William Shatner Replies

You ask, Bill Shatner answers. (It seems just about everyone calls him Bill, so we might as well too.) A nice series of glimpses at the man behind the TV and movie face.

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.

Comments

French approximation :-)

[mirko]

Oh Contrare. That's French
He actually misspelled "Au contraire".

But I appreciate he suggest some slashdotter to "get a life" :-)

Re:French approximation :-)

[Lendrick]

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that was probably on purpose.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill provided spoken answers to the questions. Captain Taco, who transcribed what Bill said, is the one who can't spell.

And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.

Re:French approximation :-)

[vidarh]

Either that, or he was very serious about his poor performance as a student...

Re:French approximation :-)

[asmussen]

How much more French could you possibly want to know?

Re:French approximation :-)

[AKnightCowboy]

Either that, or he was very serious about his poor performance as a student...

This is Slashdot afterall. It's usually very hard for someone to go to all the trouble of making a post and not have a single mispeling. Cut the guy some slack.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Ponty]

With English spelling, like Perl, there is often more than one way to do it. But with French, as I understand it, if you misspell something (or, god forbid, mispronounce it) they throw cheese at you then surrender preemptively.

Re:French approximation :-)

[perfessor multigeek]

I'm gonna take a not so wild guess and say that it wasn't on purpose. After all, he also misspelled "Wil".
Let's face it folks, the man is none too bright. Either that or he well and truly just doesn't care at all. Look at those answers. They're all done on autopilot. The closest thing to attention was his answer about regret and for a well-known actor, even that is just a prepared speech.
But at the end of day, does it really matter? Not to me. As long as I've got his face yelling "Khan!!!!!!!! I don't care if he can't even spell his *own* name.
Rustin

Re:French approximation :-)

[los furtive]

You don't go to McGill to learn french. And most Anglophones in Montreal probably have just as bad spelling. And if he dictated this and somebody else typed it, then it's not even his fault.

Re:French approximation :-)

[cheese_wallet]

"they throw cheese at you then surrender preemptively"

That was outstandingly funny. Thanks.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

then surrender preemptively

You're thinking of France french, not Canadian french, which is an entirely different kettle of poutine. We make derisive comments about the strength of your beer (or lack thereof), then don't show up for the fight.

Re:French approximation :-)

[spectecjr]

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that was probably on purpose.

Murky Bucket for pointing that out.

Simon

Re:French approximation :-)

[Mr. McGibby]

Almost true. Each tense has a different set of 6 conjugations. But usually there are 5 different spellings, not 6. This of course, doesn't make it any simpler. For regular -ER verbs, 3 of the 5 spellings are pronounces *exactly the same*. Here goes:

person Singular Plural
1st Je parle Nous parlons
2nd Tu parles Vous parlez
3rd Il parle Ils parlent

parle, parles, parlent are all pronounced parl. Silent ent? Come on! The thing is, most french people have serious problems getting the spelling correct for these words. I found that I spelled French a lot better than a lot of native speakers because I learned to write it first, without all the confusion of having words that you thought were the same turned into 3 different forms. Oh, and it doesn't help that Il and Ils are said the same as well. Well most of the time, sometimes they're different. Confused yet?

Re:French approximation :-)

[los furtive]

Actually, there's usually six ways of spelling a verb in any given tense, but there are approx ten tenses, meaning 60 ways to spell each verb. As an anglophone who went to a French private school, I learned this the hard way.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be complete you'd also need to know:

I surrender!

and

Deodorant? I don't need any deodorant!

and

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of eldeberries!

Re:French approximation :-)

[Negatyfus]

I've always thought about starting a death metal band with all-Klingon lyrics, growling them angrily on stage dressed up as Klingon warriors and wielding those weird two-handed Klingon blades, what-summah-callit. Half-way through the show, we would somehow get offended by someone in the audience, upon which subsequently everyone gets slaughtered. That would be so damn cool.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only are you in a "Star Trek punk rock band", you "know the statistics on these things" - and to cap it all you're the bass player.

I'm crying for you - honestly!

Re:French approximation :-)

[ConceptJunkie]

Don't forget the fact that 2/3 of the consonants in the language are silent.

Re:French approximation :-)

[mindstrm]

Wow. Way to go genius. You sure seem to have proofe that Mr. Shatner can't spell, and is stupid....

Oh, except for the fact that he gave an audio interview, and the results were *transcribed* (that means someone listened to speech and typed it up as text) by slashdot staffers.

So any spelling mistakes are slashdot's, not Shatner's.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Happy Monkey]

Did someone transcribe your comment for you?

Re:French approximation :-)

[rppp01]

Captain Taco

Wow, Taco has been promoted.

Re:French approximation :-)

[Snaller]

>That was outstandingly funny. Thanks

Why?

Re:French approximation :-)

[perfessor multigeek]

Clearly a matter for the Klingon Language Institute. The only bunch of linguists I know whose leather creaks at their meetings.
Rustin

Re:French approximation :-)

[perfessor multigeek]

Yup, you are correct. I was wrong and should have read more of the thread before posting. Oops. So now you have your proofe (heh, heh) of my slovenliness.
Slinks off (giggling) into the darkness . .
Rustin

Re:French approximation :-)

[tempfile]

German used to be rather easy to learn. It does have some funky concepts in spelling and grammar, - but once you get the hang of it, it's ok (I say that as a German, so I could be wrong).

But the sick spelling reform (sic!) in 1996 made things a complete chaos with even more exceptions than Mark Twain complains about in his famous essay. It's not so much a problem for learning the rules as it is for learning by reading native texts, which has been a great help for me with all languages I learnt.

Today, you find three different spellings in Germany: Old, like the famous FAZ newspaper still uses, producing a beautiful look to the text, new, like everybody is supposed to spell, but can't because so many rules are rubbish - it also produces extreme ugliness. Just compare "Flußschiffahrt" and "Flussschifffahrt" in their appearance.

However, most people today spell in a way totally inconsistent, incorrect and with so hideous a look to the text that it actually hurts your eyes when you read it, somewhere inbetween the old and new rules, or a combination of the two.

So much for "learning by doing" for foreigners coming to Germany. It's so sad how the government tries to destroy the language.

Re:French approximation :-)

[unicron]

Reporter: Can you tell us what happened here tonight, sir?

