AMC’s SciFi Scanner recently spoke with JJ Abrams, who finally admitted that a scene has been written for William Shatner in his upcoming Star Trek prequel.
For months now, Abrams and his team have denied that Shatner would appear in Star Trek XI and in return, Shatner — who played the iconic role of Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek television series and its subsequent films — has been very vocal about his disappointment in not being a part of the new film.
Abrams said that although a “flashback” scene was scripted for Shatner, Abrams felt that “it didn’t quite feel right.” Because Shatner had said from the beginning that he did not want merely a cameo in the film, the filmmakers found it difficult to find a suitable part for him.
We actually had written a scene with him in it that was a flashback kind of thing, but the truth is, it didn’t quite feel right. The bigger thing was that he was very vocal that he didn’t want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves. The truth is, the story that we were telling required a certain adherence to the Trek canon and consistency of storytelling. It’s funny — a lot of the people who were proclaiming that he must be in this movie were the same people saying it must adhere to canon. Well, his character died on screen. Maybe a smarter group of filmmakers could have figured out how to resolve that.
Notice that Abrams, once again, brings up the fact that Captain Kirk was killed on screen (in Star Trek: Generations) and that having him appear in Star Trek XI would go against continuity. I think we all know that that’s hardly an excuse. In the history of filmmaking, how many characters have had an on-screen death only to be resurrected in subsequent movies? Also, I don’t know any fan who accepted that death of Kirk.
What was this flashback scene involving Captain Kirk? No word on that at this point, but perhaps one day this information will surface.
