Slashdot Mirror
William Shatner Replies
1) your reputation
by tps12
I happened to have seen both of your Twilight Zone episodes (the famous "something on the wing of the airplane" one and the less-famous-but-no-less-interesting one where you are obsessed with a prophecy-dispensing toy in a diner) recently. I have to say that in both episodes I was taken aback at the unexpected quality of your portrayal. Even though everyone associates your face with Captain Kirk, the characters in the TZ episodes came through loud and clear, drowning out my preconceptions.
For this reason, I'd like to ask what you think of your humorous reputation for bad acting. Would you blame some of the egregious hamminess of some of ST on the perception that TV (or SF) wasn't "real" acting or was it directing? Or some other thing?
Bill:
Of course, I don't hear the bad reviews or see them. All I know is the glowing notices that people read to me that some reviewer thinks I'm wonderful. So I've slowly come to think that I'm wonderful.
2) Favourite Parody
by hero
Star Trek has been parodied many times in many different formats; other television shows, movies, comics and so on. You yourself have probably been parodied as much or more in people's "Captain Kirk Impression" stand up skits and the like. My question is, do you recall a favourite parody for its comedy or cleverness of either yourself or the series?
Bill:
I think John Belushi probably did the best.
3) First Interracial Kiss
by Irvu
What was it like to do the first on-screen interracial kiss? How much effort did it take to make the studio go along with it, and how much of an effect did it have on you and the show as a whole?
Bill:
I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
4) Saturday Night Live
by billmaly
Years ago, when you hosted SNL, you participated in the now classic Trekkie sketch (actually, one of my all time favorite SNL sketches).
Was that sketch a catharsis for you, a means of finally casting off some chains and letting the world know what you think and feel, or was it just a sketch? I am not dissing you, your work, or Trek fans, but, let's be honest here, some people do need to, in your words, "Get a life!". Do you/did you feel that way, or was it just an act? Come on, be honest..... :)
Bill:
Ok, I'll be honest. It was a laugh. Pure & simple. You should have at least been mildly amused. It seems to me that you need to get a life.
5) MPAA
by jhines0042
Concerning the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Do you consider them to be a boon or a bane to actors and actressess?
Bill:
Actually, I don't think that actors think much about MPAA. They're more concerned about AARP.
6) Galaxy Quest
by vrone
I will preface this by saying I am a mild trekkie and as such, I immensely enjoyed the 1999 film Galaxy Quest.
I think everyone who has seen Galaxy Quest will agree that the show that it is based upon is, in essence, "Star Trek". It follows that Tim Allen's Character was essentially meant to be you.
So my two part question is this: Did you enjoy the show, and, how accurate was their portrayal of life after Trek?
Bill:
Yes, I enjoyed it. I think Tim Allen was very funny. As for accuracy, not at all.
7) Time at McGill
by peg0cjs
It's fairly well known (at least here in Canada) that you attended McGill University for some time. They even went so far as to rename the Student Union building the Shatner Building.
I've heard that you were invited to the renaming ceremony, but refused to attend. I've also heard that you generally speak very poorly of your time at McGill. What was it about McGill that was so dreadful/horrible/annoying/etc that has made you so sour on the subject?
Bill:
Oh Contrare. That's French, in case you need it, for 'to the contrary.' I had a great time at McGill. I did go to a ceremony at the student union building and my feeling about McGill is that it's a great university and it produced many great students. Unfortunately, I was not one of them.
8) Nerine Shatner Memorial Fund
by Tsar
After the tragic and untimely death of your wife Nerine, a recovering alcoholic, you took the courageous step of establishing a fund in her name to benefit Friendly House, an organization for recovering alcoholics. How is that work progressing, and has your involvement with this effort helped you work through this loss?
I know that this subject must be painful for you, but I'm sure there are many in the slashdot community who would benefit from your experience and insights here.
Bill:
Thank you for asking about Nerine's fund. It benefits a rehabilitation place called Friendly House. They do wonderful work. Nerine has a rehabilitation home with her name on it and my hope and sympathy is for these recovering women.
9) Seriously...are we cool?
by CleverNickName
Hey Bill,
Are we cool, or what? I mean, I always thought you didn't like me, but I had a good time with you at Weakest Link watching the World Series.
So are we cool, or was that just pre-game strategy?
Wil
Bill:
Dear Will,
We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit man. I don't do pre-game strategy.
I look forward to some personal time with you.
10) The balance between Hollywood and Real Life
by Geek In Training
As a normal everyday guy from Canada, it seems hard for "the public" to grasp the diparity between "Bill Shatner, age 61, three adult children, loves horses" and "Actor/Singer/Producer/Writer William Shatner blah blah blah fourth wife ... blah blah blah personal tragedy .... blah blah blah inside scoop" that Hollywood and the Tabloid press seem to turn everyone's life into.
At the end of the day, has the fame been worth the price? Is knowing that you've raised three daughters and entertained people for several decades worth the cost of your privacy? Do you feel that overall, you've gotten a fair shake, even after all the public airings of your alleged failings as a person? Are you going to continue to live in the limelight during your golden years, or settle in and call it good, letting the cards land where they may?
Do you feel you've finished your professional legacy and are ready to leave it for media history, or do you fret over whether or not that legacy is "good enough?" And the same regarding your personal legacy as a man, a husband, a father, a son? What advice can you give to others so that they don't have any regrets?
Bill:
Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
Oh Contrare. That's French
:-)
He actually misspelled "Au contraire".
But I appreciate he suggest some slashdotter to "get a life"
Trolling using another account since 2005.
...William Shatner Replies to You!
I'm amazed no-one asked about his singing career.
Although I guess that his cover of 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' is a crime against sound that we're all trying *very* hard to forget...
-Blacklaw
Damit Jim
Mr Shatner seemed a bit rushed didn't he?
"Bill" would certainly seem to be fond of brevity of reply, wouldn't he? This has got to set some kind of /. record...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Is it amazingly cool or amazingly sad that Mssrs. Shatner and Wheaton communicate through Ask Slashdot? I dunno. I'll go with "cool for Slashdot" for now...
maybe we can have an audio interview next time ? the answers were shorter than the questions.
shatner rules :D
Thanks for your time Will
"Dammit Scotty, next time beam my clothes up with me!"
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Dammit, Jim, I'm a slashdotter, not a trekker.
Seemed a little short and rude to me, but what do I know. Still, I appreciate the answers and the person behind them. Maybe he just had to pee really badly or something.
This is one of the shortest replies we've had for a slashdot interview. Too bad, it could have been real great. I guess the myth might just be better than the man.
That man just rambles on and on. How did he send his answers? Morse code?
I don't mean to be a troll, but that "get a life" thing made him sound like an arrogant asshole.
I guess it was cool of him to do the interview, but his answers seemed patronizing at best.
He wasn't just short and to the point, he answered questions like he really didn't give a shit about what his fans think. Which is cool in its own way i guess.
Dear Will,
We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit man.
You'd think that if Bill was actually down with Wheaton, he'd take care to spell his name right...
Sounds to me that this is "just another interview" and Bill is being as polite as possible to say "leave me alone".
At least he isn't as bitter as Alec.
That quote about regret was nice through...
~dlb
I never understood the depths of this man until now. That you Bill (may I call you Bill?), your clever anecdotes and witty banter is refreshing. Great interview.
P.S. I liked you better when you were Kirk.
Billy boy did as good as he could with the lame, suck-ass questions that were presented to him.
Why couldn't we come up with some halfway DECENT questions? ("Seriously... are we cool?")
Query by committee, I guess, produced borked results like these above.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
...or did he manage sound flippant? He seemed to treat this whole thing as a joke.
Good show, Bill!
At the bottom in the quotes bit...
"He's dead, Jim."
While he answered all the questions, his answers were certainly terse. I realize that he is probably a busy man, but if you're going to agree to do something like this, I would have hoped he would have put some more of the ole "William Shattner that we know and love" into it. Of course that the bothered at all was certainly nice of him.
/. is? Not that we're some all powerful force or anything (well except for unsuspecting websites) but I wonder if he thought that we were just a group of a dozen pimply faced nerds not very far removed from Trekies/ers?