American: I'll I said was there beer sucked and-

In Soviet Russia...

[mini me]

...William Shatner Replies to You!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Schnapple]

Unless I am mistaken, it is a reference to a Russian comedian named Yakov Smirnov. Back in the early 80's at the height of the Cold War he did his act in American night clubs, and a staple of the routine was to turn around some phrase, i.e. "In Soviet Russia, car drives you!" This was done to make light of the Russian government, and play on America's fear of communism.

Due to his extremely chipper demenaor and the fact that his routine rarely changed, he became an annoying cliche. In the years since the Cold War ended and stand up comedy became less popular he apparently retreated to Branson, Missouri and has a theater there.

Somewhat akin to the "all your base..." phonomeon, this "In Soviet Russia..." thing didn't become its own overused cliche until posters on FARK, the Slashdot of weird journalism, started adding Smirnov into their Photoshop contests, along with Admiral "It's A Trap!" Ackbar, the squirrel with the giant nuts, and that kitten that dies when you masrutbate.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[OptimizedPrime]

Yakov was also parodied on the simpsons, when Homer has a car with voice assitance with multiple country support, including the former USSR: (In Soviet Russia, Car Drives You). That's where most people I know learned the reference

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Weeping Jesus on the cross. Umpty-teen answers, and not one of 'em got the original reference right. "Car drives you?" That's not funny; that's just stupid.

The original joke was about television in the USSR. (The USSR being a totalitarian dictatorship, natch.) "Soviet Union isn't that different from America," the joke goes. "Only difference is, in Soviet Union, TV watches you!"

Now y'all all fight over whether I should be moderated +1 Informative, or +1 Funny. ;-)

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[irongull]

...and that kitten that dies when you masrutbate.

It's spelled "masturbate". Next time, use both hands while typing.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[zerocool^]

See also fark.com, which turned the Soviet Russia thing into a cliche. As well as the domo-kun, cliche kitty, admiral ackbar, etc.

His singing career?

[Blacklaw]

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

Re:His singing career?

[llamaluvr]

I thought his Mr. Tamborine Man was even better.

"Mister Tamborine Man! MISTER TAMBORINE MAN!!!!!!!"

Re:His singing career?

[gosand]

I'm amazed no-one asked about his singing career.

Would it have mattered? He would have just given a short, uninformative answer anyway.

Honestly, this was the most boring interview on /. ever. I am no fan of Star Trek, but jeez Bill, why agree to an interview if you are just going to give these types of answers?

Re:His singing career?

[GMontag]

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...

I never try to forget, since I am just that way about pain. So don't forget 'Rocketman', my personal favorite Shatner butchering of music!

Re:His singing career?

[Reziac]

All of which pale in comparison to Shatner reading poetry (yes, there's such an album Out There somewhere -- Rod McKuen type stuff).

Re:His singing career?

[NetFu]

I think it's called:

CYA -- Cover Your Ass.

The less he says, the less likely he is to be lambasted for it for years in the future. A lot of his answers were conservative, but at the same time seemed to be just having fun.

I AM a long-time trekkie and a fan of the original series and Shatner's character Captain Kirk, but IMHO William Shatner has to be one of the most over-analyzed actors in human history. I mean, what did he REALLY do besides Star Trek and TJ Hooker (and how many people will still remember TJ Hooker in 10 more years if they even remember now)?

The truth is that Shatner is a pretty average guy in the fact that most people could probably act as well as him, he just had a big break called "Star Trek". Maybe that's why so many people grill him. I don't think he merits an interview anywhere, but that's probably why he seems to tell so many people to "get a life" -- in other words, why does anyone care about him or his life?

Re:His singing career?

[taernim]

hah! how about his spoken word version of "Slim Shady" he did on Futurama. Scary.

Re:His singing career?

[swv3752]

I thought that was just a bit for a priceline commercial.

Re:His singing career?

[MyHair]

I asked about it and was at +5 Funny for a couple of days before getting a -1 overrated. There was at least another mention or two of his music in that article.

I was joking and didn't really want an answer, but I wonder if the editors knocked me down to avoid asking the question. Probably not, but I couldn't blame them if they did.

By the way, Amazon has some streaming samples of music including Shatner's Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds here, although the cilp doesn't include the parts of the song I recall best: "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" and "Lucy in the sky with diamonds".

Re:His singing career?

[MyHair]

I forgot to mention that he sung very recently on a Priceline.com commercial, so it was sort of a moot question, anyway.

His singing wasn't exactly good, but it wasn't as remarkable as his album.

Re:His singing career?

[tgibbs]

Part of Shatner's charm is that he has never seemed to full of himself--just an actor who is happy to be working and to have had some success. And he has never seemed to mind poking fun at himself.

It's very easy to sneer at Shatner's overwrought delivery of Kirk's lines. But they were pretty overwrought lines before Shatner got hold of them, and--let's face it--it worked. There's a reason why those shows are still showing decades later, and Shatner is part of it.

Re:His singing career?

[Reziac]

This was some 30 years ago.. and maybe the poetry recitation was part of one of the other albums, I dunno. Quite scary, regardless.

But those Priceline commercials were *perfect*!!

Short Replies

[sp3c1alK]

Mr Shatner seemed a bit rushed didn't he?

Re:Short Replies

[MarkGriz]

I thought so too at first. But then I went back and reread the replies as if he were actually speaking them (in.... that slow..... and..... choppy voice).
The replies were much longer that way.

Cool interview. Good to see "Clever" chime in too.

Re:Short Replies

[kcurtis]

I think this may reflect the fact that he's less full of himself than the questions wanted him to be.

The questions wanted him to have deep thoughts about parodies, interracial kisses, etc. He just doesn't seem to be the type of guy who gives a rats ass about these topics, so his answers were short and sweet. Not like he really dodged them.

Also, it does show a pretty funny sense of humor, at his own expense.

All in all, it reinforces my image of him as a pretty straightforward guy who lives his life, and isn't a Trekkie himself.

Re:Short Replies

[Tablizer]

The questions wanted him to have deep thoughts about parodies, interracial kisses, etc. He just doesn't seem to be the type of guy who gives a rats ass about these topics, so his answers were short and sweet. Not like he really dodged them.

That was my impression of him also based on questions asked during a trek convention. He is not a "deep and ponderous" guy for the most part, but one that seems to go with the flow and enjoys the moment with energy.

