menuBarBack
Beam Up News | Join | Your Account
Home
Advanced Search
boxBottom
News Tribblets
boxBottom
Stardates Calendar
News Story

Features

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy Talk About New Star Trek Movie, Nimoy Says Movie Would be Better with Shatner Return as Kirk

Features

By GustavoLeao / 14:54, 13 August 2007 / Star Trek: Nemesis

StarTrek.com posted a transcript of Star Trek stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy at the Las Vegas convention. Here are few excerpts from the article.

Regarding the upcoming movie, new information that came out was that Nimoy will be shooting his part starting in December - a month after principal photography begins - and is scheduled for more work in February and March of 2008. Nimoy's role as the older Spock is "not gigantic" but "it's more than a cameo." Nimoy also talked about the challenge of trying to recapture the character and trying to examine where Spock has been and how he's evolved in the intervening years since we last saw him (in TNG's "Unification").
 

"Not long ago in San Diego," Nimoy said "I guess eight or nine days ago, we were in San Diego for Comic-Con ... a hundred thousand people at Comic-Con, a hundred thousand people! And the room where we held our panel announcing "Star Trek," the room was like this, packed, wonderful reaction, people very excited - I was on the panel with J.J. Abrams and the two writers, and a young gentleman named Zachary Quinto. And he does resemble me, I think he's believable as me, younger - but equally important if not even more so, he's a very talented actor, and I'm honored to have him take over the role of Spock after I'm done. So please give him a welcome when he comes on the screen, okay? He's a talented actor and he's a gentleman - he was at my house for dinner a couple of nights ago, we've spent some good time together and we will spend more good time together, and I'm really grateful that they have found this very talented young man to play the young Spock. I'm looking forward to that.


"And as far as Bill Shatner goes ... I told J.J. Abrams. when he asked my opinion, I told him that I think obviously Star Trek would be better with Bill Shatner as Captain Kirk in it. Now that's up to him, I'm not making the movie, but that's what I told him. I don't know if Bill wants to be in the movie - do you think Bill wants to be in the movie?" Saying that tongue-in-cheek, the audience laughed and cheered. "Yeaaaah."

"I am not in the movie, okay?" Shatner said "I am not in the [grumble] movie. Doesn't bother me! I'm okay about this! Bothers you?" The crowd yelled "Yeah!"


"Write J.J. Tell him how you feel. I don't understand it! I'm up for an Emmy for Boston Legal. I don't know whether any of you saw this "Roast" on Comedy Central - that's up for an Emmy! I'm up for two Emmys!! I'm not in the movie!!! Is he nuts? Yes, he's nuts!" Someone in the audience said "Mad cow." "He has mad cow, exactly. Pure J.J.: wonderful director, wonderful writer - he's got mad cow."
 
At one point, Nimoy put is hand to his ear as if he had a Secret Service earpiece: "What? ... No, I'm just gonna tell a few plot points ... No, just a little bit, J.J. ... But there's a lot of people here who want to know! Bill wants to know! ... Yes, I told them about Timmy, yes..."


"Is that J.J.?" Shatner interjected. "Give him my best, will ya? Tell him I love him. He's the best director, best writer I've ever seen. And a stupid sh** for not having me in the film."
 

Nimoy continued, "I don't even know the story very well and I have to find out where Spock is and has been for all these years. I'm not really sure exactly where we are going to pinpoint or plug into Spock's, sort of, character arc. Spock brings a certain character arc, as we all did on Star Trek over a 30 or 40-year period, and he was different in "Star Trek IV" or "V" or "VI" than he was in 1966 in the series. He had to evolve in certain ways. And I have to try to examine where he is now, where he exists now, what are his thought processes - is he more logical than he ever was, or less logical than he ever was? Is he more precise, is he calmer, is he more mellow, has he gotten cranky and crusty?"

"Are the writers aware of your thought process?" Shatner asked.

"Well, I think so, I think so. I really must say this, and I mean this sincerely, I think the writers really have done a great deal of homework and really understand the characters, and the essence of what Star Trek is, which I think is refreshing and very promising. So I have a high hope that they'll do a good job finding these elements for us. But as you know, you look at the printed page and then it's your job to try to bring something from home, bring something to that stage ..."


Nimoy said, "I don't even know the story very well and I have to find out where Spock is and has been for all these years. I'm not really sure exactly where we are going to pinpoint or plug into Spock's, sort of, character arc. Spock brings a certain character arc, as we all did on Star Trek over a 30 or 40-year period, and he was different in "Star Trek IV" or "V" or "VI" than he was in 1966 in the series. He had to evolve in certain ways. And I have to try to examine where he is now, where he exists now, what are his thought processes - is he more logical than he ever was, or less logical than he ever was? Is he more precise, is he calmer, is he more mellow, has he gotten cranky and crusty?"


"Are the writers aware of your thought process?" Shatner asked.


"Well, I think so, I think so. I really must say this, and I mean this sincerely, I think the writers really have done a great deal of homework and really understand the characters, and the essence of what Star Trek is, which I think is refreshing and very promising. So I have a high hope that they'll do a good job finding these elements for us. But as you know, you look at the printed page and then it's your job to try to bring something from home, bring something to that stage ..."

Shatner said, "They don't need Captain Kirk!" The crowd went, "Awwww!"


"I told J.J. Star Trek would be better with you than without you, and I also remind you that you died in 'Star Trek 7' ["Generations"] and I was not in it. If I had been in it, I would not have allowed you to die! I told you that!"


The full report can be found here.



More Top StoriesComments
Nov 22Exclusive Digital Content Now Available With New Star Trek Movie on iTunes
0
Nov 22Star Trek Online MMORPG Producer Talks Space Combat and Away Missions0
Nov 21Faran Tahir on His 10 Minutes as Captain Robau in J.J. Abrams Star Trek Movie2
Nov 21J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on Shatner and Nimoy7
Nov 21Roberto Orci on the Status of the Star Trek XII Script and the Possibility of Producing a New Star Trek TV Series17
Story Archives...Browse:   

Talkback

32 comments Post New | Help
View:

DirecTV. | Report this post to moderator
By: Admiral911 (Odo's file, contact) @ 10:57:52 on Aug 14, 2007

He may be 76 but with computer graphics anything is possible.

DirecTV Ad



Reply
Reply
Quote
Quote
Parent
Parent
Talkback Top
Top

RE: Agreed. | Report this post to moderator
By: Scorpius (Odo's file, contact) @ 08:32:34 on Aug 14, 2007

Thought about it... Don't want it.

I want Shatner back as Kirk. Bringing him back won't decanonise Generations in any way. Not that I would lose sleep if that happened anyway.

Kirk died in an alternative timeline which means that there's a timeline out there where he didn't die in which the TNG crew all died on Veridian 3.

Put the TNG crew together and they don't even equal Kirk's ankle in the greater scheme of things.

--------

"Men don't use sex to get what they want. Sex IS what they want" - Frasier

Reply
Reply
Quote
Quote
Parent
Parent
Talkback Top
Top
Promenade










TrekWeb Merchants
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
Amazon.de
Barnes & Noble

Get Firefox!
Privacy Policy | About Us | Legal Notice | Contact Us | | Get Firefox!
© 1996-2009 TrekWeb.com and Steve Krutzler. All rights reserved.