Who Battlestar Galacticas Edward James Olmos Almost Played In Star Trek

Who Battlestar Galactica’s Edward James Olmos Almost Played In Star Trek

Battlestar Galactica star Edward James Olmos very nearly played the Klingon antagonist Kruge in 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.

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Who Battlestar Galacticas Edward James Olmos Almost Played In Star Trek

Battlestar Galactica star Edward James Olmos very nearly played a Klingon villain in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. That film followed up directly on the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, which ended with Spock sacrificing his life to save the Enterprise and its crew from the Genesis explosion. Spock’s death still stands as one of the most affecting scenes in all of Star Trek.

However, Nimoy had such a good time making The Wrath Of Khan that he had a change of heart, and it was decided a small scene would be added to set up a return for the character. That scene – and a lingering shot of Spock’s coffin on the Genesis planet – annoyed director Nicholas Meyer, who declined to return for the third film. Realizing he had the studio over a barrel, Nimoy requested to direct the third film, an aspiration he’d long harbored. The studio agreed, and The Search For Spock was off and running.

Chief among Nimoy’s duties was casting a villain who could live up to Khan. That villain would turn out to be Kruge, a ruthless Klingon commander with a penchant for shooting his own soldiers. Kruge would in many ways be the prototype for the new version of the Klingons briefly introduced in Star Trek: The Motion Picture; no longer the relatively human-looking and -acting race from Star Trek: The Original Series, these are the violent warriors with forehead ridges that would become famous on Star Trek: The Next Generation. After seeing him in Blade Runner, Nimoy was convinced Edward James Olmos was the right man for that critical part. To Nimoy’s disappointment, fellow producer Harve Bennett was lukewarm on Olmos, feeling he lacked the physicality to appropriately portray the Klingon warrior. After several rounds of auditions, Bennett ultimately won out and Olmos was passed over in favor of Christopher Lloyd.

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Lloyd does a serviceable job in the film as Kruge, largely unrecognizable from his Taxi days under all those prosthetics. Yet it’s not hard to imagine the steely, intense Olmos bringing his signature gravitas to the role, and injecting some genuine emotion into scenes like the death of Kirk’s son, David, or the destruction of the Enterprise and the Klingon crew with it. And despite his relatively diminutive size, he wouldn’t have looked anymore ridiculous than a fiftysomething William Shatner engaging in a third-act fistfight to the death.

The science fiction gods were not done with Olmos, of course. He’d go on to star as Commander William Adama for four seasons on the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica revival spearheaded by Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran Ronald D. Moore. It’s unclear if Moore knew of Olmos’ brush with Star Trek, but he unquestionably got the right man for the job – and Olmos had an iconic starring role in a beloved series, without prosthetics.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/star-trek-battlestar-galactica-edward-james-olmos-cast-klingon/

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