Why Shatner's Not In Star Trek

By Stuart Wood: 2008-09-09 10:41:23

Paramount could do with learning a few lessons from the Dark Knight playbook. My interest in the new Star Trek movie couldn't really be described as anything more than, “meh”. From the bland uninspired posters to director J.J. Abrams applying his usual game of "misdirect plenty and show nothing," there's little reason at this point for anyone to be drawn to his reboot of the franchise. With the interminable awfulness of Nemesis still quite fresh in everyone's mind, where is the reason for anyone to care? Certainly the least of the reasons that bother me at this point is which of the surviving original cast will cameo or not. However for a while now, the issue of Leonard Nimoy being involved while William Shatner is not has fueled the blogs of the Trek-devout for months.

In an interview with AMC, where, typically, Abrams talks much and reveals little, the only thing he did let slip was his position on the whole contentious issue of Shatner's absence in proceedings. He reveals that initially they tried to be accommodating, writing in a flashback scene but on reflection “it didn't quite feel right.”

The more pressing issue, according to the very diplomatic Abrams, was that Shatner was wanting an “all or nothing deal." “He was very vocal that he didn't want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves.”

To put the whole issue to bed, Abrams refers bluntly and logically to the issue of canon, which many Trekkers have been banging on about since day one, “The truth is, the story that we were telling required a certain adherence to the Trek canon and consistency of storytelling. It's funny -- a lot of the people who were proclaiming that he must be in this movie were the same people saying it must adhere to canon. Well, his character died on screen [in Generations in 1994]. Maybe a smarter group of filmmakers could have figured out how to resolve that. “

So there you have it, Shatner isn't in it because old Kirk died 14 years ago. Can everyone please now get over it and can Paramount please start acting like they want people to come see this movie.

To read the full interview with Abrams click on over to AMC's website.

RELATED: cameo, nimoy, abrams, shatner, star trek

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