That said, I wonder how much of the way he replied had to do with his not fully grasping what
I look forward to some personal time with you.
Is he calling you out or what, man?
My suspicions are confirmed. William Shatner even has theatrical pauses when he writes! (Don't ever change, Bill)
What was the CleverNickName question all about? Maybe the poster could explain? I almost fell off my chair laughing at the reply.
...then the answers were actually written by Oscar Wilde.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Except for the one about his wife, none of those questions seem vaguely interesting to me.
I don't mean to flame, but could someone PLEASE explain questions number 9 to me?! I don't follow Bill's every move.. so I might not (along with others) understand inside jokes.
Also, questions asking actors about when they were called bad actors are USELESS. What the hell are they supposed to say to that? Of course Bill is going to give you a bunch of wisecracks... what else could he do?
And none of you asked ANYTHING about his personal life!?! I didn't see a single personal question there, aside from "what do you think of this", and "what do you think of that".
Christ.. at least ask when he lost is virginity or something.
Ok... I've flamed, take it.
Remind me again just WHY people make a big deal about Shatner? He makes millions for bad acting. And I would think that any professional would want to see the bad reviews as well as the good. One could possibly get some worthwhile constructive criticism. It is always good to aim for improving one's skills.
~~{~~@ LDP @~~}~~
Damn, and I thought Whitney Houston was a bad interviewee. Doesn't Bill realize that a few hundred thousand geeks (probably a good portion of his fan base) reads Slashdot? I suggest he go and read the Cathy Rogers Q&A for an example of how to do it right. Sheesh.
This is one of the best slashdot interviews i've ever read. I think the fact every single response was a single cryptic sentence just makes it that much better. Explicated answers would have been neat but still, it's impressive that to get that much neatness most other interviewees had to talk for like a page per question. William Shatner, meanwhile, man, that cat is dense.
Maybe it's a zen thing.
I'm kind of disappointed by the brevity of the answers. I was hoping for Mr. Shatner to go into some detail regarding the questions asked. IMO, the whole thing smacks of "oh, the little people have deigned to interview me, I suppose I'll humor them." It's like we don't matter.
Although, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if that's the case; assuming Mr. Shatner's stayed on top of his finances, he's probably quite well off, and doesn't need to work anymore.
Some of the replies, while short, were absolutely priceless.
Maybe it helps that in my head I heard them all delivered in classic Cpt. James T. Pause-and-Shout style.
Does anybody know if NetBSD has been ported to this yet?
Great 5 minutes he spent there replying...
Contrary to what "Bill" might have said he slapped you in the face by mangling your name. I think that despite what he says the two of you are not "in orbit".
Your friend,
John
Lasers Controlled Games!
I look forward to some personal time with you.
;-)
Maybe Wil and Bill *are* beyond cool with each other? Imagine the Kirk and Wesley holodeck dating scenes as they walk arm in arm on a beach.
The coolest thing is that the man has a good sense of humor. I'm glad to see that will all their dirty laundry being exposed, some people out there keep it real.
Bill,
I would have expected a little more effort on the responses.
Editor,
this is one story you should have sent back to Bill for a rewrite.
Very disappointing!
You seem to have no problem making fun of yourself and are able to take a joke, so why are you still wearing the hairpiece?
I mean it's no secret that you wear a toupee. Why not just get rid of it? I think everyone likes William Shatner. Regardless of whether you are bald or not.
Dear Will,
:-)
[snip]
I look forward to some personal time with you.
Jeez, those Wesley/Dianna...uh..."stories"...had it ALL wrong
Is Andover's stock that worthless now?
Current line in Vegas for number of replies to this story by 3:00 p.m. EDT are
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I think the questions that got sent to Bill were lame...and the responses were pretty lame too...I am not sure if its becuase the questions were damned lame or what....perhaps he just didn't put any effort into it....
In anycase there were alot better questions which were posted i wish more of the better ones had made it to him...
There were several postings, asking him about his writing, and also what he would do to fix ST:5 that would have made for much more interesting fare for an interview...
I guess thats just another mark for bad moderation!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
It seems Mr. Shatner probably does better with a microphone than a keyboard.
Consider that, when you consider the brevity of his response.
William Shatner actually spent more time with his responses on this interview than he ever did memorizing lines for his absurd acting.I know i might offend some die hard nerds here but to quote the "man" himself I'm going to say this-------- GET A LIFE!!
Those are... some... short... answers.
Oh well, atleast we got to see him answer Wil Wheaton.
I still giggle at the thought of Shatner sliding off the hood of the police car in "Showtime."
:)
So I've slowly come to think that I'm wonderful.
I merely sought to make an impression.
Damn wouldn't we all seek to make an impression on Nichelle Nichols... emmmmmmm.
I look forward to some personal time with you.
Whoa. A little too much info there.
Witness:
It seems to me that you need to get a life.
Oh Contrare. That's French, in case you need it, for 'to the contrary.' (To a Canadian, no less!!!)
But I guess it's hard to tell how someone is responding without seeing them in real life. So he's either a pompous asshole or a sarcastic hellion worthy of the Slashdot crowd.
Slashdolt:
"Mr. Shatner, I was wondering blah, blah, blah, blah (5 paragraphs later). So what are your thoughts?"
Bill:
I really don't think about that very much.
That really wasn't much of an interview, and as far as I can tell, it was no fault of the Slashdot crowd. Some of the questions were very interesting and informative, but he engaged only two of them, and only as briefly as he could possibly manage (one with a link and one with a quick pat on the back to Wil).
Man, my opinion of him has always been mixed, but it went down a couple notches today!
Yes, I enjoyed it. I think Tim Allen was very funny. As for accuracy, not at all. Not accurate hmmm. Yeah, because Bill and all the other TOS cast get on sooooo well (especially Bill and James Doohan).
I was willing to give Shatner the benefit of the doubt--I had heard he was somewhat terse and a bit of an 'asshole', but I thought I'd wait for the replies before I made up my mind.
Then I read his blow-off reply to the question about the charity he set up in his wife's name. The information he gave in his reply, which was more or less nothing more than its name and what it does, which was already brought up in the question, did nothing to expand on the information or reply about how things were progressing.
That's just cold. Something he ostensibly cares about and he flips back a reply that shouts out, 'I really don't give a damn'.
Usually, celebrities would be a hell of a lot happier answering questions about the charities that they support or helped form rather than your standard 'what was it like working with X on the set of Y?' set of questions, but I guess Shatner cares about neither.
People are right--you are an asshole, Shatner.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
He didn't really appear to put any effort into the responses, kinda disappointing.
I wrote a two page essay about it but decided to go with the theme of 1-2 sentences instead.
Contrite and direct. no extra useless fluff thrown in just to rub egos.
I really wish people would have asked about his writing and if he would like to do television writing again.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I wonder if he thought that we were just a group of a dozen pimply faced nerds not very far removed from Trekies/ers?
That would be a sad mistake to make, when in reality we're a group of a hundred thousand pimply faced nerds not very far removed from Trekkies.
I dunno... it seems that /.'ers asking him these questions is an *exact* portrayal of life after Star Trek as shown in Galaxy Quest. That might explain his brevity.
Although I'll never forget CNN interviewing Bill Shatner after they thought there were "signs of life on Mars." He took the time to plug his Tek Wars books.
How cosmic!
TTFN
question 1... how do you feel about people making fun of you because you're a shitty actor ?
at least we could've planted that one later on, after he had warmed to the whole slashdot interview idea.
Me too. Yup, current quote at the end of page is He's dead, Jim.
That's gotta be rigged. I'm willing to believe in coincidence, but no way that could've been pure chance.
|>
Here be Dragons
and not a single mention of the PL supercomputer. I thought we were nerds here people, i want numbers! bandwidth, gHZ, specnumbers... number of leds, cans of spraypaint. teh important stuff!
I want 2D games back.
You should have at least been mildly amused. It seems to me that you need to get a life.
;-P
Oh my god, Shatner telling Slashdotters to get a life. What do ants do when someone steps on their anthill? What do shaolin monks do when raiden destroys the temple? Doom is all around and i can't get a foothold anywhere.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Bill treated this as he would any media interview.
