One of the items stored at Daystrom Station in the Star Trek: Picard episode “The Bounty” has fans buzzing and speculating. Now showrunner Terry Matalas explains why they included the body of James T. Kirk in the collection and what it could mean for the future.
Kirk’s body is ready for a “return”… but not on Picard
Last weekend, Terry Matalas beamed in remotely to a panel held at GalaxyCon hosted by the Inglorious Treksperts, which they released as their latest podcast episode. The discussion covered each of the individual films from the Star Trek franchise and when they were talking about Star Trek: Generations and the death of James T. Kirk, Matalas chimed in with how this inspired him to update Kirk’s story:
Look, it’s not how I would have sent Kirk off, clearly, because I just put his body in Daystrom.
After teaming up to help Jean-Luc Picard, James T. Kirk was killed by Soran in Generations. Kirk’s body was buried by Picard on Veridian III under a pile of rocks. That was the last known location of Kirk’s body—until “The Bounty.”
Picard at Kirk’s grave in Generations
Since seeing Kirk’s body in Daystrom Station, many fans thought it was foreshadowing his potential return later on in the season. When you look very closely at the display of Kirk’s body, there was a mention of something called “Project Phoenix,” which some interpreted as a clue. When pressed by Altman to explain why they added Kirk to the story, Matalas dashed any hopes of seeing Kirk on the show:
Look, Kirk is dead. We figured, “Is his body really just under a pile of rocks on that planet?” We’re not committed… we’re not saying he is resurrected.
Kirk’s body stored at Daystrom in “The Bounty”
Matalas did say he feels bringing Kirk’s body back to Daystrom could set up a story of Kirk’s return in a future Star Trek:
Is it a tip of the hat to The Return, which is a wonderful book I recommend to all of you? Maybe. We just leave it open that someday some brilliant writer could do something. That could be an animated thing. That could be anything. It’s just to keep, as my friend Spock is fond of saying, “There are always possibilities.” That was the idea behind that.
Matalas mentioned The Return, a 1996 Star Trek novel written by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. The story picks up after Generations when the Romulans and Borg retrieve Kirk’s body from Veridian III and resurrect him using Borg technology and the Guardian of Forever. They want to use Kirk as a weapon to take on Jean-Luc Picard, but Spock eventually breaks Kirk from his brainwashing and the character lives on and has a number of new adventures through a series of novels over the next decade, ending with 2006’s Captain’s Glory.
Cover for The Return
Shatner weighs in
All the buzz about the body showing up on Picard has caught the attention of the original Kirk himself. Today on Twitter, he posted about it, referencing “Project Phoenix” with the question “Where is Kirk?” He took how Kirk was buried under rocks on Veridian III only to be found behind a panel on Daystrom Station to create a Rock, Paper, Scissors joke, turning it into “Rock, Panel, Station.”
I guess we know where the disappearing @StarTrek Captain went! It's like the old game of Rock, Paper, Scissors but it's now Rock, Panel, Station! #ProjectPhoenix?😳🤔 #WhereisKirk? 🤷🏼😝👇🏻 I guess it's all an @AprilFools 😵💫 Have a wonderful weekend! pic.twitter.com/KMpN1nXRBz
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) April 1, 2023
It looks like fans can stand down for now when it comes to expecting the return of James T. Kirk for this season of Picard. But Matalas and his team have set things up for a future Star Trek show or movie to find a way for Kirk’s return.
The third and final season of Picard premiered on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., and Latin America, and on February 17 Paramount+ in Europe and elsewhere, with new episodes of the 10-episode-long season available to stream weekly. It also debuted on Friday, Feb. 17 internationally on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com
Pretty weird choice. I don’t have any feelings about it per se, but it’s definitely weird.
I recall Matalas saying before the series debuted, that part of his impetus for the story was to “correct” the mistakes of the TNG movies. Many have long felt that Kirk’s death was a huge mistake, so this does fix that in multiple ways.
Personally, I’m so relieved to hear they’re not bringing him back in this season, and I hope nobody ever does. Well, not anytime soon, that is.
I remember something along those lines being said.
I’ve seen on Reddit a couple threads where people theorize Kirk will show up in the finale aboard the E-D.
Yes, but it seems here he is debunking that.
“We just leave it open that someday some brilliant writer could do something.”
Brilliant writer… Wouldn’t surprise me that he’s talking about himself here…
Very well could be, but I believe him when he says he dropped it in there for future use by anyone.
That would be so out of left field for him to just show up. If they do, why not put him back aboard the Enterprise-A? It is apparently sitting there in the museum.
But the issue is clear, why bring Kirk back at all? He isn’t relevant anymore. And in a real world issue, Shatner is in his 90’s. Even with age changing CGI he wouldn’t be the same dude. His voice sounds different and he has an incredibly different body type.
Nothing was fixed or corrected. He still died on Veridian III. Matalas just moved his body to a storage locker for the “oohs and aahs”. I’m not relieved.
Relax, pal. Kirk’s appearance in the S31 stations means he wasn’t buried, and there’s potential for him to return. That’s all. I don’t like it either, but I get what he’s trying to do.
…it’s not the ‘ohhs & aahs” – it’s as Matalas has previously stated that it’s for the same reason that the ‘Enterprise D’ Saucer Section was recovered from the surface of Veridian III – to avoid contamination of the planet. By extension, it is a requirement of the Prime Directive that the Federation and therefore Starfleet do nothing to interfere with the natural development of alien civilisations by protecting unprepared civilisations / planetary systems from the introduction of advanced technology, knowledge (such as strange dead human bodies!) and ultimately foreign alien values before they are ready.
In other words ‘make a mess on another planet; you clean it up’!
Sure, but did we really need it? I’m with Trell in that it’s really an unnecessary bit. It was there to make people go ooh and ahh, not actually inform the story or move the plot.
“Ah yeah…’Ooh, ah,’ that’s how it always starts. But then later, there’s running and screaming.”
Excellent reasoning!
I agree I think this was just a big clue for die hard fans that if Kirk is off Veridian III, the Enterprise is as well. We know from deleted scenes and images that the saucer is at the fleet museum, but in reality they have never confirmed this on screen. I think this is proof it is in Docking Bay 12.
