This is really the best pitch the Strange New Worlds showrunners could come up?
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman said back in May that his “biggest regret” was not being able to include William Shatner on the streaming series. However, in a brand-new interview, fellow showrunner and executive producer Henry Alonso Myers revealed that Captain James T. Kirk’s (Shatner) proposed appearance on SNW was going to be set within the confines of an animated follow-up to The Original Series episode “The City on the Edge of Forever,” rather than live action.
Myers said (per TrekMovie.com): “What we were trying to do was an animated episode with him. We wanted to do like a very serious one. We had a whole plan to do it around him and to redo ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ and kind of do a retelling — not a retelling, like a part two kind of thing.”
Myers said during the same sit-down:
“We were genuinely having a long discussion with him [Shatner] about it […] We came very close that season. We had a wonderful discussion with him. We were trying to make something that was something he could be a part of that’s something we could actually show on screen. That something could show some aspect [of] what it was like in the past, and what does it look like in the future. We had a really interesting plan for it.”
Clearly, Myers and Goldsman were going to take a similar approach to what they did with the must-see Strange New Worlds season 3 Lower Decks crossover, “Those Old Scientists,” in which characters throughout, most notably Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) appeared in both their animated and live-action versions at different points during the episode.
Given Myers’ revelation that the proposed Strange New Worlds follow-up to “The City on the Edge of Forever” would have been animated, that likely indicates why the iconic Star Trek actor passed on the role. Shatner recently posted on social media the two requirements which must be met for him to return to the franchise and reprise the role of Captain Kirk — and I presume Myers and Goldsman couldn’t meet those expectations.
What do you think about Myers and Goldsman wanting to bring William Shatner’s beloved character back solely as an animated James. T Kirk? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages.
Live long and prosper, Trekkies!
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