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Shatner May Return to Star Trek (Briefly?)
mfh writes "Apparently, William Shatner may return to Star Trek, after talks with studio executives for a cameo on the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Rick Berman did not disclose which role wants Shatner play, although I'm sure we'd all love to see Captain James Tiberius Kirk again, right?"
Wouldn't Shatner be just a little old to play Kirk in the "Enterprise" era?
-- Alastair
IMHO the new Star Trek, as of late, has fallen into an old formula that is fast making me lose interest.
:D
Bringing back James Kirk could breathe new life back into the series: after all, that's how it all started. Even just William Shatner playing someone else might do the trick.
We need old blood more than new blood.
Defenestrate Windows...
Don't they know anything? Nothing pisses off a geek more than errors in continuity...
...bug the hell out of me.
He may not be the best actor, but I always thought he did ok in Star Trek. He seems like a duck out of water in anything else. I'm sure he would want his retiring role to be Star Trek instead of commercials. ...now if they could only get Nimoy.
No offence to the older generation who reads slashdot but I am getting a little tired of being constantly reminded of the baby boomer generation (those people who could leave high school and almost be guaranteed a job that would put bread on the table, today going through colledge/university can't even do that). To be reminded of the Baby Boomers hedonistic glory days of free love, drugs and peace to all gets a tad revolting.
Wasn't Shatner who told a bunch of Trekie fanatics to "get a life"?
ZombieEngineer
They need to replace the entire cast (sans T'Pol of course) with new actors.
I originally thought that Scott Bacula would make a good captian, but he doesn't. All his dialogue seems forced. The first officer is even more annoying; he's a terrible actor and the character doesn't help him out any being a country bumpkin mechanic/first officer/chief engineer.
They could probably get away with holding on to some of the of the cast, but they need to change the characters quite a bit. The crew of the ship is supposed to be like a Navy ship, that's what the heirarchy is supposed to mirror. These characters are so unprofessional that they would all be kicked out of the Navy in a moment. Now, I know it's the future and everything is all roses but c'mon..
In The Next Generation, the crew was definately more loose then the US navy, but you definately had more of a feel of the chain of command and the characters behaved like the officers they were.
I'm just not interested in these characters. They have very little depth. You don't feel as though you know them at all, even after a few years of being on the air.
Maybe I just miss the Picard/Riker duo. Or maybe it's because ever since UPN took over Star Trek it just hasn't been good. Voyager wasn't that good, and neither is this one. It also doesn't help that UPN puts in commercials every 4 minutes. TNG and DS9 were both very good shows, from the pre-UPN era.
Oh well. They will just never be able to bring back the quality and popularity of TNG. TNG was once the most popular TV show on the planet; Enterprise does all it can do just to stay on the air.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Please don't bring him back - don't get me wrong, Kirk was good in the original enterprise but for show that is seeking new funding to survive past the next half of season four and is competing with all those zillion reality shows - the last thing we need is Shatner giving yet another re-rendition of a character that he theoretically should be too old to play.
Enterprise is my favorite star trek franchise series don't mess it up please !
Jon - TheSpork
Q worked well on TNG because he contrasted well with the stick-up-ass crew of the Ent-D. His character just wouldn't work on the new show.
This series jumped the shark on the pilot episode. The rancid violation of Star Trek canon rampant through this series (i.e.: Romulan Cloaking Devices, The Borg, physical appearance of the Klingons) have completely killed this series, because nothing makes sense anymore. I refuse to watch it, I wish it would get cancelled, and I don't know if I'll ever watch anything having to do with Star Trek again while it's in the hands of CBS. The whole franchise has been going on a progressively downward trend in terms of creative ideas since about halfway through ST:Voyager.
No, it wasn't.
Q is not a real character. He's a personification of a plot device -- deus ex machina. Whenever the writers get stumped about how to connect up a plot, they can always throw in Q and get a usable script.
Writer 1: "Darn, I really hate doing sci-fi movies. I wish we could do some historical fiction for a change."
Writer 2: "Yes, I've always wanted to do something on the Civil War."
In Unison: "Q!"
May we never see th
I don't think Shatner's been much good at anything since his wife died. Frankly, I don't blame him... if my wife died, I'd probably be a bit aimless as well.
All of that said, Shatner's milked the Star Trek thing long enough. Milking a role 10 years after a show ends might be ok for awhile, but the original Star Trek has been gone for a LONG time. The Johnny Carson show was as good as Star Trek, but you don't see Carson showing up everytime someone opens the curtains.
He's had a full life - he should stop embarrassing himself. There's nothing unique about a 1-role actor. He's a nice guy, but really... bury the role, and try something else.
"I looked long and hard for Shatner, but i got nuthin'! Cheap skate."
The Federal Election Commission frowns very heavily on accepting campaign contriubtions from foreign nationals.
James T. Kirk hasn't been born yet.