I think this was just a big clue that the Enterprise D is in the Docking Bay 12. Clearly they grabbed the saucer from Veridian III so they wouldn’t mess with the development of the inhabitants of Veridian IV. So you would also need to pick up the dead extra terrestrial buried on a hill under rocks.
Since Picard’s corpse is a plot device for the story, perhaps the call-out to Kirk’s corpse is an attempt to make the former’s “not so implausible”?
Regardless, I’m not a fan of either, mind you. I personally find it ghoulish and disrespectful.
Ghoulish activity is normal for Section 31, however. So, that makes it easier for me to understand.
Oh, I agree. It is definitely ghoulish.
I was more confused than charmed by the whole Daystrom Star Trek Experience (coming soon to Orlando). Like the name suggests, Daystrom was supposed to focus on AI, right? But now it’s also storage for dead heroes and tribble monsters. Okey-doke.
Might need a little more oversight there, especially with what happens to captured shapeshifters.
Daystrom, in past series, had additional research than just AI.
It seemed for a while that characters kept referencing the Daystrom Institute weekly.
I see. I mostly remember it being used in reference to AI and robotics. It was still odd to see it being used as, presumably, a sort of Section 31 black site. And populated by no one for some reason.
Anyway, as for Kirk, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like something you casually drop in as a reference. That was too big a distraction for me. Ditto with Genesis; do the Changelings not know what that thing can do? Why not steal it?
What was even more irritating about that reveal was how they had Raffi look directly at the display of Kirk’s vault and not have her even make a curious expression about it. like “umm why is this here?”
He should have left it alone if he didn’t plan on using it in any way for the season.
New Jersey: Why is there a watermelon there?
Reno: I’ll tell you later.
;)
Wow, had to read that twice to make sure I didn’t write that post!
I really wish I hadn’t read the tie-in novel before seeing BUCKAROO — the novel had a lot of depth and more humor and the film felt seriously truncated to me as a result. And I reread the book a couple years back before rewatching the movie, and had the exact same experience! No matter where you go … (tho for shapeshifters, it would be ‘no matter where you goo … ‘)
I was wondering who, if anyone, would pick up on it.
:)
Matalas has explained that the NCC-1975 is there as a nod to the original design of the 1960’s Enterprise (Constitution Class) ship. First up; the original Enterprise was completely refitted to the version seen in ‘The Motion Picture’ which was later blown up – so it didn’t exist – thus couldn’t be put on display at the museum. Also, canonically, under Kurtzman era Trek that version of the Constitution Class Starship no longer exists due to the redesigned model in Strange New Worlds. Matalas & crew placed the ‘New Jersey’ in as a nod to the original design created by Roddenberry – without contradicting Kurtzman era canon. Nifty ehh?
Matalas has made clear that the section of Daystrom Station we are exposed to is the centrally located and completely isolated “Vault” – not populated by scientists or Starfleet personal – instead protected the AI system which is Data / Lore / Soong / Lal / B4.
Matalas has also explained the rest of the massive station (with all the different lit up windows) are teaming with Federation and Starfleet personal – that is, it is an active research station. Agreed; he could have made it clearer in the episode.
Daystrom Station is not necessarily affiliated with the Daystrom Institute, of course.
For example, Carnegie Mellon University has nothing to do with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, other than a common benefactor back in the day.
Or the Institute might run the station, but as a separate division that is walled off from the academic institution, much as the way the University of California operated Los Alamos National Laboratory until 2006 (and resumed doing so as part of a joint venture in 2018).
Seems like this Daystrom station is Trek’s own version of Area 51. Yes, I do find it a bit odd, too. But overall the show is OK so I just chalk it up as cheap fan service they really didn’t need to do.
As references to dead characters go, I think Hugh’s body would’ve made more sense. He was a former drone, which would catch Daystrom’s interest, and he meant more to the TNG crew than Kirk. I mean Picard was the only one who worked with Kirk and he wasn’t on the station to see it.
Why just Hugh’s body? Thousands of ex-Borg drones were inside the captured / deactivated Borg Cube Ship and many were blown out into space from the Borg Cube. Hugh was one of thousands of available ex-Borgs.
James T. Kirk’s body is significant AND there was only 1 Kirk!!!
There’s only one Hugh, too. Him finding his individuality was the entire point of the character.
And yes, Kirk is significant and that’s the problem. It’s such a huge revelation it distracts from the story.
Agreed: there was only one Hugh – however there were, according to Picard Season 1, thousands of similarly recovered, now individuals, x-Borgs … ALL now individuals & recovered from the Collective. Ergo, Hugh in the view of Starfleet & Federation is NOT unique.
And ‘yes’ Hugh is important to us as an audience – pity Akiva Goldsman & Chabon didn’t consider that when he was killed off!
I think the first drone on record to break the Borg spell, so to speak, would be significant, and his brain might be worthy of study.
Agreed. Putting the image of Kirk’s innards there did prove to be too big a distraction.
The producers have confirmed Daystrom is Starfleet’s Area 51.
I also wonder why that’s a problem for some fans like ML. It’s a perfectly logical facility to exist in the Trek universe.
Everything is a problem for fans like ML.
I mean, that’s true. Biggest troll on this site.
Really? I never said it was a problem.
Hence, you are proved wrong.
Care to respond with more falsehoods?
Ah. Then there you go. I haven’t read anything like that so it would seem in this instance their intent clearly translated to screen.
…as much as I love the Kirk character, I’m glad they’re not bringing him back on PIC. Admittedly, the Nerd in me would love it, but this should be about Picard and the TNG crew. Just that little scene in E6 was enough to give me chills, though. And it is nice to know he’s not still lying on that random planet under a pile of rocks. They brought him back home, and hopefully he had a proper grand state funeral, befitting his legendary status.
I remember The Return although I’ve never read it. But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a two hour Star Trek TV movie event with a role fit for a 90+ year old actor. Not an action adventure movie but a more thoughtfully paced drama about Kirk as a man out of time. Who is he without Spock and without Bones? What value does he have as a cold warrior during a time of extended peace with the Klingons. And give him a better death — alone.
