William Shatner wanted to resurrect Captain James T. Kirk after Star Trek Generations, but producers passed in favor of making Star Trek: First Contact. Following the successful $120-million worldwide gross of Star Trek Generations, which killed off Captain Kirk in the end, questions remained whether audiences came to the film to see the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation or if the real draw was William Shatner playing Captain Kirk for the last time.” Shatner concocted a story about Kirk coming back to life, which was published as the Star Trek novel, “The Return.”
According to the Star Trek oral history “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years” by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, William Shatner tried to convince Paramount Pictures to adapt his Kirk resurrection story as the follow-up film to Star Trek Generations. However, executive producer Rick Berman opted to leave Kirk dead and dedicate the sequel entirely to the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, which became Star Trek: First Contact. Read Berman’s quote below:
Rick Berman: Bill talked to me a lot about taking advantage of what happened in the last movie and reviving Captain Kirk, but we did kill him twice in Generations, if you think about it, so we had to leave him dead for a little while. The overall feeling was that although it was an interesting idea, it was not really the direction we wanted to go at that point. We wanted to do a film that was pretty much isolated to the Next Generation characters.
Brannon Braga, who co-wrote Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact with Ronald D. Moore, backs Berman that bringing Captain Kirk back to life would be a mistake. Read his quote below:
Brannon Braga: It would have been disastrous to kill Kirk in the first movie, and then bring him back in the second. It would have just been chintzy and would have taken away any kind of credibility we’d tried to establish. I don’t think that film would have done very well.
Star Trek: First Contact Ending & Picard Impact Explained
Star Trek: First Contact is not only one of the most beloved big screen entries in the franchise, it also plays a pivotal role in Star Trek: Picard.
Star Trek Never Resurrected William Shatner’s Captain Kirk
Chris Pine and Paul Wesley play younger versions of Kirk instead.
Star Trek has not resurrected William Shatner’s Captain James T. Kirk after Star Trek Generations, which is a remarkable display of restraint by the franchise, considering Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Data (Brent Spiner), and Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) were all killed off and brought back to life. Shatner’s Star Trek novel, “The Return,” and its follow-up novels, tell a non-canonical story of Kirk’s resurrection and subsequent sacrifice to stop the Borg. Incredibly, Shatner hasn’t played Captain Kirk since 1994, and it’s likely he will never don Kirk’s uniform again.
Instead of resurrecting Kirk, Star Trek has gone the prequel route and rebooted the Captain with younger incarnations. First, Chris Pine played the young Captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie trilogy set in the alternate Kelvin Timeline. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds then introduced Paul Wesley as Lt. James T. Kirk, the younger version of William Shatner’s Jim several years before Kirk becomes Captain of the Enterprise. Star Trek: Picard season 3 also planted the seed that William Shatner’s Captain Kirk could be resurrected in the future. Ultimately Star Trek: First Contact‘s massive success proved the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies were right to move past Captain Kirk.
Star Trek: First Contact is available to stream on Paramount+.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Release Date:
- 1987-09-28
- Cast:
- Patrick Stewart, michael dorn, Marina Sirtis
- Genres:
- Sci-Fi, Superhero, Drama, Action
- Seasons:
- 7
- Story By:
- Gene Roddenberry
- Writers:
- Gene Roddenberry
- Network:
- CBS
- Streaming Service(s):
- Amazon Prime Video
- Franchise(s):
- Star Trek
- Directors:
- David Carson
- Showrunner:
- Gene Roddenberry
