I've been on a kick about this lately but James Doohan's birthday last week got me thinking about this again.
Scotty is only a few years older than Picard, biologically, thanks to his transporter incident. He'd be about 112. For reference, McCoy was 136 in the TNG pilot and lived many years after that according to the books. The novels, even pre-Destiny, have Scotty remaining fairly active as a mentor to people and indicate that he's still alive as late as 2422 when he cuts the ribbon on a facility named after him.
Aside from the animated series alien Enterprise crew members, he's the one TOS character who could still be around. And Cryptic has gotten permission once to include him.
It might have been strange circa Doohan's death but I think giving him a presence, at this point, would feel like a nice tribute if anything.
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It's a matter of likeness rights - same reason why Picard alias Patrick Stewart isn't in the game. I doubt Cryptic will get any such rights anytime soon, although it WOULD be nice.
Scotty already is ingame, in the finale of the Devidian series. This was set back in the TOS days though
He's already in a mission so they obviously have the rights.
and i think it would be a good idea
I am not sure how that works exactly, but there MAY be a difference between then-looks (hell, the Scotty in STO doesnt look at all like James Doohan - they might not even have any likeness rights) and "current" (or more like "last seen in movie") looks.
I don't know how that legally works, but I can imagine some of those rights belonging to some inheritors of his.
Maybe. But since Scotty and McCoy have been recast in the new films, I wouldn't object to Cryptic getting their own house actors for both characters, which I assume would go through some CBS scrutiny.
Overall, I think it's arguably more palatable to recast one off characters and characters played by an actor who has passed away.
Doesn't Spock's voice count as an auditory likeness? And in that case, did they break the rules when they brought in Nimoy?
Well either
A) They don't have it, in which case they made him look a little different to get around this. And thus, could do it again, I'm betting he'll look different after 40+ years.
or
and that was my point, Cryptic would have to pay a hefty sum to get the likeness's of someone who is still alive (but i don't think that applies to those who have passed)
He prolly meant "without his permission" - Nimoy collaborated on STO directly.
It varies by state and in this case, there's an issue of how much is the actor's likeness and how much is the character's.
There was a threat of legal action for Doohan reprising too much of his Scotty character on "Homeboys from Outer Space" in the 90s, so clearly there are aspects of the character that CBS owns. There are elements that are also clearly Doohan's but that's more closely tied to anything that would create confusion about him or his estate being made to appear to endorse a product without compensation.
According to Stahl, they have his publicity rights wavered as well and just needed to create a set of ears Nimoy was happy with to get his permission, which they've only managed to do since launch.