Throughout the enduring “Star Trek” saga, Scotty has been brought to life by various actors. This excludes the unofficial portrayal by James Doohan’s son, Chris Doohan, in the fan-created web series “Star Trek: Continues,” which has been lauded by enthusiasts as a commendable take on the beloved engineer. From fleeting cameos and animated depictions to younger iterations and alternate timeline versions, here’s a ranking of the portrayals of “Star Trek’s” quintessential engineer.

One portrayal of Scotty is so brief you might miss it if you blinked, yet it’s crucial to acknowledge Matthew Wolf’s contribution. Wolf lent his voice to an off-screen version of Scotty in an episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” before Martin Quinn took on the role. This Scotty makes an early appearance in the episode titled “A Quality of Mercy,” where Spock interacts with him from inside a Jefferies tube.

In the fifth segment of the “Star Trek” mini-episode series “Very Short Treks,” titled “Walk, Don’t Run,” the episode humorously breaks the fourth wall. It features D’Vana Tendi from the animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Star Trek: The Animated Series.” Addressing three characters from the original cartoon, including Scotty, Tendi remarks, “You walked so that we may run!” Initially appreciative, Scotty soon realizes the comment might be a backhanded compliment, sparking a playful debate over which animated series is superior.

Although never actually called by his name in the episode, the off-screen voice with a decidedly Scottish accent tells Spock, who is stuck in the tube working on the phaser array (and has less than two hours to get them up and running), “I’m an engineer, not a miracle worker, Mr. Spock.” Although the episode’s credits simply list him as “engineer,” this heavily implies that the engineer in question is our Montgomery Scott. Even if we didn’t get much Scotty action, Wolf more than earned his pace in the Trek family by serving as the actor who first brought Scotty to the Enterprise. Only his brevity leaves him in last place.

The fifth installment in the mini-episode “Star Trek” series “Very Short Treks,” “Walk, Don’t Run,” is a fourth-wall-breaking episode that begins with D’Vana Tendi )from the animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks”) celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Star Trek: The Animated Series.” Addressing three characters from the cartoon, including Montgomery Scott, Tendi tells them, “You walked so that we may run!” After thanking her, an indignant Scotty realizes his is actually kind of an insult before launching into an argument over which of the two animated series is actually worse. 

The episode’s Scotty, who emphatically punctuates his stream of one-liner insults with heavily rolled Scottish “r”s, is voiced by “Lower Decks” actor Carlos Alazraqui, better known there for his role as Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo in the show’s third season. Although he gets just a few minutes of air time in the episode, Alazraqui does a fabulous job as his version of Scotty. That includes the moment Scotty kicks off the beats for an acid-jazz, Cardassian-inspired rendition of “Put Love on Your Duty Roster” with Sulu and Riker. It’s better to experience it than ask questions.

Casting a new actor as a very young Scotty in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” could not have been an easy feat. But the casting office seem to have nailed with Martin Quinn, the first actual Scot to play the affable engineer. Quinn, who made his first appearance as Scotty in the Season 2 finale “Hegemony,” went on to join the cast full-time with the show’s third season. Before he was cast as the “Trek” engineer, Quinn had mainly worked in theater, with only a few minor roles on television at the time. Stepping onto the bridge of the Enterprise for the first time, Quinn had found the experience almost overwhelming, later telling film critic Paul Grimes he had felt like he was watching everyone else on TV. “I had to remind myself like act, react, Martin … stop staring at Anson’s face like I’m watching the telly.” 

The actor, who had never watched much “Star Trek” growing up in part because he found Doohan’s accent inauthentic, had been instructed by the casting department not to emulate Doohan’s version in his portrayal. Quinn strives to offer a more authentically Scottish Scotty in his version of the young engineer, while at the same time remembering that his Scotty hasn’t yet become the absolute legend of engineering we see in “The Original Series.”

It’s hard not to assume that Simon Pegg’s status as a massive longtime “Star Trek” fan isn’t a major ingredient in the secret sauce that makes him an absolutely brilliant Scotty in the Kelvin timeline films. Pegg never even had to audition for the part … he only had to respond to an email from J.J. Abrams asking if he’d like to play the iconic character. Despite Pegg’s initial hesitation (and even slight annoyance) at the job offer, the actor was fairly easily persuaded to take on the role. 

While Pegg doesn’t look anything like Doohan’s Scotty, his take on the character has become a highlight of the Kelvin timeline movies. Like Doohan, Pegg infuses his portrayal with his own signature charm and humor, adding levity, warmth, and brightness to the franchise’s darker moments in a way that feels as seamless as it does welcome. 

After his casting, Pegg emailed James Doohan’s son Chris, telling him, “I can’t tell you what a thrill it is for me to be cast in this role. Believe me when I say my participation in this film will be a 100% tribute to your Dad and a role that will forever belong to him” (per Trek Movie). For Doohan’s children, Pegg was a welcome addition to the franchise. Doohan’s daughter Deirdre Cruz called the actor “a perfect choice,” sending him her blessings.

As is often the case with generation-spanning favorites, it just doesn’t get any better than the classics. In this case it’s James Doohan in “Star Trek: The Original Series.” Doohan’s portrayal of Scotty as a charming, masterfully capable engineer with a twinkle in his eye, a love for good scotch, and a gift for the bagpipes makes the original Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott one of the most memorable characters in “Star Trek” canon. And when Doohan’s Scotty resurfaced in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” the old magic was still there. 

Doohan is personally responsible for Scotty’s signature lineage and accent as a Scotsman, a suggestion he made during his audition with Gene Roddenberry. According to his 1996 memoir “Beam me up, Scotty” (co-written with long-time “Trek” scribe Peter David) Doohan had tried out for the role with a whole range of accents — eight of them, to be precise. When asked which accent Doohan felt most befitting of Enterprise’s chief engineer, Doohan had replied, “Well, if you want an engineer, it had better be a Scotsman, because in my experience Scotsmen are the best engineers I ever heard of,” going on to list many famous engineering projects Scots are responsible for. The fact that Doohan is also partly responsible for the distinctive sound of the Klingon language just gives us one more reason to love him above all the rest.