Resurrecting Captain Kirk: William Shatner In Talks For ‘Star Trek 3’ Role


Bringing back William Shatner to play the original Captain Kirk comes with a number of obstacles. First of which is figuring out a plausible way to resurrect Kirk, who died in the 1994 Star Trek movie Generations. The other big problem may be selling Shatner on the idea in the first place.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, William Shatner was offered a cameo role in the first of the rebooted series, but some mild feuding appeared to squash the deal. As a result, Leonard Nimoy, who plays the original Spock, has had an integral role in the new films, but Shatner has been left behind.

Nevertheless, a scene between the original Kirk and Spock was written into the script for Star Trek 3. Once a news outlet got a hold of a leaked version, speculation snowballed. Shatner initially tried to end the rumors on Twitter, but finally admitted that there are some talks between him and the new director Robert Orci for his role in Star Trek 3.

According to The Guardian, Shatner said, “I had a talk with him the other day. So there’s talk, simply talk about the next movie.”

He explained further that he would accept a role provided that it “had something to do with the turning of the plot.”

Still, Trek fans are left with a million questions. The biggest one may be how will Kirk come back to life?

The difficulty with Kirk’s resurrection is, not only does he come back to life, he ages 20 years.

William Shatner has had some noticeable physical changes since 1994, which requires story-tellers to make up a place for him to have gone, like he’s been busy negotiating plane tickets prices, or the CG artists will have to blow-out their Photoshop budget.

As Shatner explained he’s not sure how this will turn out.

“That was so long ago. How do they bring me back physically like this? I don’t know.”

Whatever the explanation is, it has to fit into a plot-relevant role, rather than a minor Stan Lee-style cameo.

In the meantime, William Shatner has stayed busy with more than just the Priceline ads.

The former Star Trek star created a documentary about the TV series that came after his own, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

He’s also starring in a series on home renovation called The Shatner Project, and is designing a new kind of comic book, a motorcycle, and a clothing line.

Apparently, the 83-year-old William Shatner doesn’t have the word “retirement” in his vocabulary.

[Image Credit: Desilu Productions/Wikimedia Commons]

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