Fun DVD extra from the 2009 Star Trek reboot, exploring how J.J. Abrams’s team cast the Enterprise’s crew.
How do you recast Captain Kirk—a performance so inextricably linked to its originator, William Shatner? By 2009, Shat-as-Kirk had seeped into our cultural consciousness: the stilted, rambling delivery, the bemused smirk, the paunchy physique.
Fortunately, Abrams and Co. didn’t go down the imitation route. After four decades of Kirk parodies, asking a young actor to do his best Shatner impression wouldn’t have gone over well.
As the new Kirk, Chris Pine, explains,
I talked to J.J. [Abrams, the director] about it at the beginning of the process, and we kind of made a mutual decision that it would be a mistake to try to recreate what Mr. Shatner had done…. There are certain qualities of Kirk that you can’t ignore…, but to try to mimic Mr. Shatner would be a mistake.
Boiling Kirk down to his essential qualities could have proved dangerous, too. Make the Enterprise’s captain too cocky, and the audience might dislike him. Pine makes it work; he captures Kirk’s headstrong charm without turning us off—yet he somehow avoids merely imitating his predecessor.
But there is at least one moment in the film where Pine unapologetically channels William Shatner. In the 2009 film’s final scene, Pine’s delivery of Dr. McCoy’s nickname (“Bones!”) sounds unmistakably Shatneresque. Compare the clip above to some classic Kirk-McCoy banter from Star Trek: The Motion Picture:
It’s a fitting homage. At the end of 2009’s Star Trek, Kirk finally slides into the captain’s chair, so Pine slips into Shatner, too.
Matt Hauger 