>>IMHO the new Star Trek, as of late, has fallen
>>into an old formula that is fast making me lose
>>interest. Bringing back James Kirk could breathe
>>new life back into the series:
The only problem with bringing back Kirk is that it will, by necessity, involve yet another freakin' time-warp episode. This is, by definition, more of the same ol' crap. There's an entire rich and diverse world of sci-fi literature out there that doesn't involve time travel that is just waiting to be ripped off! Why can't those hacks rip off something other than old star-trek for a change?
Then there's the obvious continuity errors that would arise if Kirk showed up on Enterprise. He's already been sucked into a TNG flick and even managed to die there at a much younger age than Shatner is now! Of course, it's not like Enterprise hasn't taken liberties with the time-line of the other series before...
As much as I'd like to believe the dynamic B&B duo are smart enough to realize this, they've done so many stupid things that I can't help but fear the worst. They must be getting pretty desperate now. Enterprise did get picked up for one more season, but given that it's being moved to Friday nights I wouldn't bet on it seeing another season after that unless it miraculously stops sucking gangrenous monkey balls.
Having Shatner guest star as a random alien villan is cheesy and dumb, but in the end harmless compared to the other stupidity that is Enterprise.
Having Shatner appear as James T. Kirk would be the final straw that would have me petition to have the "Star Trek" taken back out of the show's title, the show disowned as part of the Trek franchise, and a price taken out on Rick Berman's head.
I mean, come on. Kirk is in his what, 30s or 40s during the TOS series? Enterprise is set over a century before (early 2150s vs. late 2260s). Even with the overreliance on screwing with the timeline that Berman is so fond of, there's no way to make that work. Besides, Shatner himself is in his 70s now. He'd have to be playing an extremely old Kirk sent back in time or something. Of course, Kirk already died in Veridian III ("Generations").
Whoever speculated that Shatner would be playing Kirk either has an even lower opinion of Berman than I do (which is saying a great deal), or is even more of a moron than Berman and Braga (which is saying even more).
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
The question is "How much would I pay to keep Shatner OUT of the show, thus killing any thoughts of a headache inducing 'time singularity/distortion/graviton flux' plot-line?"
I say we toast the cast of Enterprize with some Iocaine powder.
he rancid violation of Star Trek canon rampant through this series
The original series paid no attention to canon, so who cares? They couldn't even keep straight a Romulan versus a Klingon ship, or the name of the planetary federation.
From what I've heard, most of the "canon" broken was never canon to begin with, and only implied in technical manuals, novels and so on. I wouldn't call myself a "trekkie", but I've seen every Star Trek and Next Generation, and I haven't seen anything ridiclous on Enterprise. It's actually cool to see Andorians and non-2D Vulcans.
I'd get more enjoyment out of a five-second appearance by Shatner than I have from the last three years of what passes for Star Trek these days!
You must think in Russian.
Yes, Q definitely was a deus ex machina.
Dammit Jim! The whole franchise is about creating a problem and then solving it in 10 minutes through any of the dozen spare deus ex machina they might have lying around.
grumble...grumble...bring back Babylon 5...grumble...
Sapere aude!
I can't believe all these people dissing BS - sorry, WS. For anyone who watched the original Star Trek as a kid, I ask you:
... pauses ... weren't the way a normal person spoke, and all that high-drama music during the fight scenes was really there to cover up the lack of credible violence. If Shatner could do all this with an obvious speech impediment, then I, a mere kid, had the universe literally at my fingertips!
- who didn't want to be Kirk, tooling around the galaxy getting it on with alien chicks in nearly every episode?
- who didn't want to kiss Nichelle Nicholls?
- who didn't want to fight aliens on a regular basis, always win, get the girl and only token injuries, then do it all again next week?
- who didn't want to be boss of the Enterprise? Not some toy Apollo mission, this is the Enterprise!!!!
- who didn't want to have Spock as a buddy? Spock, the guy who knows everything, is super strong and would *never* horn in on your action
And, somehow, he did all this despite an almost total lack of acting ability. Even as a kid, I knew all those dialog
Bring him back, bring him back now. Cram the TV schedule with Shatner, and bring hope to a new generation of kiddies!
"Get a life ... will ya, people? I mean, for cryin' out loud, it's just a TV show." -- William Shatner
Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing Shatner on Enterprise. If he's reprising his role as Kirk or playing Kirk's (great?) grandfather, then I'm going to be angry.
Looking at the Nielsen ratings and that Enterprise is moving to the "Friday Evening Timeslot of Certain Cancellation," I'd like the last season to be better than a retread of the Berman/Braga bag-o-tricks of propping up hack creativity with a cameo of a favorite character.
Here come da fudge!
Bad acting. Poor plots. Bad writing. A theme tune so excruciating that I want to vomit every time I hear it. And you're worried about "violating canon"?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
You're wrong. Andromeda (Lexa Doig... or something like that) is damn hot
No, some of those are just ordinary elements of plot, and some of them are just machina without deus required. Rather convienient plot elements to produce a manipulated end, but that's something of a different sort.
Q can be taken as the literal hand of God. He can wave said appendage and create any effect, at any time, including changing the laws of physics throughout the entire universe. You can spend half your lifetime crawling through space in a tin can and then have Q throw a hissy fit and "poof" you back to where you started.
