I can understand why the egomaniac Bill Shatner feels left out but I think the producers are missing a trick here. Sure, plot holes may appear if you simply allow the camera hogging bloatware* that is our man Kirk to take part but there are other roles for him to play... with only the most basic makeup, he could easily pass as a planet.

*Despicable attempt to make this comment and therefore by extension the article in any way relevant to technical gubbins.

... "Popcorn!!!! Get your popcorn!!!"

Stick to cereal ads, Bill.

Picard was better anyway ;p

Come on, there must be someone out there with lots of time on their hands who can setup a web site dedicated to getting the Shatner back onto the silver screen…

Oh wait, even better.. How about a facebook group?

Janeway ftw.

*Ducks*

As Kirk wasn't on the Enterprise on the early missions (i.e. the pilot) and neither was Bones you have to ask yourself what is going on here as they weren't all together at Star Fleet Academy.

I really must get out more

I remember her. I landed on the SciFi channel having first played "High Cable Channel Number Roulette" and wondered what the hell was going on.

It was difficult to tell her apart from the furniture.

Reason for going to see Generations was to see Shatner/Kirk killed.

Efros

I always thought it would be great if Bill Shatner married the sit com character Hyancith Bucket...

What a great mental picture that paints as he'd then be Willian Shatner-Bucket.

Gets coat...

P.S. No arguments, Picard is THE DADDY!

"A ship that's supposed to be a 100 years older than the Kirk Enterprise but was actually superior in all the ways that mattered."

They still hadn't thought to put in seat belts or toilets though. Even Voyager had a shower, but no loos. I can only imagine that after a hard episode's worth of Romulan bashing the poor Federation types were busting for a wee (hence I presume the dark easy-dry trousers).

B5 was great, although I'm disappointed nobody had the foresight to kick Delenn out of an airlock early on... she made The Riddler look positively succinct.

then its got to be:-

Firefly/Serenity

ST:TOS

B5

ST:TNG

UFO

Space 1999

Fireball XL5

Ivanova for FTW actually because "Babylon 5 was better"

-- aggreed! although you missed the word "significantly" ;)

Muppets!

Obviously you've all forgotten Farscape. Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) FTW!

As for Kirk, I think he must be under the impression he's got cult status like the Hoff or Chuck Norris. Sadly for him his memo was spelt wrong ... it didn't say "People think you're a cult ...".

For those with hangovers "l" and "n" are relatively near each other on the keyboard .... ; )

You should have continued that quote, because the very next line makes it plain *why* he's not in the new film:

"I thought, what a decision to make, since it obviously is a decision not to make use of the popularity I have to ensure the movie has good box office. It didn't seem to be a wise business decision."

No, Bill, it's a decision not to subject the rest of the cast to your fat-headed self-admiring arrogance. You're making a right Bulgarian airbag of yourself, best if you were to shut up now ...

I see your Farscape and raise you a Lexx..

That's okay, LOTR is based heavily on the Nibelungleid. Everything is a ripoff of something older.

They don't need a loo. They set the transporter on narrow-beam and just dematerialize the material. Oh sure there's some, uh, buildup, as the transporter is operated in an uncalibrated "safe" mode that doesn't try to get every morsel. But as the life expectancy of a constitution-class starship crew is only about 3 seasons anyway, the long term health effects are minimal. But if you wonder why McCoy always looks so cranky, all you have to do is imagine the chief complaint at sick call.

I rather liked Janeway, though I got tired of the "unexplored-nebula-of-the-week" format of Voyager. And for those of you who think William Shatner can't act (which pretty much covers everyone who's seen him), he was in an early Twilight Zone episode (gremlins tearing up an airplane engine) where he showed potential. Perhaps he's just hard to direct.

i know i am doomed for even sayin this

but i belive the question of which was better was already solved...

check out star wrek: the pirking...

for a fan movie it was done quite well.

and raise you one Blake's Seven and a side of Sapphire and Steel..

I would say the new Battlestar Galactica shits all over any of the shows mentioned so far - but apparently this a retro reminiscence.

(Babylon 5 was brilliant to start with, but the last couple seasons were a bit on the dodgy side).

I don't need to get out more, I'm perfectly happy in my sad little HDTV world of scifi.

Ah, yes! Fanboi accusations... How ironic.

Relax. I *have* met the man. He has a sense of humor. When I met him, he was busy ripping jokes at his own expense. Rather good ones, at that. Somehow, I don't think he much gives a rat's buttocks *what* we say about him.

Carry on, folks!

I can't believe the number of "sci fi fans" (and I use that term under advisement) posting here that have missed the new Battlestar Galactica, which is self-evidently the best sci-fi series in the history of ever. Adama ftw!

(dons flame retardant coat, and runs)

"A question for all you Shatner haters. What is it about your own lives that is so horrible that you need to hate a 70+ year old Canadian actor so much? I mean, what do any of you know about him as a person, or his life? How many of you have walked an inch in his shoes, never mind a mile?"

Well, for me it was "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," but i think the real nail in the coffin was Msr. Montalban blowing Shatner out of the water in "The Wrath of Khan" (far and away the best ST movie). It really was sad how bad Shatner looked contrasted with R.M., scene to scene.

Then Picard came along and showed us how a *real* actor captains the Starship Enterprise. No flings with alien floozies for him, no sir! He was a military man, through and through, with Shakespearean diction, to boot! Even if No. 1 was generally stiff and Wesley Crusher inspired a desire to have his head crushed mercilessly in an airlock door, Picard kept us (me) coming back, week after week. (and Troi's very large....er, hair.)

While i would agree that Shatner has done a lot to promote science fiction over the years (books and bad movies and the original series), let's face it, he's a terrible actor, and the only original cast member who pulls in the viewers is Leonard Nimoy, period. (willfully forgetting his stab at the Top 40, back in the day, of course. *wink wink*)

At first I thought, NO - cowboy cliches do NOT belong on my SciFi channel, but actually like most people here I started to get into it just as they killed the series off. Even the movie wasn't too shabby.

Camera shake, I feel fans of Star Trek TOS will have something to say about that - and perhaps someone ought to break the real reason he wasn't included in the new Star Trek film to Mr. Shatner - a few less biscuits sir, and I think you might have got back in.

<kirk imitation>Thank............. God......... </kirk imitation>

If they really want to do the movie going public a huge favor, I say they splice some stock footage of Scotty horsing around with the transporters and then pay the actor who plays Picard to stare into the camera and state: "Mr. Scott, beam his ass into a wall!"

Seven.......

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm