Well, my hopes for Star Trek XI being any good took a drastic hit today as William Shatner, in an interview with SCI FI Wire said that the “11th Star Trek movie will indeed, as rumored, deal with the early years of Capt. James T. Kirk and Spock—and that he will definitely appear in the movie if director J.J. Abrams can find a place to use him.”
I don’t mind if Shatner makes a cameo, but a prequel story is entirely unnecessary and until I learn more it remains uninteresting.
Shatner said, “I met with J.J., and they told me they would like me to be part of their film, but they have to write the role.” The idea of a young Kirk story is nothing new to Shatner as he reveals he has already submit a book to the publishers based on the early days in the Starfleet, “We’ve submitted the first book to the publishers, and I think it will be out in the beginning of 2008. It’s got a working title of The Academy, but I don’t think that will stick.”
Lately the rumor has surrounded Matt Damon playing the young Kirk and I even heard another rumor saying that Daniel Craig was in the running. As for Shatner’s part in it all he said, “They need to figure out how to put the dead captain in with the young captain… It’s a very complex, technical problem of how to write the character in, and I’m not sure how they will solve it.”
If Shatner plays anything other than an older Kirk, who we all know died in Generations it will be extremely cheesy, but who knows.