The interracial kiss to him was just a great opportunity for a regular horny guy to suck a sexy face that turned out to be an historic event after the fact. (What a bonus!)

That is why my question was about who bagged the most babes back stage, not ponderings and musings about bagging babes. But some pondering-hoping shmuck modded it down the last minute. Pox on your house. Now we will never know.

Re:Short Replies

[Alsee]

my question was about who bagged the most babes back stage, not ponderings and musings about bagging babes.

Well, I don't know who was "bagging babes", but I can contribute a data point in the general direction. I'm friends with a female convention staffer and she said that George Takei (Sulu) has a reputation for partying at the hotel when he gets off duty at the Con.

Note: I'm NOT saying anything about sex. I have no idea how the parties actually go. Just saying that he seems to be a party-type-guy that enjoys hanging out with fans.

The same friend also told me Armin Shimerman (Quark) let her and a friend of her's crash out in his hotel suite because he wasn't staying there that night. He had one rule though - check out the costume if you like, just don't touch the teeth.

-

Re:Short Replies

[Anonvmous Coward]

"thought so too at first. But then I went back and reread the replies as if he were actually speaking them (in.... that slow..... and..... choppy voice).
The replies were much longer that way."

heh, so are you saying that his responses were run-length encoded?

Re:Short Replies

[Bruce Perens]

I would have hoped for some insight into the way he thinks and feels rather than a series of flip answers.

I sometimes enjoy Star Trek and other TV science fiction, although I don't get time to watch much of it. I've learned not to be very interested in actor appearances, because they aren't the fascinating characters they portray, they're just actors. I think I'd have more fun talking with the writers.

Bruce

Re:Short Replies

[Xtifr]

Seems a bit of a paradox there -- he's just an actor, as you say, so why were you so interested in "the way he thinks and feels". Of course, I agree with you that the interesting ones are the writers, but then I grew up in SF fandom, and many well-known SF authors are old family friends. I actually like Shatner more because he doesn't pretend to have great insight into the issues brought up by the writers whose lines he merely mouthed.

Re:Short Replies

[Coppit]

Actually, I thought he came across as irritated. Like, "Oh do I have to answer this same stupid question yet again?" It probably didn't help that the first few questions were about his ability as an actor (even if they were tactfully asked). I'd imagine that I'd be a little short if people were questioning my ability in a profession I've devoted my life to.

Re:Short Replies

[geekoid]

"The interracial kiss to him was just a great opportunity for a regular horny guy to suck a sexy face that turned out to be an historic event after the fact. (What a bonus!)"

he plays it that way, but they all knew it would be a huge event. The execs had a big fuss over it switching befor yes you can and no you can't.

They finally settles on the kiss, but it had to be done from a specific camera angle.
next time you get the opportunity to see it, look at the viewable details of the kiss, and not the inplied details.

Re:Short Replies

[HamNRye]

You might be interested in the way he thinks and feels because this is the primary determining factor in his performance.

Reading a scene from a book, you envision it one way, someone else sees something totally different. The way that William Shatner thought and felt about Cpt. Kirk influenced the way he played him, and subsequently how we felt about Kirk.

That being said, I cannot believe that neither of you are willing to pony up some writing cred for Shatner... He did write the Tek-War series. (as bad as it was....)

~Jason

Wow --

[Hayzeus]

"Bill" would certainly seem to be fond of brevity of reply, wouldn't he? This has got to set some kind of /. record...

Re:Wow --

[MaxwellStreet]

There's something to be said for brevity.

Anyway, considering that a lot of the questions that were proposed in the original "request for questions" tended to be the ones that everyone always asks; and that he has nothing to gain by divulging copious stuff to Slashdot; and that in general there were a lot of people asking questions designed to bring up (potentially) embarassing stuff from his past - I can't see why he'd go into a lot of detail for us.

I for one really appreciated the brief, but sincere, answers about his wife's foundation; and his policy on regret. Simple, clear thoughts. Nothing wrong with that.

Re:Wow --

[paganizer]

I was thinking that, reading the whining comments, but couldn't think of a polite way to put it.
Thanks.
Star Trek made me the person I am today...of course several people think I should hunt all people down responsible and kill them slowly because of that, but i'm of the opinion that things could have been much, much worse.

You decide for yourself.

[Saint Fnordius]

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...

Re:You decide for yourself.

[LostCluster]

I'm starting to get the impression that telephones might not have yet been installed in the Hollywood section of California.

Re:You decide for yourself.

[DrewCapu]

Maybe I'm reading Wil's question wrong, or maybe everyone else (including Bill Shatner) is.

But I thought Wil's usage of "cool" in that question was to find out if the two of them were in good relation, as opposed to "cool" being hip, rad, happenin', "in orbit" or whatever terminology (antiquated or not) you feel like using.

Bill to Wil: "I look forward to some personal time with you. "

I look forward to another Interview where /. asks exactly what happened during that personal time.

Re:You decide for yourself.

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I'm starting to get the impression that telephones might not have yet been installed in the Hollywood section of California."

They've been installed and working for years, but there's a huge waiting list to get a phone number. Ever since Hollywood started using the 555 area code, they've had a shortage of numbers.

Re:You decide for yourself.

[Andy_R]

Dude, it's the ultimate Star Trek conversation, on the ultimate geek forum, ergo it's about as far from cool as it's possible to get without using a particle accelerator to crate an entire antimatter version of the Fonz.

Re:You decide for yourself.

[MAXOMENOS]

I'm starting to get the impression that telephones might not have yet been installed in the Hollywood section of California.

That's not true. There's one working public phone in the Hollywood area, I think it's on Yucca and Argyle, and it works about half the time. You'll find it near the laundromat where people buy crap out of a closet, within walking distance of the burnt-out remains of Fredrick's of Hollywood.

Re:You decide for yourself.

[Kashif Shaikh]

Is it amazingly cool or amazingly sad that Mssrs. Shatner and Wheaton communicate through Ask Slashdot?

What's even more cool and weird is that people babble amongst themselves through slashdot posts. Kinda like talking to yourself, but replying instead 'cause no one wants to reply to your loner posts;)

Ah...

[neutron2000]

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.

Re:Ah...

