Summary
- William Shatner regrets “not being equipped emotionally to deal with”
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. - Shatner also reminisces about the interracial kiss his character and Nichelle Nichols’ Lt. Uhura shared in Season 3 of
Star Trek: The Original Series. - Despite Captain Kirk being killed off in 1994’s
Star Trek: Generations,
Shatner’s legacy as the Enterprise’s leader endures to this day.
“I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly.” William Shatner doesn’t mince words when it comes to describing what he regrets “most” where his decades-long career playing the iconic Star Trek character, James T. Kirk, is concerned. That disappointing moment came when he sat in the director’s chair for 1989’s much-maligned Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. And the veteran actor dished on his failure with The Final Frontier in a brand-new interview. Shatner told The Hollywood Reporter:
“I wish that I’d had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, ‘Star Trek goes in search of God,’ and management said, ‘Well, who’s God? We’ll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can’t do God.’ And then somebody said, ‘What about an alien who thinks they’re God?’
Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I’m asked, ‘What do you regret the most?,’ I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So, in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn’t make the decisions I would’ve made.”
Shatner replaced Jeffrey Hunter’s Captain Christopher Pike as the leader of the U.S.S. Enterprise after NBC’s first pilot for Star Trek was reworked. Captain Kirk (Shatner) plays a game of chess with Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) when audiences are first introduced to Kirk in NBC’s second attempt, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Although, technically, television audiences would have first seen Kirk in “The Man Trap,” since that was the first Star Trek episode to air on TV.
Going Where No One Has Gone Before
The Final Frontier is without question one of the worst Star Trek movies, but the pluses definitely outweigh the minuses when it comes to William Shatner’s legacy as both Captain and Admiral James T. Kirk. One of the most important moments happened when his character and Lt. Uhura — portrayed by the late Nichelle Nichols — shared television’s first interracial kiss together.
The unforgettable moment happened during Star Trek: The Original Series’ third and final season in the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Kirk and Uhura were forced to kiss by the telekinetic powers of Parmen (Liam Sullivan) and his followers. And Shatner was questioned about whether he “pushed to make every take real” when he shot the interracial kiss scene with Nichols. Shatner said in the same interview:
I do remember saying, ‘Maybe they’ll try and edit it. What can I do to try and discourage the editing of the kiss itself?’ I don’t remember quite what I did because it’s difficult to cut away. But yeah, I remember thinking that.
William Shatner Shares Regrets Over Captain Kirk’s Death Scene in Star Trek: Generations
William Shatner believed he ‘never quite hit’ Captain Kirk’s death scene in Star Trek: Generations.
Sadly, Shatner’s final appearance as James T. Kirk came nearly 30 years ago in Star Trek: Generations (1994), which features the heavily scrutinized death of Captain Kirk. But despite his ill-conceived demise, courtesy of Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Ronald D. Moore, the legacy of Shatner’s time in the Star Trek universe still endures to this day.
