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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.

54 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. I'm... getting too... old for THIS.... ... shit! by JPelorat · · Score: 5, Funny

    KHAAAAAN!!

    --
    Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
  2. oh god please no by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's just all hope that Kirk doesn't go back to old habits, rip his shirt off, and fight a guy in a rubber suit...*shudders*

    --
    ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
  3. Here's the reason... by bje2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    and here's the link with the exclusive reason of why Shatner is returning for a guest appearance...

    --

    "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
    1. Re:Here's the reason... by Emugamer · · Score: 4, Informative

      Shatner is actually associated with the marketing turn around of priceline (after Jan 2001 all time low)... so he's still doing fine there

    2. Re:Here's the reason... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh come on, I'm practically a gynecologist and I've never seen a green pussy.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    3. Re:Here's the reason... by Nos. · · Score: 5, Funny

      Surfing porn does not make you "practically a gynecologist"

  4. Name your own time warp by MrLint · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder if shatner got paramount a good priceline price on the time warp to send Kirk back into the past.

  5. Yeah right by timealterer · · Score: 5, Funny

    The sheer number of times he's suggested he'll never do any more Star Trek is starting to make me think he just says it to up the price he gets the next time he does it.

    --
    - Allen Pike
    Altering time, one time at a time.
  6. Theme... by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Informative
    They should open with the Star Trekkin theme by The Firm.

    More entertaining Trek stuff can be found here, though they have some bandwidth limitations and it requiresflash. You may check for StoneTrek here, too.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  7. Bones by paul248 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now they just have to put McCoy on with him... "I'm dead, Jim."

  8. Sounds cool to me... by JohnGrahamCumming · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just so long as they also bring back the mini-skirted 1960s era women whose job was to have Kirk fall in love with them. And make sure that they have too much make-up on and for some reason get to hang around the bridge even though they don't work there.

    John.

  9. Make your voice known by gowen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Make your voice known, as hopefully a return will prevent him releasing any more terrible cover versions of good songs.

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  10. Shatner older, more rotund by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  11. Re:I'm... getting too... old for THIS.... ... shit by JPelorat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Heh, geez, got any humorless mods here today? Oh yah, I see a couple right here. =P

    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!

    --
    Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
  12. Re:When you can't write a decent story... by eddy · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Brent Spiner Will Reportedly Appear On Enterprise. Marina Sirtis spilled the beans at a convention in Dallas that Spiner will appear in three episodes playing the grandfather of Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong." -- TVTome

    --
    Belief is the currency of delusion.
  13. Shatner in new ST not all bad.... by MortisUmbra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."
  14. Would be simpler to use a digitally produced Kirk by syrinje · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Whether he will be featured in this new movie as the dashing, libidinous Kirk of the golden years (c'mon how difficult is it to contrive a story plot that zips through a time-warp?), or an old aging over-the-hill suited brass-hat admiral, Digital Kirk is probably a better choice than a Shatner-Kirk.

    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
  15. Lame by iamdrscience · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nuts to Kirk, bring back Welshie!

  16. Straight up... by Aerog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!
    1. Re:Straight up... by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've kind of liked "Enterprise", too. They have had a few episodes that have plumbed the depths of putridity ("A Night Wasted in Sick Bay") but then, so did the original. ("Spock's Brain"? "And the Children Shall Lead"?) It's been mostly OK. Alas, it hasn't reached the heights that original Trek did, either, but some of the third season has been pretty good.

      But when I saw that Nazi alien in the season-ender, I had this feeling.... "Is that Captain Sam Beckett on a motorcycle? In the air? Is that a shark in a tank underneath him? Is he mutting 'Oh, boy'?"

      I don't see how they can bring James T. Kirk back with anything resembling any sense. If they didn't jump the shark already, this likely will do it.

      Would that there was some way to rewind back to the beginning of the series and start over from scratch, and add two absolute, inflexible, never-to-be-violated Commandments:

      I: Thou Shalt Not Time Travel. Never. Ever. There is no such thing. It does not exist. It shall never be mentioned as a possibility.

      II: Thou Shalt Not Ride The Transporter. Ideally, the transporter should not have been invented yet. Possibly, it exists as only a cargo-transport device, people are scared of it, and *no one* is willing to ride it. McCoy had an old-fashioned dislike of the transporter; maybe here we could see the fashionable thinking that became old in Kirk's time: The transporter destroys you utterly and makes a copy elsewhere. This is a Bad Thing.

  17. TrekToday and TrekBBS by falcon5768 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    are about as accurate as Aintitcoolnews... these ARE the same guys who reported on a fake news article someone posed saying Enterprise was canciled...

    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."

