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More On Shatner's Possible Return To Trek
Tycoon Guy writes "Is that the sound of desperation I hear? TrekToday is reporting that, according to a trailer shown at CBS Television City, William Shatner will be appearing on Star Trek: Enterprise for a two-episode guest stint - as James T. Kirk! The most likely writers of his episodes are Trek novelists Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who already resurrected Kirk in their books, and were just hired as story editors for Enterprise's fourth season." We reported a rumor to this effect a couple of months back.
And how do they work around the fact that he's now an old fart?
To date my absolute favorite episode of Deep Space 9 was the Trials and Tribbleations episode, now, granted, they spliced them into an old TOS episode, but still. :)
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
The flexibility and dynamic range that this affords the director will make for a better movie.
Now all we need is for someone to take hit Al Pacino over the head, steal his copy of Simpone and adapt :)
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
I'm looking forward to this. Why? Well, Enterprise isn't that bad. In fact, I quite enjoy watching it. Just take everything for face value and sit back. It can be pretty good when you give it a chance.
Next, we have William Shatner; one of the people who is now simply famous for being/playing himself (Christopher Walken, Adam West, Leonard Nimoy, Ron Jeremy, etc.)
I can see nothing bad coming from this. It could be really good and well written. Or, it could be cheesy, and I think I'd like it more in that case. Either way, between that and Corner Gas, I'm going to be quite entertained this season....
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Odds are he will be on, but as a ancestor much like Data will be on (playing his creators great great grandfather and one of the scientists who created Khan durring the eugenics war)
But if the recent word on whats going to take place this year holds true (Vulcan war created by the still unseen romulans which explains the vulcans additude the previous three seasons, end of the TCW storyline and a wrap up of last season, the eugenics war storyline involving tracking down the escaped scientist. more andorian storylines.. to name a few) then Enterprise might have finally recreated it's self as a preqel and not a revision.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Oh, shit, you can fill in the blanks with your own imagination...
His most recent effort was that he submitted a song parody entry to the Howard Stern show, with a cover of Vinny's "Restless, Restless" song. He's also got a forthcoming album...and covers Pulp's "Common People" with Joe Jackson that you can listen to here: http://www.shoutfactory.com/av/common_people.mov As with anything Shatner...it is fantastic in its monotone delivery :)
Man, unless he's time-traveling back, it'll be damn hard to make him look like the feisty young thing of the '60s.
They'll have to slather him with makeup and airbrush half of him out of the frames.
Maybe they can do the same thing they did for the guy in Lord of the Rings who played Gollum. Have Shatner on the set acting with all the other characters and then CGI an image of how he looked back in the 60's on top. Like a virtual face lift.
I really think this qualifies as another classic example of an aging, former television personality not wanting to admit that is it over for them. I mean the Priceline adverts I can handle. But any attempt to rekindle his former glory as Cpt. Kirk should be met with some sort of stun ray from the infamous phasers.
There was an episode on one of the spin-off shows (Voyager?) wherein there was an organization similar to starfleet, but with the responsibility to keep the timeline clean. Maybe the next spin-off (Time Trek) should be about those guys. What, with all the time-travel as an explanation that seems to be occuring recently.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
For the love of all that is holy, LET IT DIE!
What they need to do is let it stay dead for a few years ( read: 5-10 ), then come up with a new spin on the universe that makes it completely different. Like, the borg ( or something worse ) take over the federation, and the series is about the last few ships and captains and their struggles.
Something dramatically different that would provide even the most BORING writer with material enough to go for at least a few seasons.
And damn it, I don't care how cool you think it is, NO MORE FUCKING TIME TRAVEL. Jesus, talk about taking an interesting plot element and wearing it out.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Why not? The whole series is based on an F'ed up time travel story... They can do anything they want now, and always press the cosmic reset button. Enterprise has no credibility - the only way to redeem it at this point would be to have the series end with a small child reading a book, and at the end we come to find out it is 23rd century fiction about the 'past', and the person reading it is a young James T. Kirk. The story would be the childhood inspiration he had to become a starfleet officer.
