I t probably says something about the gaping void where Star Trek movies ought to be sitting right now that even 93-year-old William Shatner reckons he might have a chance at getting back in the Enterprise command chair, albeit with a bit of futuristic de-ageing tech. Speaking to the Canadian Press a couple of weeks ago, the original Captain James Tiberius Kirk suggested he could easily play a younger version of the erstwhile Star Trek admiral , thanks to a company he’s working with that specialises in software that “takes years off your face, so that in a film you can look 10, 20, 30, 50 years younger than you are”. Kirk was, of course, killed off in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations.
Yet given the propensity for alternate timelines in mainstream sci-fi fantasy these days (and the fact that one was already introduced in the 2009 JJ Abrams-directed reboot) it would be no surprise at all to see him back on the deck of the Enterprise, like some kind of AI-assisted, uncanny valley facsimile of his former self, grinning with lurid romance at Uhura while fiddling with his ( rumoured ) corset. Meanwhile, Kirk 2.0, Chris Pine, is completely in the dark as to whether his version of the cocksure interstellar navigator will ever be back on the big screen, following recent suggestions that a new screenwriter is on board to pen the long-gestating sequel to 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond.
“I honestly don’t know,” he told Business Insider when asked for an update on the long-mooted S.
