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Television Sci-Fi

93-Year-Old William Shatner Discusses 'Star Trek', Space, Mortality, and Captain Kirk's Death (theguardian.com) 62

Posted by EditorDavid from the it-was-fun dept.
"It was three years of my, life you?" a 93-year-old William Shatner tells the Guardian when asked about playing Captain Kirk on the original Star Trek series from 1967 to 1969: It gladdens him to see how much joy the series has brought its many fans, but the richest rewards came in his introduction to science fiction, which activated and nurtured a lifelong curiosity about our species. He reminisces about meeting the great writers of the genre fondly yet frankly, honest enough to sort Ray Bradbury into "the category right below friend, I think". He devoured their novels and developed a fascination with the principle of defamiliarization, that concepts taken for granted can be understood anew when viewed through the vantage of a stranger in a strange land. "Good science fiction is humanity, moved into a different milieu," he says.
Even on a grander scale, "The universe charms him with its mysteries," writes the Guardian, calling it "the key to maintaining wonder through nearly a century of life. He likes the not-knowing."

You can see this at play when the TV starship captain became a real-life spacefarer in 2021: Liberated by weightlessness, he found himself utterly transformed by the rush of perspective one can only assume miles above the Earth. "It's very personal, what you see from up there, what you read into the stillness," he says. "I saw the blankness of space as death, but an astronaut will see something else entirely. And when I looked back at the Earth, I saw life."

The question of mortality hangs over Shatner, albeit not in a morbid way. He's entranced by the paradox of death, that the absolute unknowability of what happens will be inevitably supplanted by the certainty of finding out... For a man accustomed to boldly going where no man has gone before, it's all just the next phase of a single ongoing adventure.
In fact, Shatner told Jimmy Kimmel Friday that he was always disappointed by the way he'd performed Captain Kirk's death. "I think you die the way you live," Shatner says. "So Captain Kirk always had these grotesque things happening... but without fear. But with joy, and love, and an opportunity to see what's better." So when performing Kirk's death, he'd imagined him actually gazing upon death itself — and looking upon it with wonder. "I ad libbed the 'Oh my'." Shatner's regret? That it "sounded fearful. And I didn't want to be fearful."

"Would you like a do-over?" Kimmel asks. (Adding "I've got some debris...") And Shatner agrees, performing — one more time — the death of Captain Kirk.

The video also includes an appropriate clip from a newly-released documentary about Shatner's life. "Don't do it half-heartedly," Shatner says at one point. "Whatever it is you do — do it fully. Do it passionately. Do it with your whole being."
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93-Year-Old William Shatner Discusses 'Star Trek', Space, Mortality, and Captain Kirk's Death More

93-Year-Old William Shatner Discusses 'Star Trek', Space, Mortality, and Captain Kirk's Death

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  • It was three years of my, life you?” - Sounds like either William Shatner is senile, or editors are. I wouldn't bet on the former.

    • Re:It was three years of my, life you? (Score:5, Informative)

      by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Sunday March 24, 2024 @09:04AM (#64340641) Homepage
      The correct quote from the article is what you expect: "It was three years of my life, you know?"

      • How many years did it take to make the TOS movies? Seems like those should be added on there...

        • How many years did it take to make the TOS movies? Seems like those should be added on there...

          But they asked him about Star Trek the Original series. September 8, 1966 – June 3, 1969 Few consider the movies with him as TOS.

          • Few consider the movies with him as TOS.

            Is that true? I always did. There are TOS movies, TNG movies, etc.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Jhon ( 241832 )

              "Is that true? I always did. There are TOS movies, TNG movies, etc."

              Minutia, but here's the reasoning: .

              TOS = The Original Series. Are the movies really part of that series? Many don't. It was 10 years later when the first movie came out. Hell, many don't consider TAS as TOS. They gave it it's own three-letter acronym!.

              TNG = The Next Generation. You could make the argument that the movies were the continuation of the series. Hell, the first movie was filmed at the same time as the series finale. Hell

            • Few consider the movies with him as TOS.