Better yet, how about we get Fred Savage to play a father reading the book out loud to his son... the series can then alternate between Enterprise clips, and the son interrupting him with things like, "Eww... not that kissing stuff again", ala Princess Bride.
Star Trek is a classic example of something that was good, but has been rehashed so many times that it's all tapped out. The mine is spent. The well is dry. Star Trek has died on the vine.
I can't think of any more rediculous ways of saying it. Star Trek must die, for the good of Star Trek. Let it die. Let someone new pick it up again in a decade. End the madness now!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If it wasn't already. The shark has officially been jumped on that show.
Let's think about it. Kirk from the time of Enterprise is either not born yet or rather young. Shatner is in his 60's or 70's or something. He's old. So, if Shatner, the old guy, is to appear as Kirk on Enterprise, either Kirk has to travel back in time from the point when he's either admiral the second time or ambassador or something, or Archer's got to travel forward in time, which has been done to death.
The only reason I want to watch is to find out if they can manage some really clever way to make it not suck.
I'd watch it too.
Television needs more shows where the villians are the focus. For a change, it'd be fun to root for the Borg, Goa'uld, Overseers, Visitors, Cylons, or even Microsoft.
Get off my lawn.
The only reason Guinan's "echo" gave for not leaving, when Picard asked her to come back, was that she "was already there". Kirk's not. He died (with the stupidest last words EVER: "Oh my." WTF). He could come out again, presumably leaving another echo behind. And since The Nexus transcends time, Enterprise could just happen to come upon it.
Nice. Intergalactic, soul-duplicating Xerox machine for resurrecting characters at will. Oh, look! Somehow, Khan got in the Nexus too! ROUND 3: FIGHT!
How about a show that just explores life on earth in the 'utopian' society ST created? What's life like for everyone else on the ground? What about a CSI or NYPD Blue type of show set in the ST world. We get to see life in the future and see something like a cop show, etc.
Jesus, even I can be more original than some of their "writers".
Plus, what is Kirk going to do? Come back in time as an old man (as he is now) and tell the first enterprise to do this and that? Or will they have him play Kirk's great great grandfather?
If you look at the entire thesis of the Kirk character you will find that his main mode of operation and motivation is to bend the rules of the game in order to triumph over the evil of the moment. Whether it be the modification to the programming of the Kobashi Maru test, or the bluff played in the corbomite maneuver when the deck was stacked against him, Kirk always bluffed and cheated death throughout his whole career. This is in fact evidenced in the whole entry into the Nexus. His most certain death obverted by the luck of the draw as he tumbled into the Nexus, and not the vacuum of space. His character lived expecting to squeak by and live another day. This is part of the enduring charm of the Kirk character. However when finally the odds caught up with him and death was upon him, such a statement of utter astonishment that he didn't make it through this time is quite fitting.
> Fact: Shatner is too old to play Kirk in the Enterprise timeline
> without some serious higgledy-piggledy with said timeline.
> Probability: Yet Another Time Travel Adventure! YATTA!
But there *IS* a nice in-continuity answer. And, yes, it does involve time-travel.
Remember the episode of DS9 where they go back in time to "The Trouble With Tribbles"? When Sisko was explaining themselves to those "temporal investigation" guys, remember the recoil when Sisko mentioned Kirk's name? Kirk apparently held the record for the number of "temporal incursions". I remember seeing a website, once, where somebody went through all the episodes and movies, counted the time travel incidents, and came up well short of the figure in DS9. So there's PLENTY of opportunity for Shatner, and the 1701 to pay a visit to Dr. Beckett.
And Shatner has long since hit the point where old people don't get older, they just get fatter instead. He looks, now, like a kind of chunky version of Kirk, circa ST5 or ST6.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...