  18. The man couldn't even save Iron Chef USA by Optical+Voodoo+Man · · Score: 4, Funny

    How can expect that poor old man to save Enterprise when he couldn't even float Iron Chef USA? "Today's theme ingredient is... TIME TRAVEL"

  19. Re:So much for keeping any hint of a coherent seri by JudgeFurious · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because, to borrow and change a quote:

    They've done far worse than kill you. They've hurt you and they wish to go on hurting you. They shall leave you as you left Voyager, as you left Deep Space Nine, marooned. for all eternity in the center of a dead science fiction universe: buried alive (with your television set).

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
  20. They should CGI in a more youthful Shatner.... by jjh37997 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  21. Awesome by c0dedude · · Score: 4, Funny
    Reminds me of this quote from bash.org:
    <studmuffn> ive been to one star trek convention, and i was 14
    <studmuffn> it was cool. patrick stewart was there
    <studmuffn> they told us not to ask why they cant fix baldness in the 24th century
    Brilliant!
    --
    Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
  22. Re:COMING SOON! by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Better yet- we find out that the shaddowy figure that has been advising the Suliban is Emperor Tiberius himself- Evil Kirk from the Mirror Universe.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  23. Like a bad pun by GlassUser · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's been a long time since I've actually groaned aloud from reading a slashdot headline. Eh, thanks I guess.

  24. Star Trek XII: So Very Tired. by Kenja · · Score: 5, Funny

    Captians Log: "Had trouble sleeping last night; my hiatal hernia is acting up. The ship is drafty and damp. I complain, but nobody listens."

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Star Trek XII: So Very Tired. by Tokerat · · Score: 4, Funny


      "Capitains Log, Stardate 1423964; I've lost my toupe and girdle, and can't leave my room" - Tom, MST3K

      --
      CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
  25. Re:Sigh. . . by taustin · · Score: 4, Funny

    This news just makes me wish there was another season of "Farscape" coming up. Or, hell, another season of ST:TNG.

    Or another season of black filler between the commercials. Or another season of static. Or another season of being kicked in the groin by a large horse.

  26. I Think I'm Going to be Ill... by ewhac · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't get me wrong; I think Shatner has entered his period of self-parody very gracefully (the latest Priceline commercials are really cute). But to re-enter the role of Kirk means playing it straight, and I just don't think he can pull that off anymore.

    But more importantly, I think it shows just how creatively bankrupt Star Trek has gotten under Berman's watch. I lost interest in DS9 at about season two, watched perhaps half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and saw Enterprise's pilot, but that's about it. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but there's just no sense of wonder there anymore.

    Schwab

    1. Re:I Think I'm Going to be Ill... by Maestro4k · · Score: 4, Insightful
      • But more importantly, I think it shows just how creatively bankrupt Star Trek has gotten under Berman's watch. I lost interest in DS9 at about season two, watched perhaps half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and saw Enterprise's pilot, but that's about it. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but there's just no sense of wonder there anymore.
      I agree with you mostly but you might want to check out the 3rd season of Enterprise if you haven't. Having the main storyline continuing through the entire season really made a difference, and it was nice to see things like the ship getting damaged (heavily) and the damage not magically being repaired the next episode. As a matter of fact the ship looks like only the strutural integrity field is holding it together at the end. Things got pretty intense there at the end too. It was far and away the best episodes of the series so far. Maybe they're finally getting back on track a bit.

      As for the Shatner coming back as Kirk thing, I suspect it will be either 1.) He's not really goign to be Kirk but an ancestor as someone else suggested or 2.) We will get another glimpse of the future through Daniels and that's where Kirk will show up. He'll be in his proper time period so no continuity hijinx.

  27. How old is Shatner now, anyway? by DanielMarkham · · Score: 5, Funny

    He's got to be in his 60s, right? I wonder what they would do if they made all these big announcements and suddenly his health took a bad turn? How do series deal with signing really old actors, anyway?

    And sign me up for CGI kirk with Shatner doing the voice-overs. I don't think I have the stomach (or maybe he has too much of one) to see Bill jumping around the stage with a ripped shirt fighting some rubber lizard over a great-looking woman.

    Heck -- just get rid of all of them except the great-looking women. We could do a new show, sort of a cross between Baywatch and Trek. Something like "Nebula-Watch"

  28. Re:Sigh. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Firefly" is good because of the same reason the TNG was good. There arn't crazy special effects, or crazy intense computer generated graphics, just good story and good actors. Firefly in my opinion has the best un-noticed cast I've ever seen. I was really skeptical on the series, but after watching the pilot and one episode, I was hooked. I now own the whole series on dvd.

  29. Let me guess... by cjpez · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... his return will involve a wormhole, travelling back through time, the Borg, and a holodeck malfunction (er, after travelling *forward* through time first, of course).

  30. Enterpise: Greatest Hits by khasim · · Score: 4, Funny

    All your favourite characters!

    Kirk!
    Data!
    Quark's mother!
    The guy in the red shirt that got eaten by the monster on that planet they were trapped on!
    We even have a special appearance by a cartoon Kzinti!
    And Captain Janeway!