              Is that true? I always did. There are TOS movies, TNG movies, etc.

              Yeah, I mean of course we can have our own definitions, equally valid, but generally it's divided into the original television show which ran 3 years, the original cast movies, then TNG, for the television series, then the TNG movies. And of course there was Voyager, and Enterprise, and DS9.

              Then there are the streaming shows.

              But I'm pretty sure that Shatner's context was the original television show, given that it ran for about three years.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            He probably said 3 years because there were 3 seasons of the show.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Three years that changed him from an actor mostly known for a Twilight Zone episode to the Captain James T Kirk that "everyone" knew.

        The best way to describe the acting style of Shatner is probably the art style expressionism.

        He would never have had the interview with Jimmy Kimmel if he hadn't had those three years under his belt. And he would probably have been just one of the side actors never really known for anything specific.

        The downside of a typecast role that everyone knows is of course that it's har

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Part of Shatner's problem with getting casted is that he plays **EVERY** role as though it were Captain Kirk. Just like Tom Cruise's only character is a spoiled rich frat boy, Shatner's only character is an arrogant, pompous self-important dick. I can't say for sure about Cruise, but in Shatner's case that's because his acting character is pretty much the same as his actual personality.

          I worked in a summer-stock theater in the early '80s and Shatner was in one of the traveling shows we did. I worked with

          • "When Zaphod was exposed to the Vortex, he was inside a computer-generated universe created for his protection by Zarniwoop. Since the entire universe was created for him, the TPV told him, in effect, that he was, in fact, the single most important person in the universe. This allowed Zaphod to survive the experience, and also did not surprise him in the least. Zaphod then proceeded to eat the fairy cake."

    • I thought maybe he was doing a bad Yoda impersonation.

  • A successful career (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LondoMollari ( 172563 ) on Sunday March 24, 2024 @08:31AM (#64340587) Homepage

    A lot of people will have a lot of opinions, but I believe that Shatner is an inspiration because he has constantly engaged fans both near at conventions and afar on Twitter, engaged in many roles from serious to comedy, and has stayed so active. From looking out onto the wing of an airplane, to westerns, to science fiction, police drama, Boston Legal, a short stint on an Iron Chef spinoff, and the Unexplained, Shatner has kept people entertained.

    • > I believe that Shatner is an inspiration because he has constantly engaged fans

      By almost all accounts, the man's an arrogant ass and always has been. If you can compartmentalize and be inspired by the good stuff without paying attention to the bad that's fine, but my limit is "he was a good Kirk for the times when the original show was made". I can even stretch that out as far as the first three Trek movies. He's just an actor who had a lucky break that in all honesty carried him far beyond his acti

      • He was also the "Great Big Head in the Sky" on 3rd Rock from the Sun. Quite amusing, I rather liked that show, the ensemble was good, but I think it was Lithgow that was truly great. That was (real) acting. To make something so obviously ridiculous and make it nearly believable, but really mostly hilarious. Quite a talent. And Shatner showed self awareness playing that role. If he could have kept that self awareness he'd be a sympathetic old fart, but the constant mugging for the camera to remain relevant i

        • Lithgow's awesome. One of those actors who can elevate anything he delivers well above the standard. Dr. Lizardo was another unbelievably ridiculous character he played and made you believe it anyway. And it's not just comedy, when he has done the serious stuff he sells that just as well.

      • He can be an inspiration and an arrogant ass at the same time, that's sorta his whole thing.

        Yes he brought something irreplaceable to the role that lead to a series that has been on the air pretty consistently for like 50 years and has more or less embraced his role in culture.

        On the other hand he directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier where the ending has his character literally fighting "God".

        • >On the other hand he directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier where the ending has his character literally fighting "God"

          To be fair, Kirk was just getting lippy with God. It was Spock who fired a Klingon disruptor blast into God's face.

