The official Star Trek Las Vegas Convention started yesterday and continues through Sunday, bringing all the biggest names and personalities in the world of Trek to the same venue for panels, signings, swag, cosplay and, of course, Klingon Karaoke! But one figure looms particularly large at STLV, of course: William Shatner, the man who helped create this mega-franchise 50-plus years ago.James T. Kirk is renowned, one of the all-time great characters of popular fiction, but the actor who brought him to life is just as much of a legend as his starship captain counterpart. I jumped on the phone with Shatner this week to chat about the Vegas con, Quentin Tarantino’s potential Star Trek movie, Shatner’s biggest regret about the Trek film he directed, and that Star Trek life in general…
Be sure to also check out the official Star Trek Vegas 2019 Creation Entertainment site for all the details on the show, which runs from July 31-August 4!
The First Star Trek Convention
Shatner recalled his very first Star Trek convention, during a time when Star Trek had been cancelled on TV but the movies had not yet launched, where he was essentially thrown out on stage with no idea what to expect.
“It was in New York in the early ’70s,” he said. “I believe it was the first one. There were 15,000 people in the audience. I said, ‘Well, what do I do?’ They said, ‘Well, just go out and talk to them.’ Have you ever imagined yourself going out in front of 15,000 people, not knowing whether to say hello or not, and not knowing what else was going to come about? That’s what it was like for that first time. Absolute madness. What do you say in front of 15,000 people? It was the actor’s nightmare of not knowing the lines, except the actor’s nightmare is you’re also naked!”
William Shatner attends an early Star Trek convention.
Fortunately, Shatner was at least fully clothed. And of course, much has changed since then. For one thing, not only did Star Trek come back with movies, and then more TV shows, and then more movies, and then more TV shows, but the convention experience of fandom in general has become a cottage industry as well. Still, Shatner admitted to thinking at times that the whole con experience was perhaps just a passing phase.
“It started out with my thinking serious actors didn’t do this,” he said. “Then it evolved into having great fun with the audience, coming out in front of them and doing a spontaneous performance for an hour, and trying to make them laugh and inform them. Which evolved into a one-man show, which I did on Broadway for a while.”
Shatner says he loves the convention experience now.
“The kick I get is being in front of the audience, and doing an improv for an hour,” he said. “I have fun with them, and I’ve developed a way of going about it, a process, in which I involve the people asking questions in the question. So we’re all getting to know each other, and rather than being just me, it’s me and everybody. … I try to invent as I go along and it’s more thrilling and more challenging to me.”
Tarantino’s Trek
With Quentin Tarantino out and about lately promoting his new film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, there’s been a lot of talk about his potential Star Trek movie. We know that a script has been written based on an idea by Tarantino, and while word recently came that it would involve the “Chris Pine timeline” if the project happens, that doesn’t rule out someone like Shatner also being involved.
“Yes, I’ve heard about it,” he said. “Tarantino’s a wonderful, immediate director. He’s full of passion, and I think Star Trek works on that kind of passion. I think it would be wonderful.”
So what are the chances of us seeing a return of the William Shatner Kirk in the film as well? The actor acknowledged that he’d be up for returning to the role, though he joked about where his version of Kirk would fit in now.
“I don’t know what they do with an old, overweight captain,” he laughed, “But certainly to work with Tarantino would be a joy.”
As for returning to Trek on TV, as his fellow captain Patrick Stewart is now doing with a new show centered around the character of Jean-Luc Picard, Shatner seems less interested.
“Well, I’ve got a new show on that I’m hosting called The UnXplained on The History Channel,” he deflected. “It just debuted a couple of weeks ago, and it’s doing very well in numbers, so I have high hopes that it’ll be popular.”
I Need My Pain
Shatner of course directed the fifth Star Trek movie, The Final Frontier. The film is not the best regarded of the series to be sure, but it does have some great moments. One such scene comes near the end of the film, when Shatner, DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy are confronted by the character Sybok, who offers to remove their “secret pain” from them. Kirk refuses:
“You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!”
I asked Shatner about crafting that scene, which he said was intended to remind us that no matter how far we go into the future and how perfect our technology becomes, we’ll still need our humanity.
“I did [that] in one shot,” he said. “If I remember correctly, I had the three of us lined up, and went to each, in essence to get an opinion on the emotion of the moment.”
Unfortunately, The Final Frontier is still a source of mixed feelings for Shatner.
Shatner directing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
“Well, that movie suffered from my lack of standing on my principles,” he said. “I thought being politic was important and therefore tried to ameliorate situations. So, for example, I wanted the original idea to be Star Trek in search of God, and then everybody brought up the problem of who’s God is it? In order to resolve that, somebody suggested it’s an alien thinking they’re God or the devil, and I accepted that, but it mitigated the force of the show. I had to learn a lesson that we all need to learn, and that is life is comprised of standing on your principles, and not.”
In the end, Shatner seems to truly appreciate the Star Trek experience. We know that actors can wind up butting up against roles that become larger than life — it was his costar Leonard Nimoy, after all, who wrote the book I Am Not Spock (and then, eventually, the sequel I Am Spock). William Shatner is at ease with where Star Trek has brought him, and he has affection for James T. Kirk.
“Very much so. Very much so,” he said. “I enjoyed playing the character, it was well written, and I look back every so often. It was some good work. … I never forget that you and I are talking because I played Captain Kirk, but I also marvel at the phenomenon that is Star Trek.”
For more details on the official Star Trek Vegas 2019 convention, check out the official site.
Talk to Executive Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!
