J.J. Abrams became the envy of every nerd when he got to reboot Star Trek and direct the sequel Star Wars films. While his Kelvin Timeline is not as popular or well-received as the original shows and films, it still has some moments of redemption. One of them is the inclusion of Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime, which was among his final roles.
However, it was odd that Nimoy got a legacy cameo but the original series’ Captain Kirk did not. Abrams revealed that the team did plan on having actor William Shatner on board, but the actor wanted a more significant role for himself than a cameo. Abrams reportedly could not do that.
J.J. Abrams revealed William Shatner wanted more focus on his role in Star Trek reboot
While J.J. Abrams was given the offer to direct the reboot of Star Trek despite initially coming on board as a producer, the filmmaker was admittedly not a huge Trekkie. He called himself a casual fan and only had a liking for The Original Series. He claimed that he was a bigger Star Wars nerd, which he would soon go on to revive with the sequel trilogy.
Abrams had the support of his writers, who were fans of the franchise and included plenty of references and Easter Eggs for fans to find. They also brought in Leonard Nimoy to play Spock Prime, the father of this timeline’s Spock played by Zachary Quinto. However, fans noticed the absence of William Shatner, with not even a cameo to honor the icon.
J.J. Abrams revealed that the makers did have a plan to include William Shatner but only in a cameo, which the legendary actor was not too keen on doing. He said (via Trek Movie),
We actually had written a scene with him in it that was a flashback kind of thing, but the truth is, it didn’t quite feel right. The bigger thing was that he was very vocal that he didn’t want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves.
Shatner has been known to have conflicted with co-stars over his sense of vanity, with many of his TOS co-stars, particularly George Takei, who called him out for some of his behavior during filming (via Vulture).
J.J. Abrams said he chose to stick to canon than ‘fan service’ with regard to William Shatner’s inclusion in Star Trek
J.J. Abrams has often been accused of fan service and after Star Wars: Episode IX -The Rise of Skywalker, the accusations have only increased. However, the filmmaker reportedly chose to stray away from the very thing he has relied on now during the development of the Star Trek reboot.
The filmmaker mentioned that he wanted to adhere to the canon and hence had to let go of the opportunity of having William Shatner in the film. Shatner reportedly wanted a larger role than a cameo, but Abrams’ direction simply did not have the bandwidth for that. He said,
The truth is, the story that we were telling required a certain adherence to the Trek canon and consistency of storytelling. It’s funny — a lot of the people who were proclaiming that he must be in this movie were the same people saying it must adhere to canon. Well, his character died on screen. Maybe a smarter group of filmmakers could have figured out how to resolve that.
Writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci also mentioned that they had actually come up with a sequence for William Shatner’s cameo. The actor reportedly gave his blessing to Chris Pine after the latter wrote him a letter after getting cast.
Star Trek is available to stream on Paramount+.
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