Have you guys actually heard or listened to any of those recently? Actors/Politicians/Jerks are trained to give as short a response as possible. They know the average attention span of the American person is right around 2.32 seconds.
What you guys think Slashdot deserved some indepth answers to such bland and tedious questions? I mean come the fuck on, the queries weren't even original.
--- I do not moderate.
Am I the only one who felt his answers were extremely short and not entirely informative?
Usually people would put some effort into their answers, but this just seems like it was a minor thing that got blown off...
Jeremy Baumgartner
The questions have been five times as long as the answers!
Perhpas we should start the Slashdot Yes or No sessions with famous people
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Finally we have someone who, upon seeing Marcelo throw down the gauntlet and declare his interview to be unbeatably bad, take the baton and run with it.
Well done Bill. Well done.
Regarding question 9, "Wil" is Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG Does it make more sense to you now? :)
Hey, now I get it!
Thanks. That actually works!
Mod the parent up!
Question 9 was Wil Wheaton Asking Bill Shatner if he was cool with him, because Wil thought Bill didn't like him.
why...are...his answers...so...short...
</Kirk Impression>
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
I would have paid good money to hear him go "Shut Up Wesley."
That would have been sweet.... 2/5 captains... I hope they send questions to Kate Mulgrew next week :)
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I hereby declare any future posts on this topic to be redundant.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I saw Bill on Letterman last year... he behaved exactly the same way. Letterman tried to get him to talk about his reputation as a bad actor, and basically he joked about it and didn't seem to care. Personally, I believe that sees this whole thing as the best joke ever. Who cares whether he's a good actor; he has a permanent career as the ex-captain Kirk, a lot of great stories, and a heck of a lot of fun. He can ham it up whenever he wants and get tons of attention from a huge community of fans. I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he recorded "The Transformed Man," when he did the SNL skit, and whatever else. He was very funny on Letterman. He's got a great sense of humor, and love it or hate it, he has a history of answering probing questions by joking around. This is not special behavior reserved for slashdot. He's just having a great time, and the whining, criticism and complaining from his "fans" are all part of the joke.
Not that I blame him (I'm sure he has better things to do), but it looks like he didn't spend a lot of time on reading and answering the questions. That's fine, but we should recognize that this interview turned out rather poorly, and perhaps in the future choose subjects willing to give more effort.
Come on, we couldn't expect too much geek-wise from Shatner. He's a little too cool. Now science officer Spock, and host of "In Search Of", now HE would make a great, and quite erudite, interviewee.
Or maybe Wil could suggest some other good interviewees from amongst the Trek casts.
- Brent Spiner?
- James Doohan? Get him before he's gone. I bet he'd have tons to say about fun stuff like inventing the first Klingon words.
"I'm a doctor, not a gynecologist... ah, well, maybe just this once..."
-- parody by Kevin Pollak (I think)
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
chekov: captain geeks off the starboard bow
sulu: sir, they locked on to us with there slashdotter weapon
Kirk: damage report
spock: your server appears to be slashdotted captain.
kirk: scotty, more power to the server
scotty: I'm giving it all its got captain
kirk: can you do anything bones
bones: kirk, I'm a doctor not a server admin
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Many of the questions didn't warrant long answers. He could have gone into long personal detail about the favorite parody, but he wasn't asked "why?"...
Perhaps Mr. Shatner didn't feel like relating his life story for #7, and what more would you have him say to #9?
The answers were much like answers on any typical television interview, they were to the point.
The interview would have beet better, perhaps, if it was longer, but that is a Slashdot limitation, probably out of respect for the interviewees. It was a glimpse, just a glimpse, though, at a man.
I for one enjoyed it.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Question #9 was written by Wil Wheaton a.k.a. Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
In soviet russia JOKE explains YOU!
Clear?
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Who is 'Alec'?
As others have said, those responses...were..a...bit..lacking.
How about an interview with Patrick Stewart sometime too?
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It is really intriguing to see how well the relationship between Captain Kirk and Wesley Crusher is getting on. Its nice that /. is taking the opportunity to pander to celebrities that use this website. There were many more interesting questions in the original post.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
Wow, we finally have someone to compete with Marcelo for the shortest and least-satisfying answers.
.
Does anyone remember the Saturday Night Live show when Shatner runs into "trekkies" at a convention and tells them to get a life. When will board ops here take that advice?
I really wanted to know what the combination to the safe was!!!!
Not to mention whether he ever gets the urge to try to talk the PriceLine(tm) supercomputer to death!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
True however after reading answer #4 (Get a life) I'm surprised just how clueless he really is.
If trekkies didn't get all hot and heavy with Star Trek then where would he be today?
Get a Life = Bill who?
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
This is really disappointing, I didn't expect world peace or secrets of cold fusion from Shatner, but some manner of discussion would have been nice.
You seem to have made an error. That should be, "All your First Post are belong to us!" Please try to be more careful in the future.
Keeping All Your Base parodies correct since AD 2002.
I'm not sure which I find funnier. Shatner's hillariously dry wit when answering these questions, or the fact that 90% of /. seems to be completely missing the point and taking great offense at them.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
There is a little town in Iowa called Riverside which bills itself as "the future birthplace of James T. Kirk." Every year, they have a geeky trekkie party thing - you know, the kind of thing where lots of middle-aged, overweight guys dress themselves up in tin-foil outfits supposed to make them look like Enterprise crew members. Or worse yet, they dress like tribbles. But I digress.
At least once, they tried to get JTK himself to come and grace their little party. I don't know if they offered to pay him or not, so I'm not saying he should have gone, but his response was basically something like "there's no way in @#^$% that I'm going to Riverside, Iowa." Whether or not he was going to accept the invitation, you'd think the guy could extend basic courtesy.
So, it doesn't surprise me that Kirk seems a little curt. I just think he really might not care much about things trekkie, and he might not care much what other people think about him.
Just my 0.02.
Some of the answers that were well thought out and drew on areas that the average person would clearly like some depth on were fluffed over.
Of course, he's got everything he needs, why butter up the fans anymore?
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
In the spirit of Statistical fairness, the next interview will be with Jon Katz, thus bringing the arithmatic mean interview length back to normal.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Ok, who's the wiseass who put "He's dead, Jim." for the quote at the bottom of Slashdot?
Coincidence? I think not.
Except for the one about his wife, none of those questions seem vaguely interesting to me.
What else do you expect from slashdot moderators?
Honestly, I'm not surprised -at all- that he was as terse as he was. If anything, I'm surprised he was as polite as he was. Consider how many people posted asking him why he killed his wife, how he got away with killing his wife, if he and his wife ever did any sexual roleplaying with Trek characters...
Quite honestly, I think he probably read about the first dozen or so questions and then got to the point where he just got fed up with us asking stupid, insensitive, and downright hurtful questions. I'm amazed that some of you had the gall to call him a murderer, a pervert, and an egomaniac all in the same breath.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Probably having a decent and varied acting career without such intense typecasting that he's had to become a charicature of himself.
He wouldn't be nearly as rich, though.
And who knows? Maybe his singing career would have taken off...
This is not my sandwich.
I noticed that Bill spelled Wil 'Will'. Maybe being in orbit has something to do with it.
You guys are SO nice! Calling his answer "brief" is tactful. How about terse, concise, laconic, dismissive, flippant, hasty, or good old rude? (I have more suggestions, more profane.)
I could have written the replies for him -- and been more interesting. He phoned this in.
Review the Q&A and it's obvious he simply ducked most of the questions or gave his equivalent of "no comment." Only on the topic of Nerine Shatner did he seem engaged.
This confirms everything I have heard about him being a sophomoric self-centered jerk. It's disrespectful -- the editors probably spent ten times to time preparing the Q's as he did ansering them.
Yeah, I know the whole bit about how he shouldn't be chained to a role from 25 years ago, and how he really isn't blowhard James T. Kirk, but he doesn't have to give interviews, book signings,, and the like except to promote himself -- and make money. He's milked the Trek thing for every penny while complaining all the while how oppressed he is. Contrasted with actors like Patrick Stewart, by all accounts a 24/7 class act, or Avery Brooks, who wants no part of the Trek typecasting and so doesn't do the interviews, book signings, and the like. I respect either choice and not Shatner's.
