Iconic Star Trek Star Is Willing To Reprise Franchise Role, Even If It Involves AI

Highlights

Star Trek’s William Shatner may return to iconic role, open to de-aging with AI technology for new project.
Shatner discusses potential storyline for character resurrection, raising questions about AI’s role in film.
Shatner’s return to Star Trek as a younger Kirk character is a possibility, despite controversy and skepticism.

One of the Star Trek franchise’s biggest stars from the past has given fans quite an unexpected piece of news about a potential return to their iconic role, touching on an issue that has been largely contentious in the industry for years.

Star Trek is one of the most popular science fiction properties in the cultural zeitgeist, setting the standard for far-future utopian fiction and spawning a full-fledged multimedia franchise that spans games, films, television, and more. This success all started with Star Trek: The Original Series from 1966, a three-season run that established the franchise and became the foundation for its domination of the small screen science fiction space. A lot of this success is often attributed to series lead William Shatner, whose role as commanding officer of USS Enterprise James Tiberius Kirk was so synonymous with his career that he even used the iconic Star Trek character in an ill-fated stand-up comedy set.

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Shatner, who has been away from Star Trek for a while, with his most recent active involvement being a 2013 video game ad for the franchise, recently revealed in a Hollywood Reporter interview that he’d be willing to return to the Star Trek role conditionally. However, the iconic actor has come out even more recently to double down on this claim with the addition of a fairly unexpected element; he’s willing to be de-aged significantly to play a younger version of the character in a new project. In a video conference interview with Global News to promote the biographical film You Can Call Me Bill, Shatner expresses this desire to return to the great, well-written role quite clearly, despite being well into his twilight years at age 93 and accepting that the proposition is somewhat impossible given the circumstances.

It’s almost impossible but it was a great role and so well-written and if there were a reason to be there not just to make a cameo appearance, but if there were a genuine reason for the character appearing, I might consider it.

While Shatner self-admittedly hasn’t kept up with the Star Trek franchise at all from the onset, he still proposed a potential way to work his character back into the franchise, vague alluding to a plotline that would see the character’s preserved brain and body by a company for posterity and then subsequently being brought back as a younger version of himself. This is a stark contrast to his previous statements about only wanting to do it if there was a storyline written that wasn’t a “stunt” and would work with a Kirk that was 50 years older in the narrative, similar to the situation with Jean Luv in Picard that spawned the original question. However, it seems like one of the very few ways the character, who was killed off in Star Trek: Generations, could make a meaningful return.

The degree of digital de-aging required to achieve this can only realistically be achieved with AI, which has been widely contentious in the industry since the technology started making its way into film and television. Where another prominent figure like Neil Newbon would describe AI use as a slippery slope, it’s strange that Shatner would advocate for its use, especially as skepticism tends to go up with age on the topic. However, it is worth noting, as Global News did, that Shatner is a spokesperson for Otoy, a company that has specialized tools for the sort of drastic de-aging that Shatner suggests could be used here. This would mark a conflict of interest with the concerns that led to AI being such a pivotal part of the twin strikes of 2023.

Whether or not fans and his contemporaries will feel as comfortable with the idea as Shatner seems to be is up in the air, but it’s unlikely that the man himself cares much one way or another. His Star Trek co-star George Takei has had harsh words for Shatner on multiple occasions, and it has never phased the former franchise lead. In the end, the whole thing is probably not on Paramount’s radar and will pass without too much fanfare.

The Star Trek franchise is currently available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek

Star Trek is a space exploration franchise originally created by Gene Roddenberry. The series has spanned shows like The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Voyager. More recently, developer Scopely came out with Star Trek Fleet Command, a mobile title where you get to be captain of your own ship.

Created by: Gene Roddenberry
First Film: Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Latest Film: Star Trek Beyond
First TV Show: Star Trek: The Original Series
Latest TV Show: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Creation Year: 1966