Well, according to Memory Alpha Scotty was born in 2222 and Kirk in 2233. So that's 11 years difference.
Star Trek General Discussion
- Thread starter SHIELD Agent 47
- Start date
Upcoming Temporal Shenanigans where Scotty has to keep the ship running while everyone else is frozen in time?
I need to see that cited with canonical source material. Not just something a wiki says.
I think I wrote about it above and the way you replied it feels like you didn't just run into it today. I've been bothering you.
I'm going by my eyes. Kirk is a young Captain in TOS. Scott is a seasoned hand, well into middle age. He's just one of those solid backbone officers that a young Captain needs to rely on. To me this is deep into his character and role in the crew. Especially as you proceed into the movies, it never isn't visually obvious that he's an older man and not just a little bit.
And the issue isn't just his age. There is not actually much time for this baby-faced gee whiz-kid junior lieutenant to transform into the steady, firm-gripped Lt Cmdr Chief Engineer of the Enterprise. And when did he serve on the freighters and stuff? This actor is 31 and looks younger if anything.
I'm going by my eyes. Kirk is a young Captain in TOS. Scott is a seasoned hand, well into middle age. He's just one of those solid backbone officers that a young Captain needs to rely on. To me this is deep into his character and role in the crew. Especially as you proceed into the movies, it never isn't visually obvious that he's an older man and not just a little bit.
And the issue isn't just his age. There is not actually much time for this baby-faced gee whiz-kid junior lieutenant to transform into the steady, firm-gripped Lt Cmdr Chief Engineer of the Enterprise. And when did he serve on the freighters and stuff? This actor is 31 and looks younger if anything.
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Yeah, the documentary side was old hat to me. The war part with the very cool floaty alien was great but also not a new story. So combined together, the two plots were enhanced. Still just ok tho, but could be great for newcomers.
Saw 3x9 Terrarium. It's an Ortegas ep!!!!
It was a plot we've seen before but it's Erica Ortegas! (She flies the ship!)
As usual, I hated the ending and would like a do over. Or at least add some more ambiguity so I can sleep better.
I can't believe the season will be over next week already!
I'm content with this explanation, but still feel free to agree to disagree. I don't see anything in the canon where Scotty being older than Kirk is essential to any plot in any way. That the actor is visibly older doesn't really matter too much to me, because people visibly age at rather different rates (some 70-year old men looking better than some 50-year old men, for example).
"Relics" in TNG. Dr. Crusher gives his age as 147. The episode happens ca. stardate 46125, which is in 2369.
2369-147=2222.
So the character is 37 in SNW Season 3 and the actor is 31, which wouldn't ordinarily be a big deal, but he feels like he's playing 24 to me. That's totally subjective, I know, but his role is very like Uhura's. Ambitious, bright, and competent but wowza what am I doing here?
I actually enjoyed this episode despite being spoiled about who was behind it.
I had no idea. I knew it was a reference but didn't think it was an actual actual continuity thing. I'm sure the story would be fine with or without it but with it, I can imagine a way it could have ended happier for both of them.
Edit - it was Star Trek day?
Edit - it was Star Trek day?
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So, what folks are saying is, because a date was indeed mentioned at some point in a story in the past, in a context that was simply "you're really old now!" and decidedly NOT "you were a lot older than Kirk was, weren't you?" folks are screaming that continuity has been violated?
Let me try again. Has there ever been an episode of any episode of Star Trek where Scotty being older than Kirk mattered to the plot in any way?
I feel like we need to remind folks that this is FICTION, and that lots of dates and references have had to be retconned in the past. Usually, we can wink at it at move on. Why not now?
Let me try again. Has there ever been an episode of any episode of Star Trek where Scotty being older than Kirk mattered to the plot in any way?
I feel like we need to remind folks that this is FICTION, and that lots of dates and references have had to be retconned in the past. Usually, we can wink at it at move on. Why not now?
...and then Michael Jan Friedman, in the "My Brother's Keeper" trilogy detailing James Kirk and Gary Mitchell's friendship, claimed that the middle initial referenced an in-joke between the two ("You're so stubborn that your middle name should be Rhinoceros.").
Paramount really should institute the No-Prize à la Marvel, where if you can come up with a Watsonian reason why an apparent continuity error ackshually isn't....
I don't know about plural "folks", but Major Grin probably put out a video. Picking these nits in post 2016 Trek is kind of his thing.
I don't do that, but that's because I also remember that the Berman era had retcon patches and mandated-from-on-high Doyleist changes (e.g. the Trill). And Larry Niven told me once (when I asked him about "The Slaver Weapon" and how to fit referenced events into Okuda's chronology) that very little was nailed down in Gene's day. So.
I mean, this is kinda why I subscribe to the "Secret Hideout shows are a new timeline" fanon. It's freeing; it means I can take these shows entirely on their own merits without thinking about how they relate to the classic Roddenberry-Berman timeline. Just like the Kelvinverse.
SNW doesn't have to lead to TOS, just to something similar-but-not-identical (which leads to a similar-but-not-identical 24th century, which leads to Lower Decks and Picard).
SNW doesn't have to lead to TOS, just to something similar-but-not-identical (which leads to a similar-but-not-identical 24th century, which leads to Lower Decks and Picard).
Now that I think about it, I think Simon Pegg's Scotty also fits into this situation just as much as SNW's Scotty does. However, to be honest with you, it has never really bothered me either.
Yup. 59th Anniversary of the first episode of TOS airing.
We got some cool videos, including our first official look at Star Trek Lego with a teaser video of Picard beaming in on the Enterprise D and shrinking down into a CGI Lego Figure.
So a few days ago you were satisfied to agree to disagree, so I hope I'm not one of your screaming folks.
Whelp, the goal posts moved. You wanted onscreen canon, but that didn't agree with you, so now you need a story ABOUT Scotty being older. *shrugs. The line in Relics was not just a random throwaway line. It was an onscreen verification that Scotty was the same age as James Doohan in the original series. And if you skipped what I wrote earlier, Relics also has Scotty saying how many ships he served on. A bunch of freighters before Starfleet ships, a career culminating in become chief engineer of a Constitution-class ship. It is actually a story about how old Scotty is.
Or you can watch the opening of the Motion Picture where Scotty takes Admiral Kirk to the refit Enterprise and they've died Kirk's hair a new dark brown color to keep his character from being old, but they've let Scotty's hair go gray. It just caps off the whole run of the original series where Kirk is a precocious young captain and Scotty is a seasoned, experienced hand.
The producers didn't create a canon because they wanted to. They were perfectly happy running spec scripts on TOS. Fans wanted canon and eventually producer's cooperated. A lot of fans want to be grounded in a consistent canon. Yes, it has been broken in probably every series, but always for a reason and fans get to decide if they like the reasons. I've winked at plenty of retcons. DS9 did quite a few of them right out of the gate and I love that show. And I haven't stopped watching this show either. If I were in charge the Enterprise would look as much as possible like TOS, but I forgave them because I really like how it looks and it really looks halfway between NX-01 and NCC-1701-A.
It made me uncomfortable how many TOS characters SNW was starting with when they first announced it. Pike and Spock were indispensable and Discovery had already established Una. It would have made the most sense to put either Boyce or Piper in sickbay. I think they chose M'Benga for diversity. I'm not a DEI detractor, but I would have just made a new character rather put M'Benga where he doesn't really make sense. He will somehow get demoted to a staff doctor that you usually don't see. But I've winked at it. They've made an interesting character of him. If *I* had been in charge I would have left it at that and made all new characters, but if the studio had insisted on bringing in another legacy character, I would have put Scotty in at the start, because he's the one that makes the most sense. He's older than the rest of the crew, we didn't see the engineer on "The Cage" and he was the engineer on the second pilot, so he doesn't conflict with anything. Actually, I think I would have done this without the studio asking me. Hemmer was cool because he kind of grounded TOS deeper into the later-established canon. Ortegas is fun and they can do anything they want with her. Bringing Sam Kirk in was a fun idea, but was only fun while it was a wink at James Kirk. Now that James Kirk is there all the time, we don't see Sam. A couple weeks ago, Sam is actually the one just getting named for free without hiring an actor. It was supposed to be the other way around. La'an would be cooler if they hadn't felt like they had to tie her in with her last name. I just would've liked to have more original characters that don't need to be kept on track.
But I winked at it. The new Pike, Spock, Kirk, and Uhura are not clones of the TOS, but they feel to me to be reasonably within the same cloud. They've done a fun thing with Majel's characters, neither of which had personalities before. They split Majel in half and made two characters that don't look the same and have their own interesting personalities. I'm cool with it. But now they have Kirk on all the time and they've brought Scotty aboard and the show has virtually been transformed into TOS season 0. We're only missing Bones, Sulu, and Rand now.
But to my eye Scotty doesn't resemble Scotty and I don't feel like they improved him with their changes. He is irritating. He treads the exact same story spots as Uhura. The new character has his name, his hair color, his uniform, and a Scottish accent (A REAL one this time), but he's a totally different guy. I'm not really sure it is Montgomery Scott. It might actually be Carson Beckett. I think he might actually be more like Carson Beckett. What do the two Scottys have in common? In my head Scotty would've been the one that went into the other room to tell acting Captain Kirk that he's been around the block a few times and been in some tough scrapes and he knows he can do his job, but those kids out there need someone to show some confidence and give the orders and if Kirk wants to be a Captain now is the time. But they couldn't do that with the young punk Scotty that has been rolling his eyes at him.