I think the statute of limitations for respecting him for his past work has expired.
He's dead, Jim.
8-)
Alec Guinness. Hated Star Wars and Star Wars fans. Supposedly he once told a little kid to never watch the movie again (the kid's mother was asking Sir Guinness to give the kid some "Obi-Wan like" advice).
Her lips were full and I wanted to leave a lasting impression!? What the hell is that? That is great man! /.ers....that is why you don't get chicks. Thier lips ain't full.
Take note
War Tux!!!
stand back???
Before some nattering nabob of nwgativism corrects me, I do realize it has been 33+ years since Trek was on the air (not 25).
That and the typos are due to my irritation, and determination not to spend more time on my comment than he did on his alleged interview.
Earth to Shatner: Your life support is running out. Phttt. To think I bothered reading this.
Slashdotter: "Whatta you think about people dissing your acting?"
PLSC: "I think, therefore I save."
Sex - Find It
"He likes me! He really likes me!"
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Dear Will,
We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit man. I don't do pre-game strategy.
I look forward to some personal time with you.
ooOooo! you go boy!
Alec Guinness, who was bitter at being typecast as "Ben Kenobi" after his roles in Star Wars.
He was CLASSICALLY TRAINED, after all! These NERDS were diluting and impeding his delivery of TRUE ART!
sure, dude. whatever... grow up.
Shortest. Answers. Ever.
Where did the article mention "Compare the best prices on: Consumer Electronics/Televisions" ?
More likely phone #'s aren't given out on a fully trusting basis. Image the amount of annoying trekky phone calls he gets when people figure out his number.
Mind you, it's probably not extremely hard to find, but likely private enough to discourage nuisances.
(anyone have access to a Hollywood phone directory?)
That's one of the only questions he ANSWERED.
The open-ended questions could have been better, but this was an invitation for him to be reflective -- not cross-examined. I guess no one did the research to find out that "Bill can't reflect."
Can it be a coincidence that the quote at the end of the page is currently "He's dead, Jim."?
Seeing the "Biography" of Shatner. It's really quite informative - and it helps put the interview in context. There is a lot to the man, he's a true original.
;)
Two quotes stand out:
These are excellent words to live by:
Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
And this statement, of course, should make sense to most straight men:
I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
Keep going, Bill
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Can I rate the whole interview that?
Sorry, thi sis the last of my multipost rant before they kick me out of here.
Bill is being as polite as possible to say "leave me alone".
BS. Polite would have been to decline the interview. Easy. Bill doesn't do polite.
Maybe this was the best he could do. Plausible, and sad.
Does William Shatner read this site?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Not as boring as the answers.
I was reading the interview and at the end the fortune read, "He's dead, Jim."
You make the call.
-C
Not that I scheduled my week around this, but Shatner's interview could have been worth the two minutes it took us to read it.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
is the one in that family guy episode where 'Shatner' does fiddler on the roof...
;)
'A fiddler on the bla bla bla...'
-shatner trembles-
'KAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Anyway I rather liked it
The way to corrupt a youth is to teach him to hold in higher value them who think alike than those who think differently
Number nine was from Wil Wheaton, of "Stand By Me" and "Next Generation" fame. Wil has established himself as somewhat of a geek icon, largely from the Slashdot community, because he's plunged headfirst into GNU/Linux and running his own web site.
:)
I think the reason for number nine was because Wil Wheaton sells memorabilia of some of his artwork (I use that term loosely, but some are really cute). One of his pieces is a picture of a name tag that reads like this:
"Hello, My Name Is
William Fucking Shatner"
From what I've read on WWDN (wilwheaton.net), Wil was worried that Bill would be offended by the piece, which is also featured on T-shirts sold by Wil. If I recall correctly, Shatner found it funny.
My personal favorite is "Wil's Got A Posse!". I just smile, because it makes me realize that he's just a dude like you and me, who's excited that people like him for what he is and what he's doing now, rather than how they knew him as a child actor. I guess I'm part of the posse, I visit the site about once a week to catch up on what's new in Wil's life
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Let me start off by saying that this interview is the second most anticipated event of the season for me. Second only to the release of LOTR:TTT on 12/18. (I've got my movie cash ready to go.) And, I think he lived up to the anticipation.
Now, I've seen several comments relating disappointment in Mr. Shatner's responses. I can understand this disappointment since everytime I've ever watched the original ST with my wife, she always exclaims, " What would anyone see in him that they would call a talent?!?"
Let me see if I can explain. The answers to this interview are just like any vintage Shatner performance. The art of the performance, if you will, is in the fact that you cannot determine if he spent 5 minutes or 5 weeks preparing for it. The man is truly an enigma and my hero. As a serial procrastinator, I wish I had that kind of talent.
"Ahhhh, best laid plans of mice and men... and Cookie Monster." -- Cookie Monster, Sesame Street
... on television chat shows, the questioning is done by a single interviewer and not a committee!!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
The random quotation at the bottom of the comments when I first read this story was:
"He's dead, Jim."
Kinda cool, I thought.
I look forward to some personal time with you.
Oh, come on, you're making this too easy!
("That's what he said!")
Star Trek: Generations indeed!
...You answer our questions.
**>>BELCH
considering the suck-ass questions, and biased moderation of the trek-related ones.... i thought the replies were nothing short of amazing.
and nobody bothered to mention the AARP reply?! well, it's honest and whimsical.
i am seriously dissapointed in the moderation of questions for this interview.
are we supposed to interview the man or his accomplishments?
Wil(l), that's funny. i laugh.
questions 1, 10, 8, and 7 were fine. the rest of them appeared to be trying to tell the man "hey i'm a really big fan and i know everything about you listen, listen, i know the answer! hey, don't you understand my obsession with YOU!?"
the interview was comparitively boring because the questions sucked ass.
we need to interview prince 4 s0m3 1337 g00dn355. at least reading the answers to the questions (good or bad) would be fun.
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
I wish Shatner would tell me to get a life. I'd print it and frame it.
I liked the short answers. They reminded me of Shatner's delivery during dramatic moments. Can't you imagine him sitting down and thinking, in his trademark stacatto speech,
"I must...complete...this interview."
-Paul Komarek
I've been wondering for years, did Shatner invent the phrase "get a life", or did he just use it?
His famous answer to a fan's hyper-detailed Star Trek question was the first time I ever heard the phrase, in about 1987, but of course, it could just be that I need to get a life myself, and that the phrase had been around for years earlier.
So now Yakov Smirnov is posting on slashdot...
From the comedy circuit to Branson to slashdot...
dear lord
at least we know where Jon Katz came from....
nbfn
"We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit man. I don't do pre-game strategy."
Uh... were these questions accidentally submitted to Zaphod Beeblebrox instead?
Alright, enough excuses. Bottom line, that interview SUCKED...
Despite what others may say, thanks for the interview Bill, it's nice to know you can spare some time for the nerd crowd! Vranash (logged in from skool, like I'll let 'em sniff my damn pw :-p)
to you!
Not a squirrel
I think William showed just how lame some people are. He answered the stupid questions with a precise answer. When you realize that the lame questions asked were the results of the LAME MODS that modded UP the questions, you have to wonder HOW THE HELL did WE the Slashdot Community, ask Mr. Shatner, what it was like doing an "Interracial Kiss". Come on people. I would have sent back the answers BLANK and said "come up with something legit and we can talk."
/.
/. found an interview that was not so stuck on themselves and their accomplishments that they felt the need to KATZ every answer into some long drawn out BS line of how big something was. Can you imagine the Kiss answer if KATZ had done it? "Well when I first pondered the life-changing moment of the first interracial kiss, I felt nothing but then it begged to be asked was the real world ready for such mindbending things? I wasn't sure but felt confident that the world needed to grow up read THIS BOOK(insert some amazon book) and you will see just how behind and backwards you all are and how much you needed that interracial kiss.
