The most disappointing movie of William Shatner’s career: “It failed, essentially”
It is absolutely mental how sprightly William Shatner is at almost 95 years of age, so much so that one can only assume he found some kind of elixir while nipping around different galaxies all those years ago, and as such is doing some kind of Benjamin Button thing, probably the same trick as Paul Rudd is pulling, only more so.
At 95, you’re supposed to be looking skeletal and staring at a wall in a home with a blanket on your lap, having occasional sips from a cup, not starring in actually very funny Super Bowl commercials and appearing in not one but three upcoming movies and a TV show. But Shatner seems to defy all of it, pushing well into 70 years on screen and even appearing on stage in a US-wide tour to support showings of 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Those 70 years began with a first movie as far back as 1951, a Canadian comedy called The Butler’s Night Off, and within five years, he was appearing on Broadway doing Shakespeare. Then by 1958, the highly-rated Shatner was in Hollywood and famously appeared in two of the best-remembered episodes of The Twilight Zone, including ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’ as a panicked airline passenger having an even worse experience than if he’d chosen Ryanair.
He went on to work consistently in TV and movies, but it was undoubtedly in 1966 that things changed forever for Shatner as he signed on to play the lead role of Captain James T Kirk in Star Trek, a TV show that influenced almost every piece of sci-fi we’ve witnessed in the 60 years since, and yet only ran in its first incarnation with Shatner at the helm until 1969.
But despite the success of the show, Shatner struggled to overcome typecasting and as a result could barely make ends meet over the following ten years, having to do adverts, game show appearances and poor quality TV movies. It wasn’t until Star Wars became a global smash that execs considered a big screen version of Star Trek and duly united all of the original cast for 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
It was a massive success, and over the next ten years, a further four movies were made. Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, who played Dr Spock, had very similar contracts, and because Nimoy had been handed directorial duties on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, by the time 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier came around, it was Shatner’s turn to step behind the camera.
Unfortunately, despite his high hopes, the film did not do well, commercially or with critics, no doubt due to arguments over storylines and plot being scrapped at the last minute. Shooting the film also caused a multitude of problems, with low-budget special effects not helping matters and some of the crew going on strike.
Years later, Shatner was asked by the Film Stories site if he would consider going back and recutting the movie, Zack Snyder style, but the veteran dismissed the idea, saying, “I think I’d be too sad about Star Trek V. In my mind, it had great promise. The ultimate Star Trek film: we had all these magnificent ideas. And it failed, essentially. It’s a huge disappointment to me.”
Although Shatner would go on to direct other projects in his career, mostly TV series and movies, it would represent his last chance at directing a major Hollywood movie. He added: “I thought because I’ve got a good sense of vision and what I want the camera to do, that sort of thing… I didn’t achieve what I wanted to do for a variety of reasons, many of which were not up to me.”