          Stupid movie, but pretty damn brave to make "God is an angry super-powerful alien imprisoned in the galactic core and sending us telepathic messages to come save him that we turned into the Abrahamic faiths" the official position of how God fits into the Star Trek univer

          • Yeah ambitious for sure and really a classic Trek concept but I think the movies biggest failing is really conveying that message, it's just muddled and I know parts got cut for budget but so many parts feel like Shatner writing a love letter to himself.

            Also as a kid coming off of The Voyage Home which at my age then was just a delightful film, something I watched a lot it was a bit of a "This is werid and I am not following it"

            IMO the worst of the TOS movies but would easily watch it over say, Nemesis or

            • TNG, even when it was doing serious sci-fi, always felt bland to me. And the comic relief cheap.

              NuTrek/The Kelvinverse is even worse, no matter how much I love Karl's portrayal of McCoy. In fact, let's take a moment to realize exactly how awesome an actor Urban is... But NuTrek completely abandoned everything Trek except the uniforms and the shapes of the ships.

              TOS of course has issues with being very dated AND low budget on top of that, but whatever the lightning in a bottle was with that nothing since

        • On the other hand he directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier where the ending has his character literally fighting "God".

          The idea was amazing. The execution was ridiculously awful.

        • On the other hand he directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier where the ending has his character literally fighting "God".

          Yeah, we never did get Star Trek VI: The Apology

        • I gotta give him a little credit for at least owning it one of his books, I think the line was something like "So I had the Enterprise go on the ultimate search, the search for God, and it turned out God looks a lot like a 100-watt bulb with a guy's face painted on it"

      • Ever hear this clip of Shatner getting into it with a studio engineer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • A lot of people will have a lot of opinions, but I believe that Shatner is an inspiration because he has constantly engaged fans both near at conventions and afar on Twitter, engaged in many roles from serious to comedy, and has stayed so active. From looking out onto the wing of an airplane

      That Twilight Zone episode scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. I was crouched in front of the TV, and when he pulled the curtain back and the gremlin was there staring at him, I sprung straight backwards.

    • And he went to space briefly in person!

  • Embarrassing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by computer_tot ( 5285731 ) on Sunday March 24, 2024 @09:19AM (#64340665)
    Whomever wrote the text in the summary should be embarrassed. There are two mistakes in the first sentence. First, the obviously mangled quote from Shatner. And then the mistake claiming he played Kirk from 1967 to 1969. It's actually 66 to 69. The text feels like an AI chatbot got drunk. Does no one ever edit stories before they end up on the front page?

    • Stan Fields was just pissed they wouldn't let him molest them in the dressing room. He probably could have benefited from an administrative beating.

  • Could easily pass for being in his 50s.

  • Boston Legal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Sunday March 24, 2024 @12:32PM (#64340967)
    Shatner is an extremely talented actor and his showing in Boston Legal is not to be missed. That is all.

    • I honestly do not know how the man racked up two Emmys and a Golden Globe. Competent, sure, but 'extremely talented'? In no way does he come close to the recognized greats among his peers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        A lot of his talent seems to be that he has always been able to make an impression. Impressionist acting seems to have been his style.

        That style usually attracts a lot of criticism but is also memorable.

      • I honestly do not know how the man racked up two Emmys and a Golden Globe. Competent, sure, but 'extremely talented'? In no way does he come close to the recognized greats among his peers.

        A great among actors? Probably not.

        But he's not some hack actor who lucked into an iconic role, without him it's quite possible that Star Trek ended up just another forgotten 60s SF serial. Look at the original pilot with Jeffrey Hunter [youtube.com]. He was a perfectly competent actor but nothing about his performance jumps out to grab my attention.

        Now look at this weird alternate pilot scene with Shatner [youtube.com], even with some awkward interactions that's a far more engaging performance. Critically, he gives the character a se

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Umm, sure, as long as the part to be played fits his one character. To call his range of expression limited would be generous.

    • Some here on this thread reason that Denny Crane is closest to the real-life William Shatner.

  • reading anything about William Shatner

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