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William Shatner wants to organize a musical to celebrate Star Trek’s 50th anniversary next year.
However, Shatner, who played Star Trek’s original Captain James T. Kirk, says he’s had little luck convincing the higher-ups at Paramount of the idea.
“I’m attempting to sell a 50th anniversary show, but so far I’ve had very little luck.” Shatner said. “Maybe because Paramount’s going to do their own – but I don’t know how they can do their own without me. I’ve never been contacted.”
“I’ve been actively trying to do a 50th anniversary show … We had a big company say: ‘What about a musical or a music variety show?’ That got some traction – but nothing’s come of it yet.”
Now, even at 84-years-old, Shatner hasn’t slowed down enough to watch himself on-screen as Kirk.
“I haven’t watched myself on Star Trek, except when forced to because I’m directing something. So there are many, many of the episodes that I did all those years ago that I have never watched, and that goes for every iteration of Star Trek… I just haven’t had the time.” he said.
While Shatner produced and directed a documentary film about the creation of the second Star Trek television series, The Next Generation, in 2015 called “Chaos On the Bridge”, he says he hasn’t watched complete episodes.
“The people on Star Trek: The Next Generation are friends of mine, and they kid me about the fact that I have never really seen a full-length Next Generation.”
According to Shatner, his wife hasn’t seen much Star Trek either. Recalling a double-date they went on with Patrick Stewart and his wife, Shatner said:
“The four of us went out on a date, and my prospective wife said to Patrick, ‘How can you be Captain if my husband’s Captain?’ She had never seen a Star Trek!”
Would you go see a Star Trek musical? Who would you like to see perform? Tell us in the comments below.
UPDATE:
Shatner reacted to the news on Thursday via Twitter, saying “I think this Star Trek musical story is getting out of hand. I mentioned in an interview that a company had approached me anecdotally.”
I think this Star Trek musical story is getting out of hand. I mentioned in an interview that a company had approached me anecdotally.
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) November 13, 2015
via The Guardian
Corylea
November 12, 2015 at 1:06 pm
How can someone be married to Shatner and NOT have watched the work that made him famous? It seems as if elementary respect would dictate that one do that.
SuperByteMan
December 14, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Corylea’s comment reminds me of an anecdote about a Mensa friend and Jimmy Doohan. She had attended one of the Trek conventions, saw him sitting alone at a table in a restaurant. She greeted them, they started a discussion that had nothing to do with Star Trek and he invited her to sit down and join him. She says that several times, people would come over and try to talk about Trek, but he’d adroitly steer the conversation back to what she and he had been discussing.
I believe this is easily possible because I remember having breakfast with Sir Clive Sinclair, who invented the Sinclair ZX80 computer, at a Mensa convention. Though we were both computer nerds, the one thing we did not talk about over breakfast was computers. We talked about everything else.
Final anecdote: While I was LocSec (local president) of SLAM (St Louis Area Mensa), a reporter came to one of our meetings. She told me afterward that she expected that everyone would be talking about intelligence, but admitted sheepishly, that she only knew of one person who brought the subject up at all, and that was herself.
In other words, it does not surprise me that Mrs. Shatner may never have seen his work, but simply known of it. Perhaps Shatner did not seek a fawning fan when he sought out social relationships. Instead, he may look for friends who do things that he also finds interesting. I’m sure he did not live Star Trek, so why would he seek out someone who did?