Shatner still pissed they killed Kirk

[StarFuryG7]

I know this is music to Marc's ears . . .

Over at Blastr:

Shatner still pissed they killed Kirk in Star Trek: Generations

After a long and storied run as captain of the Enterprise, William Shatner's James T. Kirk finally bit the dust in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations, which paved the way for Star Trek: The Next Generation to take up the baton as the new crew in town. But that doesn't mean Shatner was happy about it. In fact, he's still pretty pissed.

MORE: blastr.com/2012/07/shatner-still-pissed-they.php

[TrekBeatTK]

Certainly the way they killed him was flawed. Shatner did try to get them to resurrect him for the next movie, which was ultimately the genesis of his novels. But his point here in the quote is not even that he's annoyed they killed him, but that "there were no trumpets." And of that he has a good point. Spock got a funeral. All Kirk got was Picard throwing some rocks on top of him.

Something tells me Veridian III might have become a shrine for Kirk fans post-Generations, with officers swinging by on shore leave to pay their respects until that pile of rocks starts to look like Jim Morrison's tomb.

-TK

[CRAMBAM]

No time right now to comment, but obviously, I'm still pretty pissed too.

[captainbasil]

Let's face it. Generations was disingenuous to both the TOS and TNG casts. It's not a very good movie. Sometimes Shatner is being...well...Shatner, but not in this case. There was no real reason to kill off Captain Kirk, except that the Paramount Powers-That-Be wanted to make a statement. A statement that I think they will eventually regret. I also thought that his death was rather ignoble. I would happily accept any storyline that would bring the character back. I believe that fictional heroes should be allowed to live on and meet fates that we never see, be it Captain Kirk, Sherlock Holmes or Conan.

[StarFuryG7]

Jul 14, 2012 12:59:27 GMT -5 captainbasil said:

I believe that fictional heroes should be allowed to live on and meet fates that we never see, be it Captain Kirk, Sherlock Holmes or Conan.

I think there are two ways of looking at it, and that's one of them. The other is that when you're looking at a heroic protagonist like Kirk, whose actions defied the odds time, and time, and time again, with him always emerging victorious in the end, at what point would such a guy's luck simply run out? It's great to always see him going up against the forces of evil, ignorance or stupidity and coming out the winner, but it's also not very realistic at all. So when you decide that a character of that type finally comes out on the downside (I won't say "losing end" because he and Picard accomplished their mission in "Generations" despite it also resulting in Kirk's death), you can also look at it as him having had a very good run of luck up to that final moment. However, I'm with you in terms of preference --there's also something sacrilegious about tearing a character like that down and toppling him. When I first saw "Generations" in the theater I was watching my boyhood hero die before my eyes, and it was done as a stunt by the studio, thanks also to the dickhead Ron Moore, who thought it would be a good way to finalize and put behind them all original cast movies once and for all so they could then move on exclusively to TNG feature films.

And that didn't exactly work out all that great for them anyway, as Shatner pointed out there in that interview.

I guess you could call that poetic justice in a sense.

[CRAMBAM]

I'm 100 percent on the side of the idea that when it comes to certain fictional characters, they should not be killed in any way.

Batman is human. He will die.

But that doesn't mean we should see it.

Kirk was like that too. It was so dumb.

And it's not so much that they killed him, but the fact that he was never brought back, despite the demand.

Look what happened the second they used the character again. Star Trek went through the roof financially.

[Mel]

There was no real reason to kill off Captain Kirk, except that the Paramount Powers-That-Be wanted to make a statement. A statement that I think they will eventually regret.

Eventually regret?? It's been 18 years. When do you think they'll begin to regret it?

I also thought that his death was rather ignoble.

I wouldn't call it ignoble. I agree that there was a lack of trumpets, as Shatner said.

Watching the movie the first time, I did not believe that Picard was capable of carrying Kirk's body up to the top of a mountain to bury him. As they left the planet, I was stunned that they left Kirk's body behind. He deserved a burial with honors.

That said, I have always supported Shatner's decision as an actor to choose to portray the death of a character he brought to life. Once upon a time, Shatner was excited about that. Maybe, over time, Shatner changed his mind, but there was a time when he was excited about it and wanted to do it. TPTB didn't put a gun to his head, and TPTB couldn't have done it without him.

I would happily accept any storyline that would bring the character back. I believe that fictional heroes should be allowed to live on and meet fates that we never see, be it Captain Kirk, Sherlock Holmes or Conan.

That makes sense. I loved the sense of wonder that we were left with at the end of ST6, as the ship headed to "the second star on the right and straight on til morning." I loved the signatures of the cast at the end.

That lovely ending was changed in Generations. There was talk (among fans) about reviving Kirk like they had done with Spock, but ultimately, that's not what TPTB did. James T. Kirk died, and TPTB did nothing to bring him back in a timely manner. IMO, it's too late to do it onscreen.

[StarFuryG7]

I think that once the drastic step of killing off a character is taken, the studio is committed and we the audience are stuck with it whether we like it or not, because to undo it cheapens everything, including the character. They did it with Spock and were given a pass, and had the good sense there to undo it as soon as possible after they did it. Killing Kirk was a stunt based on expedience and a studio desire to move on to something else (namely TNG feature films), and reviving the character would be another stunt to erase that mistake. When a brand reaches that level of tacky, cheesy, corrupted creative positioning, it's better to just lay it to rest and put it to bed, because anything done beyond that point is just going to be mostly crap anyway.

[CRAMBAM]

I think they regretted it instantly. Shatner definitely did. I don't think it registered that they would never let him play the role again if he wanted to do so.