[elmegil]

Short? Yes. Rude? Where the hell did you get that idea? He mostly seems to be trying hard to be amusing, with some success.

Re:Ah...

[MaxwellStreet]

It was a continuation of the joke he started in the SNL trekkie skit. It was nothing personal. Sheesh.

Re:Ah...

[bsartist]

From the hell (huh?) where he tells the dude to "get a life" for asking a halfway reasonable question.

Anyone who tries to analyze the deeper philosophical and/or psychological implications of a Saturday Night Live sketch does need to be told to get a life.

Re:Ah...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Short? Yes. Rude? Where the hell did you get that idea? He mostly seems to be trying hard to be amusing, with some success."

Well... double dumb ass on you!

Heh the interview would have been funnier if he used colorful metaphors.

Re:Ah...

[Da VinMan]

Well, how about this then: I got the joke and I still thought the interview sucked. Really.

To his credit though, the questions really sucked too. So, we asked a bunch of stupid questions and ...

Duh..

A bit short

[WPIDalamar]

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.

Stop, Bill! I can't read that fast

[LawGeek]

That man just rambles on and on. How did he send his answers? Morse code?

Re:hehe

[the_skuncle]

he's dead, Jim.

No, wait...That's just his career!

Not that cool...

[themaddone]

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...

Re:Not that cool...

[dougmc]

You'd think that if Bill was actually down with Wheaton, he'd take care to spell his name right...

That's what I was thinking. But I suspected that somebody else may have noticed that too ... and I was right.

Re:Not that cool...

[Jahf]

As has been mentioned before, it was an audio interview. Shatner didn't mispell a thing because he didn't type it ... it was /. that mispelled (assuming they knew who he was talking about ;)

Re:Not that cool...

[McFly69]

We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit man. Isn't that a quote from the movie Half Baked?

Re:Not that cool...

[Roblimo]

It was not an audio interview. I have a copy of the emailed reply right here on my hard drive.

Slashdot interviews are almost always email, and are always posted verbatim except for HTML formatting.

Come to think of it, the next one is going to be verbatim *including* the interviewee's own markup, since it's about handicapped site usability and he used XHTML as part of his point.

- Robin

News Flash: Shatner blows off Slashdot

[dlb]

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

Shocking insight!

[brutusbuck]

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.

Re:Shocking insight!

[Mothra the III]

Next time they need to interview Deforest Kelley. I doubt it would produce much less insight than this.

Re:Shocking insight!

[Zordak]

I doubt it would produce much less insight than this.

And potentially more profanity, which would have made the interview much more interesting. I think Deforest Kelley the Irrascible Grumpy Old Man would be much cooler than William Shatner, the washed-out, bitter actor. For Example:

Shatner: Get a life.

Kelley: What the hell are you damn computer geeks doing calling me in the middle of the night* again! That show was on like 50 years ago, dammit! Can't you let an old man get some sleep!

*It is, of course, something like 4:30 in the afternoon

Re:Shocking insight!

[cheese_wallet]

"I think Deforest Kelley the Irrascible Grumpy Old Man would be much cooler than William Shatner, the washed-out, bitter actor."

He's also dead, which I think was the parent poster's point.

Uhmmm...?

[mcrbids]

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.

Was it just me...

[Cap'n Canuck]

...or did he manage sound flippant? He seemed to treat this whole thing as a joke.

Good show, Bill!

Re:Was it just me...

[Xzzy]

> He seemed to treat this whole thing as a joke.

he's been like that for years. I don't consider myself a shatner fan and I don't put effort into following him around, but he IS a pretty big name so stories with him in it do pop up quite often.

I wouldn't say he treats everything as a joke, but rather he's got an odd mix of humility and arrogance that makes everything he says come out like it did in the above interview.

qualities the world could use more of, people who don't take themselves too seriously but also feel free to be honest about their place and station in life.

Re:Was it just me...

[hitzroth]

I hate to say it but none of the questions required deep thought or long answers. Seems slashdotters treated the request for questions as a joke. Maybe we need to find a better way of selecting questions since right now people seem to mod the Q's up based on how funny/interesting/whatever they think the answers are going to be. We're not lawyers; we don't need to know the answers before the questions are asked. Imagine the kinds of answers you'd give if you were asked the questions in an Ask Slashdot that Shatner was asked in this interview.

Perhaps we should try to send up questions that would be hard to answer. We're asking things on the level of: "What's your favorite color?" when we should be asking things more like: "Why is your favorite color what it is?"

But then again, Slashdot is fairly democratic about how the questions are selected. At least we didn't ask Shatner: "Would you fight Edward Norton?"

Re:Was it just me...

[Xandar01]

He sounded like he couldn't care less, some like he's heard all these questions before. We should know the answers by now.
That might be true if I were a Trekkie in the sense that I was obsessed with the man, however I am not. I, like most other /.ers, enjoy Trek but do have a life that does not involve learning "Bill's" canned answers for common questions.

Is there any way we can mod this interview as a troll?

Re:Was it just me...

[Cap'n Canuck]

I thought he treated the interview as the joke that it was. Hence the "good show" comment, for answering in kind.

Personally, I laughed at the questioners who were asking what they thought, to them, were "serious" questions. I'm no fan, but I admire Bill for never stooping to anyone's level, and at the same time, plugging his wife's website.

Good show, Bill.

I read this

[starfighter_org]

At the bottom in the quotes bit...

"He's dead, Jim."

A bit disappointing

[binaryDigit]

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.

That said, I wonder how much of the way he replied had to do with his not fully grasping what /. 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?

Re:A bit disappointing

[binaryDigit]

Well I wouldn't want him to "act", but I would appreciate a bit more substance. It is possible to be not too flourishy without coming across as terse. But I think the real issue is one of "meduim", in that after I reread the comments but actually pictured the words coming out of his mouth vs on the screen, they made a lot more sense. Esp considering that even a one line sentence would take him several minutes to say ...

"her lips were ......... full. I .... merely .... sought to ..... make ...... an impression.

Thanks for helping me see that better.

To WIl

[Henry V .009]

I look forward to some personal time with you.

Is he calling you out or what, man?

Re:To WIl

[MacAndrew]

Maybe he's coming out.

Think about that, Wil. You interested in a (grand)father figure? :)

Now I know what "warp drive" really means.

P.S. Don't tell the wife. She might not understand.

