Pleasepleaseplease let this be true!!

Karl Urban is too damn sexy (with the most gorgeous eyes since Paul Newman) to be stuck in the stupid action films he's been doing since RotK (with the exception of Bourne Supremacy, in which he really rocked that buzzcut and menace, but not the Russian accent, unfortunately). Here's hoping he can turn his Hollywood career around with this role (or a similar one).

Sorry, I think both Bones and Scotty have been wildly miscast.

Simon Pegg can sound like James Doohan, but looks absolutely nothing like a younger version of him. Karl Urban, frankly, would have been better cast as a young Scotty if he could have gotten the voice close.

DeForest Kelly was a slight man with narrow shoulders. Karl Urban looks like a footballer.

OTOH, most of the other casting, especially Zachary Quinto as Spock, looks good. But Urban and Pegg are just wrong for those particular roles.

Ugh. Once again, I renew my objection to the idea of this movie even being made.

What Trek really needs at this point is some time off, like the time we had between TOS and the ST:TMP. And it's really, really time to retire the characters from TOS, with the possible exception of Spock (who may still be alive in the post-Nemesis timeframe).

This just in: George Lucas has taken over the production of the Star Trek revamp and will recast the original crew with Ewoks.

:runs for cover:

James Bond was originally a literary character, and while Hamlet wasn't, we don't exactly have any way of seeing the original actor's take on the role. Kirk, Spock and McCoy, on the other hand, were originally written for television, and were largely defined by the actors who portrayed them.

Really, once you take Shatner out of Kirk, all you're left with is an extremely generic action hero. McCoy's character consisted almost entirely of the mannerisms Kelly brought to the role. Spock had a bit more meat to him on paper, but was still largely defined by Nimoy's acting.

I think body type counts for something (particularly for the more recognizable characters).

Dr. McCoy wasn't a hulk, and Scotty wasn't a slight guy with a receding chin.

I'll give you an example of more interesting casting - while he's way too sexy, David Tennant would have made a better Dr. McCoy than Karl Urban. Tennant is skinny and has a long face. He can better suggest the character than Karl Urban probably could.

Really, McCoy shouldn't even be in this movie. He wasn't even on the Enterprise's crew when Kirk first took command.

How much do you want to be that Gary Mitchell, the one character who really should be in a Star Trek prequel movie, will be a no-show?

They should've just made a movie about Christopher Pike and his crew. Lots of untapped potential there, and the only well-known character that you'd have to recast is Spock.

MaryAnn, Star Trek hasn't been reimagined like this ever before. Trekkies are among the absolute hardest of nerds to please and 2 hours of JJ Look-how-cool-i-can-make-everything Abrams' vision will fail miserably in comparison (let's face it, it's inevitable) to the original.

Why even remake something so popular with such a massive and lasting pop cultural appeal is beyond me.

I'm getting some seriously bad mojos from this remake.

Oh and i can imagine Pegg saying "But Captain, she canna handle anymore!", but i can't imagine Urban saying "Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a ........".

I'd personally much prefer another Next Generation movie to make for the horrendous "Star Trek: Nemesis" and let that crew go out with some dignity.

But oh well.

I'll reserve my judgment until it comes out next year. And Harold of "Harold and Kumar" playing Sulu? "Oh my..."

Also MaryAnn, you've got to give it up for DeForest Kelley. "He had the hands of a surgeon..."--Jadzia Dax. ;-)

I find it curious that you're so jazzed about this movie, MaryAnn. Granted that ST is a very commercial property, but what is to be mined creatively from this project? It doesn't seem to be one of those "reimagining/reboot" attempts, just a sort of prequel, maybe, with new actors in the roles. Who was clamoring for this? It all kind of strikes me as JJ Abrams' multi-million dollar fan flick.

I think JSW has a point. The characters, if not desperately under developed (Sulu, Uhura, etc.) are mostly defined by the mannerisms of the actors, espcially Kirk, since Shatner is such an affected actor to begin with. IIRC, Shakespeare wrote the character of Hamlet with a particular favorite actor in mind (pause while I google... Richard Burbage). Elizabethan audiences probably had trouble seeing anyone else in the role. And to many, James Bond is only a film character, and they have trouble believing anyone else as Bond; hence the ubiquitous "Who's better than Connery" debates and polls.