Very nicely said. Done well, with the right writers, that could be a great story. Those themes are actually touched on a bit in The Return.
What you described would be wonderful.
I’d rather see it be used to bring Pine into the 25th century Prime Timeline. No Shatner please. Considering he’s publicly trashed current shows, they may not even be interested in working with him.
I agree — that ship has sailed, and I don’t want to see it
Well, I’ll counter with my own preference: no Pine, please. Aside from some welcome hints at growth in BEYOND, his Kirk is just awful.
Totally agree, best Kirk in Trek history.
“Hints” is underselling it a bit.
He was fantastic in all three films. Pine is a highlight of the reboot.
Agreed
Pine is great as Kirk. Remember, he only can use with the writers him. In other words, please don’t shoot the messenger
I respectfully disagree. I’m a big fan of Pine’s Kirk. I thought he was just wonderful.
While that sounds like an amazing concept… I feel like the odds of it being well done (especially if Secret Hideout is involved at all) are fairly slim.
Yup, same concern here.
Yes, you didn’t feel the need to slip in a shot at Secret Hideout the way he does in almost every single post he makes. Sometimes I wonder if Kurtzman is his ex-husband or something.
I know we hardcore fans can get rather caustic in conversation as to what we think Trek should be. I take no pleasure in trashing the powers-that-be. I had no faith whatsoever in SH as DSC was evolving, but I really like PRO, SNW and PIC (s3). So I think Kurtzman & Co. are doing better.
Same. I feel Discovery and first two seasons of Picard is mostly trash but also love PIC S3, PRO, LDS and SNW. Proof we’re not all out to hate Kurtzman. Just his bad shows. 😉
I don’t think any Trek is trash, outside of maybe TNG Season 1. I haven’t liked Discovery, but I can acknowledge it’s good in ways beyond the things I like.
That’s cool. We can agree to disagree. I still think Discovery is mostly trash.
You see, but here’s the thing, he inherited discovery from Fuller, And for the first two seasons of Picard Patrick Stewart had a lot of power given his contract, and so we got these way too introspective shows focused on his character.
So the part of the franchise you don’t like are the parts that Kurtzman was least responsible for. And what you like a lot, we’ll that’s all Kurtzman at the helm.
Um we’re ignoring each other. Just a friendly reminder. But take it easy. 👍
My apologies – I was not paying attention.
And that’s fair. But I don’t see a lot of quality from SH. Star Trek Discovery was gawdawful. LDX has failed at everything it tries. Prodigy had a good start but has become more mediocre and SNW spits all over the universe they are supposed to be in. Only this S3 of Picard has been consistently above average. There has been so much swill produced by SH that one decent season just isn’t enough to make me think they have learned any lessons or turned any corners. But we are stuck with them at the moment so the best we can hope for as they move forward is that we get really lucky and they stumble into more decent storytelling at the level of at least S3 or Picard.
I guess I’m just not as cynical as you but I feel these days they are doing more right than wrong. Prodigy is currently my favorite out of the new shows and yes loving Picard S3 as well even with some flaws, so we seem to agree on that. But unlike you I think LDS and SNW are great shows as well. I completely accept why you don’t like them of course but they are really fun shows for me and also really captures the spirit of Star Trek.
And although I can completely understand why you don’t like LDS (and you were generally very excited about it at least), I still think you’re letting the canon issues with SNW influence you a bit too much. But it’s your right to feel that way. But here is a question, if they told you SNW existed in a different timeline or universe, would you like the show more?
If the answer is no, then fair enough.
You are correct that a major issue with SNW is the canon violations. And even though many feel this might be a small I find the use of the Gorn to be a MAJOR issue. On par with your issue with the Kelpian yell. Next is completely altering the Chapel character to the point where I just have to think this is a completely different character whose name happens to be Chapel. And #1 was amazingly underused and when they did do something with her I felt it completely undermined her. Making her a disguised alien was just plain dumb because it felt like they thought that there couldn’t possible be a woman who acts like #1 did. So they made her alien.
It might be easier to take if they said ALL of the SH stuff was their own SH universe apart from the prime. But even if that was the case I would still find SNW to be fairly mediocre. That might be a function of the short seasons. I feel like if there were more episodes that chances for more than one good one would improve. I’ve seen a couple more STC episodes and even though one wasn’t all that great I still feel that overall those shows are much better than anything SH has done. So it can be done and for a lot less money, too.
It’s certainly fair to be skeptical of a creative team that hasn’t produced work you like, but some fans just hate everything, trash everything, take personal pot shots literally every chance they get, and yet continue to keep watching, seemingly just so they can continue to be mad and express their grievances.
Yep
He just said he liked PRO, SNW and PIC season 3. So he’s not trashing everything. In fact he seems to be a fan of most of it.
Danpaine is one of the most respected members here and well liked. It’s not his fault some people don’t want to hear his opinion because they disagree with it…or even comprehend it.
…Thanks, Tiger. This thread became quite adversarial. Unnecessary, imo.
Unfortunately there are people here who are thin skinned and don’t want to hear opposing opinions of ANY kind. Unfortunately for them they don’t run this site. ;)
Keep speaking your man and speak it often. Most of us love hearing your views and those other people just have to suck it per usual. ;)
Agreed 100% about Discovery. Judging by the lack of people caring the show even got cancelled and it’s still the lowest rated Trek show, I don’t think many will argue with it. ;)
Lol, yeah that dude just keep repeating this over and over and over. I wish I was in a bar with him where I could playfully shake his shoulders and say, “dude we get it now OK, we heard you the first 270 times, move on” lol
That’s actually the issue in a pitch I made to TNG several months before JFK came out called JTK, in which we find that Kirk was fake-assassinated on the eve of the 24th century and actually put on ice as an emergency save-the-day-device for the Federation, which then did such a good job covering their tracks that soon nobody was around who remembered he was tucked away … till Data solved all the coverups and conspiracies and found him and thawed him. The second part of the story was Kirk on the -D, seriously not connecting with the time and place, and it needed more work than the first half, to say the least.
