There have been a lot of odd casting rumors revolving the new Star Trek movie (Remember when a ton of people thought Matt Damon was going to be the new Kirk?). Well… this one is as strange as any of them… but not unbelievable and could actually be quite true. Seems like old JJ Abrams is trying to line up Tom Cruise for a short spot in the new film.
The good folks over at Moviehole give us the following:
(Cruise) would play the role of Captain Pike – a character that appeared fleetingly in the original series – as a favour to director J.J Abrams (he definitely wouldn’t be doing Paramount any favours), who he worked with on “Mission : Impossible III”.
(Pike was) “James T. Kirk’s predecessor as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise and Mr. Spock’s first commanding officer. Pike was the captain in the original and unaired TV pilot, “The Cage,” where he was portrayed by the late Jeffrey Hunter. When NBC balked at the cerebral nature of the show and wanted a new, action-heavy pilot filmed, Hunter was unavailable so a new character, Captain Kirk, was created. The unaired pilot was later recycled for the two-part first season episode “The Menagerie,” which saw Spock court-martialed for trying to take a disfigured Pike back to Talos IV, the setting of “The Cage.” In Trek lore, Spock served with Pike for about a decade.”
This is interesting on a couple of levels First of all.. I LOVED the Pike espisodes. They stand as a couple of my absolute favorite Star Trek episodes from any of the tv shows. It was eerie, exciting and had some great story telling. I’ve always wanted to know more about Captain Pike after those episodes.
But the thing I don’t like about this is Cruise. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a hell of an actor… BUT… throwing in a HUGE mega A list star like Cruise in a cameo role I think will be needless, silly and distracting. I’d say stay lower key for this one. What do you think?