Re:To WIl

[tdye]

Insert (heh) joke about Wil and the "Captain's Log"...

Re:To WIl

[MacAndrew]

I'll throw in, just in case I'm "flamed", that I'm not a homophobe (and I'm quite sure liberal Wil isn't either) and don't think gays are funny, per se.

But there was something about the tone that just sounded so "Little boy, why don't you come here and have some candy?"

Keep selling the shirts, Wil. (He's had these crazy ideas about discontinuing them.)

Theatrical Pauses

[Zerbey]

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.

Re:Theatrical Pauses

[Anonymous Coward]

Wil Wheaton

You may remember him as the kid on star trek who got abducted by the time-travelling child molestor.

Re:Theatrical Pauses

[Anonymous Coward]

CleverNickName = Wil Wheaton, aka Wesley Crusher on Star Trek TNG.

Re:Theatrical Pauses

[liquidsin]

I'm sure everyone else here will point this out to you, but CleverNickName is Wil Wheaton.

If brevity is the soul of wit...

[PHAEDRU5]

...then the answers were actually written by Oscar Wilde.

No offense but these were some boring questions.

[zaqattack911]

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.

short and simple

[netwiz]

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.

Priceless

[Waab]

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.

Porn Trek?

[Anonymous Cowtard]

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. ;-)

Re:Porn Trek?

[Thud457]

Actually, I envision a scene from "Airplane!" re-enacted on the original Enterprise's bridge:
"So, Wesley, do you like gladiator movies?"

Just my opinion....

[haplo21112]

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!

Re:/. Waste of his time?

[_Neurotic]

I think it is was supposed to be a joke, just like the SNL skit was. Get it?

Huge Respect

[DaytonCIM]

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. :)

Re:Huge Respect

[mbourgon]

"Yeah, good goin' there, T.J." -- DeNiro (to Shatner, after he falls off the hood)

Sorry Mister Shatner

[GT_Alias]

Didn't mean to take too much time out of your busy day dude.

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.

How Bill Shatner responds...

[Slashdolt]

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.

Re:How Bill Shatner responds...

[dlb]

At least Bill doesn't keep you in suspense like Keanu Reeves does. Have you ever heard a Keanu interview?

Interviewer:
"Keanu, I was wondering yakkity yak yak blah blah; could you tell us more about that?

(1 minute, 39 seconds later)

Keanu:
"Not really"

Brevity taken too far?

[ajs]

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!

Re:Brevity taken too far?

[Reziac]

I've seen other Shatner interviews, and they've generally been much like this one (tho this wins the "least said" award). Some of it seems to be "I can't believe you people think I'm that important!" -- hence the famous "get a life" comment.

typical shatner responses..

[Lumpy]

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.

God forbid!

[roystgnr]

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.

Re:God forbid!

[binaryDigit]

You insensitive clod, I lost my pimples (well most of them anyway) years ago ;)

Re:guess bill doesnt like to type.

[Ella the Cat]

He's had a talking computer for 35 years and his typing skills may have suffered.

Computer! control-A meta-cokebottle!

Computer! fill-paragraph!

Computer! dabbrev-expand SPANG!

that was dissapointing

[paradesign]

but i guess it is better than just yea/nay answers.

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!

Re:that was dissapointing

[Alsee]

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!

Exactly! We want NUMBERS!

Okay, um, when he was gonna beam down to the planet, okay, for the last time in Episode 25, yeah, Episode 25, that's where he and the crew of the Enterprise got attacked by these spores... And started acting real weird, like hippies and stuff... Well um, I was wondering if he could settle a bet for me and my friends, okay? Um, like, when he... um, left his quarters for the last time... And he opened up his safe... Um... what was the combination?

What the hell were the combination numbers!!

-

Re:that was dissapointing

[Hektor_Troy]

I thought we were nerds here people

Not all of us; some, like you, are just dorks:

gHZ

Any geek worth his/her salt, and the cool 15% of nerds know, that it's GHz.

Re:that was dissapointing

[paradesign]

touche, i see the clumsyness of my fingers has gotten the better of my brain. although i cannot see this being the last time, it is certainly not the first.

when gods attack

[circletimessquare]

You should have at least been mildly amused. It seems to me that you need to get a life.

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. ;-P

Oh please you complaining sissies.

[juuri]

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.

Re:Oh please you complaining sissies.

[prockcore]

Could you summarize your comment for me? I stopped reading after 2.32 seconds.

Is this the First Ask Slashdot where

[clickety6]

The questions have been five times as long as the answers!

Perhpas we should start the Slashdot Yes or No sessions with famous people :-)

A new winner!

[rw2]

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.

Re:A new winner!

[Monkeyman334]

While it's almost so bad that it's an exception to the rule, I think the Bruce Campbell "Answers" is quite possibly the worst interview *ever* on Slashdot. Can anyone find one worse?

Re:A new winner!

[MAXOMENOS]

Bruce Campbell? Please. If you ask me, this set of "answers" by Jon Vranesevich is by far the worst of all.

Re:A new winner!

[Coppit]

Heh. My favorite was Cathy Rogers from Junkyard Wars

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[vidarh]

Regarding question 9, "Wil" is Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG Does it make more sense to you now? :)

Re:glad he spent 5 minutes

[solostring]

You mean he's that slow at typing?

i'm giving her all she's got captiain...

[bje2]

why...are...his answers...so...short...

</Kirk Impression>

Shaddup ;)

[DarkHelmet]

CleverNickName: Are we cool, or what?

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 :)

This is just the way Shatner is.

[calm_rising]

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.

Re:This is just the way Shatner is.

[Thagg]

We worked on the movie Showtime, and I think it was among the better of Shatner's performances. He was playing himself, trying to show Robert Deniro and Eddie Murphy how to be TV cops, like he was in TJ Hooker. He's just halarious, showing how to dive onto the hood of a car, stuff like that. When he tells Rene Russo that DeNiro is "the worst actor he's ever seen", well, it was the high point in the movie.

thad

Re:This is just the way Shatner is.

[PD]

The bad actor thing is completely ironic. An actor's job is to portray a character so realistically that you don't see the actor, only the character.

Now, is there ANY DOUBT in people's minds that Bill Shatner IS Captain Kirk?

There you go: Bill Shatner is a good actor.

Re:This is just the way Shatner is.