Biggest prob for me is that I was utterly intimidated putting words in Kirk’s mouth, something that was never an issue with the TNG folk. I could write Picard/Guinan exchanges that absolutely read like the actors were saying the words, but Kirk … that was tough, which is why I only did it as a premise/treatment, not a story outline or spec script. (plus I knew they were still not doing TOS regular characters at that point, so it would have been extremely unlikely, but it would have been a great tie-in with JFK.)
I thought Marshak and Culbreath did a great job of making Kirk sound like Shatner/Kirk in their PHOENIX novels and especially in THE PROMETHEUS DESIGN. (had to sneak PHOENIX into this thread somehow.)
I’d love to see a two hour episode or mini-series that gives Kirk a better send-off. I don’t need them to ‘fix’ every botched death from Star Trek history, but the original star of Star Trek deserved better. Plus, he’s freaking 92 and still acting!? And arguably more well-known than ever.
So semi-red herring, semi-future plot base.
I’m cool with it
Me, Too.
I would love to see Shatner return to the role one last time as Nimoy got to for Spock in the 09 film. Shatner is iconic in the role.
It seems a rather pointless and overboard fan service in that episode if nothing was to become of it. I mean, Kirk’s body being in Daystrom was a rather big deal and to add the medical scanner sound along with “Project Phoenix” to the display was a very large distraction that didn’t need to be there.
I realize that for some fans, Kirk is no big deal now and probably shrugged about it as no more important than the other curiosities stored in Daystrom, but for me it was much more than that and I would have preferred not to have seen it at all honestly. This choice was no better than leaving him under a pile of rocks on Veridian III.
Just an unnecessary distraction.
I view it as the same as showing Spocks torpedo tube on Gensis at the end of TWOK…at that time it wasn’t known that there would be a ST3, it was just a “possibility”.
I guess the placement of such future possibilities are important.
But that was the last shot in the movie, not just a throwaway in mid-story. This is the equivalent of the throwaway in LAST CRUSADE about the ark of the covenant, not like the end of RAIDERS where you see the warehouse. So it feels more like a gag than a moment (and I assume that is intentional, because they could have emphasized it differently or even cut the reveal so it happened at some other time.
It probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much if say, 1) I had any real attachment to Kirk as a character and 2) if the rest of the episode and series hadn’t already been littered with similar teases and easter eggs.
I guess if Matalas claims Kirk’s body is there then I guess it should be accepted that it is. But on screen there is still nothing to suggest his body was actually there. We never saw a body. Only some computer image. So any writer can still canonically do whatever they want with the body.
They should bring Kirk back to life as a woman. That would be awesome.
And call her Janice Lester.
Don’t give them any ideas, with Hollywood being what it is, they would probably do it.
What’s wrong with having a female Kirk?
Nice try, but I’m not going anywhere near that one.
Pretty sure on-screen canon doesn’t work that way. But if you want to play some game where “oh, everything on the Daystrom station was fake!” and concoct some nonsense to invalidate it, sure, technically that can be done. But at that point you can just do gymnastics to recon everything, and nothing matters.
He just enjoys making up little fantasies in his head, that way when he’s wrong he can be mad about it.
How do you figure? I never suggested even remotely that “everything on Daystrom station was fake”. Let alone the autopsy scans of Kirk. In fact there is no reason to suspect that medical data is fake in any way. I only said there was no evidence his body was actually there. In fact watching the scene I never once concluded his body was actually there. Showing some skeletal scans is not the same thing at all. If they really wanted to suggest his body was there they should have gone through some sort of morgue-like room with obvious holding drawers labeled as James T. Kirk. Have other names there as well to sell the concept.
Your assumption was quite the leap of logic.
Equally, the “Kirk” being preserved there could be the android Kirk from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”
That is true too.
I actually forgot what became of that android… Anything that might preclude it still existing over a century later?
Matalas is the same guy who gave is the 💩 that is Picard S1 & S2. Frankly, S3 would have been crap too without the TNG crew. Is anyone surprised he teases Kirk and then leaves everyone with blue balls?
Michael Chabon was showrunner for Season 1. Akiva Goldsman was co-show runner for Season 2 with Terry Matalas.
Terry Matalas then left production of Season 2 to focus on Season 3 and Akiva Goldsman continued finishing out Season 2
If you’re going to rant, at least be correct.
He had nothing to do with S1 and minimal involvement in S2. Relax.
I love folks who talk shit confidently and it’s absolutely wrong. You have a bright future as an AI chatbot.
They didn’t even hire Matalas until season 2. And with season 2, he had zip to do with developing the story, that was all Goldsman. He wrote the first two episodes and just help produce the other episodes until he left in episode 5 to prep for season 3.
As someone who enjoyed The Return, I appreciate Matalas’ comments on why we saw Kirk’s remains in Daystrom Station. When Generations ended, it felt somehow wrong to me to leave Kirk’s remains on Veridian III. Given how shady we know Section 31 can be, it seems obvious they would go recover the remains of Starfleet’s most iconic captain.
Agreed. I read The Return too, back when it came out. Though not a fan of Trek lit per se, it did provide a nice cap to Generations, though not canon. I like the fact they went and retrieved his body as well.
That’s the one where a DEFIANT-class ship decloaks inside the open space of a Romulan warbird, between the nacelles and behind the head, then it does a spin while firing. So totally cool, just like the ramming scene in FEDERATION. Those folks really knew how to deliver space battle scenes that were both credible and totally exciting.
I’ll admit to being embarrassed that I know this, but it wasn’t firing. It did the rotation because weapons were offline.
So does it just tear the ship apart from within from the movement? Geez, now I gotta go find a copy.
I’d figure the Ferengi would go dig him up to sell off his ‘hair’ and such, sort of like the way they were going to similar things to John Wayne in THE SHOOTIST.
To John Wayne: “Is that your real hair?”
John Wayne: “It’s not mine, but it’s real.”
I never read the book. But I, too, felt it was amazingly wrong to leave Kirk’s body on that planet. Not just as it was not a good way to honor James T. Kirk but leaving an alien body on a planet right next to one with a developing population kinda feels like the wrong move.
I never for one instant thought that Starfleet would leave Kirk’s body behind on that planet. They would have scoured that star system for every trace of Federation presence.
