In Space, Snubs Are A Dish Served Cold

Although not quite as controversial as saying, something like the U.S. Government is to blame for the September 11th attacks, nonetheless, Star Trek's next Captain James T. Kirk has caused quite a stir over recent comments about the role.



A while back Chris Pine (pictured w/the Shat) told USA today that he was “not trying to copy” the way that William Shatner portrayed the role of the star ship commander...

And then in a later interview, the young actor was asked by IGN who he looked to for inspiration when playing JTK--Pine said “Harrison Ford in either Indiana Jones or Star Wars.”

Pine went on to say:

"What Harrison Ford is so great at doing is bringing that quality to his characters that if they could be anywhere else in the world they would be there, but he is not, he just is in the middle of s*** and he has to figure out a way of dealing with it so that he can go back to doing whatever the hell he was doing before the film started…I’ve always loved that quality about him in Star Wars, this sense of absolute grumpy manner; the accidental hero. Not to say that I modeled my version of James T Kirk on anything in particular but I think I definitely have wanted to bring that kind of Harrison Ford humour to Kirk."

When I first read the comments by Pine I thought "no big deal". But then after mulling them over a bit more and chatting about the story with pal, and Associated Content contributor Will Stape, (who says folks on various Trek message boards are very ticked by what Pine said to say the least) I thought--Indiana Kirk?.

I like Ford in his pair of iconic roles as much as the next guy...But c'mon trying not to copy Shatner is one thing- Indy and Solo may share general qualities with the Captain--but Kirk is his own brand of hero. To not mention the Shat is, I'm sorry, a total snub. He helped to shape Kirk for gosh sakes!! And had been at it a decade prior to the debut of Solo and 15 years or so on Indy. You don't have to copy every Kirk trait from Bill to gain inspiration. Think Brandon Routh picking up the mantle for Christopher Reeve in Superman Returns. Routh honored Reeve while making the role his own. I'm not as upset as some Trekkers are over this but the snub was painfully obvious and well ...pretty dumb.

Fortunately, Pine has plenty time between now and the May '09 film release to make good...

It seems that Pine's not the only on the Trek reboot crew who's been influenced by Ford...

TrekMovie.com posted a story in which Trek writers Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman described how the Indiana Jones movies have influenced their work.

Kurtzman on Ford:

I would go as far as to say that literally nobody plays action like Harrison Ford. Nobody. I can’t think of anybody who is able to make you feel that the stakes are real, and also make you laugh in the middle of that.