Posted in: Star Trek, TV | Tagged: paramount, star trek, star wars, william shatner

Star Wars Fans Can Be Star Trek Fans When They "Grow Up": Shatner

William Shatner had fun wishing Star Wars fans a happy "May the Fourth," welcoming them to join Star Trek's Federation when they "grow up."

Published Sat, 04 May 2024 15:37:07 -0500

by Tom Chang

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Star Wars Day on May 4 has been an annual tradition to celebrate the franchise. The phenomenon is so big even William Shatner, one of the biggest voices of its rival franchise, Star Trek, couldn't help but have a little fun by taking his shot in jest. With the caption "Incoming Communications…" The Original Series star wrote on social media, "TO THE CHILDREN OF SW…MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU! When you grow up, you can join the Federation! Love, Bill XoXo." The Canadian actor, who celebrated his 93rd birthday on March 22nd, is coming off his biographical documentary in Legion M's You Can Call Me Bill.

Star Trek: William Shatner's Franchise History & Acknowledging Star Wars' Impact

Shatner was actively playing Captain James T. Kirk for the better part of 30 years since TOS' three-season run on NBC across live-action and animation, with his final physical appearance in the 1994 The Next Generation crossover film Generations that saw Kirk die a valiant death to save the galaxy one last time. While it wasn't for the lack of effort, the actor wrote his character's resurrection in novel form and reprised the role in a few video games since. As far as the canon in the cinematic and Paramount+ era, Chris Pine and Paul Wesley are playing younger Kirk with Pine in the Kelvin universe and Wesley in a recurring role in the Prime-universe TOS prequel series Strange New Worlds.

Star Trek owes its theatrical revival to George Lucas' Star Wars when A New Hope was released in 1977, making science fiction and space sustainable cinema and TV fodder, paving the way for franchises like Battlestar Galactica and Alien. Shatner acknowledged this, telling fans at the Las Vegas Star Trek convention in 2016, "At Paramount Studios, they were running around bumping into each other: 'What do we got?! What do we got to equal 'Star Wars?' This is a big thing! There was this thing that we canceled, under another management, it was called Star …Trek? Let's resurrect that!"