Agreed. I’m pretty sure there are a dozen amendments under the Prime Directive about not contaminating planets with dead aliens and so on.
They wanted a moment for the movie but it would’ve made much more sense to do it on Earth.
Veridian III was uninhabited (at that time), but Data did note that the Veridian system contained another planet home to a pre-industrial (or was it pre-warp, one of the two?) society.
Maybe the next animated series can be about a crew who warps around cleaning up Starfleet’s Prime Directive messes lol?
But it’s still contaminating a foreign planet. I just can’t imagine it would be OK to just leave people and hardware anywhere they want.
But it seems like if anyone would abide by this it would be Picard, so maybe it is OK?
And that means they would likely eventually travel to their neighboring planet and perhaps find 200 year old alien remains.
So, no. Can’t imagine that being allowed.
I love it! Can’t wait to bring him back! It makes sense for the Section 31 Series!
Gotta get those legacy characters. Fans want nothing else.
Kirk is dead. Even if Starfleet retrieved the corpse after a few days from a shallow grave on a hot,.dry planet, it was definitely a closed casket funeral.
Shatner is 92. If something were greenlit today, it would take a year, year and a half before principal photography began.
JL Picard is a stud. On a hot, dry planet, he dug a dead Kirk out from under the wreckage of a collapsed bridge. He drug the 250+ pound body to the top of that rock, then hauled hundreds of pounds of rocks up there to cover him up. Respect.
While I agree with you, I expect they could pull the Nexus out of their large box of lame plot devices and somehow resurrect him — they rejuvenate his Daystrom body and get sort of his katra from the Nexus.
But I don’t want to see 92 year old shatner in the role — unless they spend a ton of money to convincingly de-age him and make him look more fit like we would expect the elder Kirk character in Trek to be.
The reason Generations remains firmly in place at the bottom of my Trek movie list is the Nexus. Just an absolutely horrible plot device.
Maybe it’s me, but I’ve yet to see de-aging that doesn’t look off. They’d just be animating Shatner at that point. It just won’t work.
It’s not on my bottom of the list of Trek movies but your issue is a credible one. The mistake is giving the characters control of time like they did. So many many problems. For one thing, when fighting Soran when it looked like they could lose, just let the Nexus envelop them again and go back and try again. Or Picard could go back to the E and just grab Soran in 10-Forward. Or better yet, go back further and keep his brother’s family from burning to death. There were just so many many other ways to more effectively fix this. And he could just bring Kirk back with him. Alive. Or perhaps Kirk could just go back to his time. They needed to come up with reasons why this was a one shot, succeed or die, kind of situation.
It’s not just the characters – Data discovers what it is, quickly, and that it blows through the galaxy every forty years or so, apparently unguarded. The Nexus is a known entity, and not top secret. In essence, it turns Generations into a sci-fi version of Groundhog Day. At some point you’d think that the Federations Temporal Police Department would figure out that a lot of their temporal violations would go away if they’d just blow the g-d thing up. Or, maybe not….
There is that too. It would seem plausible this phenomena would be known about for at least 80 years if not longer. And just talking to the survivors would reveal what they think it is. But I suppose they just let it be because it didn’t present a danger and supposedly every attempt to enter if using a ship has failed.
You hit the nail on the head. That’s what so many people have asked Ron Moore about the Nexus. He admitted that it’s an immense plot hole.
Moore has owned up to a number of mistakes he made in Generations. Including the kitchen scene with Kirk & Picard.
But ultimately I think a lot of fans were expecting Kirk to be in a lot more of the picture. That they would meet up and have an adventure together. Irritating each other at first and learning they each had their own ways of getting things done that worked. Instead Kirk was merely bookended.
It was definitely not one of RDM’s better efforts…..
Ronald Moore admitted, if I recall correctly, that the Nexus is a plothole you could drive a semi through.
GEN is just a really really weak story. Both Moore and Brannon Braga admit that they blew it, and a good chunk of the blame involves Rick Berman’s plot requirements. This is all out there in interviews. Moore and Braga had terrible requirements and were pressed for time but wrote their script. Berman wanted Nimoy to direct and gave him the script. Nimoy said, rightly, again according to Moore, that the script wasn’t good at all. Berman said pre-production was already in place and the script couldn’t be changed, so Nimoy, who was angry that he wasn’t brought in earlier to work with the writers on a film that would’ve involved Kirk, Spock, and maybe McCoy and the rest of the crew, walked away from the film and we got GEN as it is.
It’s a dissapointing film. The chemistry between Picard and Kirk is just great and Stewart and Shatner apparently had a really great time together and the Ent-D’s passing and Data’s emotion chip silliness is fun, but the Nexus is just such an immense plot hole, the theme of time passing is overwrought and the death of Kirk was pretty weak and badly done, as both Moore and Braga have admitted. It’s just a dissapointment. There was so much potential for a great film for the first TNG film and, thanks to Berman and/or Paramount, they completely dropped the ball.
It was my understanding that Kelly was keen on doing it but was just too ill. I did hear that Nimoy was asked about directing but he passed for some of the reasons you mentioned. Also he didn’t wish to appear as Spock because he didn’t think Spock had enough to do.
I don’t know about Kelly. It may have been illness but he also said something to the effect that if Nimoy wasn’t going to be in GEN, then he didn’t feel like he should be in it either. In any case, Spock and Bones were supposed to be in the GEN in the beginning but Nimoy rightly didn’t like the part, saying it didn’t need Spock, so not only did Berman lose Nimoy as a director but he lost the inclusion of Spock in GEN. The whole thing was incredibly botched by Berman and he stills tries to spin it as a good movie in interviews after messed it up right from its inception.
Well, they have the genesis device. Here you go. Somehow recreate the regeneration effect like they did with Spock’s body on ST III. Kirk’s dead body is rejuvenated as a baby, then a child, and then they extract him from the newly formed planet as an adult, played by Paul Wesley.
Of course, the rejuvenated body has no memories. There is no “katra.”
Or, you pop back into the Nexus, and suggest to Kirk that he might want to stay off that bridge over there.
