William Shatner Thinks Star Trek 3 Is Using His Name To Create Hype

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

William ShatnerThere’s been a great deal of chatter about Star Trek 3 lately. We’ve heard everything from potential start dates for production to overviews of what the plot entails, but few things have sparked as much interest as the idea that (probable) director Roberto Orci reportedly wants original Star Trek star William Shatner to cameo in the movie. This is all based on speculation, hearsay, and possible offhand comments, and now both men have weighed in on the subject.

Thankfully we live in a magical time where any loudmouth can sound off on social media and the Internet and people will listen. And one thing we know about Shatner is that the man is never shy about letting you know how he feels. Lets go see what he has to say.

The T.J. Hooker star released this message to the world:

To put this in context, the initial reports making the rounds were from someone who has seen (or claims to have seen) a copy of the script that was finished back in August. In their account, there is a scene where Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) and Kirk Prime (Shatner) both show up at the same time. (Kirk did die in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations, but given the ever-shifting timelines, that’s an easy enough detail to work around.) You understand why that might catch the attention of Star Trek fans.

No one ever said that they were conversations going on, that Shatner was on board, or that anyone even contacted him. In fact, they’re still working out a budget, so Star Trek 3 hasn’t even officially been given the green light yet. The same goes for Orci as director, it certainly sounds like he’s going to be in the big chair, but Paramount has never given official word yet.

This is basically a case of people jumping the gun and reading headlines without actually bothering to get the details. No one ever said that Shatner is going to be in Star Trek 3, there’s just a moment in the script where his version of Captain Kirk shows up. There are probably lots of things in the script that won’t show up in the finished movie. Hell, every script for every Star Trek movie probably has a scene where Captain Kirk makes a cameo, just in case. There was reportedly one in the script for J.J. Abrams’ 2009 film that didn’t work out. You don’t want the opportunity to arise and be left holding the bag, now do you?

orciFor his part, Orci deleted his Twitter account a while back, but he did stop by TrekMovie.com and leave a couple of comments on the message boards. He wrote:

love no win scenarios. In theory, damned either way.

Which someone again took to mean something totally different, and followed the next day with this message of clarification:

Not in my interest to confirm or deny anything because it limits my options while maintaining my integrity as a truth teller.

The movie is not the movie till it is in the theater. Until then, everything is a rumor.

There are going to be a great many things discussed over the process of making Star Trek 3, you can bet your ass there have already been countless ideas bandied about that won’t come anywhere near making the final cut of the movie. Again, just because it’s in the script, doesn’t mean it will be in the movie, and just because someone had the idea to get Kirk and Spock back together onscreen again, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It’s not worth getting this worked up over.

Right now the word is that Star Trek 3 is aiming for a summer 2016 release to coincide with Star Trek’s 50th anniversary.