Slashdot Mirror


J.J. Abrams Reacts To Death of Star Trek Actor Anton 'Chekov' Yelchin (hollywoodreporter.com)

On Sunday morning 27-year-old actor Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov in the new Star Trek movies, was killed in a freak accident with his own car in the driveway of his home in Studio City. "It appears he momentarily exited his car and it rolled backward, causing trauma that led to his death," a police spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter. This afternoon J. J. Abrams tweeted a picture of a handwritten eulogy addressed to Anton. "You were brilliant. You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. And you weren't here nearly long enough. Missing you..." Zachary Quinto, who plays Mr. Spock, also tweeted a link to a picture posted in memorial on Instagram, where he called Yelchin "one of the most open and intellectually curious people I have ever had the pleasure to know... wise beyond his years, and gone before his time..."

Stephen King called him a "crazily talented actor gone too soon," remembering Yelchin from one of his last roles in a 10-episode adaptation of King's "Mr. Mercedes". Yelchin will play a mentally deranged ice cream truck driver who's also an IT worker for a Geek Squad-like company named "Cyber Patrol".

23 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Brilliant by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    He was brilliant.

    1. Re: Brilliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      He visited a movie set I was working on just before Star Trek came out. I have it filed away in my list of 'really cool shit that happened in my life'. What stands out for me in that memory isn't that I got to meet Pavel Chekov and Kyle Reese, it's that he was a really cool guy. Oh, and as a bonus, he was impressed with what we were doing. I enjoyed calling my parents that weekend and telling them about it.

      Farewell Anton, thanks for being a really cool guy.

    2. Re: Brilliant by Z00L00K · · Score: 3

      Nice to see some personal reflections.

      Regardless of what you think of the re-boot it's not fun to see people pass on when they are young.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Neutral by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He exited his car while it was in neutral on his steep driveway, and he got pinned between his car and the brick mailbox. This goes to show how incredibly easy it is to make one tiny mistake and pay for it with your life. If I had to guess, I would say he was trying to hop back into the car to stop it. It could have happened to any of us - in one instant, before you realize, it's too late. RIP and if anything can come of this, hopefully the rest of us can learn to take one extra moment to make sure that what we think of as a mundane, simple thing is not overlooked.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Neutral by Ramze · · Score: 2

      That's not likely what happened. He could have put the car into neutral instead of park... or he could have put it into park w/ out a parking brake on. On an incline, the transmission is all that prevents a "parked" car from rolling if there's no parking brake on. Transmissions can break under the strain and release the car from "park." Either way, the car was not likely moving when he exited the vehicle.

      If it was in neutral, when and whether or not the car would start rolling would depend on the level of incline. It could have been completely stopped after he braked, then after he got out of the car, he may have walked to check his mailbox. Cars are massive, and without power take time to accelerate downhill. (It would not have immediately started rolling from neutral) Then, after he noticed the car was in motion, he may have decide to try to stop it, but couldn't and it pushed him into his mailbox.

      If he actually put the car into park, his transmission may have failed causing the car to roll. I had a Ford Taurus parked on an incline in TN once whose main gear cracked in half, then broke apart b/c the parking brake wasn't on. Engine would turn on just fine, but no gears worked. It was effectively in neutral -- thankfully it was parked against a structure so it didn't go far.

    2. Re:Neutral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, it just takes being human, with an imperfect brain, that sometimes is convinced it has already done something it hasn't. Throw in a tiny bit of bad luck, and any of us can make a life ending mistake any day of the week. If you think "it can't happen to me" you're delusional.

    3. Re:Neutral by Kjella · · Score: 2

      RIP and if anything can come of this, hopefully the rest of us can learn to take one extra moment to make sure that what we think of as a mundane, simple thing is not overlooked.

      Thanks, but no thanks. That I might get a costly dent and paint job is plenty to make me remember the parking brake, if you genuinely worry it might kill you then you'll end up a basket case. Freak accidents happen but if I was worried that every car might be a drunk driver that'll ram me or that every person I pass by might be a recently released mental patient off their medication I'd be a nervous wreck before I got to work.

      At some point you have to realize that living to see tomorrow is not 100% certain but I just checked, 70/100000 in my age group will die in a year. Divide by 365 and with 99.999998% probability I'll survive tomorrow. And that includes suicides and various other not entirely unexpected deaths, the odds of dying in a freak accident would be even less. If I win the reverse lottery tomorrow, so be it. Not going to go around worrying about it.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Neutral by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm guessing this is the place:
      https://www.google.com/maps/pl...

      Security fence and what not as mentioned some articles. Looks like the drive sloped down away from the mailbox when rotating around using google earth 3D.

