Hollywood.com has a reader poll today: "Karl Urban will play the Starship's Enterprise's medical officer Leonard 'Bones' McCoy in the upcoming 'Star Trek' movie. Is this a good casting call?"
As of 18:48 GMT on 18 Oct 2007, the stats were: 41.7% YES and 58.3% NO.
Hollywood.com is also reporting "Shatner to Appear in New 'Star Trek' Movie"
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"Amok Time" -- Spock
Look, McCoy did not have an accent under normal circumstances. De Kelly had a brilliant way of manifesting it at times when McCoy was more emotional than usual, or when the character was in a weakened state. Although the circumstantial accent has become a signature element in the character, a different actor will interpret the role in a different way.
I'd rather have actors with a fresh vision on their respective characters than clones of the original cast. That being said, I think it would seem odd for McCoy not to have the accent at the appropriate moments.
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"It's not who I am inside, but what I do that defines me." -Batman
www.gracelockport.com
...are gonna like this flick.
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"I would be happy for Star Trek to come along decades later with a new group of minds. I'd love someone to say, 'Besides this one, Gene Roddenberry's was nothing!'" - Gene Roddenberry
"...I think it would be wonderful years from now to see Star Trek come back with an equally talented new cast playing Spock and Kirk and Bones and Scotty and all the rest, as they say tomorrow's things to tomorrow's generations..." - Gene Roddenberry
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You make a good point that doesn't get mentioned here very often (hmmm, I wonder why?)
In the real world, as most know, producers try to appeal to as many demos as possible. The "chick" factor (HIS WORDS ANY IRATE FEMALE POSTERS! lol) is a good example not always considered in a Star Trek film (ala Conan's "disdain" for the Star Trek lovin' virgin..c'mon, you know the guy's a closet watcher. The other night an alarm went off in the studio by accident and his first reaction? He yells "Red Alert!" And, yes, it DID sound like a TOS sound.)
Remember fans: In Hollywood, the bottom line is the bottom line.
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I don't care what "they" say..... "THERE...ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!"
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The Stargate shows go down well with women (ahem) because of the men in it. Apparently.
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"I would be happy for Star Trek to come along decades later with a new group of minds. I'd love someone to say, 'Besides this one, Gene Roddenberry's was nothing!'" - Gene Roddenberry
"...I think it would be wonderful years from now to see Star Trek come back with an equally talented new cast playing Spock and Kirk and Bones and Scotty and all the rest, as they say tomorrow's things to tomorrow's generations..." - Gene Roddenberry
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The only problem is: What the heck is an Australian/New Zealander-tinged Georgia accent gonna sound like??? Makes me cringe just thinking of the possibilities...
Most Anglo-based actors and actresses (UK, Australian, New Zelandar, etc.) can imitate an American accent FAR better than American actors can fake theirs... southern accents especially.
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-- Steve
"If a sixth Star Trek television series is ever realized, it will be set in the new universe." -- cdydatzigs, June 15, 2009.
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That's ridiculous. Some people are great with accents and some aren't. I'd say Cate Blanchett is wonderful with accents, but Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain) and Jude Law are terrible. (Man, Jude Law's accent in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil made it almost unwatchable).
Georgia accents are really difficult and nuanced. Overall, I'd say Australian and UK accents are MUCH easier for me to do than most southern accents and I'm from Florida.
I grew up in Tampa (not southern culture at all; a lot of new england/midwest transplants), but now I live in Tallahassee and people in the rural surrounding areas have either Georgia or Alabama accents. The difference in accents, though, is really critical. Trip's accent would NOT be appropriate for Dr. McCoy. George Bush's Texas accent would NOT be approrpriate for Dr. McCoy. Bill Clinton's Arkansas accent would not be appropriate for Dr. McCoy.
Some Europeans forget that the United States of America is no more homogenous than the EU. In fact, the USA is more than twice the size of the entire EU (about 10 million square miles versus about 4 million square miles). (My figures are all from wikipedia). Georgia (McCoy's and De Kelly's home state) has twice the population of New Zealand, Karl Urban's native country (though it's about half as large). Florida has 4 times the population of New Zealand. There is no such thing as a "southern accent" any more than there is a southern European accent. I have a few friends from southern Georgia who sound NOTHING like someone from Atlanta (and I mean NOTHING like them...a much, much stronger accent).