He probably thought the interview was some form of comedy relief here for
I think its funny that
Had all the questions been like the one asking about his late wife, we would all be saying man that was great. Instead we are shrugging wondering more about the man than we did before. Get out of your box or cubical and look around before you mod foolish questions in the future.
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
Well said Bill!
My understanding was that we airdropped Yakov into Chechnya, hoping he'd get caught in the crossfire or sent to a gulag. I guess he made it back.
He was not funny in his prime, and doubt he's aged well. Cute Flash anim. on his site, though.
Justin??
uh, Austin??
maybe Dustin??
Rustin is not a name (unless your parents are crack adicts)
I'm available to answer questions this lame at any time in the future...I'm sure they will be just as entertaining answers that /.'ers are welcome to read more into than I really intended...
Suck.
Let me know when MS Interview comes out. maybe we will get better questions next time.
@vSpid Like, Whatever
Who else has been interviewed on /. other than Kirk? Does anyone have a /. link?
I don't know if Slashdot admins fiddle with the settings sometimes, but the fortune message at the bottom of the page (as of this moment) is quite appropriate:
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
You know what bothers me the most?
The fact that none of the questions remotely touched off on OSS, Linux, or stuff that matters to geeks the most.
I wanted to know what Shatner thought about linux, et al. Even my question went unnoticed.
What a waste of opportunity. Great. Now I will know what that interracial kiss was all about. I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN!
The discussion of the womens' centres certainly was the most enlightening aspect of this interview. Geeks and Shatner just do not mix for some reason; Go figure.
surrendering is certainly a topic on which they have much expertise...
I look forward to some personal time with you.
Is that like a pick up line?
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
Or as dead.
...from the episode "Mirror Mirror".
Of course I like Shatner, and I totally respect his choice. He's great!
The Good MacAndrew
Upon seeing the box was too small, Schrodinger's Elephant breathed a sigh of relief.
Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
So anyone know which Star Trek episode this quote is from?
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
He knows Kelley's dead (I hope), but is saying that if we could get a hold of him in ... wherever dead actors go ... and asked him what it was like being dead, he'd cough up a better answer than, "Oh I try not to think about that."
:(
"De" was supposed to have been a very cool guy. They always die first -- God's redshirts.
We've had a few interviews in the past here on /. and the answers to these questions were on the 5th grade level. I'm doubting that "Bill" even answered the questions. They feel shallow and without sincerity. Almost like an admin answered them for him. Thoughts?
Reality of what is noticed by real people: Man walks into a store, everyone looks up to see the newcomer, some make eye contact others for various reasons do not and go back to browsing.
now the liberal interpretation: Yeah! That was just another example of white male oppression. Kill all dem whiteys.
Umm, sir... no one mentioned anything about the newcomer being black or the existing store patrons being white... in fact there was unsurprisingly NO MENTION of race or the amount of melanin in the skin.
Say what?! You just a pawn of da man, oppress'n my bru-thus and bitches, err sis-tuhs. It was obviously a black man that was new and he offended all dem white devils. Nuff said! Word! Sho! Now lemme axe you dis quet-chin, "why you be brining up all this race issue if it aint so important?" HA! smoke DAT!
*sigh* you are absolutely right in saying that if someone brings it up all the time then it is an issue. The reality of the situation is that to most people are people, perhaps if you did not go around ensuring that everyone knew that you were "black and proud" with your stupid choice of words, stereotypical speech, stereotypical choice of clothing and advertising how different you were... well maybe then people would consider you a human. You serve only as your own slave owner and jailor.
CleverNickName: Are we cool, or what?
Shatner: Yeah Wil, we both are really cool... bu,...your character...you played...on Star Trek.......was a real dork!.
ba dum -rimshot-
I watched Mind Meld a few weeks ago. It's available on DVD, you could probably rent it. It's Shatner and Nimoy talking about their lives in Star Trek. Many of these questions are answered or hinted at in the show. I enjoyed it.
Don't know. But he is definitely not the guy at http://www.willwheaton.com/
I think you might mean "Concise".
:P
He seemed apologetic or remorseful about nothing.
Not even "Lucy In the Sky".
To be fait the kid did say he'd watched Star Wars 300 odd times and that is NOT healthy.
FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!!
What a waste of bandwidth. The replies Mr Shatner provided to the Slashdot questions make me wonder how many seconds he spent composing his insightful and thought provoking answers.
I hope Slashdot never wastes its time again with such a poorly selected candidate for our highly visible and respectable Q&A.
/.
Thanks Bill.
Certainly there's no reason that you had to take any time out to answer questions from the 'nerd crowd'.
I suspect Robin Guido your publicist suggested it would be a good idea, and it was.
Too many of your 'trek' fans seem to forget that your not Captain Kirk and the details of your personal life are just that, personal.
Your an actor, like any sometimes the roles are good, and your not (good for the role) and other time the roles are bad, and you give them more than they deserve.
Sometimes, rarely the two sync and everything comes off just right.
You gave me everything I could have wanted in the original Trek series, and I thank you for continuing.
I suspect you might be inclined to do it even without a paycheck (not really).
I asked an interesting question about a film Shatner starred in that was entirely in Esparanto.
I guess Wil Wheaton's need to know if he's cool with Shatner is more important. Now I know you moderators are weak-minded drones.
Bill @Just for laughs in Montreal
"Hey, I'm not a Starfleet Commander or T.J. Hooker.
I don't live on Starship NCC dash 1701 or own a phaser.
I don't know anyone named Bones, Sulu or Spock.
And no, I've never had Green Alien Sex -- although I'm sure it would be quite an evening.
I speak English and French, not Klingon. I drink Labatt's, not Romulan Ale.
And when someone says to me, 'Live long and prosper,' I seriously mean it when I say 'Get a life!'
My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg.
And Tribbles were puppets! Not real animals!! Puppets!!!
And when I speak, I never, ever, talk / like / every / word / is / its / own / sentence!
I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal.
I believe in Priceline Dot Com, where you never have to pay full price for airline tickets, hotels and car rentals.
I have appeared on stage at Stratford, Carnegie Hall, Albert Hall and at the Monkland Theatre in NDG (Notre Dame de Grace).
And yes, I've gone where no man has gone before. But I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission.
My name is William Shatner and I AM CANADIAN."
Or....
The questions were all pretty lame. How many times has he been asked these questions? Hundreds? thousands?
They were not original or interesting questions.
The questions were stupid. I'd have answered them the same way. Star Trek was a looooong time ago.
man rtfm
That interview was about as interesting as watching paint dry. The questions were goodm, but Shatner and his lame 1 sentence answers are pathetic. He interviewed as well as that bitch with Diane Sawyer last night... what was her name?? something Houston......
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
Instead of complaining about his answers...maybe we should be looking at the questions as the problem.
I thought his answers were quite good considering some of the stupid things he was asked.
Come on, the galaxy quest,SNL skit, parody questions all sucked...no wonder the answers were short.
On the contrary, questions 3 and 10 were good ones, and I thought his answer to them were great too, short but to the point.
Some people don't need or want to ramble on when answering things.
And though I loathe anything in the Star Trek franchise post-TOS, I was looking forward to getting some insight into the captain. Kinda disappointing. (and I saw first episode when it originally aired on TV.)
Wow. You managed to hit an all time Slashdot low. The previous worst attempt at a witty remark was:
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Well considering how the most famous character he played makes really long and drawn out speeches every 5 minutes; I think it was actually refreshing for him to be brief and to the point (but somehow I think of that SNL skit, and I can't help but wonder if he sees the /. crowd as another version of the trekie crowd...)
Anyways, his last response was one of the coolest quotes I've ever heard... and somehow I can't imagine Captain Kirk saying it without added another 5 minutes of dialogue to it.
you should consider a career in carpeting
Topic of discussion: best drinking story about each cast member.
We should do it for each series.
I wonder if they can top some of mine...
+1 insightful
:)
+1 insightful
+1 insightful
comment disagreeing with post
-1 overrated
-1 overrated
Go ahead and -1 offtopic this post. Making this observation is worth burning the karma.
That had to be one of the shallowest, least enlightening "interviews" I've seen in /.-land. Can we get back to real geekdom now?
