Star Trek Original Series Actors Morphed With The Current Movie Cast
This article is more than 2 years old
If Star Trek discourse has been predominantly about one thing over the past few years, it’s arguing whether J.J. Abrams’ rebooted timeline is a much-needed shot in the arm for the franchise, a vapid insult to Gene Roddenberry’s legacy, or something in between. The two extremes are vocal and passionate, and if there’s one thing they’re all certain of, it’s the overwhelming superiority of their candidate in the debate. But surely there must be some common ground all sides can agree on, right? Surely we’re all reasonable human beings who can objectively evaluate both the Original Series and the new movies and admit that they each have their strengths and weaknesses, right?
No? Screw it, then, let’s just look at some morphed photos that blend the OS actors and the new guys into some sort of mutant hybrid úbermensch version of the Enterprise’s crew instead.
This sort of thing got a lot of attention earlier in the year when somebody merged the features of the actors who have played Batman over the years into one ideal, definitive face of Bruce Wayne. For the Trek actors, the transformation is a bit simpler since we’re only working with two different actors for each character. Reddit user ThatNordicGuy is the mind behind this particular experiment, and the results are surreal but fascinating.
Some work better than others. In the Spock picture, the superimposed images are so noticeable that it’s hard to evaluate the final product in and of itself.
I don’t know if you’ll have the experience I do, but when I look at these I get this weird sensation where my brain recognizes two familiar faces and then bounces back and forth, trying to lock on to one or the other. I have to consciously focus to take in the new image in its entirety. It’s like those 3D stereographic posters that were all the rage in the mid ‘90s. Try as I might, I could never find the sailboat.
You can see the rest of the results below, but I think there’s one last one worthy of being singled out: this nightmare-inducing cross between Benedict Cumberbatch and “Space Seed” era Ricardo Montalban. Maybe the fans would have been happier with Star Trek Into Darkness if they’d just given the guy a tan…
