I will never surrender this point: NOT THE SAME GUY!!! I don't care what the showrunners say and they can't undermine this theory on screen because they can't change what we saw in TOS. Family, but not the same guy.
Nothing before TMP is canon... at least not in universe. Shatner et al are cosplay re-enacting the "actual" events.
yeah, the original guy was born in 1940 and would've only been 27-28 during filming. Young enough to be a nephew, if not son, of Babs' version (currently aged 42). Despite the 14 year difference, to me Booker looks older.
1. Memory Alpha link-blocks like a motherfucker. Stop using their pics. 2. I just had to do Johnny Mnemonic level hackery to reverse engineer those pics out of the link-blocking, and save them. You're welcome.
Not only that but in-universe time, Babs is 7-ish years in Booker's past so at that point Booker's version is only around 21.
I forgot to add that I liked how they used split screen to show conversations. It can look cheesy sometimes but I think it worked here.
'zactly. Once again showing that nothing seen on screen in TOS can be considered canonical. How is a 21 year old a doctor, let alone CMO?
Marvel told us these were the same guy and no one blinked. Plus, Picard is canonically at least about 15 years older than Patrick Stewart. Clearly the TOS guy was supposed to be playing older as well.
To be fair, they also said this is the same guy: It's just really hard to tell humans apart, I guess.
The comics retconned that there's a zillion other altars inside Banner besides Bruce and Hulk. I could buy multi-Banners.
I figure every time Banner expands into Hulk and then shrinks back down into Bruce there a chance everything settles back differently, especially with Hulks healing factor in play. Maybe Norton's Banner tried shooting himself in the head a few times and Hulk healing the shattered mess over and over left it more Hulk looking. (Ruffalo does resemble Hulk more than Norton ever did.) Anyway, M'Benga could have had some fancy plastic surgery or gene therapy between SNW and TOS that messed him up, but I'm not really worried about it either way. DSC S2 made it clear that a whole lot of butterflies got stepped on in the prime timeline between ENT and SNW S1, let alone TOS, so I'm fine with some minor differences like Robert April changing races or Number One not looking at all like Nurse Chapel.
I'm guessing, though, that there has never been physical manifestations of Banner that look different from one another. Even among physical manifestations of the Hulk, they mostly looked the same except for the gray/Joe Fix-It version.
Banner is an incredibly generic looking dude in the comics, but he's been drawn somewhat inconsistently over the last several decades. He's scrawny, he's jacked, shorter, taller, whatever. It's been said that in the Ultimate line Banner originally looked a lot like Steve Buscemi.
When I read a comic, watch a movie, et. al., I just assume that the story itself is canon, but the details around it, especially the more minor things, are subject to lensing, where the details are reflected and refracted based on the observer's own interpretation and point of view, which allows for changes that some might balk at, but I just figure it's the story lens being readjusted for better clarity.
I don't have any issues with M'benga looking different or older in SNW than in TOS. And as for the differences on personalities I see it as M'benga having gone through some event that changed him, and also caused him to step down as CMO.
He's still got the cover-up of the murder of that Klingon hanging over him, that's a perfect excuse for him to leave and come back during TOS not as CMO and with considerable mojo lost. Chapel too.
Joe Fixit was drained of gamma (well, "left empty" by Devil Hulk) for a while so, when he came out, he just took over Banner's body. The accent changed to his wise-guy mob goon one, at the very least (he also grew a 'tache but that's mundane). Now could just be Joe doing a voice, but it's implied Banner (when he emerges and has to pass as Joe) doesn't find the accent easy...
No that's not what I mean. I mean that while Babs' version is CMO (circa 2260) Booker's version is around 21. When you see Booker working under McCoy, at that point he'd be in his late 20's.
Norton is 57, Ruffalo is 58. Howard is 57, Cheadle is 61. It's not appearance I object to (though I maintain Paul Weasely looks nothing like young Bill Shatner) is age discrepancies. To wit, visually Liam Hensworth is a ringer for Shatner at a similar age (IMO) but he's even three years older than Wesley. I do, however, think that if you were making a post V'Ger Star Trek with Kirk's crew, Hensworth would be perfect. But I digress. Point is, I'm not out here saying "Jess Bush doesn't look like Majel" - I'm saying Babs is just too damned old to be the same guy.
Someone once said that you should think of TOS as a community theater play dramatizing the actual experiences of Kirk and crew and ... that kinda works.
So apparently this weeks episode is Trelane (which I'm fine with, it's a longstanding Trek Trope) putting them in a soap opera. Because clearly we need more fucking-around in this season. They could have saved an episode for a better idea if they had simply made one episode with Trelane and puppets. I would have been fine with that.
