William Shatner vs. Wil Wheaton (revisited)

William Shatner vs. Wil Wheaton (revisited)

Wil Wheaton and I may not see eye to eye political, but it takes some guts to reveal this incident. I always mention this story to hardcore TOS fans when they diss TNG.The TNG cast got along really well. After the Bill Cosby thing, I really don't have "heroes" to look up to anymore.  Wil had to deal with that at a younger age. 

I've told this story many times, but it is good to hear it from the source first hand. I actually remember reading about this incident years before the Internet was even a thing. It seems the encounter with Shatner had gotten around the studio and whispered to outsiders too. It even made it into a tell-all Trek movie book.

I heard all the stories about the TOS actors hating him and Nick Myers being very vocal about his encounters with Shatner on ST-II and VI. However, this incident just stayed with me. As I wrote before, I could have met Shatner first hand at a local video/comic book shop (Road Runner) years ago in the 90s. I remember that because I collected a lot of comic books during the mid to late 90s.

The owner of the comic book side of the shop wanted to get Shatner to pose for a photo with one of his Star Trek comics. I saw Shatner at back of the video store with a small crowd around him. I wasn't sure if they were a part of his entourage or fanboys (and girls).

That story about Wil and Shatner danced in my head. I remember the saying, “Never meet your heroes.” I left the store and decided not to meet him. I've seen other TOS cast members and they were really nice.  Heck, I walked passed  George Takei and didn't realize it once.  Heck, even Q is great at conventions. 

My uncle had an encounter with Shatner while he was working at a rather big hotel in the east end of Louisville. My uncle basically said that he carried his bags to his room, but Shatner wasn't very nice. My heart sort of dropped. But, I loved that my uncle was happy to tell me he met Captain Kirk. He actually told me, “I met Captain Kirk today. He's a lot shorter than he looks on TV.”

Shatner wasn't a big fan of TNG and felt threatened by this new show. He made sure the press knew he wasn't a fan of the show, but he claimed to never watch the show. Wil was just a reminder of that new show stealing his press. I also LOVE that Shatner, as a director, used some of the standing sets FROM TNG. He even used some major behind the scenes crew members from TNG on his Star Trek V set. 

 

Granted, most of the corridor sets from TNG are redresses of the corridors used in the first three TNG movies, but there were clearly some changes made to set the TOS movie era from TNG's era.  In STV, they just removed the "black interface" on the walls, but kept the TNG font on the doors.