Most every Star Trek fan agrees that Captain Kirk’s death in Star Trek Generations was a bummer, and at least a bit of a letdown. Yet in the 32 years since then, nobody has apparently had the inclination to undo it, at least in canon. William Shatner played Kirk in a comedy sketch at the Oscars a few years back with Seth MacFarlane, and he even cowrote a series of novels that had V’ger and the Borg steal Kirk’s corpse. J.J. Abrams considered a Kirk Prime cameo in his first Kelvin universe Star Trek film, as a hologram in a birthday present to Spock, but it never ended up getting past the pitch stage.
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Season 3 of Picard revealed that Kirk’s body, canonically, is in storage at the Daystrom Institute, where classified weapons are stowed. The same location also stored a Soong android body, which provided a way to bring back the previously deceased Data into the storyline. Could the show have also been planting the seeds to bring back Kirk?
William Shatner Has Conditions
Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, has responded on X to any potential rumors of a Kirk comeback, including his terms for it to happen. “If someone came up with a meaningful way to bring Captain Kirk back to life, and gave him something genuinely interesting to do that added to the beauty and spirit of Star Trek, I would be delighted to consider it,” he wrote. “But that has never come up.” He continued by noting that Kirk is as important to him as to the fans, and he would never do a cameo just for the sake of doing it.
Another key factor to consider is that Shatner is now 95 years old, and was 63 when he played Kirk’s death scene. Science fiction allows for all sorts of aging, and special effects allow all sorts of de-aging, but any actor would have trouble just picking up the character again as if three decades hadn’t passed. “Until someone comes knocking with an idea worthy of Kirk…I wait. For them. Or for eternity,” he concluded. The gauntlet has been thrown down for a writer to impress Shatner in the limited remaining years he has left, but it’s good news for fans that the star won’t take any old script just for the chance to do it one last time. The idea of a Mirror Universe return of Evil Kirk didn’t cut it.
On the other hand, it still means that bummer of a finale with Kirk falling off a bridge remains his canonical death. Paul Wesley has had a blast giving us a prequel-era Kirk on Strange New Worlds, and gotten Shatner’s blessing, but aging him up to play 63 year-old Kirk for a resurrection would be a grave mistake. His take on the character as a young man is fine, but he isn’t plausibly an exact stand-in for his larger-than-life predecessor. Shatner, however, doesn’t especially need to play Kirk again — with his live speaking tours, and latest career move fronting a heavy metal band, he seems to be having plenty of fun with his final years. If somebody could demonstrate that a Kirk comeback could be as much fun, well, he’s indicated the door is open if anyone dares step through it with a compelling idea.
Would you want to see a 95 year-old Kirk return to action? Beam into comments with your thoughts!
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