[gosand]

He's just having a great time, and the whining, criticism and complaining from his "fans" are all part of the joke.

I, for one, am not one of his fans. I don't like Star Trek, or anything else Shatner has done. I always thought he acted like a pompous dick. So I read the interview because I thought mabye I had a misperception about him.

I didn't. It is really easy to just say "It's a joke - you don't get it" when you have no personality. So if his attitude is all "Shatner's joke" then I guess he has no sense of humor either. I don't even think he is a has-been, I think he is a never-was. He was LUCKY to be Captain Kirk, it took off, and he has had a secure gig ever since. He was always washed up, but instead of doing a popular show, he is doing priceline commercials. I don't give a rat's ass about him, he is a completely uninteresting person as far as I can tell. Maybe that is what he wants people to think so they will leave him alone. I don't know why people don't.

Move over Shatner, bring on Nimoy

[tigre]

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.

Re:Move over Shatner, bring on Nimoy

[interiot]

Erudite. That's right.

The best 'DAMNIT JIM!'

[ctimes2]

"I'm a doctor, not a gynecologist... ah, well, maybe just this once..."
-- parody by Kevin Pollak (I think)

Answered as asked

[Oculus Habent]

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.

OK

[Codex The Sloth]

In soviet russia JOKE explains YOU!

Clear?

mildly ammusing

[Ender Ryan]

While his answers were mildly ammusing, I would have been more interested in more in depth answers. Oh well, at his age I'm sure he's tired of interviews and such.

Damn!!!!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

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!

Re:two 'L's?

[Elwood P Dowd]

"Wil" isn't the correct spelling either. Whil Wheaton has been misspelling his own name his whole life long. I should know. I'm his mother.

Which was funnier?

[Wateshay]

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.

Re:Which was funnier?

[nuggz]

Stupid people.

Stupid people are funny, and funnier when they try to prove they aren't stupid.

Actually I was watching MIB 2, and they remarked how in MIB, Tommy Lee Jones didn't know he was funny throughout the taping of the movie. I for one found him to be the funnier half of the team.

Re:Which was funnier?

[Contact]

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.

I couldn't agree more - it seems that people here are obsessed with the quantity of the answers and not the quality... and I'm speaking as someone who is totally disinterested in Star Trek (any of them, TV or film).

Read it again, people. Even when he's blowing you off, he's still making a point, which (to my mind) is far more interesting than a lot of the interviews we get.

Re:Which was funnier?

[drinkypoo]

Tommy Lee Jones is both a great actor and bloody hilarious. He really throws himself into every role, no matter how campy.

I think his all-time best "I am the man and you will do what I say because I am right" -- the role he was born to play -- role was in the fugitive. His delivery of "I don't care!" when Kimble is telling him "I didn't kill my wife" is so believable it almost makes me pee myself.

Almost.

Doesn't Surprise Me

[chrisleonard]

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.

In the spirit of Statistical fairness...

[GMontag]

In the spirit of Statistical fairness, the next interview will be with Jon Katz, thus bringing the arithmatic mean interview length back to normal.

Quote of the day

[digitac]

Ok, who's the wiseass who put "He's dead, Jim." for the quote at the bottom of Slashdot?

Coincidence? I think not.

Is it any wonder?

[Thedalek]

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.

Re:Is it any wonder?

[old_skul]

I'd like to remind this poster, and the rest of Slashdot, that Mr. Shatner was sent the 10 *highest-moderated* questions from the reader pool. Not that the pool is very deep, mind you.

Re:News Flash: Shatner blows off Slashdot

[theonetruekeebler]

If trekkies didn't get all hot and heavy with Star Trek then where would he be today?

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...

Re:He spelled his name wrong

[lugonn]

I noticed that Bill spelled Wil 'Will'. Maybe being in orbit has something to do with it.

You guys are SO charitable

[MacAndrew]

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.

Re:You guys are SO charitable

[bcboy]

piffle. The questions were embarrassingly bad. Questions about his reputation as a poor actor? Two questions about parodies of Star Trek? These questions did not attempt to engage him at all, with one or two exceptions (when he actually gave longer responses). Instead they merely trolled for a titillating display of angst or anger.

I'm impressed at how good natured his responses were, given the questions.

Re:You guys are SO charitable

[IdahoEv]

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.)

Oh give the man a break. Take a look at the questions the slashdotters asked him ... I cringed every time I read one, trying to imagine him having to deal with this stuff again.

(Question 1) Gee Mr. Shatner, what do you think about the fact that you have a reputation as a bad actor?

Star trek parodies, the legendary kiss, the SNL sketch - how many times do you think he's had to go through this? Most of the slashdot questions sounded like guys in that SNL sketch, for chrissake! And you expect deep, thought-out answers to this cruft?

If that was the way fandom approached me for decade on decade, I think I'd try to milk it for all it was worth, too. Otherwise it couldn't possibly be worth it.

Re:You guys are SO charitable

[MacAndrew]

I agree the questions were, er, sub-optimum (the editors have thin skins). Of course, they were all tendered by people here. I'm glad they didn't give him mine (you can search if you like) because I know he would have butchered it. The video I saw of him was evidently an exceptional performance.

But neither were the Q's insulting, and nothing stops one from digressing a bit to flesh things out, or even make up for an amateur interviewer. I mean, they ask pretty dumb questions on The Tonight Show etc. but that doesn't stop the celebrities from doing their darndest to be entertaining, because it reflects on them. They know people expect something when they show up to listen to you. I also know from what I've seen that Shatner can do better -- though for him it always seems like an act.

To show I'm not an implacable meany, here is an online interview with Jeri Ryan I enjoyed. I thought she did a nice job, provided some insight to the kind of person she is, and was funny. The questions are not generally "Barbara Walters" deep thought questions.

Re:You guys are SO charitable

[MacAndrew]

I wonder, though, whether there's a question that hasn't been asked many times? He hasn't done any real work lately, so there's no fresh meat. And as I imply, he doesn't have to give interviews, especially freebies (?) like this.

Ex: "Reputation as a bad actor" is a bad Q, but he could have said something sympathetic about it, explained what it is like to be criticized unfairly or typecasted, what he thinks his best work is, and so on. Yes, he's probably said it somewhere else, but we don't know the answers.

