William Shatner defends profanity in an R-rated Star Trek

William Shatner, Captain James T. Kirk himself, doesn’t understand why fans are so up in arms about profanity being in an R-rated Star Trek film.

Last week director Quentin Tarantino finally gave an update on his long in the works Star Trek project. The big news was that Tarantino finally confirmed that yes, any Star Trek movie he works on will be rated R.

Once news broke that a Tarantino-directed Star Trek film would likely include profanity and probably a level of violence not seen in the franchise before, Trek fandom quickly took sides on the matter and proceeded to make a lot of noise on social media.

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It was like Star Trek: Discovery all over again.

Unfortunately when it comes to something like this, it’s tough to say who’s right. Will mixing a Pulp Fiction aesthetic with an established franchise like Star Trek work? Who knows? We’ll have to wait for the movie to actually be made and released before we can really judge one way or the other.

However, one person who doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about is William Shatner.

That’s right. The man who portrayed James Kirk for 50 years has come forward to say that he doesn’t think adding profanity to Star Trek is anything to get worked up over.

The Star Trek icon went to his Twitter feed to respond to someone who asked what he thought of an R-rated Star Trek and the fact it would include profanity. Shatner actually made a very good point.

Some fans seem to have forgotten that Discovery dropped the franchise’s first F-bomb during the show’s first season. Trek fandom got a little worked up then, but nothing like what we’ve seen over the last week.

It would seem that if you add Quentin Tarantino’s name to the equation, all hell breaks loose.

It should be noted that Tarantino is, in fact, a huge Star Trek fan and has been for years. In all likelihood we won’t suddenly see Kirk and Spock cursing up a storm like Vincent and Jules in Pulp Fiction.

That said, cursing really isn’t worth Trek fandom getting irate over, not when you’re getting a talent like Tarantino behind the camera.

You want something to get upset about, go watch “These Are The Voyages…” and Star Trek: Nemesis again. Now that’s worth getting pissed over.