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News movies & tv series 17 September 2024, 10:42

“It Was Suggested Not to Do It”. William Shatner Didn't Give Up and Decided in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to Do Something He Was Advised Against

William Shatner had a vision for his character that he wanted to embody in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, though not everyone was convinced. Nevertheless, the actor set his sights on it.

Source: Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, NBC, 1966
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After the success of the Star Trek TV series, it was decided to expand the story into films. Accordingly, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was first made, however, despite its financial success, it was considered a failure. But Star Trek and the story of Captain Kirk and his crew were not abandoned. It was decided to create another movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

William Shatner, who played James T. Kirk, came with a suggestion to the film’s creators. He wanted Kirk to be more sensitive this time, and therefore more human. He wanted to show him from a completely different side after the time jump, revealing that the captain is facing a mid-life crisis. Not everyone was convinced by his vision of humanizing Kirk, however, the actor managed to stake his claim.

Shatner told the story in 1982 during an interview with Bobbie Wygant. During that conversation, the artist confessed that the film dealt with themes of “youth, and old age, and death, and love”.

It was suggested not to do it at one point. By some people that had my best interests at heart. [But] my feeling has always been that the more human you can make a character, the more vulnerable, the more identifiable, the better it is. So we saw all means possible to do that.

Shatner did what he wanted to do, and that proved to be a good decision, with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan becoming the beginning of a trilogy that ended with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The second film is regarded as one of the best in the series, which only proves that Shatner may have had a good feeling about how to lead the main character.

Edyta Jastrzebska

Edyta Jastrzebska

A graduate of journalism and social communication as well as cultural studies. She started at Gamepressure.com as one of the newspeople in the films department. Currently she oversees the Gamepressure movie&TV newsroom. She excels in the field of film and television, both in reality-based and fantasy themes. Keeps up with industry trends, but in her free time she prefers to watch less known titles. Has a complicated relationship with popular ones, which is why she only gets convinced about many of them when the hype around them subsides. Loves to spend her evenings not only watching movies, series, reading books and playing video games, but also playing text RPGs, which she has been into for several years.

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