Spock's New Mommy

According to scifi.com Winona Ryder has been tapped to play Amanda, Spock's mother, in the new Star Trek movie. The news caught me as a little odd. I mean, Winona Ryder? Sure, I like her, but Spock's mom? Aside from the fact that she seems a strange pick, she's only 36, which would make Spock about 18 years old. But then, she did play an old lady at the end of Edward Scissorhands.
So, in light of this, I decided to look at the actress who played Amanda in the Original Series episode "Journey to Babel" and the feature, "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". That role was played by Jane Wyatt who was 57 when she first shot the role. Before Trek she played Margaret Anderson in "Father Knows Best" (1954-1960). The actress passed away a year ago.

Back to Ryder, I suppose the best explanation would be to look at the rest of the casting choices:

• Zachary Quinto of Heroes will be playing Spock
• Chris Pine, an up-and-comer having starred in several small roles plays Kirk
• Simon Pegg of Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Mission Impossible 3 plays Scotty
• Karl Urban who played Eomer in Lord of the Rings plays Dr. McCoy
• John Cho has starred in 50 roles in the last ten years is Sulu
• Eric Bana from 2003's Hulk and 2004's Troy plays a character named Nero
• Zoe Saldana from Guess Who plays Uhura
• Anton Yelchin, a real Russian, plays Chekov
• Leonard Nimoy returns to play an aged Spock

All of this tells me, along with JJ Abrams directing, that the studio wants to bring in as many names as possible to make this movie as big as possible. Star Trek has been a huge franchise with a worldwide following but has suffered recently. Star Trek: Nemesis bombed at the box office and Enterprise was cancelled after four seasons (not bad for most shows, but this one was allowed to suffer longer than necessary).

So what do I feel about the role? It doesn't bother me. She'll probably be in five minutes of the movie and she is a decent actress. And if it brings more people to the theater, all the better.