To the 302 million Americans who will be the primary market for this film, the accent needs to be at least CLOSE to De Kelley's accent. It has a ruminative quality, a sort of southern gentleman quality---not a hicky, uneducated quality. Kevin Spacey tried to do a Savannah accent in Midnight...and was a LOT better than Jude Law but still ended up sounding distractingly bad.
I LOOOOVE Dr. McCoy. I'm not opposed to Karl Urban if he can get the accent right, but if he doesn't, it'll be really deflating. Frankly, I don't think he'll be able to inhabit that character in the truly southern way that DeKelley did. It's not just an accent...it's mannerisms and facial expressions. All in all, I'd say Karl Urban has the hardest job to do in not sounding ridiculous and in keeping McCoy as the soul and the conscience of Star Trek.
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Except for "This Side of Paradise" and "Encounter at Farpoint" he didn't really exhibit much of an accent. So unless McCoy's tipsy or old I don't think an accent is really necessary.
Ahh, Tampa. MacDill, Dale Mabry, and the ABC Superlounge!
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"Outer Space: The Last Frontier.
These are the trips of the Star Trek Enterprise. Its five year plan calls for us to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly fly where no man has gone in space. Live long, and be happy."
Patrick Stewart--SNL, Stardate 9402.05
They had the others on at just about the same time. weird
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The Hollywood Stock Exchange has everyone we've heard of so far listed as being cast in the movie, except for Karl Urban (though it'll likely come soon) and (strangely) Zachary Quinto... though Zachary's not even listed in their database yet, which is strange in and of itself, as he's been doing stuff on screen for a while.
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"A billion robot lives are about to be extinguished! Oh, the Jedis are going to feel this one..."
-Hubert Farnsworth (Futurama: Crimes of the Hot)
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"The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one!"
-Shran (ENT: Proving Ground)
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I think we'll see an official roll-out on the site and in the trade papers (Variety and Hollywood Reporter) sometime soon. There hasn't been any technically-official confirmation of either: Urban still stands as a rumor, if a well-substantiated one, and Pine would be too if Carnahan hadn't let the cat out of the bag on his blog. (Sour grapes, I suspect - even if he still loves Pine and wants to work with him, he's probably all too happy to sabotage his successful rivals' unveiling of Kirk.)
...at least from that photo above. The only problem is: What the heck is an Australian/New Zealander-tinged Georgia accent gonna sound like??? Makes me cringe just thinking of the possibilities...
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You go away for an afternoon and the romper room goes bonkers over an off-handed remark about established geographic linguistics!
On a serious note, if you're still filling your pants on Urban's accent, here is a double hitter for you!!
Reasons why a low budget can make the difference.
It will give you a glimpse at what he can do with "aggressive Sci-fi grunt-based "americanized" speech."
And the second hit is watching Walter have to fulfill his contract in showing up. He must have killed his agent after this one was over.
(And to answer the obvious first question for those that don't know, it was a "never-picked-up" pilot from a few years ago..hmmm...wonder why?)
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I don't care what "they" say..... "THERE...ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!"
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I think he does look the part. Take away the action hero muscles and he seems to have a slightly gangly look, a la Kelley; what's more, his facial structure sort of resembles Kelley's. Odd to find a character actor face full of asymmetries and angles on a "hunk."
Who knows about the accent, but McCoy really didn't use one all that often: when you think of the McCoy sound, I think you're hearing more Kelley's distinctive inflection than a Southern twang.
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Quote:
The only problem is: What the heck is an Australian/New Zealander-tinged Georgia accent gonna sound like??? Makes me cringe just thinking of the possibilities...
Most Anglo-based actors and actresses (UK, Australian, New Zelandar, etc.) can imitate an American accent FAR better than American actors can fake theirs... southern accents especially.
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-- Steve
"If a sixth Star Trek television series is ever realized, it will be set in the new universe." -- cdydatzigs, June 15, 2009.
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Kenneth Branagh
Hugh Jackman
Russell Crowe
Hugh Laurie (the doctor from House)
Eric Bana
Just to name a few...