Oh, and here are the winning numbers for the Federation Super Lotto. Pick up a ticket for me, too.
:-)
LOL! Y’know, I never thought about that, the effort Picard obviously put into burying Kirk.
Good for him! Picard’s awesome!
I like what the dude has done with this season of Picard, but he’s getting way too cute with the fan service. This is like the huge weakness of lower decks where they try to force fit in all of these canon connections just to be cute, and in most cases they come across awkward and not holistic to the story.
On this one, I feel like Alec Kurtzman should have stepped in and just said no
My thought is he doesn’t know the franchise well enough to know.
This why you never allow fan boys to make trek shows.
I might normally agree, except that, on balance, Matalas’ season of Picard has proved wildly popular among diehard fans and the wider audience.
Could be a number of reasons for this. Perhaps Kurtzman thinks fan service works. And there is reason for him to think that. Perhaps he doesn’t have the control of the show to allow him to step in like that? Maybe he decided on a “hands off” policy with S3 of Picard? I’m sure there are more…
A nice nod to William Shatner’s book The Return, but if he were to be used in other series then Discovery is the best bet since its final season will be next year and in the 32nd Century.
Perhaps some solution like Prodigy or Lower Decks. Yes, Voice over Original Actor, but animated Avatar. If it’s CGI or Hand drawn that’s time will tell
Ship’s Computer Voice? It’s already done…. *whistles* HCS Voice Packs
i assume
Remember it is April 1st. It is STUPID April fools’ joke.
Obviously, you didn’t read the article.
It doesn’t state that the character will return; it just addresses the Easter egg from a week-and-a-half old episode, and… if anything, nullifies any further speculation.
Is Kirk being revived to be the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy in the 32nd century?
If anything, he could be revived and become a cadet.
For a YA show, what possible rationale is there to reanimate a thousand year old corpse to run Starfleet Academy? No. Not happening.
If they’re going to revive him, I honestly wouldn’t mind it being a 14 year old version of Kirk. At least it would be something new that we haven’t seen. Write some story like where he’s cloned by a villain for some nefarious purpose, and once foiled, leaves us with a young Kirk who now just wants to live his life.
Kirk will be a talking head in a jar
……for the win! Kirk Headroom.
I would love that.
Starfleet removed the corpse just like the removed the saucer section: to prevent future cultural contamination when the species the next planet over comes a-callin’ in their pre-warp space program.
That’s a good point. Though, the man deserves a big state funeral, not being kept in the freezerino.
Kirk was already declared dead 80 years before. No one would care.
Look, kiddo, take a mental note here and remember that this edgelord stuff you do here with people isn’t going to work on me. Just move along and bother someone else from now on, okay? Thanks.
Did I hurt your feelings?
Very much agreed.
Could be, perhaps some clean up to prevent that from happen. But this do not explain his place inside Daystrom or Section 31 “toys”
The E-D would be a helluva monolith for pre-warp folk to discover.
At which point Kirk would have been interred with honors either at the Academy or in the town of his birth, not tucked away in a storage locker somewhere. Starfleet would have salvaged whatever was left of the E-D that was functional, and recycled the rest. What we saw in E6 was just fan service run amuck. It’s already not holding up well when the showrunner is having to walk s**t back.
Great Easter egg, terrible idea for a story.
precisely!
It’s not even a good easter egg. Is Dr. McCoy tucked away in another storage locker on Daystrom because the Yonadian’s cursed him with long life?
“a 1996 Star Trek novel written by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens”
Here, I’ll fix that for you…
“a 1996 Star Trek novel written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, with William Shatner’s name on the cover”
:)
Look, we all know these celebrity books, even the autobiographies, are never written by them. Sometimes the name of the real author is on the cover, sometimes there’s a subtle, or not-so-subtle, thank you in the introduction or afterword, and sometimes it isn’t mentioned at all. And this is true of talk-show hosts, of politicians, you name it. At best they talk into a recorder for a while and the job of the author is to put that into written words. Sometimes they don’t even do that.
Who among the Trek cast actually wrote their own books? I think every TOS lead except for Kelley wrote at least one autobiography or memoir. Among them…Nimoy probably wrote his two memoirs, and Chekov his TMP book. Beyond that…not much. Maybe Grace Lee Whitney’s was her own work, but I see she had a co-author as well. And Shatner’s written almost a *dozen* memoirs. :-)
And that’s no knock on them.
Koenig even wrote an episode of TAS. “The Infinite Vulcan”.
I think that was part of making up to him that he wasn’t in the cast.
What other cast members wrote? Nimoy and Shatner are all I can think of.
Is this real news? It is April Fool’s Day…
Obviously, you didn’t read the article either.
Again: It doesn’t state that the character will return; it just addresses the Easter egg from a week-and-a-half old episode, and… if anything, nullifies any further speculation.
I saw it as Matalas debunking the speculation Kirk’s return in the finale. He’s been good at doing this sort of thing. Not to be a party-pooper, but because he rightly recognizes that when fans get whipped into a frenzy over a fan theory that he knows isn’t true, it only creates false expectations, and potentially, massive disappointment.
Remember when Marvel fans got all hyped up that Mephisto was going to appear in WandaVision, and they were convinced it was going to be Al Pacino? Or when they thought that Evan Peters’ appearance meant they’d introduce other Fox X-Men characters? Marvel should have come out immediately and dispelled those theories, because all it ended up doing was disappointing people, and there was a huge section of the fandom that wound up angry that their own little fantasies weren’t true.
Yeah, exactly!
Berman blocked The Return from being made back in the mid 1990s according to Shatner himself the Star Trek producer aka Berman did not want it to be made… Would have been an expensive project as Shatner + Nimoy + FX budget alone would have been $30-40M before they hired anyone else!!
Even if that’s true, I don’t think Paramount would’ve approved it anyway. It sounds like they were ready to wash their hands of Shatner once Generations was made. And to be more frank, I think TFF put such a sour taste in everyone’s mouths, no one was going to give Shatner any creative clout with Star Trek after that; certainly not another movie.
It’s dated 1April….
And once again: Obviously, you didn’t read the article either.