    All the best from every Star Trek series, movie and cartoon EVER produced!

    See Captain Kirk battle the Obsidian Order to save Beverly Crusher!

  31. he's ........ by MORTAR_COMBAT! · · Score: 4, Funny

    (... the ... longest ... pregnant ... pause ... in ... history ...)

    back.

    --
    MORTAR COMBAT!
  32. Re:I'm... getting too... old for THIS.... ... shit by sTalking_Goat · · Score: 4, Funny

    http://www.khaaan.com/

    --

    My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...

  33. Time Travel explots by bokmann · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  34. Re:I'm... getting too... old for THIS.... ... shit by Cat_Byte · · Score: 4, Funny

    rofl! Warn us before you have our computers shouting KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN out at work ;)

    --
    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
  35. Quantum Leap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    His mission to return Shatner to Trek finally complete, Dr. Sam Beckett leaps out of Captain Archer's body...

  36. I hate to quote a Microsoft VP, but... by Infonaut · · Score: 4, Interesting
    it's time to KNIFE THE BABY.

    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
  37. Re:COMING SOON! by digitalgiblet · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "Better yet- we find out that the shaddowy figure that has been advising the Suliban is Emperor Tiberius himself- Evil Kirk from the Mirror Universe."

    Sadly, this joke will probably make more sense and be more interesting that whatever the real writers come up with for the show...

  38. Re:Wouldn't do that much for the franchise by sql*kitten · · Score: 4, Funny

    Enterprise has hmm... not sure yet.

    Hoshi!

    They should just call it "Hoshi in Space" and have the camera follow her around for 45 mins...

  39. Enterpise: Greatest Hits Vol II: Wrath of Berman by b0r0din · · Score: 4, Funny

    Tribbles take over the Enterprise! Again!

    The vulcan chick's breasts start expanding for no apparent reason, and the Enterprise is helpless to stop them!

    Watch as Gene Roddenbury spins over and over in his grave and is then resurrected like in Star Trek IV!

    Watch as Berman tries to save a hopelessly bad space opera which has lost all continuity and has turned into an ugly parody of science fiction!

    Personally, I'd rather watch Star Trek: Borg, where you watch as the Borg take over the rest of the planets. I can see it now. "These are the voyages of Borg Cube #200345. It's mission: To explore strange new worlds...to seek out new life, and new civilizations...to annihilate them and steal their technology...to boldly destroy what no man has destroyed before. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." *Cue music*

  40. Last Chance to See Scotty by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting
    James Doohan will make his last appearance at a Star Trek convention in Hollywood, Aug. 28-30. On the 31st He'll finally get a star on the walk of fame. Lovely, I'm sure he'll remember that... Some fans, couldn't get him a star for 30+ years, cripes.

    One of Doohan's sons, Chris Doohan, 45, said, "His longterm memory seems to be intact. If you ask him how he got his role on 'Star Trek' or about D-Day, he can talk for an hour about that. But if you ask him what he had for breakfast..."

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  41. Re:So much for keeping any hint of a coherent seri by ntk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bermaaaaaaaaaaan!

  42. Re:I'm... getting too... old for THIS.... ... shit by sTalking_Goat · · Score: 4, Funny

    I remember the first time I wne to the site. My co-worker was on a speaker phone conference. Everyone on the line went quiet and one guy said "What the hell was that?" and someone else answered "Star Trek II".

    --

    My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...

  43. Re:I'm... getting too... old for THIS.... ... shit by marc_moore · · Score: 4, Funny

    To boldly go where no man that old should dare to go...

  44. Top 10 Ways to Save the Star Trek Franchise by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 4, Funny

    10) Drop rumors here and there that N'Sync will guest star as plasma-sword wielding space knights.
    9) Show more science officer cleavage.
    8) Invert the bullshition particle field and modulate it to 5.69 isohertz!
    7) Wait until Paramount is 5 minutes plus a commercial break suspense builder away from canceling the show, and present a contrived and not so suprising solution.
    6) Start selling pieces of Deforest Kelly's mummified flesh as souvenirs to the faithful.
    5) Show more science officer cleavage!
    4) Wait for JMS to pitch another scifi show concept, and then blatantly steal it after the lawyers have lawsuit-proofed the theft.
    3) Hide Riker's razor!
    2) Holodeck brothels.

    And the number one way to save the Star Trek franchise is....

    (drum roll)

    Buy the new 6th edition Formula TV Plots for Dummies!

  45. Re:Enterpise: Greatest Hits Vol II: Wrath of Berma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Television needs more shows where the villians are the focus.

    You mean like Simple Life 2?

  46. Re:Two ways by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Another ten cameras?

  47. Re:Enterpise: Greatest Hits Vol II: Wrath of Berma by pjdepasq · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  48. 'Hate to encourage them.... by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > 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...