I’m one of those
people who like to pull strange threads together and make a tapestry. Maybe it’s an occupational hazard, as the research
I do must be sewn tight with threads taken from other works. I encountered the
first strand in today’s post last year in the article mentioned here:
(If you bother to pause on the date, you’ll
see I’m discussing old news – but blog space (of all spaces) ought to be space
of the indulgent sort!)
Before I get too
deeply entangled with Shatner’s cameo, I have to offer the following critique
of his most recent publication. On one hand, Shatner does tell a few lovely
(though not truly new) tales from Trek and I think that he does seek to pay tribute to Nimoy’s
upbringing and how it affected him, his many talents on and off-screen, and the
aid and support he provided while they worked together and in their friendship.
Unfortunately, I
don’t know if the points outlined above really made this book worth reading.
The cynical part of me feels like it was at least partially a money grab
(creepy, isn’t it, to make money off of your friend’s death?). And though I
expected this, the book was also partially about Shatner getting the last word.
He tells Nimoy’s story by telling his own and sometimes Nimoy recedes behind
the golden glow of all-things-Shatner.
 |
| Was this real??? |
The thing that really
left a bitter taste in my mouth was the ending of the book. In the last fifteen
or so pages, Shatner explains that he and Nimoy weren’t even speaking at the
time of Nimoy’s death. There could be several reasons for this; Nimoy’s illness
could even have been a contributing factor, but the fact that the friendship is
ultimately sundered (good memories notwithstanding) makes the title feel like a
lie. Honestly, I wish Shatner and his co/ghost-writer would have just lied and
said that they were dear to one another up to the end. In the absence of the
fairy tale I wanted, I will continue to remember the friendship between the
characters!
 |
| Oh, that fond look... |
… which brings us back to the article above. You’ll note
that Shatner’s cameo was cut because it was seen as “pandering,” as “fan
service.” I’ll be honest; I don’t have a problem with fan service. Isn’t it
fans who fund these creative endeavors, who discuss them, analyze them, and
live inside of them to some extent?
But I bring up the article not to debate that, but because I
think it reflects Shatner’s true impulse: to bring to life – one last time –
the friendship between Kirk and Spock. Whatever criticisms one can level
against Shatner, I respect him for his love of Kirk. Not that he always loved him, or loved being him.
But ultimately, this is the stance he ultimately takes:
"I have a lot of respect for Patrick Stewart, and [it
was seeing] the gravitas that this great Shakespearean actor gave to his role
that I suddenly realized that this guy is taking Capt. Picard every bit as
seriously as Macbeth," Shatner says. "And I used to [do the same for
Capt. Kirk]. And I stopped. And what the hell's the matter with me? It was a
great piece of work. Everybody contributed to it for three years, and it has
lasted 50. It's a phenomenon. Why aren't I proud of it? And that's when I had a
moment."
I love that he ignored the entire canon to bring Kirk back
in The Return and I love that one of
the things he can’t seem to let go of (or let rest) is Kirk’s connection to
Spock. To believe so deeply in the friendship of a fictional being that you
feel that you must memorialize it onscreen – to say, “this is how it was; I
missed him,” – makes me overlook
whatever other criticisms might be leveled at Shatner. I feel the same way
about my own characters (who, being unpublished, obviously aren’t impacting
popular culture…) and I didn’t want Kirk to die in Generations, either. That he will survive both his creator and the
man who played him makes me smile.
…
which brings us to thread two.
Though a devotee of Star Wars in my younger days (indeed, my eternally-in-progress
novel owes an enormous debt to Luke, Han, Leia, and company) my obsession
quieted as I got older and I came to prefer what I saw as the “deeper” universe
of Star Trek to the “space opera”
gaiety of Star Wars. But the best
obsessions are made to be returned to and I was unexpectedly pulled back in
when I watched a few youtube videos produced by RoyishGoodLooks. Fun and funny
as these pieces were, they reminded me just how much fun I had once had spending time in this universe and in the
company of these characters. So I have returned to the graphic novels and the
novels and the fan fiction – and to this article that I didn’t expect to find.
When placed side-by-side with Shatner’s cameo, it makes for
an interesting comparison, doesn’t it? Here, too, a fictional friendship seems
to deserve a better commemoration than it receives onscreen. It would be
difficult, of course, to compete with the glass wall in Wrath of Khan, but I would have taken an updated version of Han’s
longing look in Empire Strikes Back.
Like
Shatner, Hamill wants to memorialize the bond and emotions that surround these
characters – and the fact that such emotions are powerful enough to sweep up
even those people playing these characters ensures that I will never be without
fan fiction to browse! For myself, I'll just be imagining that dear friends walk into the sunshine of whatever galaxy they're inhabiting (an ending recently embraced, I might point out, by the series Black Sails).
Cheers to fictional friendships! Boldly go to wherever it is
you’re best needed, and may the force be with you!
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