Starfleet Jedi

Shatner Leaks Trek XI Details

William Shatner revealed to SCI FI Wire that the upcoming 11th Star Trek movie will indeed, as rumored, deal with the early years of Capt. James T. Kirk and Spock—and that he will definitely appear in the movie if director J.J. Abrams can find a place to use him. Shatner, who originated the role of Kirk in the original Trek series and several subsequent films, said in an interview that he was invited to meet with Abrams (Mission: Impossible III), who is also co-writing the movie.

"I met with J.J., and they told me they would like me to be part of their film, but they have to write the role," Shatner said in an interview.

As for the many rumors concerning the sequel's story, Shatner said that Abrams will explore Kirk and Spock during their Starfleet Academy years. "Yes, we know the story is based on young Kirk," Shatner said. Up until now, everyone connected with the film has maintained strict silence about the storyline, though rumors have run rampant that they concern Kirk and Spock's first missions.

As for Shatner's place in that storyline? "They need to figure out how to put the dead captain in with the young captain," he said. "It's a very complex, technical problem of how to write the character in, and I'm not sure how they will solve it." It sounds as if Shatner may play an older version of Kirk.

Coincidentally, the Starfleet storyline is one Shatner is already working on for his latest Trek-based novels. "I'm writing with Gar and Judy Reeves-Stevens two books on the academy, with the young Kirk and the young Spock," Shatner revealed. "We've submitted the first book to the publishers, and I think it will be out in the beginning of 2008. It's got a working title of The Academy, but I don't think that will stick."

Meanwhile, Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that a draft of the Trek XI script is done and will be trimmed sometime soon. The sequel will be targeted, "on the one hand, for people who love Star Trek, the fix that they will get will be really satisfying," Abrams told the magazine. "For people who've never seen it or know it vaguely, I think they will enjoy it equally, because the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek. I would actually prefer [that] people don't know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind." —Tara DiLullo Bennett

Nonamer wrote:Hopefully it won't be as big as a dump as Enterprise.

Gandalf wrote:

Nonamer wrote:Hopefully it won't be as big as a dump as Enterprise.

Or Nemesis.

Mike DiCenso wrote:
No, no... Voyager is far, far worse overall than either of those.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:You mean the name that is also shared with a Braga produced, post-Trek TV series? ;-)
-Mike

GStone wrote:I've always thought of TOS as the worst one.

GStone wrote:It was always convenient completely separate things wound up being connected, just like on TNG.

Shatner's acting and showing humanity as ultra hippies and always wonderful. That's what I hated.

Gandalf wrote:Such as?

Shatners acting wasn't any worse than the drivel that followed in later shows.

In fact I prefer Shatner to the other actors who played the captains.

And I think your confusing TOS with TNG, space hippies? The TOS era Federation was a capatilistic society while the TNG Federation was obviously communist. In fact the TOS episode with the space hippies showed that Kirk obviously didn't understand the space hippies at all.

TOS at least had the benefit of being first and was making the universe up as it went along.

What was TNG, DS9, VOY, Ent excuse? Other than the fact that B&B refused to take chances with the franchise.

DS9 was the only one that showed any promise and it was shunned by the mainstream Trek leadership.

GStone wrote:
I forget examples off the top of my head because it's been so long since I've seen either series. I remember watching both TOS and TNG and thinking 'okay, how is this gonna be connected to what's going on here' and you could predict the plot. Plus, I think it was DC Fontana that said in an interview that different things in each ep, especially of TOS, were designed to be connected by the end of the ep deliberately. I think the interview is at startrek.com.

The only ones that were as bad as Shatner were Sisko and Odo.

I prefered Archer.

They were both infested with hippies.

Showing humanity to be ultra perfect sucks. Being first doesn't make it better.

There was more to the decline than B&B.

Far from the only one. I gotta give it up for VOY, not counting some things.