Following up the high profile short film “Unification” featuring William Shatner’s Captain Kirk (which is approaching 400k views in just two days), the Roddenberry Archive and their technology partner OTOY have released three interesting interviews with Star Trek actors reflecting on their characters, the franchise and more. Some of the thoughts and stories will be familiar, but there’s enough new here to make them worth a look.
William Shatner has no regrets
The first one features William Shatner sitting in Kirk’s chair on a digital recreation of the Enterprise bridge as seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He speaks about his experience making Star Trek: The Original Series, his thoughts about creator Gene Roddenberry, producer Gene Coon, the character of James Kirk, and other aspects of making the series. He also speaks about his journey into space with Blue Origin and the perspective it gave him, but perhaps the most interesting part of the interview regards his longtime friendship and painful falling out with Leonard Nimoy.
George Takei still believes in Roddenberry’s vision
George Takei’s interview is even more Trek-focused, as he talks about meeting Gene Roddenberry for the first time and how he was cast, the origin of Sulu’s name, and the delight he had in playing an Asian character that wasn’t a stereotype. He also speaks of his friendships with James Doohan and Leonard Nimoy, as well as the key role Leonard played in getting he and Nichelle Nichols cast as their characters in The Animated Series.
Robin Curtis sees Star Trek as a gift
And in the final video, Robin Curtis speaks about the experience and challenge of playing Saavik in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. She also discusses reprising the role in “Unification,” and how much the experience of being involved in Star Trek has meant to her and her family. It’s a lovely, heartfelt chat.
Find more on Star Trek history at TrekMovie.com.
Aún fascinado con el corto metraje
All 3 interviews are terrific to watch!!
Good Lord, the gifts Trekmovie has granted over the past couple of days. Many Thanks. What a fantastic interview with Mr. Shatner. He is a treasure, and so focused and tight at his age. My Captain. I’ve said this a couple of times over the years, Thanks So Much Anthony and Crew, for all you do. This website is literally a Beacon in the Darkness.
Such a beautiful short film, so well done! Had me in tears, as I near my 70th birthday. Thank you, otoy!
That’s right, we share the same b-day week, congrats, Kev!
I guess that starting today I get to whistle ‘when I’m 64’ (instead of ‘the fool on the hill’ which I now reserve for politicians of a certain ilk.)
Maybe in your honor I’ll try watching TSFS tonight, instead of the typical annual TMP rewatch that my wife permits today or on Thanksgiving. If she demurs, I will remind her, ‘otherwise bargain no.’
And congrats and happy b-day to you as well, my good old friend! Remember all of those crazy short films I roped you into doing for me? Like the time in the surf at Half Moon Bay? Ohmy!!! I think I ran my car’s heater all the way back to San Jose, just so you wouldn’t get sick from being in the cold ocean water! I think that was February 1979 or thereabouts!
Likewise I’ve actually watched TFF a couple of times this year, having been prompted by a post of yours on this site! I like it a lot more, although that “god” actor always disappoints me a bit! I was thinking how interesting if “god” had been played by Jonathan Harris: “oh the pain, the pain!”
For some reason now I’m thinking of Kruge saying “I’ve come a long way for the power of Genesis, fiddle de dee, fiddle de dee …” (was that something Dr Smith actually said or am I conflating different series?) Actually, Harris (in his malevolent Smith mode) as Sybok could have been quite compelling …
Just watched the Shatner interview. It was really good. I think he’s just gotten more vulnerable, thoughtful and willing to share in his elder years. It’s probably inevitable.
Anyway, a couple of things. First, the Star Trek V memories were interesting. I get why Shatner wanted the Enterprise to meet God. That’s a novel concept. The problem is, as others were essentially pointing out, how do you do that in a way where you’re not alienating a significant portion of the audience. Not to mention, Star Trek is a science fiction franchise. There isn’t room for miracles, so how do you present God in such a way that it goes down with most people of faith and without? I think it would take a really good story to do that, and, honestly, I don’t think Shatner had one to begin with. Just meeting God on a planet at the center of the galaxy? Most folks who believe think that God exists outside time itself and permeates the universe. I’m not saying this story is impossible to tell, but to tell it the right way requires some hard thinking. In short, Nimoy said in his book that Shatner was riding a bad script, and, well, I think Nimoy was right. Yeah, Shatner made compromises and I get how he feels the movie got away from him. When the new Dune came out, they had several articles about Lynch’s 1984 film and from what I read, it was the same thing with him too. The Delaurentis’ made him compromise again and again to make the film fit in an under 2 1/2 (I think it was actually shorter) time span. You can just see where cuts were made. Some of those scenes that the new film has were filmed by Lynch and he had to cut them out. So, again, the movie getting away from the director, not a new thing. But, besides that, I just think there wasn’t a good story to begin with, like Generations. You don’t have that, you can’t make a good to great movie.