After all -- he's the expert on interviewing William Shatner! And I seriously doubt that if a novel queswtion came alone, he'd do it justice. (I cite in a parallel thread a Jeri Ryan interview I liked -- she's no philosopher, but she's polite, and has a sense of humor about herself.)

Most of the Star Trek people keep a lower profile outside of the cons -- I think Shatner likes the attention, and promotes himself doing it. But where's the quid pro quo?

Re:You guys are SO charitable

[airrage]

Slashdot: Is your name Bill?
Bill Shatner: Yes.
Slashdot: Bill Shatner?
Bill Shatner: Yes.
Slashdot: Of Star Trek Fame?
Bill Shatner: Yes.
Slashdot: Thanks for talking with us today, Bill.
Bill Shatner: No problem.
Click.

Re:You guys are SO charitable

[MacAndrew]

No, he literally phoned it in, or so some posts thought. Bill's not a computer guy. Try reading the other posts next time. :)

And if it was emailed -- you do realize that's a nonliteral expression? (Sorry, some people here are painfully literal.)

A better interview -- and emailed in, I'm sure.

Re:News Flash: Shatner blows off Slashdot

[SirWhoopass]

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!?

[BubbaTheBarbarian]

Her lips were full and I wanted to leave a lasting impression!? What the hell is that? That is great man!
Take note /.ers....that is why you don't get chicks. Thier lips ain't full.
War Tux!!!

postscript

[MacAndrew]

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.

Interview the PriceLine SuperComputer

[dagg]

I think an interview with the PriceLine SuperComputer would have a little more content.

Slashdotter: "Whatta you think about people dissing your acting?"

PLSC: "I think, therefore I save."

--
Find yer sex via your PC

I can see Wil now....

[mbourgon]

"He likes me! He really likes me!"

Love is in the air....

[realdpk]

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!

telephones in hollywood

[phorm]

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?)

Seriously? #9

[MacAndrew]

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."

Thoughts

[Badgerman]

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 ;)

Re:Thoughts

[Badgerman]

Such a quote may be a philosophy he thought up awhile ago. Either way, it makes a lot of sense.

There's many things he can regret. Career downs. Tintinitus. The death of his wife. Being made fun of.

But he doesn't. How many people with far less to regret are still trapped in regrets anyway?

Re:Thoughts

[Hard_Code]

"Tintinitus."

Tintinitus? What is that? The sensation of little french dogs yipping in your ear all the time?

Re:Thoughts

[Badgerman]

This is what I get for not visiting webmd.com first to get a proper spelling.

Pretty funny reply though ;)

Polite?!?

[MacAndrew]

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.

Re:Polite?!?

[MacAndrew]

Nooooo.... I've read plenty about him over the years, and this is 100% consistent with his bad press. He's a stranger, but not a cipher.

So, imagine that person whizzing by your cube is someone you saw kicking puppies over their break.

He's not a personal blight. I just don't like arrogance much -- especially arrogance backed by so little talent. I mean really, this guy lucked out to get this campy role that panned into millions for him.

I've got a question.

[Mustang Matt]

Does William Shatner read this site?

Wil Wheaton's cooler

[ianscot]

You know, I just hunted back and read the old Wil Wheaton /. interview, and he answered the questions, you know? With some funny anecdotes and a measure of thought?

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.

The best Shatner impersonation...

[insomaniac]

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 ;)

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[Doc Hopper]

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 :)

This is why...

[clickety6]

... on television chat shows, the questioning is done by a single interviewer and not a committee!!

weird

[Mournblade]

The random quotation at the bottom of the comments when I first read this story was:

"He's dead, Jim."

Kinda cool, I thought.

In Soviet Russia...

[Skip666Kent]

...You answer our questions.

Answers...entirely in...character

[Paul Komarek]

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

Wrong Sci-Fi Captain?

[jmoriarty]

"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?

Here Goes My Karma...

[Razzious]

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."

He probably thought the interview was some form of comedy relief here for /.

I think its funny that /. 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.

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.

Re:We just got blown off.

[GlassUser]

Actually I was rolling on the floor for most of it. I thought it was hillarious and pretty much in character with what he shows as a media image. My opinion of his skills of an actor has definately been boosted.

Appropriate Fortune

[devnullkac]

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:

He's dead, Jim.

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[cioxx]

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!

Re:News Flash: Shatner blows off Slashdot

[CaseyB]

At least he isn't as bitter as Alec.

Or as dead.

regret quote

[nEoN nOoDlE]

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?

He knows he's dead...

[MacAndrew]

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. :(

Re:two 'L's?

[gamgee5273]

Man, oh man - this was an audio interview. Whichever slashdotter transcribed it was the one who added the extra "l."

Re:That was the evil MacAndrew...

[MacAndrew]

:)

No, I'm always evil. (Consider your SNL skit analogy ... who was on the ball and who was a greedbag, evil Kirk or good Kirk?)

Actually, being evil, I LOVE SHATNER!

Well, to be brutally honest, my first Trek talent pick to hang with would be, in no particular order, Majel R. ... Nimoy ... or Nichols ... or Takei ... or Doohan ... or Koenig ... or Stewart ... or Brooks ... or Meaney ... or Auberjonois ... or Dorn (definitely!) ... or Visitor ... or Siddig ... or Grodénchik (Rom) ... or Mulgrew ... or Picardo ... or Ryan (in a pinch :) ... or McFadden ... or Spiner ... or Goldberg (not even a regular) ... or de Lancie ... or Bakula ... or Blalock ... or Park ... or of course Wheaton...

OR EVEN KELLEY! I could bring a book.

But you probably get my drift. :)

Re:What the hell, I think you mispelled your name!

[perfessor multigeek]

Ah, the ignorance of the young. As it happens, I was named after Bayard Rustin, the guy who *really* organized the "ML King" March on Washington, along with many, many other things.
So now you know.
Rustin

Everything I had coming

[oldstrat]

/.
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).

This should clear a lot of things...

[NeoCode]

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."

The Trouble With Trivial

[doggo]

Okay, Bill was excessively reserved. I realize the man must be much more busy than I am, but if he's not going to make an effort, why bother at all. All the questions presented seemed respectful, well-reasoned, and insightful, he could have given at least as much in his replies. It seemed like a blow-off. Doesn't he realize that /. is as valid a journalistic medium as any other he's likely to talk to these days. And you can argue that point all you want, but the dot scoops Wired all the time, and probably has more readers. It ain't the New York Times, ...thank god. Barbara Walters wouldn't have let him get away with this.