It wasn't a case of the studio being forced to stick with it. It's Star Trek--they could have brought the character back at any point. If anything, the sales of Shatner's books should have been a sign that yes, the people want this. Not to mention the constant complaining.

They never lived it down, and it never went away.

Star Trek still hasn't recovered. Even the success of the last movie was marred by the failure to include Shatner when it would have been so easy to do so.

[Mel]

Even the success of the last movie was marred by the failure to include Shatner when it would have been so easy to do so.

How would it have been easy to include Shatner as the older-dead Kirk in the last movie? If you've outlined this before, sorry, I forgot.

[StarFuryG7]

Jul 18, 2012 7:00:21 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I think they regretted it instantly.

If that were true they would have done something to change it, but they didn't.

Jul 18, 2012 7:00:21 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Shatner definitely did.

Perhaps, but he also signed on the dotted line giving them the final go-ahead to do it. That check was more important to him initially obviously.

Jul 18, 2012 7:00:21 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

It wasn't a case of the studio being forced to stick with it. It's Star Trek--they could have brought the character back at any point.

Sure--all they would have had to do was go back to an earlier point in time before he died to intervene and change the course of events. But then you could ask yourself why don't they do that with pretty much anything then for that matter any time there's a serious problem? That's why time travel, even in Star Trek, isn't to be taken lightly and can't be easy to achieve except under very risky attempts to do it. However, doing that also becomes all the more unrealistic the more time passes, because the age of the actor becomes a serious issue making that kind of a storyline unrealistic. They could never go back to a moment before Kirk's death in "Generations" now to save him because Shatner has grown too old to take on that part at that stage of his life again.

Jul 18, 2012 7:00:21 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

If anything, the sales of Shatner's books should have been a sign that yes, the people want this. Not to mention the constant complaining.

Well, again then, why haven't they done it?

Jul 18, 2012 7:00:21 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Star Trek still hasn't recovered. Even the success of the last movie was marred by the failure to include Shatner when it would have been so easy to do so.

I took issue with you over this back then too, because it wouldn't have fit or made sense, and the only way you could have had Shatner's Kirk in there is if he were a product of the alternate universe that Nero and Spock Prime wound up in, because Kirk died in "Generations"--period. And he was never resurrected after that incident.

[captainbasil]

There are certainly two sides to this argument. While I agree that bringing Kirk back would have been a bit silly, it's obvious that Paramount blew this one and the reason they blew it is obvious as well. They backed the wrong horse. Trek TOS is much more action oriented than TNG. I love TNG but it is the truth. The Next Generation films never brought in the bucks the Original Series flicks did. TNG is good science fiction, but like a lot of good science fiction, it does not translate to the big screen well.

[StarFuryG7]

This surprised me just now ...Shatner replied to a thread I started over in the reddit Trek forum yesterday linking to the Blastr article about Malcolm McDowell and his role in "Generations":

www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/23ar6r/why_star_trek_generations_malcolm_mcdowell_didnt/cgvhxia?context=3

I wasn't expecting to see him there at all.

LOL.

[CRAMBAM]

That's AWESOME.

[StarFuryG7]

Apr 18, 2014 9:53:57 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

That's AWESOME.

I just responded to him. If you open that link again, my reaction should appear at or near the bottom.

He said he might return over the weekend. I wonder if he will, or if he'll actually respond to what I just said.

[captainbasil]

That's great that Shatner responded. Generations is just a mess and killing Kirk was the single dumbest mistake in the history of Trek.

[StarFuryG7]

Apr 20, 2014 8:01:41 GMT -5 captainbasil said:

That's great that Shatner responded. Generations is just a mess and killing Kirk was the single dumbest mistake in the history of Trek.

You never know when--or where--he's going to jump in over on Reddit, which is kind of cool. He has his own group/subreddit there, but this was over in the Trek subreddit in the thread I started over there that he actually decided to chime in, and I wasn't expecting it at all. Pretty wild when I saw it last week --I had to chuckle.

[captainbasil]

I have mixed feelings about Shatner as he relates to fans. Like Tom Baker with Doctor Who, he seemed to come around after a long period of dissing the show and fandom. But I do feel bad about them killing off Kirk. Kirk is an iconic character and the stuff of legend. Certain fictional characters should not have a specific demise: Kirk, Conan, Sherlock Holmes,Doc Savage, Tarzan, I could go on and on. Plus his death was used as a Hollywood tool to push a new franchise, that overall, failed.

[CRAMBAM]

Even if Shatner was the biggest dick in the world, Kirk should not have been killed off. The lack of common sense there is mindboggling, as is the refusal to bring the character back.

They didn't give the character the proper reverence he deserves, and I agree that there are certain fictional characters that reach a level where killing them off should never happen. Any TOS character belongs in that category. The LONGER the character lasts, the better the chances that character falls into that no kill zone. This is especially true when the writers didn't create the character.

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2014 10:42:24 GMT -5 captainbasil said:

I have mixed feelings about Shatner as he relates to fans. Like Tom Baker with Doctor Who, he seemed to come around after a long period of dissing the show and fandom. But I do feel bad about them killing off Kirk. Kirk is an iconic character and the stuff of legend. Certain fictional characters should not have a specific demise: Kirk, Conan, Sherlock Holmes,Doc Savage, Tarzan, I could go on and on. Plus his death was used as a Hollywood tool to push a new franchise, that overall, failed.

I'd also add, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, C-3PO, R2-D2, John McClane, Rambo and the Ghostbusters to name some more.

Always see it in real life, but never want that with my fictional heros!

I'm reminded of this line by Katherine Ross as Etta Place from a 1969 feature film about 2 actual outlaw heros, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid...

and I'll do anything you ask of me except one thing. I won't watch you die. I'll miss that scene if you don't mind.