.nosig
Forget Capt Kirk wheres the uber geek, cd. Spock!!
Bring on the Trek Babes! Marina Sirtis! Jeri Ryan! Roxann Dawson! and the oh-so-hot Jolene Blalock!
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
In the second episode of Taken on SciFi, the first guest star listed in the opening credits is James Kirk. What's up with that?
clicka
[o]_O
and it wasn't very long till you stole the title back with your retarded comment
Sigh. First off, this is easily the worst interview ever. The only way to top this is to answer "y" or "n" to ever question. Now, here's my main problem. I know, this is slashdot. Whenever Wheaton speaks we are all supposed to get on our knees, suck his dick, and pray that he finds us worthy enough to jizz down our throats. But his "question" was completely worthless. It might be good for a laugh (I didn't laugh), but SURELY there was a better question in the cache? Since when does slashdot cater to individual users when preparing an interview? We want questions that might actually be interesting. Why on Earth anyone would actually PAY to view your content is beyond me. If I can expect more content like this, you can expect to go bankrupt. Fuck off and die.
Another thing. Isn't it funny how Wheaton has an unproportionately large amount of +5 comments? No conspiracy there, that's for sure!
> Whatever my failings are, they are human
> and I try to perfect it each day.
and that's why You Are Cool!
Worst interview ever... er wait, actually this time it's "Worst interview questions ever!".
Frogs are primitive animals - so the occasional extra toe is not that unusual. But this is very unusual.
Wit sh*t.
When you stop and think, for a man that lives under a microscope and has most everything he does, says, where he goes, etc. printed and reported about him, I'm impressed that he was willing to answer the questions in the first place.
What did you expect he to say?
I'd be willing to bet that if he gave longer answers, folks would be complaining that he was gloating, bragging, or just being a windbag.
What I got from the answers is that he likes to keep things short and to the point. Personally I like that, but that's just me.
Take a moment to just be glad that he took the time to answer at all.
Just my two cents. Now excuse me while I go and "Get myself a life."
(Now where did I put that remote...)
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
I though this replies were pure genius and hilarious. Way to go Bill!
It would've been nice if he'd been a bit longer winded with his replies. You can't quite stretch out typed words with pauses like you can when you're standing in front of a camera.
you're right, I wouldn't want to become a knobslopper like you.
First, having read all of the original questions that were posted, these were pretty much the questions that were asked. My hats go off to Rob and Rob for selecting some of the better ones.
I think Bill would have really enjoyed the opportunity to talk about technology though (a topic nobody seemed to have any questions on). He wrote a book called "I'm Working on That" which is essentially his experience interviewing scientists all over the world who are working on technologies that were inspired by Star Trek.
Bill is probably not the guy you want setting up Qmail on your Linux box but he does have a very real interest in various technologies and their impact on our day to day lives.
And speaking of Qmail and Linux, he was involved in the decision to move his website from Microsoft technologies to Linux, Apache, PHP, PostNuke, and MySQL. I think he appreciated the ideals open source represents and supported the time and effort it took to convert everything over.
Let's face it though, Bill will always be associated with Trek and some of the experimental things he's attempted over the years. Even at 71 he's still trying new stuff. One of his latest experiments has been with paintball where he recently helped stage the largest scenario paintball tournament ever, Spplat Attack, and donated the proceeds of the event to charity. Over 1500 people split up into Klingon, Borg and Federation teams spraying paint for 8 straight hours.
So, not to sound (too) defensive , he can only answer the questions you pose to him.
and he'll never read it, but ...
Will you ever go back into the Secret Men's Room with Howard Stern, leaving Robin to yell at you guys from the top of the stairs?
[insert tired windows w/ critical mission joke here]
Yeah, that was a truly insightful question.
why run from Vincenzo?
Uhm, if that's not healthy I've got to rethink my priorities...right after I watch the series just one more time.
than sng or voyager. ,all more
The plot, characters, eprisodic nature
satisfying than the same old tired Star Trek
formula retreaded with better effects.
I have noticed that actors are never as bright or interesting as their characters. They're basically idots, and if you meet them and expect them to be anything like their onscreen characters you will be disappointed. They are ACTORS... they ACT like they have brains...
How about a Turing Test for actors?
"I save my mod points to mod up people who reply to my journal"
Damn, there seems to be morons thinking up new ways of abusing the moderation system every day.
Sad.
A beowulf cluster of these, all screaming KHAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Regarding my question (#10, from my Geek in Training (uid 12075) account)...
While it's cool that Slashdot posed my question to William "Bill" "Captain Kirk" "TJ Hooker" Shatner (he's actually 71, not 61, my bad); I don't know whether to take his comment at face value and realize he is giving an off-the-cuff response, or be disappointed because he (apparently) didn't give it much thought. The "My life is my statement" seems at first profound, yet not necessarily deep.
To be honest, I had this secret wish that someone who was so good at poking fun at himself in his old age would have some deep, contemplative responses for questions about his life's journey. Perhaps I am just naive in confusing talent and humor with insight and intellectualism.
Oh well, I'm glad he took the time to reply. I stand by my probing questions, but must only answer them in my own imagination, from Bill's point of view.
Yeah, really. What a dork.
"My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day."
Wow, my respect for Mr. Shatner just tripled. So well said. Such great words to live by. I thought overall his responses were a bit short (but the questions were pretty awful to begin with), however there was a great sense of humor and insight that I wasn't expecting. My hat is off for him. --P
Don't you freaks have any thing else too dew but count the spelling misteaks peeple make. I mean, it didn't matter what he said, you were out to bite his balls off anyway.
Bill, YOU STUD!!!
Oops, I guess I misread it.
That had to be the worst interview I've read on slashdot in a long time.
Not only were Shatner's responses VERY short, but sometimes they didn't even address the question asked (see #8).
Bill needs to stop pushing his books and priceline.com and pay a little more attention to his online fans.
-RageEar
Congratts on not getting the joke. I was dead serious up until the "Windows NT" part.
Hi Folks,
I know we all find the "over their", "there stuff", "better then" mis-spellings an endearing part of the glorious hack that is Slashdot, but mis-spelling "Au Contraire" makes the subject of your interview -- your guest -- look like an idiot.
If this was a transcribed interview, could you kindly correct your error and submit the appropriate mea culpa?
Thanks,
Yet another AC
A great person, responding to questions, elevates the asker and the listener. A little person dismisses questions arbitrarily, comes across as vaguely defensive and aggressive toward the questioners, and just basically makes everyone feel smaller for the experience, including the listener.
Does anyone feel like they've just heard from a genuinely great guy? Because he so aptly deomonstrated how "lame" the questions were?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Many thanks for your insightful post. Just to warn you, though, I've got my eye on you.
Correcting Slashdot Nazis for a thousand years!
I found his answers to be both humorous and short and sweet.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
2) This isn't even an interview, it's just a question-answer session. And you got his answers. In an interview there's usually a human doing more than reading questions off a cue-card which allows the possibility of probing deeper if desired.
3) Considering many Slashdot interviews are questions in an expert's bailiwick (ones that the persons asked very much want to blab about) and the whole reason to interview Shatner is his uniqueness, it seems in rather bad taste to criticize his answers because they don't fit in each person's narrow definitions of how he's supposed to answer.
4) He's a human being, for god's sake. Treat him like a person and not like Kirk, some fictional character - one of many - he's portrayed. If you want to interview Kirk, talk to Shatner and ask if it's possible. That could be another set of unique answers (hopefully questions, too) which could surprise even Shatner. If you want an interview with a "has-been" (in other people's opinions), I think his answers to these questions were much more than what was deserved. If you look you'll see many personal parts of Shatner show through.
Toodles,
Please note that I labeled my previous reply to a "joke."
Please note that I got the joke.
Please note that it wasn't funny because it is unoriginal, and formulaic.
Please note that you misspelled an abbreviation to congratulations.
why run from Vincenzo?
Uh, for one because slashdot revolves around linux more or less.. maybe? Because linux is the centerpiece of open source software.. perhaps?
I thought MPAA question yielded absolutely no desireable results. "Yes, actors hate them too", Shatner brushed it off.