No matter the date, the article doesn’t state that the character will return; it just addresses the Easter egg from a week-and-a-half old episode, and… if anything, it nullifies any further speculation.
Sheesh, you guys… 🙄
Gotta love Terry Matalas! Finally – some decent Star Trek (even if only Season 3 of an ending series; Picard) based on Roddenberry’s principle’s of human understanding, intelligence and wonder!!
Sadly, now we face more drivel, pathetic drama, romantic trysts, rivalries and teen angst in Disco’s continuation of ‘Starfleet Academy” where good science-fiction goes to die!
(I know this may trigger a couple of kids here who believe that Disco era Trek is the penultimate expression of Trek – which I have no doubt it actually is for them – just wish we lived in a Trek Universe that catered for both the puerile & the intelligent!)
Consider me triggered…
…to agree with you! 😉
Aww did somebody put too much salt in your soup? I can’t fathom why anyone is upset about “Academy.” It’s a show for teens.
Are you just mad because they also made something designed to appeal to a different group? Not everything has to be for you.
Not to get political here, but this is very much a right wing conservative mindset: when something caters to a minority group, for example, it’s inherently a bad idea, or even downright evil, because it’s for someone other than you, and that should not stand!
Relax. Let them make a show for teens, you’ll still get your old angry white man Trek on the Picard spin-off.
If there is any HOPE of doing some kind of resuscitation of Kirk, the body would have to have been recovered EXTREMELY quickly after the whole Veridian III fiasco. Otherwise, I’d have a very hard time buying it. I hope any future writer understands this.
Okay, let’s chalk this up as a half baked April Fool’s joke, and E6 going way too overboard on the fan service.
I used to think Kirk’s Return in the Return was ridiculous. Then i saw them kill off Picard and make him a robot. There is no holy writ on canon, these people do whatever they want.
Pine is the only one who could carry it but he’s younger than when Kirk died. The return was a great novel and I feel some part of that plot has something to do with this season 3.
Shouldn’t a regenerated Kirk be at peak age?
Exactly! Perfect for Paul Wesley!
I’d prefer Chris Pine to play Kirk Prime. I can’t believe i’m in agreement with Tarantino on that.
Bring Shatner back. I don’t care how old he is.
They keep dragging Spiner back so why not ShatKirk.
Because Spiner is cool, humble, and fun to work with.
You have clearly not met Brent Spiner on an off day, lets just say he’s not very pleasant
Those are his off days. I’ve never seen anyone in the cast have anything bad to say about working with him. He doesn’t demand to be the center of attention, he doesn’t hog the spotlight in a show, and he doesn’t publicly trash the franchise.
He’s also a member of the TNG cast, so that’s why they brought him back. When they do a TOS reunion, maybe they’ll bring Shatner. Maybe. I’d be happy with an episode that’s just Takei and Koenig having tea together.
If they wanted a cool cameo to close out Picard, it’d be neat to see very elderly SF officers Sulu and Chekov.
So MAKE this TV movie.
Well if they are going to bring back Shatner’s Kirk they had better hurry up and come up with something. Shatner is 92 years old and although fantastic for his age he won’t be like that forever!
My thoughts exactly. Let’s hope it gets stuck in development for like…idk… four or five years.
I’m fortunate to have a friend who works on the production who confirmed a few days ago that it was just an Easter Egg (unless of course he was misdirecting me too, but I doubt it.). And of course, now that Malalas has confirmed the Easter Egg status that seems to be the case. But it’s more than an Easter Egg, of course, it’s a seed, waiting for some other production team to plant or not. I think it’s an interesting seed – and one that doesn’t need to go in the direction we all suppose, with Shatner coming back to play Kirk (as fun as that might be). This is Science Fiction. Which means that anything is possible. If the tech exists to bring back someone who has died – then who’s to say that the technology doesn’t exist to bring them back younger, rejuvenated, etc.? The nice thing about science fiction is that anything that makes a good story (and I’m not here to debate whether it would be a good story or not) is possible.
I agree. It’s definitely more than an Easter Egg. If Kirk’s body is there, with the name “Project Phoenix,” then that’s a seed for another story and, imo, it’s one that they should take advantage of in some way, especially since they’ve already recast Kirk for the second time with a new actor, Paul Wesley, in Strange New Worlds.
Definitely seems ripe to be picked up in the future. Perhaps one of those platforms Kurtzman was talking about. Either a character based mini series or movie. Just give Shatner a story credit even if is only loosely based on The Return and hopefully he would be happy to take a small role. Then explore some of the elements of Section 31 relating to Project Phoenix etc. Could even include Genesis 2. That one scene planted some seeds they could pursue if they choose.
And they’ve already got a perfect new actor to play the cloned Kirk, in Paul Wesley. Well-timed!
Not Wesley.
It’s not the looks. It’s the performance.
He lacks the charisma, intensity, energy that makes both Shatner and Pine seem to take up more space than reality.
I believe Ed Speleers could really deliver Kirk. Wesley just does not.
lol You’ve seen him in half an episode, kneejerker.
All I needed to see was the teaser on WNMHGB to know Shatner ‘had it.’ This guy doesn’t.
lol ok, bud. You do you. I for one am rational and open-minded and willing to give him a shot in the role.
I’ll give Wesley a shot too. It’s fair.
I only saw Wesley biefly on youtube from scenes from his appearance in that SNW episode. Based on that, I agree with you. Pine was just wonderful as Kirk. Wesley may look more like Shatner, but I thought his performance, again, from the very little I’ve seen, was pretty flat.
That said, I don’t think they’d get Pine to play Kirk in a series, especially with Wesley already cast and in SNW season 2. I hope he comes across better than the bit I saw.
Having read those above mentions series of books and Kirk & Picard together and so forth, They are well written and would make a nice series/movie. Coming from the generation that watched TOS in first run, I would love to see JTK come back. Its what I grew up with and hold dear to this day.
Maybe Jack will turn out to be a Reman/Kirk/Picard ala Shinzon combo clone implanted into Beverly (unseen on screen) sometime just after ST:Nemesis in some long game plan of revenge against the Federation by Romulans. Who knows? Maybe Romulan spies stole some Kirk DNA from Daystrom long ago to do it. Ha!
