By Chris Snellgrove | Published
To this day, William Shatner is still the face of Star Trek. It was his strangely compelling performance that helped make the difference The Original Series became a breakout pop culture hit. Later, it was Shatner's charisma that gave the TOS movies their mainstream appeal. Shatner's Captain Kirk is such an iconic figure that the franchise has tried to bring him back to life with multiple actors. But for all their talent, actors like Chris Pine and Paul Wesley will never match Shatner's iconic (and certainly iconic) performance. As a result, the producers of the now very popular show Trek did everything possible to put Shatner's Kirk on the screen again.
We first found out about this when Shatner himself spoke about being approached by undisclosed Star Trek producers. Recently, NuTrek guru Alex Kurtzman and his fellow producers gave an interview A polygon where they admitted to making an effort to bring Shatner back for Season 4 of Strange New Worlds. It would certainly be appropriate: it's not just a big love letter to SNW The Original Seriesbut this year is the 60th anniversary of the establishment of this business. Unfortunately, Kurtzman and company couldn't do it, making it official: after decades of producers trying to bring him back, William Shatner will succeed. never back to Star Trek, the franchise that made him famous.
Strange New Worlds with a Common Character
Strange New Worlds it's a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series that focuses on the actions of Captain Pike, who led the Enterprise's first five-year campaign. The show features several new actors playing regular characters, including Ethan Peck as Spock and Anson Mount as Spock. Paul Wesley plays little Kirk, which leaves the obvious question: how, indeedwould the show bring back 95 year old william shatner to play the same character? With the magic of variety, of course!
In interview no A polygon, Strange New Worlds His co-star Akiva Goldsman said his biggest disappointment was that they couldn't bring William Shatner to pay his respects. The Original Series episode “The City at the Edge of Forever.” This is the famous episode where Kirk falls in love with a woman activist who kept America out of World War II, allowing the Nazis to rule the world. To save the future, Kirk is forced to let him die. Goldsman wanted a SNW episode that featured Shatner as a version of Kirk who lived in the past to be with the woman he loved, future be damned.
Mirror, Mirror, On Screen
According to Akiva Goldsman, the Strange New Worlds The writers developed several scripts and tried to bring William Shatner in each season, but it didn't happen. Now that Strange New Worlds with production wrapped, and no new Trek series on the horizon, it's unlikely we'll ever see Shatner play Captain Kirk on the small screen again. And, with Paramount looking to reboot Trek as a movie with an entirely new cast, it's unlikely we'll ever see Shatner's Kirk on the big screen again. This is doubly sad because various Star Trek producers have been trying to bring him back decades.
When Star Trek: The Enterprise began broadcasting, William Shatner himself approached Trek guru Rick Berman with the idea. During lunch, the actor hinted at a two-part episode that returned to the Mirror Universe and featured an evil version of Captain Kirk as an old man. It was a great idea, but there was only one problem: Shatner was asking for too much money. Although he didn't say the exact amount, Berman told The Shuttlepod Show that “the number was about 8 times the studio we had.” Well, Manny Coto loved Shatner's idea, and so did we he did finally got a two-part episode of the Mirror Universe, without Captain Kirk.
He's not dead, Jim!
After Business ended prematurely, fans worried that the franchise might be dead. Fortunately, Star Trek (2009) delivered everyone's favorite The Original Series cast is back with new characters, new stories, and a whole new place (the Kelvinverse) to play in. Leonard Nimoy appears to be helping pass the baton on to a new generation of Trek fans, and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman originally wrote a scene where Spock has a “recorded birthday” message from Kirk Shatner's Kirk Shatner. But Shatner wanted a prominent role in which Kirk was somehow still alive, suggesting that the writers write his novels in which Kirk is resurrected. Feeling that too much Shatner would overshadow the younger actors, Orci and Kurtzman wrote him out of the film entirely.
Without William Shatner, Star Trek might never have been a foreign pop culture phenomenon. Previously, his return (first, in Animated seriesand again in the TOS movies) helped revive the franchise, and played a major role in helping The Next Generation they changed their characters from television to film. Apparently, Shatner did not lose his love for Kirk: not only did he make many attempts to return on TV and film, but he wrote (along with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens) a whole series of books about Kirk coming back to life and having many interstellar adventures.
Outside of the books, however, it seems that Kirk's Star Trek adventure has come to an end. He won't show up Strange New Worldsand is unlikely to appear in Paramount's reboot film. That's unfortunate for all of us who would love to see this famous actor play a very famous character, one last time. Whether Shatner ever makes a triumphant return, however, we will always remember him for two things. First, to boldly go where no actor has gone before. Second, to let generations of fans along for the ride!