We could have asked him about his OS of choice. Wouldn't it fucking blow your mind if Shatner revealed that he can compile a kernel without any help from a techie?
I'd like to ask what you think of your humorous reputation for bad acting.
My gosh people! That was the first question, and when I read it I thought: "my gosh, how crass."
I think he was very nice to not totally blast his answer to that question or be rude in the rest of them after that. So, lemme get this straight, he's interviewed with an opening question of: "So, you suck, what's that like?" And all you people can do is complain about his brevity?!?
I found his answers short, but thoughtful, and wasn't offended in the least.... Stinking whiney babies....
You guys/gals are full of gripes and petty issues like misspellings.
A guy takes an interview with slashdot and gets bombarded, thrashed and becomes the exhausted victim of juvenile banter.
Show us some intelligence. Is that science-fiction only found on TV in distance solar systems?
Show the guy some respect.
Hit me for flaming and cripple your own gain.
pretzel_logic
For all you non-theater types out there, the straight man (or woman) is the seemingly normal person surrounded by wacky characters, whose job is essentially to make the antics of the comedic lunatics more believable. What many people may not realize is that it is generally the "straight man" that gets most of the laughs, because his/her character has to "act normal" in extremely abnormal situations. Consider this: would Will Smith's performances would seem nearly as funny if MIB's J had been played by a comedian such as Steve Martin or Robin Williams? But Will would probably be just as funny opposite say, James Woods, Tim Burton, etc.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
You didn't happen to notice which question he was replying to, did you? The whole controversy with the SNL sketch was that he said "Get a life" to the fans. He was making a joke. Perhaps you yourself should use the clue you're offering him.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Dont complain about the quality of questions, because they were chosen by how well they were moderated...hmm...i wonder if the answers were done the same way;)
Sorry Tommy is the funny one.
You watch something like Space Cowboys and you can see how your "straight man" can be funny, just by doing normal stuff.
The comedic lunatic is only somewhat funny, the laughtrack is there to tell you when it is.
This is when sitcoms died, when they though the comedian was the important part, rather then the proper delivery of a good joke.
Find it yerself.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Your wife drowns you!
find out then.
mod this up you crazy mods, it explains quite a bit
also Rescue 911
Like I want to hear another windbag star go on about how great they are. Would you rather see this:
... "Walt Disney was a very creative man and a visionary," Jackson said. "He loved creating family-oriented entertainment and so do I. I feel that was a gift and I have that gift also. I'm very honored to have been chosen." ...
"I'm a visionary and a creative person," the 44-year-old entertainer said in response to questions from his attorney... "God blessed me with certain talents," Jackson said. "I hate to use an analogy, but Walt Disney was creative but not good with business. His brother Roy handled the books."
from cnn
WS is just a star. If you're a fan of someone then for you that star is like chocolate. You just like them, you don't need a justification or a long explanation. He signs books because people just want his signature (their damn chocolate) not a big bunch of bullshit. They don't really want him to talk or tell them what he's REALLY feeling, they just want his signature or picture or whatever and for him to say what they want to hear. He has no idea how or why he's a star and he certainly is not going to be able to explain it to anyone nor should he feel obligated to nor do they really want to know anyway. Guess what? He probably only has a few REAL friends and has a totally different relationship with them than he has with ANYONE who approaches him as a star or as "William Shatner, the actor". He has NO obligation to you or anyone to do anything. I thought his attitude was really refreshing in this culture where every pop star thinks they are THE FUCKING MESSIAH COME AGAIN TO EARTH TO SAVE HUMANITY. Get a life, it's FUCKING TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
for those who felt the responses lacking, he recently did an interview with the onion's av club. it's quite a bit more insightful than this piece.
Thanks for your honest answers. It's good to see someone just answer the questions as asked for a change. I also appreciate that with all you've been through you still have a sense of humor.
$G
-- $G
I'm sensing a special episode of Crossing Over with John Edwards coming up. And for the first time in the show's history, it would actually have something to do with the channel it's airing on.
Bill:
I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
Maybe he should find out how the other person in the scene thought about it in Uhura's Biography.
bash$
Kirk! You aint got nuthin' on Picard!
Seriously though, these have to be the lamest responses to any ask/. ever.
If this was an audio interview, why not post a mp3/ogg/real/wma/whatever stream of the interview?
I think Bill was perfectly type-cast as a smug, self-centered commandorial type who acts courageously in the spur of the moment to save the lives of those around him in the midst of flaming and exploding objects and strange creatures from the galactic void who often just happen to be imbedded with sparkly bits.
As for the warped sense of humor, I dinna think ya should overlook exposure to the environment. Enjoy rabbit world, Bill, it's been a pleasure.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Pretty bloody arrogant for someone who hasn't done anything of note in 35 years and even then was of questionable quality.
worst, interview, ever....
Yeah, I noticed that one myself. Aside from being lame, it sounds like a real hassle, chewing down the page, looking only at usernames, and ignoring the content, or verifying usernames whe you want to mod. I just pick an article about halfway down the page that I don't know much about (makes me end up giving >80% insightfuls and informatives), scores hidden, -1, and get it over with.
He probably ghost compiles it with the help of a tekkie. :)
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
if ($hunger){
foreach $menuitem(@menu){
if ($appetite == $menuitem){
push @order, $menuitem;
};
};
while(!$waiter){
sleep 1;
};
$ordercount = @order;
$ordered = 0;
foreach $orderitem(@order){
$decision = int(rand $ordercount)+1;
if ($decision == 1){
print "I'd like an order of $orderitem\n";
$ordered++;
};
};
if ($ordered == 0){
print "I don't know, just give me something good.\n";
};
}else{
exit;
};
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I agree. I've been enjoying his books about Kirk after Generations (The Return, Spectre ... um, haven't read the next lot yet). They're nice light reading. Go pick one up some time. Start with Ashes of Eden.
My first introduction to Star Trek was ST4: The Voyage Home (the one where they go back to 1986). It was the Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio that really hooked me on Star Trek to begin with. Lay off the guy. I'll admit he's not the world's best actor, but I never noticed while I was watching Trek. I took it as part of the character, and that was fine by me.
Some of those questions were almost rude, and didn't warrant a detailed answer anyway. And as someone has pointed out, at least he was willing to do an interview for a non-standard group like slashdot! We're all a bunch of cynics, so I rather doubt he was doing this to improve his image, but rather just because someone asked. Thanks, Bill, for taking the time.
just thought i'd point out Shatner IS canadian and as such might actually have a sense of humour about himself?
Face it. Bill has a book to sell and even if he can't mention the title or even the book, his publicist wants his name up in big bold flashy letters on /. Thus, this half-baked interview is what we get. Of course, if the questions didn't suck so bad...
ps: I hear the book is about how close we are to having Star trek technology today. May be worth flipping through.
No offense, but who gives a fuck what he thinks about Linux or open source or anything to do with computers? He's an *actor*.
I'd rather ask him whether, if he could do it over again, he would have turned down Star Trek and gone on to have a somewhat-normal career, instead of being Captain Kirk for ever. Or what his reaction was when he did his first convention. Was it a fit of depression - "holy shit - am I gonna have to do *this* for the rest of my life?" Or even what the hell he was thinking when he recorded 'The Unteleported Man' (and what the record label was thinking).
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
"I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression."
Bill, you crack me up!
Shatner balls? Ewwwww!
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
I must say. As entertaining as that particular installment of SNL was. The convention skit, the revolving resturant enterprise. My favorite is and always will be his impression of Ollie North in the Ollie North: The Mute Marine sketch. The fact that Ollie has a job not associated with holding a cardboard sign at highway exits is testimate to the fact that the episode, and skit in particular, is not rerun enough.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Please tell...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
We have met the bad interviewer - and he is us.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I wonder which ceremony he's talking about. I was there when they renamed the union build to shatner and Mr Shatner was no show, instead he sent a message through his sister acknowledging the honor and I beleive also donated some money. He majored in managment.
I think the real question is...would william shatner take tyler durden on??
--meh--
You mean 555 is the area code?!
All this time, I've been thinking it was the exchange.