What a bunch of hogwash. If they wanted to bring back William Shatner they would’ve done it a long time ago. I think there’s some sort of vendetta against him. That man is the one and only Captain Kirk. Every other actor pales in comparison.
I hope they have rights to the Shat’s image and voice so they can cook him up in a computer like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in recent Star Wars iterations. Nimoy would be another one you’d hope they’d rights to. There’s a couple five-year missions (post-TMP, post-TFF) we never got to see. But I don’t see it recast.
There were any number of ways to bring him back, into his own time. Coming back into the future wouldn’t be the best for the character. A return years ago would have written itself — no way Spock would have accepted that demise. He would have chased that “nexus” “round perdition’s flame” or something like that.
I was hoping for Shatner. Whenever my hopes are seemingly dashed, I remember that they outright lied that Cumberbatch wasn’t Khan. (Although they fooled no one.)
I love the Abrams movie, but, yeah, that was a complete fail wrt Khan. He didn’t look Indian at all. Of course, if he did, it would have been even easier to guess that he was Khan.
Was hoping he was Gary Mitchell, but i knew he was Khan.
Understand why he did it, especially as someone who didn’t like Picard left him on some desolate planet, but I wish there was just a line saying Kirk was returned to Earth, given a state funeral where he was buried in his hometown of Iowa and left it at that.
Showing that Kirk’s remains were being stored in Daystrom Station for experimentation didn’t bother me as much as when they revealed it. Once they showed that easter egg, I spent the rest of the episode wondering why Kirk’s body was there.
It was like… “Oh Moriarty! But why is Kirk’s body there? Oh it’s Data in a synth body… But what is Project Phoenix and why do they have Kirk’s body? The changelings took Picard’s frozen corpse! But is Kirk alive? I thought I heard a medical scanner too.” The placement was such a distracting choice.
I don’t know how the season is ending, but I would have placed a big easter egg like that at the end of the last episode of the season like a Marvel style end credits scene. Maybe showing a couple of Section 31 agents taking inventory of the vault and end with the reveal of Kirk’s storage locker. I would have liked that better personally.
But yeah, I understand why he did it too.
I understand why he did it. What I don’t understand is why someone in editing didn’t realize that it was stupid, and cut it out.
“Is it a tip of the hat to The Return, which is a wonderful book I recommend to all of you? Maybe. We just leave it open that someday some brilliant writer could do something. That could be an animated thing. That could be anything. It’s just to keep, as my friend Spock is fond of saying: “There are always possibilities.” That was the idea behind that.”
I can live with this. Like a lot of ST fans, including Generations writers Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga, Matsalas didn’t like Kirk’s end in the film either. Bringing back Kirk, probably played by a younger actor isn’t going to happen on Picard, nor should it. It’s obviously a big deal if it happens at all and it will take careful thought and a great idea for a story. If they don’t have that, which they didn’t have for Generations (Moore and Braga have admitted that), they shouldn’t do it.
They shouldn’t wait on this though. It would be great to get Shatner involved (possibly) and he is over 90. I’m sure he would do it, especially if it was a really good idea.
i would love an adult cartoon telling stories in time periods with character whose actors are too old to play them at the appropriate age….ie i’d love to see riker on the titan as a CGI animated show.
still holding out hope the face is shatner/kirk. but thinking its gul dukat
How can you be a Star Trek fan and not be a fan of Shatners Kirk? He is a golden character played by the best actor ever to appear on the show! There would be no Star Trek today without William Shatner.
The thought had occurred to me when I was watching The Bounty, was that the reason Kirk’s body was at Daystrom Station was because at one point scientists wanted to/were studying the effects of the Nexus on a human body for various reasons including suspension of aging.
“Kirk’s body was buried by Picard on Veridian III under a pile of rocks.”
Cairn.
I wasn’t really a TOS fan when I watched Generations, although I enjoyed the TOS films. When Kirk died I felt it was inevitable. As I have grown older and rewatch the shows and films, I agree it was not the correct choice to kill him in that fashion. However, Generations had so many third act problems I can’t really see any of it going well.
I do know that characters that are dead should stay dead, this isn’t a comic book franchise. Bringing Spock back in the manner they did was cool, and bringing Yar back the way they did was also really cool.
But when they killed Picard and downloaded him into the gollum, I thought it was a stretch, so bringing back an old, retired Captain thirty years after his death, and over a hundred years after his prime (remember he should have died in the beginning of the 24th Century not the end of it, thank you Nexus). It really makes no sense why they would resurrect him. It would be like resurrecting Dwight D Eisenhower.
First comment here. I thought season 1 of DSC was an abomination. S2 is the only one I rewatch, mostly because of Pike and his crew, but also because the second season show runners realized how absurd S1 was and tried to fix everything. Becoming a starship captain after committing mutiny–laughable.
I watch Lower Decks and sometimes laugh out loud by generally don’t enjoy it. I once told my spouse that the problem with the show would be revealed if a character like Boimler was ever done live action. All the yelling and screaming and running away would be absurd. Now, apparently, they are doing Boimler live on a SNW crossover. Wash my mouth out with soap.
Prodigy is a fun show for what it is. It has respect for the source material and timeline, something the original creators of DSC didn’t seem to care about.
Picard season one: loved it. Season 2: you could fly a starship through all the plotholes, but the end with Q and Picard was fab. It was just so painful and ridiculous getting there. Season three: excellent. Great writing and respect for timeline and source material.
Strange New Worlds: As good as it’s probably going to get in the Kurtzman era, which is very good. I kind of pretend all the Kurtzman stuff takes place in the Kelvin timeline, which obviously much of it couldn’t, but it’s the only way I can shut off my “WTF” switch and enjoy it. And I do enjoy SNW a lot.
Will wait and see on the Beverly Hills 90210 Starfleet Academy Show.
So the only things I rewatch from this entire mess are DSC S2, PIC S1 and S3, and SNW S1.
All that being said, things could be worse. A lot of people love DSC and LD, and I say good for them. There’s something for everybody. I just want a show respectful to the timeline and source material, with credible writing and characters. SNW is my favorite. LLAP.