The job description of a well-paid, Hollywood-class motion picture actor is that he can do what he is hired to do. In this case, it's to sound like McCoy.
I think the casting director and Abrams didn't say, "Well, he sounds horrible, but let's cast him anyway."
And as an aside: Do you know WHERE the southern accent originates? It's a bastardized English accent washed through many generations in America. From a diction P.O.V., it is MUCH easier for an British/Australian person to "nail" a southern accent than a northern-born U.S. citizen.
If you want to know more, go to this link and listen to him clip his own accent for the sake of studio promotion.
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I don't care what "they" say..... "THERE...ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!"
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I don't recall the actors you mentioned doing southern accents. Standard, northeastern white guy TV newscaster accents aren't all that hard to do....English-speaking Western Europeans grow up with a lot of American TV. All those people you mentioned did the sort of "featureless" American accent, not a regional accent. And I'll agree....they did fine jobs. Those are NOT thick regional accent, though. It's just silly to call anything an American accent. President Bush and the people in Fargo come from the same country.
In my experience, when Brits attempt a southern accent, they just overdo the "r"s at the end of words. They pick up their bad southern accents from Californians and New Yorkers playing southerners in movies where they use bad southern accents.
I never really saw Deliverance, but those 4 characters were from Atlanta. One actor was from New York, one was from Arizona, one from Southern Florida (like...close to Miami), and one was from Kentucky.
I'm telling you...I'd like to find aome SOUTHERNERS who can identify actors originating from OUTSIDE the southeast United States who have done good southern accents in TV or movies. I'm sure there are some, but none come immediately to mind.
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Kenny B. did a southern drawl in "Gingerbread Man" as I recall.
I have heard Crowe and Laurie do southern before (Laurie is outright amazing given his strong natural accent).
Bana did southern in "Black Hawk Down."
I also heard Jackman in a short do something close to southern, but it was a little on the weak side.
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I don't care what "they" say..... "THERE...ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!"
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"The job description of a well-paid, Hollywood-class motion picture actor is that he can do what he is hired to do. In this case, it's to sound like McCoy.
I think the casting director and Abrams didn't say, 'Well, he sounds horrible, but let's cast him anyway.'"
Well, someone once thought that Kevin Costner would make a good Robin Hood... or that Walter Koenig could make a convincing Russian! :)
I think it all depends on the actor. Most of those actors you mentioned have attempted and, for the most part, succeeded at fairly flat, WASP-y accents. Once you hire a "foreign" actor to try a Southern American accent, things start to get just a little wonky. Peter Sellers famously couldn't pull one off for DR. STRANGELOVE (so the part went to Slim Pickens) and I think the British actor Feddie Jones (? - last name may be incorrect--he was in DUNE) failed miserably in an imfamous "Space:1999" episode.
Hard to say for sure how Urban is going to pull it off.
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Russel Crowe, who is Australian born, did a good southern accent in A Beautiful Mind.
I'm going to trust JJ on this one and assume they wouldn't hire someone who can't sound like McCoy.
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"What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived."
~Picard
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plce80jwuP0&mode=related&search=
Where are you from Beamer? I saw Beautiful Mind in the theatre, but it had been a while so I went to You Tube.
Here's some demonstrators in West Virginia speaking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv4Yz2PEsJ0&mode=related&search=MJS%20MJSB%20Marsh%20Fork%20energyaction%20climateaction%20arrests%20coalriverwatch%20penniesofpromise%20%22direct%20action%22
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Click here to check out my band, ego tree , and the Ego Tree site at myspace. Listen to/buy the CD for $9.99! ALSO AVAILABLE ON iTUNES!!
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From a diction P.O.V., it is MUCH easier for an British/Australian person to "nail" a southern accent than a northern-born U.S. citizen.
Not trying to be a d!ck here, but what?!
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"A billion robot lives are about to be extinguished! Oh, the Jedis are going to feel this one..."
-Hubert Farnsworth (Futurama: Crimes of the Hot)
----
"The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one!"
-Shran (ENT: Proving Ground)
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He's saying that the southern accent originally came from a British accent, as did the Australian accent. After a couple hundred years of mixing in with other accents, the British accent mutated into the American Southern, so supposedly a British or Australian actor would be able to do a southern accent easier than someone from, say, Boston would.