No wonder none of my calls ever get through.
Oh well, at least every car I hop into has keys already in it, and I never need change from a cabbie.
Jeeze Bill, don't strain yourself on in depth answers or anything. We wouldn't want you to put yourself out with comments longer than a sentence.
The most amusing part was him answering Wil...still trying to decide if he was being sarcastic or not.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
I must admit, when I saw that not only had my question been answered, but answered in the affirmative, I did a stupid little geek dance, with a nerd flourish at the end.
Thank you, Slashdot.
No, thank you! I...thank you!
What is not funny is when the writers use truly pathetic characters (Urkel, anyone?) and essentially make one or more of the characters the butt all of their so-called, mostly unfunny jokes. That type of sitcom needs to get dead stay dead, and never come back. Trouble is, that type of crap is easier to write and cheaper to produce than good comedy.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Well, quasi-geek. I'm sorry, Wil, but anybody whose photo has been in Teen Beat has a limit to how purely geek they can be.
Hey, I was young and I needed the money.
"I save my mod points to mod up people who reply to my journal"
Damn, there seems to be morons thinking up new ways of abusing the moderation system every day.
Did you even look at his journal? Only three entries - the last dated August 20 2002. Ain't gonna be easy to post a reply to his journal to score the "free" karma. This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Did anyone besides me find his answers kind of creepy?
I felt the creepiness in many ways: the stubby answers, the gloss-over denials (bad acting, McGill), the misplaced answer (SNL), the inadvertently ironic pedantry ("Oh Contrare"), the easy platitudes ("be true to myself") -- even the sloppy spelling ("Will") -- it all just gave me the impression that he was strangely disconnected and emotionally opaque when he wrote it.
His answer to question 4 (SNL) gave me an especially creepy feeling. His answer showed that he feels no deeper meaning, and then it seemed to turn harsh and pejorative. Or was that supposed to be funny? His emotional blankness makes it hard for me to assess.
The gloss-overs also gave me the sense of a person who doesn't bother to toughen himself with self-criticism. That helps me explain why, for example, he has never seen or heard any bad reviews of his own work. (Or was he kidding about that? Hard to tell.)
I know that I'm supposed to laugh when he writes "I've slowly come to think that I'm wonderful." But I have this weird feeling that he might not have felt a proper sense of irony when he wrote it.
**shudder**
As I read his answers, I couldn't help but remember the fact that he was personally disliked by almost every other actor on the set of Star Trek. In that context, his creepy answers made me feel like I was getting a first-hand confirmation of his personality defects.
Am I whack to be feeling so creepy about this?
Bilbo lives!
Oh, and don't forget: The lord of the rhymes which samples it.
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
Yeah, get it. Not funny. Where am I losing you?
why run from Vincenzo?
Apparently the joke was lost on many people.
Get a life? ROFL!
hold on a second.. let me ask my wife and 5 children if I have a life yet...
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Normally this joke would get a blah and skip to the next post, but for some reason seeing it in morse code made me damn near wet myself laughing... (WTF is wrong with me?)
OK, I agree. I don't really care. So why agree to do the interview? I have read that he is the same way on Letterman and other shows. If he doesn't want to be interviewed, then he shouldn't do interviews. Why do them, and answer half-assed?
I don't follow his life, or his career, I hate Star Trek. But *I* could have given better answers to those questions. Why did I read it then? WEll, cause this is
I think he is VERY full of himself. People are blind if they think he is just having fun. How fun is it to give yes/no answers? Is it to rile up the unwashed masses? Come on, if he is a regular guy as is claimed, he doesn't care about that. If he wants to keep people from interviewing him in the future, he wouldn't keep agreeing to be interviewed.
I think he is just an incredibly boring person, a washed up "actor" who was in the right place at the right time for an inexplicably popular TV series. To all you people who pretend to "get him", like you are some kind of uber-fan and therefore something special, I suggest you take your idol's own advice.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Is that, like, ethnic cleansing of rutabagas or something??
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
On that same note; I can't believe the first several questions were even modded up or asked of Mr. Shatner. If you look at the questions; he may have been brief but he took time to answer meaningfully to a couple of the questions. He's probably been asked about "the kiss" so many times he may have wanted to refuse the interview after the fact after that!! I would have. I liked the answer about his Nerine foundation.
Why didn't anyone ask him about upcoming projects; the Iron Chef, etc.? Why wasn't a question asked about "how tired are you of Star Trek?" I guess I should have thought to ask those same questions myself.
All in all it was nice that he took the time to grant this particular forum an interview out of all the other places he could [or probably should] have [like Entertainment Tonight].
And if any of you have read or listened to him outside of fiction before you know he is brief and his humour takes a little intelligence and understanding of wit (AARP, anyone?)
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
I can't remember a single case of two Spanish words sounding identical. The closest I can recall is the words for "yes" and "if". Of course "yes" in Spanish is "si", pronounced like "see"; as in "Si, senor." But "if" in Spanish is also spelled "si", but with an accent mark over the 'i', so the way it is pronounced in a sentence is different.
:-)
You've got it backwards. "Sí" (with the accent) is "yes", while "si" (without the accent) is "if". Thy're also pronounced slightly differently; "sí" is a stressed syllable because of the accent (that's what the accent means) while "si" is unstressed. (By default, the next-to-last syllable in a Spanish word is stressed, unless an accent mark denotes a different syllable to stress.)
But yes, they're pretty similar and potentially confusing, but usually pretty clear from context even if you can't catch the pronunciation. (This is about all I still remember from several years of studying Spanish!
While I'm being pedantic, you also spelled "señor" incorrectly; "n" and "ñ" are considered different letters. For that matter, "ll" is considered a single letter as well, distinct from the letter "l"...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
Umm..sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't think that artwork has really anything to do with Wil liking the fact that he has a posse, see this link. Hell, he's even got a link to obeygiant.com on his site.
Having lived in RI during the early 90's, in the peak of the Andre the Giant stickers (freakin' everywhere), I can tell you Wil's late on that train.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Pretty bloddy arrogant post from someone that knows nothing about the man and has done nothing of note themselves at all!
Worldview and logic rest on language.
Language is an instrument of interpretation, understanding and rendition - between different universes (often called people).
A creative, clearly structured, sharp, agile, wieldable language will foster sharp, creative and intuitively agile and penetrating people.
Maybe gov'mnts don't like that, for some reason or other.
Maybe that's why real popupar culture is getting crushed, too.
Garbage in/Garbage out. Surely a slashgeek would understand that principle.
That's as ridiculous as "American English".
As meaningful as "Jersey French".
Unless, of course, you directly compare it to Provençal &c.
HAGD
It all becomes clear once you read Astérix.
It's a "nouveaux-roman" thing. Otherwise folks will confuse them with "those" barbarians.
I was disappointed with the interview questions. Obviously, a lot of people were projecting "their shit" onto him through the questions. I think some people here have forgotten that the media environment is bigger than the people in it. Kudos to Bill for his short answers. That's about all those questions deserved.
Umpty-teen answers, and every one of them got it right. It's not like Yakov Smirnov only made one "In Soviet Russia, X does Y to you!" joke. The car joke is a parody from the TV show "Family Guy" where in one episode they had the GPS unit that did Yakov Smirnov impersonations.
;-)
Now y'all all fight over whether I should be moderated +1 Informative, or +1 Funny.
How about Overrated?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
His responses sound like he put as much thought and feeling into them as his lousy acting. Anyone else get the feeling that he is in love with himself?
I actually thought his answer to the MPAA question was great.
Society in general could care less about they MPAA, RIAA, or any other cause thats bandied around here on a daily basis.
Whether it was pulling the AARP acronym out of a hat or a thoughtful response, most people when they hit a certain age just want to make sure they can make it through life on a daily basis.
Ursula Andress, Catherine Deneuve, and Charo, twice...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do you really, really, really, REALLY regret that version of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
There are too many complaints about his answers. Let us remember that although Slashdot calls these interviews they are not. These are questionaires. An interview, at least in front of a camera, can capture much more than answers. Interviews puts them on the spot. Can capture emotions to help determine if their answers are true.