50 Years of Star Trek Page #11

- Oh...

- 'Cause they're really one guy.

- I was like, "What did I miss?"

- [laughter]

- Mcskirk?

- I didn't see that episode.

It's a transporter malfunction.

You take that... those three...

Those three, it's like one guy

split up three ways.

You know, ordinarily,

if you have one person,

if you want to know what's

going on in their head,

you gotta have a

voice-over or something.

But with those three

guys, split up that way,

they could have a conversation...

- Yeah.

- And it's really like one guy.

I gotta go with Kirk.

- You gotta go with Kirk.

- I mean, the original series.

You just... the way he

just kinda, you know,

- sauntered around.

- Yes.

You gotta love him.

The Shat was the guy I grew up on.

I admire Picard.

I love them all equally, but...

uh... I think there is no substitute

for Bill Shatner.

Shatner's putting

on such a great persona

of a trustworthy captain

with just enough sense of humor.

You know? And calm under pressure.

And good with the ladies.

Shatner had it all.

The way he presented that character

was just so awesome

and believable and

theatrical at the same time.

He's not a subtle guy.

But I just thought it was great.

He fought... I think it was, like,

a Gorgan or

whatever. It's where he had...

Captain Kirk is stranded in the desert

and he's got, like, this lizard creature

he's gotta fight and he's gotta learn

how to make, like, gunpowder

and projectiles and stuff like that.

Certainly the iconic, classic scene

in which Spock... or Kirk

confronts "God" and says,

"What does God need with a starship?"

What other character in

the history of cinema

would come up to God? Not

even Charlton Heston

would say to God, "What do

you need with a starship?"

Absolutely, without question,

my favorite captain is James T. Kirk.

I mean, he just... Kirk

did the right thing.

He said the right

thing. People looked up to him.

He was a man of action.

He was a man of romance.

And, like, I mean, as

performed by William Shatner?

I mean, there was a

reason why as a little kid

I wanted to be Captain Kirk.

There's a reason why as an

almost 50-year-old grown-up

that I still watch the original series

and I still wanna be James T. Kirk.

He is the best captain.

The way he would stare down

100-foot tall Apollo, and with great...

sort of indignation.

"What gives you the right..." you know,

- to a 100-foot tall god...

- [laughter]

He shouted, "What gives you the right?"

- When Apollo just could have...

- [laughter]

Done that.

Yeah, the sort of

leadership and the fearlessness

and also... my first understanding

of what a...

- you lead by example.

- Yeah.

The captain's setting,

the fish stinks from the head down,

all of those leadership qualities

that hadn't been shown

to me by a family member

or by anyone at school, a teacher.

Really, it oddly was that

leadership necessary

as put forth by Captain

James Tiberius Kirk.

I mean, I love Captain Kirk. However...

I have...[stammers]

you know, I have to say

that I think my favorite

captain is Picard...

- Uh-huh.

- Because the thing is

Kirk is really only 1/3rd of a guy.

- Oh...

- He's only 1/3rd of a guy!

- Interesting.

- Picard is a nice,

well-rounded guy.

And he doesn't have to punch

anybody in the face

to get his point across, right?

- But if he has to, he can.

- Well, he can,

but he usually has Riker do it or Worf.

Yeah, he, uh...

You know, for me, in a lot of ways,

"Next Generation" was a...

- "Star Trek" kind of grown up.

- Yeah.

You know? And

that started with Picard.

Yeah. My answer's actually Picard too.

Just because I find him to be...

I don't think he's the

most realistic of a captain.

I think that Picard has so few flaws,

and he only really finally becomes human

after he's a Borg and

then turned into a human.

You know, he really just starts like...

They give him a love

story once in a while...

But it just... I don't know.

I just love... I found

Picard to be virtuous

and I found Picard to be like, oh...

if humans could one

day turn into that guy,

maybe "Star Trek's" plausible.

But it's not gonna happen.

Yeah, he's a great representation

0 of kind of Rodenberry's vision.

- Yeah, a vision of what

- humanity can be.

- A captain needs to be.

- What a captain is.

- Exactly.

Yeah. Just putting every...

He just... I don't

know. I just always...

And that accent. I

mean, you can't really...

- Well, the accent, yeah.

- Top that voice.

Narrator:
Coming up, the 50-year

legacy of "Star Trek"

and beyond.

The show is about what

it is to be human,

and that never goes out of style.

And it's the type of

stories that they tell

that you don't generally

get in other television shows.

- Yeah.

- The introspective...

And the basis of it is who are we...

who are we as human beings?

I think it's because

it's an optimistic view of the future.

- Hope.

- Yeah. It's hope.

- Yeah.

- I think that's exactly

what it is... it's an

optimistic portrayal

of what we could hopefully achieve

and what our society could be like

and that we finally accept each other

and we finally learn to

look past differences

and things like that.

And I think that we so desperately hope

that we can achieve that.

And it evolves, you

know, from series to series,

over the 50 years.

It may have some core values and ideas

and the optimism and the hope,

but it evolves with the times, too.

So it, you know, it... hopefully

the next reiteration

will fit our times

today much like, you know,

"The Next Gen" did in

the late '80s, early '90s

or "Deep Space Nine" and

"Voyager" in the '90s,

and, of course, the

original series back in the '60s.

But it's been able to evolve.

It hasn't been a static

kind of franchise.

That is what's great about it, for sure.

There's that Martin Luther King line...

"The arc of history bends

toward justice."

I think for fans of this show,

the arc of history bends

towards "Star Trek,"

that we have this hope, this belief,

that... things are getting better.

And that, yeah, we're

probably not gonna, you know,

run into guys with

pointed ears out there.

But we will find a way

to fix our problems

and move out into the universe

and believe in, you know, the...

you know, the better

angels of our nature

and... and make the world a better place.

One thing about "Star

Trek" that I've said before

and I really believe it

is it was the Beatles of 1960s TV.

And if you had to describe the Beatles,

you would say it's magic.

And take any one of

them out of that band,

and it's not the Beatles.

Well, "Star Trek's" the same way

from the same period.

I mean, take William Shatner out.

Take Leonard Nimoy out.

Take Rodenberry or Coon or Fontana out

or Deforest Kelley, and

you don't have it.

It's still gonna be good,

but it's not gonna be what it is,

and we wouldn't have what

we have now 15 years later.

I think there's a lot of reasons

why it endures so long.

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