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"Outer Space: The Last Frontier.
These are the trips of the Star Trek Enterprise. Its five year plan calls for us to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly fly where no man has gone in space. Live long, and be happy."
Patrick Stewart--SNL, Stardate 9402.05
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I guess if y'all say so. I just haven't ran into many examples that support that idea. I know people from both of those countries who can't do a southern accent for shit.
After a couple hundred years of mixing in with other accents, the British accent mutated into the American Southern
I don't see how the southern accent is any more a mutated British accent than the Boston, New York, Northern Mid-West, or Canadian accents. They all came from the same root dialect.
Not Dick, Diction!
:D You made the Lemmiwinks laugh!
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"A billion robot lives are about to be extinguished! Oh, the Jedis are going to feel this one..."
-Hubert Farnsworth (Futurama: Crimes of the Hot)
----
"The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one!"
-Shran (ENT: Proving Ground)
-
Quote:
I don't see how the southern accent is any more a mutated British accent than the Boston, New York, Northern Mid-West, or Canadian accents. They all came from the same root dialect.
That's what I thinking. Huh? Anyway, if that were the case, the reverse would be true and for some reason I can't imagine Andy Griffith pulling off Prince Charles. Me thinks it's about talent, not nationality.
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I was just trying to explain what I thought Beamer was trying to convey! But actually McCoy didn't have much of an accent 98% of the time anyway.
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"Outer Space: The Last Frontier.
These are the trips of the Star Trek Enterprise. Its five year plan calls for us to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly fly where no man has gone in space. Live long, and be happy."
Patrick Stewart--SNL, Stardate 9402.05
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Okay! Okay! :)
Yeah, Kelley didn't use a southern accent much until his cameo on TNG pilot. Apparently Bones rediscovered his suthyn side in retirement.:) And your namesake spoke with a British accent even though he was from a very old French family. Maybe by the 23rd century the world is so small that accents are interchangeable. Thinking about stuff that doesn't matter is fun!
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I have to say that Karl Urban was not the first actor I thought of to play McCoy. If fact I have to say that I'm a little unimpressed with just about every one of the actors they picked for this movie. All I have to say is that the FX, story, acting and production had better be top-notch and bang on the head or this WILL be the death of Star Trek. As far as accents go, check out Jamie Bamber from Battlestar Galactica. He's as British as Prince Charles but on BSG he sounds like he's from Nebraska!!
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Yes, I think that Brits have been able to do much more successful standard-American accents (I say "standard" to mean the sound of network newscasters, etc, over the past 20 years). That's a lot easier than most styles of southern accents. Jamie Bamber definitely sounds American and I was surprised the first time I saw a BSG behind the scenes thing and heard his voice. He oozes american football player.
Now, that's nowhere NEAR pulling off an Atlanta accent, but as far as it goes, I agree.
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Click here to check out my band, ego tree , and the Ego Tree site at myspace. Listen to/buy the CD for $9.99! ALSO AVAILABLE ON iTUNES!!
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Regarding Bamber, yeah, I was surprised when I heard him speak in an interview. His accent is very convincing.
As regards the quality of the casting, we should wait and see. I agree there's a lot riding on it.
I think the cast is shaping up quite nicely. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.
I really think Shatner would be a perfect choice for Kirk's father.
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"It's not who I am inside, but what I do that defines me." -Batman
www.gracelockport.com
He'll do. It's the Chris Pine casting that I'm still unsure about.
If you've been perusing the boards around here, then Urban was expected to be in as McCoy. So I guess that leaves Pike and Kirk's parents? Is it George and Wynona? We'll find out eventually.
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"Outer Space: The Last Frontier.
These are the trips of the Star Trek Enterprise. Its five year plan calls for us to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly fly where no man has gone in space. Live long, and be happy."
Patrick Stewart--SNL, Stardate 9402.05
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1. Yes, but the definition of an announcement is that something is, well, announced, not original.
2. I may be a little slow here, but has it been confirmed that the "star fleet captain to be named later" is actually Pike? Or could it be April?
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I don't care what "they" say..... "THERE...ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!"
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