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.)

We need a "slashdot round table" for star trek.

[emil]

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...

question #10

[Lord Omlette]

clicka

you try...

[johnrpenner]

> Whatever my failings are, they are human
> and I try to perfect it each day.

and that's why You Are Cool! :-)

What did you expect?

[sirgoran]

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...)

Thoughts From WilliamShatner.com

[ws.com]

Ok, as the guy who runs Bill's website, introduced him to Slashdot and presented him with the idea to do a Q&A here, let me offer some thoughts:

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.

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[kingkade]

[insert tired windows w/ critical mission joke here]

Yeah, that was a truly insightful question.

That was beautiful

[pmancini]

"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."

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

...and my home is for these recovering women...

[Spy4MS]

Bill, YOU STUD!!!

Oops, I guess I misread it.

Re:Question From Geek In Training

[Chris Johnson]

Next time, ask Leonard Nimoy! ;)

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[cioxx]

Congratts on not getting the joke. I was dead serious up until the "Windows NT" part.

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[mph]

I wanted to know what Shatner thought about linux,

Why would you expect him to have any opinion on the topic?

Re:Not in my book

[ianscot]

I think William showed just how lame some people are.

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?

I wish William Shatner would post here more often.

[Codifex Maximus]

I found his answers to be both humorous and short and sweet.

Please Note

[kingkade]

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.

Re:Please Note

[Fjord]

Please note the joke in your parent's post refered to was him wanting the linux question asked (stated two up from that).

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[cioxx]

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?

Re:News Flash: Shatner blows off Slashdot

[Happy Monkey]

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.

Comedy in pairs, Will isn't the funny half

[nuggz]

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.

Yes! Please explain "The Balld of Bilbo Baggins"

[ashitaka]

Find it yerself.

Re:Las Vegas Odds...

[Cap'n Canuck]

Hey bud, I'm not a bookie, I was just posting the line.

BTW - Even if you did make a bet, who would I make the cheque out to? M. Coward? Mrs. Coward?

more detail from the onion

[htmlboy]

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.

Re:more detail from the onion

[Blackneto]

Well it's not surprising it was a better interview, it was handled by real journalists.
Most of the questions that were forwarded for this interview were inane.
There were some real gems in the original call for questions, too bad they didn't get modded up. I would have liked one of the questions concerning his Esperanto filem get submitted but oh well.

Thanks, Bill

[salesgeek]

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

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[mph]

Uh, for one because slashdot revolves around linux more or less.. maybe? Because linux is the centerpiece of open source software.. perhaps?

Maybe to you it does, but I have no interest in Linux but read Slashdot daily. See all those stories about science, civil liberties, and movies? Given that Shatner is an actor who was on Star Trek, asking him about acting and Star Trek instead of Linux seems prudent to me. I like hearing people talk about what they know about, rather than topics they're ignorant of.

Crossing Over!

[Jaeger]

...if we could get a hold of him in ... wherever dead actors go ...

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.

Re:Crossing Over!

[MacAndrew]

I'm sensing a special episode of Crossing Over with John Edwards [scifi.com] 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.

(1) OMDB (Over My Dead Body) -- I least I respect Shatner for his past work;

(2) Edward (no s) and SciFi are a fit -- on the FICTION prong. Since they dumped Farscape it's nowhere but down from here.

There have been numerous dissections of Edward as a fraud online. Some of trick are quite blunt, like creative editing of the tape, and possibly shills or spies in the audience.

Interracial kiss

[MavEtJu]

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.

HEY....

[_ph1ux_]

Kirk! You aint got nuthin' on Picard!

Seriously though, these have to be the lamest responses to any ask/. ever.

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[swv3752]

He probably ghost compiles it with the help of a tekkie. :)

just a brief stop on the promotional trail

[DeadPrez]

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.

Re:just a brief stop on the promotional trail

[daveman_1]

"May be worth flipping through."

But not actually reading. For a sample of "Bill", check this out:

http://www.miserablemelodies.com/ram/shatner-roc ke tman.ram

Oh my GOD! Wasn't that miserable?

Enjoy!

Are you talking about biting off

[perfessor multigeek]

Shatner balls? Ewwwww!

Rustin

SNL

[Kibo]

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.

Yes yes...

[mtec]

Please tell...

Yep

[mtec]

We have met the bad interviewer - and he is us.

Area Code?!

[CleverNickName]

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.

I vote for cool.

[CleverNickName]

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!

Re:I vote for cool.

[perfessor multigeek]

Ahh, and thus /. brings joy to at least one geek's life.
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.
Rustin

Re:I vote for cool.

[richie2000]

Wil, if I catch you listening to Shatner 'singing' one more time, I'll have to tell Ferris to eat your loudspeakers. It is not healthy, listening to that stuff.

Re:I vote for cool.

[sporktoast]

I'm sorry, Wil, but anybody whose photo has been in Teen Beat has a limit to how purely geek they can be.

Two words:

Chris Elliott

Teen Beed

[CleverNickName]

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.

Re: Sig

[arb]

"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.

Re:His singing career? (BS)

[gosand]

why does anyone care about him or his life?

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 /. and I was bored. :-)

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.

What the heck is "masrutbate"?

[pokeyburro]

Is that, like, ethnic cleansing of rutabagas or something??

I can't believe they were that brief either...

[krinsh]

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?)

Spanish "s�" vs "si"

[Deven]

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"...

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[RadioheadKid]

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 :)

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.

Re:Kind of creepy?

[TheAwfulTruth]

Sounds to me like you are dissapointed that he is after all, just a person, not some kind of god. That's not very fair of you at all, complaining when someone doesn't match your idealised mental view of them.

Though the answers were short, it may also be that those questions have been asked 10,000 times before and if you've ever been in a situation where even 10 different people asked how your vacation was, by the 10th time your reply is hardly more than "fine", you might understand how he feels about answering "Questions".

Did /. "deserve" more? I bet most people think so, but in reality the answer is surely "You are lucky he answered at all".

Bad Interview

[AutumnLeaf]

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.

Re:No offense but these were some boring questions

[Blackneto]

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.