In February 2025, Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, said that he was often asked to return to the USS Enterprise and to put on the Federation uniform again, but that a recent offer had caught his interest and he was due to meet about it in the near future.
“I have been asked to come back as Kirk so many times,” the star said at the time, adding: “If Kirk is going to come back, it has to mean something. It has to be the show. But I was so impressed by this writer, so I said let’s talk after I’m done in Vancouver. So I’m awaiting a pitch to make it in the show, it should come on Monday or Tuesday.”
Obviously, whatever it was never manifested, but it looks like we now know what the pitch was and why it didn’t happen.
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Despite the character dying in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations (32 years!!!), Shatner has, and always will be, been associated with Kirk, most recently paying him in a superb fan-film (which you can watch below), with the aid of CGI and Star Wars star Sam Witwer, who acted the role before Shatner’s face was added with special effects.
So, on with the story. It seems now that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman wanted to get Shatner/Kirk to return to the screen in an episode that would serve as a sequel to the original series episode ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’. In fact, it seems they tried several times.
The new report states that numerous scripts were written, but it just never happened, and now, with Strange New Worlds having ended (along with all of Kurtzman’s Trek universe), it’s probably never going to happen.
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Had the episode happened, it would have seen Shatner appear as an alternate version of Captain Kirk, who stayed in the 1930s after time-traveling there to be with his great love, Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), in the original 1967 episode.
Apparently he plan was also to have Collins (now 93 but still acting) return as Keeler along with Shatner, giving the two of them a happy ending together and perhaps even pleasing some of the fans who, three decades later, are still upset about how Generations ended.
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I must admit, this would have been a great way to give Shatner (and Collins) a final bow in the Star Trek universe, and now that I’ve learned about it, it’s done something I didn’t think was possible… it makes me (almost) wish the Kurtzman era of Trek was still happening.
Still, I’d imagine there’s a very good chance this story will see the light of day as a comic book, game, or perhaps novel at some point in the future.
Thoughts on Shatner having been asked to return as Kirk? I know you have them, and I wanna hear ’em all.
Watch the last time Shatner played Kirk was in the fan film 765874 – Unification on YouTube:
Kirk was played by Sam Witwer, with Shatner’s face added in post
Source: Polygon
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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