      The article is slightly wrong and the brick pillar is the one on the other side, without the mailbox. If you look at it from this angle:
      https://www.google.com/maps/@3...

      There's a different story here where you can tell it's the corner towards the house. It slopes down in both directions, fence on two sides, brick pillar in the corner, car comes rolling down the driveway, seems like a tough spot to get out of because you got nowhere to go.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Neutral by rsmith-mac · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For what it's worth, the reports say that the car was a recent model Jeep Cherokee. Recent Chryslers vehicles have an incredibly stupid automatic shifter.

      http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a28121/nhtsa-investigates-jeep-dodge-chrysler-shifters/

      https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/02/09/2033249/jeepchryslers-new-gearshift-appears-to-be-causing-accidents

      It's entirely a drive-by-wire shifter that acts more like a joystick, and what you do is that you essentially dial in the gear you want, at which point it always goes back to its default position. So people are having a heck of a time telling when it's in Park, because if they didn't dial it correctly, they'll get Neural instead.

      Mr. Yelchin may very well have been the latest person to discover this the unfortunate way; there were already 30 injury reports back in February.

    6. Re:Neutral by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For what it's worth, the reports say that the car was a recent model Jeep Cherokee. Recent Chryslers vehicles have an incredibly stupid automatic shifter.

      What's astoundingly pathetic is that they had push button automatics which left absolutely no doubt about which gear you'd selected in the 1960s, my first car was a 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix (2dr) which had this feature. So there is actually a superior interface which Chrysler has used in the past which they could have used here. It would have been both retro, and superior to the garbage they finally did implement which has been injuring and perhaps even killing people.

      Marchionne will be remembered as an incompetent douchebag who killed both Fiat and Chrysler.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:Neutral by lazarus · · Score: 2

      And there was a voluntary recall, and his Jeep was one of the ones affected.

      --
      I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
    8. Re:Neutral by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      You might want to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... on that topic.

      OK, I did. The word "button" appears once in the article, under the section on "mechanical causes". To wit:

      The system of detents was often used in conjunction with the "push button" shifters used on many automatics in the 1950s.

      Perhaps you could explain why you found that relevant?

      The vintage Chrysler push-button automatics didn't even have a "park" setting, so they left absolutely no doubt as to whether the vehicle was in park or not: it wasn't. My 1960 Dart had a driveshaft-mounted parking brake.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:Neutral by danomac · · Score: 2

      I'm curious to know if he had one of those new Dodge cars. There was an article (maybe even here?) saying the shift lever didn't operate like a standard automatic shifter and many people were shifting into neutral when they thought they were putting it in Park.

    10. Re:Neutral by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Automatics don't have an easily-available "park" position either, if they're Jeeps. On those stupid things, you have to push the shift lever upwards three separate times to shift into P: once to go to neutral, once to go to R, and once to go into P. They don't have a tradition multi-position lever like any decent car, because it's cheaper to make a crappy lever with two microswitches.

  3. Re:A tragedy by NotInHere · · Score: 2

    That movie depicts one of the possible futures of our planet. Space is vast and big. We know now that FTL travel is an impossible thing.

    But why explore space if we can just put ourselves on drugs and live in a phantasy world?

    Computer games are just the beginning. VR is the second step.

  4. Re:Brilliant (Family planning would be brilliant) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    My father died this week. So it makes fathers day confusing for me. He was part of the greatest generation that fought in WWII.
    He didn't have much to say about people like you.
    Since the Vietnam War black participation in the military has grown. Today, there are more than 2.5 million black military veterans. And African-Americans who make up more than 13 percent of the U.S. population, now account for 20 percent of those serving in the military.

    I realize you are just trolling, and sometimes it's funny, just for the shock value. But it wasn't funny today. I doubt it will be funny for a long time.
    Wake me up when September ends. I'll let you know.

  5. Blame it on ... by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... the red shirt.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Blame it on ... by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Too soon.

  6. Re:A tragedy by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can't they just explain at the beginning of the next movie that he was on an away team wearing a red shirt?

  7. Why? by xbytor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is he dead and all of the Kardashians still alive?

  8. Re:Really, Anton? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I will vote for anyone who can bring Jobs back. I'm talking about the Steve variety, of course.

  9. Re:Really, Anton? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

    Especially no President can bring back Steve Jobs, unless the next President is some type of necromancer who can raise the dead.

  10. Re:What's your favorite Chekov moment? by EzInKy · · Score: 2

    "Excuse me, sir! Can you direct us to the naval base in Alameda? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels."

    I know it was the wrong Chekov, but it was absolutely hilarious!!!

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.