3 Kelvin Star Trek characters that outshown their original series counterparts

Star Trek’s Kelvin timeline gave us some upgrades over iconic characters.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has given us the definitive version of Captain Christopher Pike and Nurse Christine Chapel. Yet, they weren’t the first ones to try and redo the depiction of some memorable characters from the Original Series. While Ethan Peck has been a fine Spock, no one would say he’s a better Spock than Leonard Nimoy.

But you could make that case for Anson Mount’s take on Pike. Strange New Worlds has given these secondary characters so much life, that it’s a shame we never saw what else could have come from them in the original series era of shows and films.

Yet, Strange New Worlds wasn’t even the first one to try this, as the Kelvin Timeline tried very hard to give more character to these characters. And like with Mount’s Pike, they too created characters that outpaced the originals.

Three Star Trek Kelvin characters who were better than the originals

Finnegan

Appearing in “Shore Leave”, Finnegan was a recreation of a classmate that James Kirk knew from his academy days. He was a prankster who offered very little to the episode “Shore Leave”. His Kelvin-based character wasn’t much more flushed out, but he had a far more important role. He served as an officer aboard the Yorktown space station, and his involvement directly helped stop Krall and his swarm of ships.

Christoper Pike (pre-Strange New Worlds)

While it’s fair to say that Mount’s take on Christopher Pike outshines Bruce Greenwood’s, it’s also fair to say that a decade before Mount took the mantle of Pike, Greenwood’s Pike was the definitive version. While his character’s fate was different from his originals’ it’s fair to say that his arc and involvement with Kirk was far more engaging than anything we saw in The Cage/The Menagerie.

Carol Marcus

While some may not agree with this, I thought Alice Eve’s Carol Marcus far exceeded Bibi Besch’s version. Carol Marcus has only appeared in two films,  one with Eve and one with Besch, and it was Eve that gave her character depth and layers to her personality. She was smart, cunning, deceptive, flirty, and very charismatic. Besch’s Carol Marcus, however, banned her son’s father from being in his life for radical reasons, thus painting her version in a far less flattering life.