It reduces humanity to below the level of ants, in its own eyes, and rightly so. The existence of Q means there's little point to doing more than porno on the holodeck, and Q could even ruin that if he wanted to.
Bring back Q? Q is what made me stop watching in the first place because, as per above, he renders the whole exercise pointless.
KFG
If it weren't for William Shatner and his hokey, stilted dialog, there would be no Star Trek as we know it today! Pretend you don't love him, but you can't run from the truth.
Canon was invented by obsessive Trekkie fans, not by writers and directors. It ain't real, you know.
As someone has said, get a life.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Shatner is a fine actor. He always brings something to the part. I love the orginal series. However, Kirk is f*cking dead. Ditto Spock. Ditto Scotty. I wish Berman would stop masturbating about action-figure sales and put PLOT first. Tell interesting stories. Have the characters make interesting choices. KILL a few of them.
That's a spicy meatball!
And I think that had I been in charge, the plots would be more cerebral and less action-packed. They basically took a bunch of characters and put them on a ship roaming the universe. This is dumb because the plot is the same every week; Go to planet, get in trouble, get out of trouble, and go to another planet.
DS9 is rapidly becoming my favorite Trek because it has done so much with its premise. Conflicts between Bajoran and Cardassian, the politics of reconstructing a world that has been invaded, former enemies allying themselves against a greater threat. These are plotlines that make for great story telling. And characters that people care about. (In the episode with the Romulan minefield, I saw the weapons officer about to die and thought "oh well...")
Because of its temporal setting, Enterprise could have become this. And it did for a couple episodes, namely the one where the independent freighter captains have to deal with the pirates. That was excellent. Talk more about that. About how some people on Earth don't want to become members of the Federation, about how some Vulcans don't want to. Talk about the interspecies friction affects diplomacy without acting like a bunch of whiny brats. Talk about the changes on Earth. Talk about first contacts with other species. There are many different long-term plot devices that could be used to create a show where people get hooked and watch just to see what's going on. (The news is still one of the highest rated television shows for exactly this reason, but if you miss an episode of Enterprise, you're not missing much. Archer yelled at some alien, and the Xindi are still trying to destroy Earth.)
Instead, Berman and Braga turned it into half action show, half softcore Vulcan porn, with a MASSIVE THREAT TO LIFE ON EARTH!!! to attempt to keep people's interests from week to week.
DAMN YOU BERMAN!!!
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
>It was way before my time, but wasn't it really proggressive to have a black woman play the part of one of the officers?
It was but they took it to the next level. The first interracial kiss on TV Nov. 22, 1968 took place between Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on an episode of "Star Trek."
What keeps Star Trek going is all the brainless Trekkies who gleefully swallow all the crap Paramount dishes out to them. Finally beginning to die off, thank God!
My absolute favorite trekkies are the ones who get offended if you call them trekkies. "I'm not a trekkie. I'm a trekker". Of all the groups to wrap themselves in Political Correctness, this are easily the most rediculous.
I don't think they ever got over Shatner telling them to Get A Life.
"And as 5 people already told you, and you brushed off, Q-like, as if it were meaningless: there are a million similar devices in Trek."
Then you missed the point if you think "Q" is equivalent to "transporters".
Transporters are nonsensical and silly, but at its heart, it does a single thing. Oh sure, the writers bent the rules a little, but they're all within a single framework.
"Q" was inherently different because he was a plot device without any external or internal rules.
Externally, you could throw him into any situation and produce any desired result *because he is "Q"*. No more explanation necessary. Internally, even if you produce a plot that uses "Q" in a sensible way, he can still change thing to anything else at a whim.
When could the Holodeck make the "BORG" appear? THe answer: Its a stupid question, but not with "Q". He's the ultimate plot device, he can make anything into anything.
YOu can use "Q" once. Maybe twice. After that, he is the writer's ultimate crutch. He should never be used again. He spoils what sliver of storytelling remains in Star Trek.
Well, that makes sense. Most of the world isn't white, and in the Earth of the future, everyone is equally prosperous. With equal representation from the entire planet, probably most of the admirals in Starfleet would be black.
It's not politically correct drivel, it's mathematically correct fact.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
You've absolutely hit on the head what the original Star Trek was about and why especially the character of Captain Kirk still lives on in popular culture: he's the guy you want to be.
Kirk is right up there with James Bond, Rocky and Rambo (though those last two are a little dumb to my taste, Zorro, and John Wayne. Kirk is the image of a hero.The problem with the new series (and Voyager) is when I ask myself who would I want to be, I have no answer. I'm not sure anyone else does either.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Keep telling yourself that.
Without getting into your theory about Enterprise and where it sits in the whole Trek scheme of things I think that no, the Romulan cloaking device has not always existed.
It was introduced to the Federation in Balance of Terror for the first time. This is made very clear.
Since Enterprise is supposed to predate TOS it's badly out of place. The rest of it (Klingon appearance, Borg showing up) I have almost no concern with. The cloaking device thing though's just plain wrong.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.