Two Kirks Beam Into Salt Lake – And It’s No Transporter Malfunction

Two Captains Kirk dazzled audiences at Salt Lake City Comic Con this week in Utah, a place the stars at Mission New York might consider a warp-over state.

Shatner holds court

William Shatner helped kick off the event on Thursday morning, when he and Star Wars’ Mark Hamill appeared back-to-back before a nearly full Vivint Arena. SLCC had to rent the Utah Jazz’s arena for the event because accommodations at the nearby Salt Palace were too small for the galaxy of fans who wanted to see the two stars of their respective franchises.

In his hour-long conversation with fans, Shatner barely stopped moving, evincing a healthy agility that even a lifetime of Saurian Brandy hasn’t slowed down.

He talked about Star Trek, his new show Better Late Than Never, and earned huge applause by catching a random feather out of the air.

Shatner catches a feather out of the air at Salt Lake City Comic Con 2016

The biggest laugh came when one fan thanked him the great deal he found on a hotel in Salt Lake through Priceline.com, at which point Shatner quickly shifted to company spokesman mode and noted all the great deals you can find on the website.

Shatner shared a particularly personal connection to Salt Lake: many years ago he’d acted in a play at the University of Utah’s Pioneer Theater Company. The play got picked up and was on its way to Broadway, but Shatner couldn’t go with because a pilot he’d done had been picked up.

Predictably, yet still wonderfully, he said, “That pilot was Star Trek.”

Star Trek Continues premieres seventh episode

Vic Mignogna, the Captain Kirk of Star Trek Continues, not only appeared before fans this week, but premiered the seventh episode of his fan series, “Embracing the Winds.” He planned for the premiere here even before Mission New York was announced, but probably would have gone with Salt Lake over New York anyway.

“I love Salt Lake Comic Con. The people that run it, the people who volunteer for it, the fans here,” said Mignogna, who is also executive producer for STC. “We had such an overwhelming turnout for episode 5, ‘Divided We Stand,’ last year at this convention. I thought timing’s gonna be about right, let’s do it there again… We love Salt Lake, so we’re not regretting the decision.”

While Star Trek “Continues”, the conclusion is in sight:

“We’ve always had an end goal in mind. We never intended to do these forever until we can’t do these anymore,” Mignoga said. The goal is to fill in the cancellation of the series and The Motion Picture, answering questions like “Why did Bones leave the service?”, “Why would Spock forego his emotional, human half?”, and “Why did Kirk give up his ship to become admiral?”

“You would think you’d have to drag Kirk at 90 years old, kicking and screaming off his ship, but he took a desk job: why? That sounds like a good story.”

The scripts for those stories are already done, the sets are built, and – perhaps most importantly – the fan-supported funding is there.

“We are working feverishly, dare I say it at warp 10, to finish these last few episodes,” Mignogna said. “Star Trek Continues, I hate to say it, will be over sooner rather than later.”

Despite some recent changes to official policy on fan-productions, which Mignogna calls “horrible collateral damage because of what one production did,” those challenges shouldn’t prevent his series from reaching its goal. He noted that CBS was very gracious to fan films for a very long time.

When he plays Captain Kirk, Mignogna “feels like I’m 12 years old again.”

“I’m not doing this for fame or money, I’m only doing this to pay tribute to the show that meant so much to me when I was a little boy.”

21 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

(sigh)

Here’s hoping that STC can slide under the collateral damage and keep on producing top-notch drama in the style of TOS, for the ages. There’s nothing stopping CBS from licensing STC, if they so choose. It is an absolute certainty that there will never be any more TOS made with the original cast. And it is hard to imagine that any other production outfit will ever achieve a more authentic TOS similitude than STC has achieved, and on a thread-bare budget, no less. Artistic achievement and technical craftsmanship as good as STC deserves better than to be arbitrarily terminated. :-(

There is one thing stopping them from licensing STC: good business sense. They should not do it, period.

JingleBells September 13, 2016 11:34 pm

I may regret this, but how, exactly, would it be bad business to license a popular, widely lauded and respected fan-film production?

Yeah,they should do something other than STD. Surely there must be SOMEthing they can come up with. lol

Cygnus-X1,

Re:There’s nothing stopping CBS from licensing STC

And if there ever was such a barrier at the end of that galaxy as many here contended, it’s been crossed when CBS licensed a set constructed in violation of its copyright and used numerous times to support and facilitate further violations.

Can you elaborate on that?

He’s referring to James Cawley’s New Voyages sets. CBS granted him a license to use the sets as a centerpiece of a museum-like tour in upstate New York.

Thorny,

What Atoz, the Unforgettable said. When the Axanar lawsuit was brought there were many many loud vociferous Jingle Bells claiming it was bad business to license unlicensed fan made things and it would NEVER happen even though I pointed out the precedence of the whole Lincoln Enterprise operation and Bjo’s COMPENDIUM, originally unlicensed itself, being officially published with its collection of unlicensed fan art.

Cawley’s sets, which the bell ringers claimed were static and not easily broken down like Peter’s could be, were broken down and readily transported to a defunct DOLLAR storefront sight for the licensed historically recreated museum set tours. Sets that were built and maintained with volunteer labor and donated monetary contributions supposedly dwarfed by Cawley’s out of pocket but which even he himself admitted to not actually knowing by how much because he stopped keeping track. And yet, CBS saw fit to license his tours, anyway.

I also reminded people that back when UNIVERSAL, Paramount’s direct business competitor, first licensed their STAR TREK tours they eventually evolved it to include “STAR IN YOUR OWN STAR TREK ADVENTURE” video productions.

Clever title for the thread.

I thought the title meant the two *real* Kirks, the one played by William Shatner and the other played by Chris Pine. Clearly it is not. How VERY DISAPPOINTING…:((

Keachick,

Re:*real* Kirks

There’s no such thing as William Shatner or Chris Pine, hired actors, being *real* Kirks, characters of fiction.

Here’s a *real* Kirk:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/25/capt-kirk-takes-command-uss-zumwalt-navys-new-dest/:

The Kirks played by those two actors feel more *real* to me than how the character has been portrayed by others. From the title, given that William Shatner was there, it was not unreasonable of me to expect to see Chris Pine there as well.

Yes, I am pissed off that KT universe Kirk character and the actor who plays him appears unacknowledged.

I think, Disinvited, that you knew what I meant. You are being pedantic/semantic – (if those are the right words).

Wow! Priceline really gets its money’s worth from Mr. Shatner!

The Shat got an ownership stake as part of his deal. Shrewd Captain indeed.

Atoz the Unforgettable,

Re:The Shat got an ownership stake

As he did with STAR TREK.

I am sure The Priceline gig helps pay the bills during the down times in between acting jobs.
Shatner is nothing if not loyal.

I am the guy six rows back in the green shirt next to the guy in the gold trek shirt. I filmed the whole thing in HD from that close. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/V_83nUO-u20. Enjoy.

I’d forgotten all about Continues.

I thought promoting to Kirk to admiral and having Spock undergo kolinahr were both mistakes; those things were wildly out of character for both men. I’m sorry to hear that Vic plans to justify those mistakes; I’d much rather see stories where both guys remain the characters they were during the TV era.

Agreed, Corylea.

The Motion picture novelization covers the motive for Kirk becoming an Admiral as I recall. Admiral Nogura needed a starfleet poster child and forced him into a safe desk job. Starfleet was struggling to justify its existence against the rising space-hippie element in Federation society and pretty much only the Enterprise had managed not to get destroyed. Kirk was famous and it would have been a massive propaganda failure to have him go out like a red shirt.