It’s sad that Shatner and Kelly weren’t as good friends. Everything I read about Kelly, no one ever had a problem with him. He was well liked and loved by all the cast. I really think, with his lack of ego, that he is one of the most, if not the most, under-rated actors in Star Trek. A lot of people, probably most, reduce TOS to Kirk and Spock, but for me, it was always the trinity of Kirk, Spock, and Bones. I love Doctor McCoy. He’s us, right there on that ship and under that gruff exterior, he cared so much for his friends and shipmates.
Too bad Shatner wasn’t totally happy with the “Oh, my” line he added (not to mention Kirk’s whole death scene). I thought the “It was fun” line that Moore came up with was great and his reasoning for that line made a lot sense. That was an expression of Moore’s appreciation and love for TOS, so, while GEN is very lackluster and problematic (again, riding a bad script), Moore definitely got that line right. The “Oh, my” is trickier, because, yeah, you can take it as fear. It was more ambiguous. So, while I get Shatner’s reasoning, the words themselves were problematic, and weren’t specific enough for what he was trying to convey.
I still think Oh my is great (the Shatner version. Takei’s version is fun too but anyway.) and I think it was well delivered, it’s not overacted, it fits the moment and the circumstance of him being impaled by a bridge.
I always wondered whether Shatner had seen Val Kilmer’s last scene in TOMBSTONE and was trying to echo that. For me, it was massively unsuccessful.
Ha! The Takei version is indeed very funny as well! Always get a kick out of that.
Didn’t Shatner do it first? Not sure when Takei stared doing it and am not sure if eh was deliberately stealing from Shatner – although the guy is definitely obsessed with needling Shatner.
Yeah, it’s interesting that the lesson Shatner took from Trek V was that he should have dug in his heels about actually meeting God.
Even if he had figured out how to portray a universal God from all cultures – what then?
The original outline, as described in one of his books with Chris Kreski, was pretty much the same as the final product except Spock and McCoy followed Sybok — and God turned into Satan and tried to drag everybody to hell and then Kirk had to save them. How could that possibly have been better?
I remember reading the book his daughter wrote about the filming of Trek V. Shatner had a lot of grandiose ideas that weren’t achievable on the film’s fairly decent budget.
The movie was DOA before they started filming with the script, Bennett knew it, nimoy knew it , Kelly probably knew it, even Roddenberry knew it (and was annoyed they were going with his Enterprise meets God plot). but what could they do? It was Shatners turn to do a movie after Nimoy had knocked it out the park twice. there was no way around it , they couldn’t have nimoy direct a third time, or get Meyer back . it had to be Shatners movie. and he was dead set on doing the search for God (who turns out the be the Devil!), I guess if Bennett or nimoy could have convinced him to not do that story they would have, and they did get the story rewritten so it wasn’t the actual Almighty and spock, bones joined kirk on the adventure instead of siding with sybok.. So they had to hunker down and hope for the best , that Bill would somehow pull it off with his dynamic energy .. But ultimately they probably just thought well if it ends it ends, who’d have ever thought wed get to 5 anyway and we all retirement age now (also Bennett was secretly preparing to do Starfleet Academy next, which he was hoping to direct..)
I met Robin briefly at a Boston Convention years ago and she was so sweet and gracious. When she came out on stage (this was right before Voyage Home was released) she had a little pillow on her stomach to simulate being pregnant and she then removed the pillow to much audience laughter as she quipped, “Only Spock knows for sure.”
To watch this interview with her is SO powerful; my Dad died a month after Star Trek III came out and her Dad December the same year.
And I LOVED when she got emotional about the character of Saavik and said, “She had a good life.” It is so heartfelt and glorious to watch!
I keep watching these. Such a great week for Trek. So many thanks to the Archive…
There’s a goofy caption error on this Shatner interview. It misidentifies actress Julie Harris from the stage play A SHOT IN THE DARK as Julie Haggerty.
Is a not so ultimate AI computer writing this stuff?
I kinda had a thing for Julie Haggerty back in the days of AIRPLANE!. Too bad I didn’t think to ask Nielsen about how she reacted to his constant and faux-pungeant “sound effects” on the film’s set.