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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: re: re: DC loves KA!
Message-ID: <3848@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Oct-84 08:02:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.3848
Posted: Sat Oct  6 08:02:59 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Oct-84 21:13:42 EDT
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> From:	ihlts!rjnoe	(Roger Noe)

>>	Kirstie [Alley] was SO much better [as Saavik].
>>	And is prettier than Robin Curtis, to boot!
>>		Stewart Wiener / St. Joseph's University / allegra!sjuvax!smw
>
> These two statements are at odds.  Why do people want a pretty Saavik?
> The very idea seems contradictory to me.  She's a half-Romulan, half-Vulcan
> who spent her childhood as something of an animal.  WHY would she be pretty?
> HOW could she?  Curtis looks much more Vulcan/Romulan to me than Alley, who
> refused to have half of her eyebrows shaved to appear less human.  (Nimoy
> has his entire brows shaved off and then has new ones applied by makeup, one
> hair at a time.)  Could it be Stewart has a crush on Saavik?  Maybe the kind
> of fantasies women supposedly had about Spock years back (and still, I guess)?
> Naaaah!                :-)

Let's look at it from another viewpoint. To be honest, I find Robin Curtis to be
prettier than Kirstie Alley, in a sense of what I consider the "norm" for beauty
in our culture. On the other hand, what that "standard norm" of beauty that
Curtis has does for her is to make her look like she was stamped from the Acme
Hollywood Ingenue Machine. Kirstie Alley I find to be much more attractive be-
cause she has a much more *exotic* beauty than Curtis does. Sort of along the
same lines as Caucasian men having a tendency to find Oriental women, as a rule,
beautiful.
	I was discussing this point with the elusive, occasional poster, PDDB,
and brought up another point: Who could take a Vulcan with curly hair seriously,
anyways? PDDB said, "But she isn't totally Vulcan. Maybe her curly hair comes
from the Romulan side." "Well, that's even *worse*," said I, "Here they are,
trying to pass themselves off as macho brutes. They'd be laughed out of the
galaxy if they had curly hair!" :-)

Another reason that I prefer Alley to Curtis, is that I found Curtis to be too
flat and unemotional in her delivery. Now, I admit that this sounds strange ---
that I would complain about a Vulcan being too unemotional, but:

(1) She's half-Romulan. Romulans are a highly emotional race. Not having lived
her formative years in Vulcan society, as Spock did, would color her for her
lifetime. Saavik is quite likely to have raging emotions under that cool exter-
ior. Alley had that feel about her, of a bomb waiting to go off. Curtis didn't.

(2) Truly unemotional characters aren't in the least bit interesting. What about
Spock? you say. Spock is a *very* emotional character. Hell, what makes him in-
teresting is that his emotions shine through *despite* his efforts to contain
them. He gets insulted if you say that he acted like a human, he acts proud if
you say that he acts like a machine, he shows true affection for his friends.
He's been known to get embarrassed on occasion, and he has a wry sense of humor.
I found Spock to be totally devoid of character in STAR TREK--THE MOTION PICTURE
*until* he mind-meld with V'ger and found that emotions are useful and nothing
to be ashamed of.

But more important than whether the character *has* emotions is whether or not
the actor can put an emotional quality into his voice and delivery. Nimoy does,
Mark Lenard does, Celia Lovsky does, and Kirstie Alley does. Curtis sounded like
she was reading her lines off of a cue card.


--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)

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