Cinematical

As soon as the new Star Trek movie buzz started up, the inevitable question was soon to follow: who would be in it? In April, it was confirmed that Captain Kirk would be in it. That's the character, not Mr. William Shatner. But really, that's not too surprising since the man, and his Vulcan counterpart Leonard Nimoy, turned the whoppingly ripe age of 76 this year. As great as he has aged, he just wouldn't look the same in that classic outfit. It'd be more of a happy buddha Kirk than the real deal. Since then, plot details have come out that have Kirk and Spock are in their young academy days. Okay, so this is going way back in time. Last month, Chris Ullrich posted about rumors that Shatner was ticked off because he wasn't getting a cameo in the film, but Nimoy was. It's one thing to say there are no cameos, but to exclude Kirk when Spock is in it? Come on.

Now, we've got it straight from the horse's mouth. Over at ShatnerVision, there's a video clip where ol' Kirk talks about the new movie and just what happened: "I called Leonard and I said 'Leonard! Have you heard?' and he said 'Yes, I have.' I said: 'What do you mean?' He said: 'I've read the script.' I said: 'Is it a good script?' He says: 'Yeah.' I said: 'Am I in it?' He said, and it was a pause. He says: 'No.'" While this doesn't make much sense to me (why wouldn't he be given a cameo?), what makes even less sense is the rest of the interview. The poor guy just finished his story about how he's completely not involved in the story, and what's the follow-up question? "When is this coming out?" Yeah, because the guy who got shafted from a cameo is part of the PR train. Sigh. Well, while I'm no Trekkie, I've watched a number of the old-school episodes in my day, and I used to go see all the movies. But really, I'm not sure I'll be interested without a little Shat. I guess I'll just turn on some episodes of Boston Legal instead.