'Star Trek': a fantasy cast

JJ Abrams mainly cast new and unknown actors in his update of 'Star Trek'. Time Out offers its fantasy cast of big-name actors

Character: Captain James Tiberius Kirk
Suggested actor: Colin Farrell
Qualifications: Cocksure, good in a dust-up, eye for interstellar skirt
To boldly go: horribly wrong…

Farrell's performance in Oliver Stone’s hopeless sword ’n’ sandal throwback ‘Alexander’ proved that Castleknock’s finest has the chops to lead men into the unknown. With charisma and energy to burn, he is a lock for Kirk, but a perceived problem with authority figures and a well-documented fondness for a wee drop now and again means you’re less likely to see him swanning around the bridge spouting snippets of cod Shakespeare than you are to find him below decks shotgunning tubes of Romulan Ale with the swabbies.

Character: Science officer John Spock
Suggested actor: Michael Richards
Qualifications: Otherworldly, counterintuitive, available
To boldly go: to the food replicator for Cheerios

Disgraceful ‘Seinfeld’ star Michael Richards brings spring-haired sagacity to the role of the Enterprise’s mixed-race science officer, assaying a perfectly raised quizzical eyebrow while voicing opinions straight from another world. While not famed for keeping it tidy on the emotional front, the K-Man shares Spock’s disdain for received wisdom and, when the Captain's dress uniform with gilded cummerbund comes out, he won’t shrink from telling it like it is: 'You know what you are, Jim? You're a fancy boy...'

Character: Hikaru ‘Mr Sulu’ Sulu
Suggested actor: Ken Hom
Qualifications: Zen-like calm. Woks.
To boldly go: to the mess deck to make the tea

The Tuscon-born Chinese food pioneer who single-handedly detonated the semi-short-lived wok bomb in the UK and US before people realised that frying pans would really suffice would make for an excellent Mr Sulu. While he doesn’t have the diminutive stature of Mr George Takei, his superior cookery programs present him as a meditative guy who favours logic and calm over sweating and saying ‘f**k’ a lot.

 

Character: Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Suggested actor: David Mitchell
Qualifications: he’s, like, well clever
To boldly go: berserk

Beyond the sight of seeing the adorably porcine Mitchell waddling about in what really is one step up from a crotchless PVC catsuit, we think that he would have been a perfect leftfield choice as the Enterprise’s head quack. How brilliant would it be to have one of the pumped-up ray-gun fodder types screaming in agony in the sick bay, and Mitchell directing a hateful (but wonderfully eloquent) tranche of expletives at the poor chap: ‘I don’t known why you’re moaning. There are Micronesian peasants who’ve got it much worse off than you, Sonny Jim!’

Character: Communications officer Uhura
Suggested actor: Beyoncé Knowles
Qualifications: a PhD in sass
To boldly go: where Destiny calls

The ex-lead singer of Destiny’s Child-turned solo sensation must be desperate to broaden her cinematic range having recently played a sassy soul singer in ‘Dreamgirls’ and then a singing soul sister in ‘Cadillac Records’. So what better break-out opportunity than to play the ultimate sci-fi minority character and bust the boy's-own club of the Federation right in to line, with songs like 'Satellite' and 'Halo' suggesting that there's a nerd buried beneath the bling.

Character: Ensign Pavel Chekov
Suggested actor: Noel Fielding
Qualifications: pointy face, cool hair, pre-existing fanbase
To boldly go: mostly tangential

It seems baffling now, but Walter Koenig’s Chekov was drafted into the second series of ‘Star Trek’ in order to give teenage girls a heartthrob to tune in and fixate over. Not a traditionally handsome young man, his main qualification seems to have been that he had a similar haircut to Davey Jones of ersatz teen-scream faves The Monkees. Who better to take up his chisel-faced mantle than ‘Mighty Boosh’ glam-scatter Fielding? He might have something to say about revving up those bri-nylon uniforms with some tasty Camden Market accessories, too.

Character: Chief engineer Montgomery Scott
Suggested actor: Peter Capaldi
Qualifications: good under pressure, proper Scottish
To boldly go: ballistic at any time.

JJ Abrams’s upcoming film seems to be‘skewing young’ (apart from Karl Urban as Doc McCoy who looks a good 25 years older than everyone else in the trailers), but when it comes to engine room savvy, you need a wise head on old shoulders. Many will know Capaldi as unhinged Whitehall tyrant Malcolm Tucker from ‘The Thick Of It’, in which he displays an ability to buy time and spin the truth to his own ends that is second only to Scotty’s. He proved he could cut it on the big screen in his gangly youth with ’Local Hero’ and is, let us never forget, a bona fide Oscar winner.

'Star Trek' is released in cinemas on 8 May, 2009

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