This one's a little late, but I was on holiday the week that these were announced. I was also considering what to do with the blog in general, if I wanted to continue writing at the pace I've been doing, but that's a discussion for another day.
Basically October was a sad month for Trek.
Starting with Walter Koenig: Chekov was a fairly minor character in TOS, not having even appeared in the first season (so that Khan recognizing him in Star Trek 2 was a notable continuity flub), but once he did show up he became conspicuous both for his accent and what he represented. Especially now, commentators talk about the racial diversity of the TOS cast, with Nichelle Nichols and George Takei having prominent places on the bridge, but Chekov being Russian must also have been pretty eye-opening back in 1967, since the culture was still very locked into the Cold War.
But a Russian person on the bridge of the Enterprise represents Gene Roddenberry's vision of peaceful humanity just as much as Uhura and Sulu did, because it was his way of saying that we could get over even that conflict. Chekov's nationality was a good device that came into play in Star Trek 4 (the One with the Whales), when the people of the 20th century freaked out that they'd caught a Russian on their nuclear vessel - the 80s, after all, saw a resurgence in Cold War anxiety and xenophobia.
I was also glad to see recognition of Koenig's other nerdy SF role, that of Bester from Babylon 5. A key member of the Psi Corps, Bester was one of that show's most fun villains, and a rare face to assign to the evil (the Shadows were represented by a human, Mr Morden, but he was fairly minor overall). I wouldn't be surprised if he was cast explicitly to play against type, but it still worked - I think that's his other iconic role, and it's why I gave the same name to the main villain of my own current novel.
And then there's Sir Patrick.
This death probably hurt the most, since it's the first death of a regular cast member from TNG (the first death of a captain, as well). Captain Picard was arresting from the first, so in control and poised that you couldn't look away whenever he was declaiming against Q's shenanigans or whatever unethical BS the Federation was cooking up. His best episode of the early going - and probably overall, but there are a lot of great Picard episodes - is Season 2's The Measure of a Man, where I was struck by how riveting he was as he argued for Data's humanity.
The other standout moment for me is from the climax of The Drumhead, where he calmly and quietly dismantles the witch hunt by that episode's adversary by quoting her own father at her. Unlike Measure, there are fewer fireworks and raised voices, but a calm, quiet summation of what's actually happening, which still lands (especially today).
There were also the real fireworks - Chain of Command and its five lights; the post-Borg breakdown in Family; the Inner Light. Another of my favorite moments is the final scene of the finale, All Good Things, where he finally sits down for a game of poker with his crew and muses that he should have done this years ago. Picard probably has the most complete emotional arc of any Trek captain (with Sisko a close second), and that moment always hits me whenever I think about it... like when I was writing about it just now.
And of course, there was also Professor X, the most obvious role that he could have taken on. I believe the first time he was "cast" as Charles Xavier was in Kurt Busiek's and Alex Ross's miniseries Marvels, which reimagined key early Marvel Universe moments from the point of view of normal people, but it was so natural and obvious that of course he'd then play Xavier when they actually made the movie.
Xavier is a different sort of character than Picard, and the ways he's been revisited over the years gave Sir Patrick ample opportunity to play him in different ways. The most devastating is, of course, the one in Logan - a very elderly Xavier who's suffering from dementia and whose brain is becoming increasingly dangerous to everyone around him as a result. And it was good to see him swear in that film.
The other point about Sir Patrick is one that I've come back to whenever a venerable Shakespearean actor has passed on: he was one of that old school of Royal Shakespeare Company alumni who brought serious acting chops to what could be some fairly silly roles. In that way, he was similar to Alan Rickman and John Hurt and so many others, and so it's sad to see yet another of these giants of the stage make their exit.
My big regret is that I never got to see him and Sir Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot, which was their first reunion since X-Men 3, but alas, that's the nature of things, isn't it? At least we'll get to see them again one last time in Avengers: Doomsday, though I expect it won't be that long a showing.
Still, as sad as I am for both deaths, and for their families and friends, I'm glad we have their respective bodies of work to revisit. I'm overdue some classic Trek rewatches, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment