This kenna be true! It must break th’ laws o’ physics!
Simon Pegg will play Scotty in the new Trek movie!
"A cricket paddle bat? How quaint."
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About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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October 12th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
That is sad. Simon Pegg is a great comedic actor/writer. To think of him in something that is just all around a horrible idea is just a bummer. This movie is going to be awful… no matter who the put in it.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Cricket paddle? Cricket PADDLE? That’s not quaint; it’s WRONG!!
Excuse me, I need to go and find that old baseball racquet…
October 12th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
He seems old to attend the academy…
October 12th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Is there really such a shortage of Scottish actors? Don’t get me wrong, Simon Pegg is one of my favourite comedian/actors, but why not get a Scot to play a Scot for once? That way, the accent might not be offensively bad!
October 12th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Cricket paddle? Is that like a baseball paddle?
Really, do you mean to insult half the world’s population with that ignorance?
October 12th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
That’s just about the best news ever! Pegg is a great comedic talent and he’s a fabulous actor as well. The role of Scotty requires some semblance of wit anyway and Pegg will be amazing. The guy can do just about anything.
As for the Scottish/actor thing… you all know Scotty was played by a Canadian right?
October 12th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I imagine he will be able to pull it off, if he can do comedy, he can pull it off.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Who’s to say that is not how the Scottish sound in the 23rd century?
;^)
October 12th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
If the accent is not offensively bad, how will we know it’s Scotty?
October 12th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Come on People! Simon Pegg has form playing scottish people! Ever heard of The Boys?
October 12th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I remember this debate going on when Daniel Craig was selected as the latest James Bond. Big uproar. Heck there was even a website out there denouncing the decision. Truth is, the guy I wanted as the new James Bond, Clive Owen, didn’t want the job to start with. So it’s possible that Simon wasn’t the first choice.
However, I say give him a chance. I’m sure he wasn’t selected at random. He might be aiming to expand his horizons and this would do it.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Yeah, I know Jimmy Doohan was Canadian – and his accent was atrocious!
October 12th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Really? Scotty… Played by SHAUN? Wow… I’m speechless.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Scotty has a bad Scottish accent, but Scots don’t mind because he played the character with affection.
One thing to remember, there are many different Scottish accents. Here is a joke Star Trek from Glaswegians (Central – West) taking the pee out of Dundee (North – East) accent.
I am Scottish and I don’t know what half of that means!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khrpy4V0-U4
October 12th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Saw this on the BBC a moment ago. Alone in my room, with no human being within sound of my voice, I proceeded to swear loudly, gasp repeatedly in astonishment, strike my forehead with my right palm and hold forth at length at the general unbelievability of it.
WHAT IN THE SPHINCTER OF HELL IS GOING ON AT PARAMOUNT!
It’s like magical elves on drugs snuck past the guy on the gate (who, in a little side detail, has been trying to show executives his script for twelve years now but is constantly frustrated by the fact that none of them know his name), got into the Star Trek offices, and proceeded to go mad with the automated approval stamp and a long ton of inking pads. I like Simon Pegg – I have his autograph on my Spaced collector’s edition – but this project just seems to be a black hole of wrong, sucking in all the wrong for light-years around. I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken…
Also, how odd is it that my first thought on reading the story was “I wonder if BA has this yet”, and my second thought was, “Oooh, but if it was Nick Frost – would that work?”
October 12th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Thank you for fixing the post, BA. I no longer have to boycott this site…
October 12th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Oh boy. L’il Star Trek.
But, wait, it’s new and improved! It’s Star Trek EXTREME (!) for a NEW generation of hip, young demographic cluster members!
If Spears or Lohan or any other vapid waste of oxygen and carbon show up anywhere in the cast, I’m detonating the Earth’s core. I’ll do it. We have a bore hole right to the center here at the Desperation compound and 800 suitcase nukes we got real cheap on the Ukranian version of eBay.
You have been warned.
October 12th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Or maybe they could go retro. Have Peter Max design the aliens.
October 12th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Is this the first time an actor has appeared on Doctor Who and Star Trek?
October 12th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
It could have been worse: Nick Frost as Scotty?
I think Pegg could prove someone interesting to watch if the rest of the movie is a bomb. He is like Sean Connery, Johnny Depp and Michael Caine, in that you’ll see them in bad movies, but you’ll rarely seen them bad in a movie.
Now if they’ll cast Kate Ashfield as Yeoman Rand: Yowrr!
October 12th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
@Quiet Desperation:
[quote]If Spears or Lohan or any other vapid waste of oxygen and carbon show up anywhere in the cast, I’m detonating the Earth’s core.[/quote]
Now that’s completely unnecessary. Why not use a government funded earthquake machine to stop the earth’s core. This way pigeons disoriented by the weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field will fly into the studio and smash into the cast, permanently disfiguring them. (I wonder where I got this idea)
Seriously though, to all the people who decry Simon Pegg in the role and then say they love him baffle me. I’m a fan because I think he has the acting range for many roles, not just comic ones. I think he’ll pull it off so long as they don’t try to tailor the role for Shaun.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
> He seems old to attend the academy…
Oh, brother… *resists urge to scream in frustration*
As has been known for at least a year, and bloody obvious considering most of the actors cast are over 30, the next Star Trek movie is NOT set at Starfleet Academy.
Let me give you the full list of actors cast:
Zachary Quinto – Spock
Leonard Nimoy – Old Spock
Simon Pegg – Scotty
John Cho – Sulu
Zoe Saldana – Uhura
Anton Yelchin – Chekov
Eric Bana – Nero (the villain)
With the possible exception of Cho, nobody worth whining about “Li’l Star Trek” in that list. Spears and Lohan? Grow up.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I am looking forward to this movie, especially if it will be a reimagining of the series. It worked for Battlestar: Galactica, hopefully they will do the same for Star Trek.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
So how about “Chris Pine has been offered the role of Kirk”?
Yes, IIRC it was explained in a novel (that may or may not have been canon) that different individuals “national” characters are mostly adopted affectations, since nations are gone. In that world they were supposed to be overplayed, and perhaps slightly wrong and comical too boot.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Oh, oops. “to boot”. Or maybe “to ‘bot”, if it had been Star wars.
October 13th, 2007 at 3:08 am
are they so bereft of ideas that all they can do is resurect40 year old fossils and sell them as new movies? Remakes and sequels is all we get.
October 13th, 2007 at 5:48 am
I think it’s time to bring this up again…. PADDLE?
October 13th, 2007 at 11:58 am
It’s remarkable how many people get exercised over a “sport” that’s named after a particularly annoying little bug.
October 13th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Doohan’s accent was a great/bad accent. It had character and every Scot I know really likes it despite its inaccuracy. Jimmy Doohan was a really great man. I met him once on a train (his brother lived in my town) and it’s a trip I will never forget.
I’m a huge Simon Pegg fan and I trust him enough to know he will at least make this worth seeing. Based on all available information, I think this might be good as they’re making the right decisions so far.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:38 am
I’d heard that this outing may involve time travel. Oh, good. I just can’t get enough time travel in Star Trek.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:58 am
That’s for sure. Enterprise would probably never have tanked if it hadn’t started off with a foolishly long time-travel arc.
October 16th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Doohan’s accent was a great/bad accent. It had character and every Scot I know really likes it despite its inaccuracy.
So much so that several Scottish cities have a long-running spat over where he will have hailed from.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Pegg is the only hope I have for this movie.
Long live Shaun and Co.
steal as you will:
http://hermit9.blogspot.com/2007/06/shaun-of-dead-motivational-poster.html