate canon -- it's a nice mental exercise to fix it.
Of course. I keep coming back to this - make a damn good movie and then tie up all the continuity things thegeeks obsess over in the novelization and then declare the novel canon. Garemet or Paladin or even me could write a nifty novelization that works through all that stuff and throws in some cheesy fanish easter eggs along the way too. It's really not a problem at all. I don't want Mitchell in the film because of canon considerations, I just want him there because every good action film has a fuy like him round and I like it better to have him being the "card" in the early days because I don't think it rings true that the camradarie that the Big Three enjoy later is there yet. IMO, there ought to be some REAL tension between Spock and McCoy that is consistant with his rather harsh debates with him in the first season. That means the witty barbs the two throw at each other in the later films would be out of place. So I think the film needs Mitchell as a second teir character. But that has almost nothing to do with the circumstances of WNMHGB
Actually, I could have sworn there were a couple episodes that mentioned Sulu's past in the Biology department, so it's not like it was completely abandoned history
He hung out in the plant lab (arboretum, whatever it was called) in "The Man Trap." He and Rand disagreed on the name of the plant (she called it Beauregard and he called it Gertrude).
Was it physics? I can't really recall. But I'm fairly sure they, at a later point, mentioned his previous career track once or twice.
I just re-watched "Where No Man...", and Sulu was head of "astrosciences"...so I assume something like astrometrics &/or stellar cartography... (Never could figure out the difference between the two...)
The answer is simple: Sulu transferred to astrosciences from helmsman (just before WNMHGB), found he didn't enjoy the job so much, and asked to be transferred back (between WNMHGB and the rest of TOS).
I've always heard the basic assumption was that young officers on a command track would work some in every depertment. Sulu was simply doing his time in the Science Department....yet his presence in important scenes signified he was on a command track. Likewise, it can be theorized that checkov was always on the ship (which is why Khan recognized him and vice versa) but was simply buried down in engeneering or something during the first season. Again, that's why a simple Ensign gets to go to the big table command crew confrences.