Bill Shatner's Iowa Connection

Photo TM & copyright 2002 Paramount Pictures Corp.

Thirty years ago, I was in a Star Trek club called S.T.A.R. Syracuse, later called Star Syracuse "without the dots." I was editing a fanzine called 2-5YM (meaning Second Five-Year Mission), going to my first Star Trek convention in NYC (where I got a kiss from Isaac Asimov), buying film clips from Lincoln Enterprises and a tribble from Dage Co, and reading James Blish's short story adaptations of episodes. Before the club disbanded, we went to more cons, attended personal appearances by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, Gene Roddenberry and Harlan Ellison (who would not be pleased to be lumped in with Star Trek celebrities here), and eventually mutated into a D&D group. 

I remember being very pleased with Shatner's appearance at the NYC convention. Asked about dilithium crystals, he said, "They're green. And they make the ship go."  Asked how to become an actor, he said that if you can be talked out of doing it, you should be, because rejection is a big part of the job.  This always made sense to me.

But when Shatner appeared in Syracuse in something billed as The Star Trek Show, it was a different story. He promised a blooper reel, but had to drop it because he didn't have the right to show it. He performed a vaguely sf scene from Cyrano De Bergerac, and generally did and said very little that was Trekkish. This was about the time of T.J. Hooker, probably just before that. I have no doubt that Shatner was trying to get fans to follow him as he tried to shed his Star Trek straightjacket and do other things, but the show seemed like a deceptive bait and switch, and we resented it. Heck, we were Trekkie kids, and didn't understand what he was trying to do.  That same year, Leonard Nimoy came though promoting I Am Not Spock. He gave us exactly what we wanted: a candid, thoughtful and funny account of the relationship between the actor and the character. Why couldn't Shatner have done that?

I've seen Shatner a few times since then at Creation cons, and I'm not longer annoyed with him. He's flawed but amusing, equally capable of very good acting or terrible hamming. His current persona, as the likable older actor who doesn't take himself too seriously, helps to defuse older impressions of him (justified or otherwise) as an egotistical jerk. It no longer really matters to me whether or not he's a great actor or agreat guy, as long as he continues to amuse.

Today's amusement is as follows:

1. There's a story on Netscape today  about Shatner appearing in Riverside, Iowa, "to hold auditions for four small parts in a low-budget, sci-fi movie he wrote with Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy." The working title is Invasion Iowa. It's not clear what the connection is, if any, between the movie and Riverside's existing relationship with Shatner. In 1985, but Riverside designated a site as "the future birthplace" of James T. Kirk.  Cool!

I tried to look this up on http://www.williamshatner.com/, but there's no mention of this project that I could find, despite Shatner's claim in the news story that he's wanted to make the movie for thirty years. Nevertheless, Shatner's website looks kind of fun. I'll probably look at it again sometime.

Karen