William Shatner is at the point in his life where he can look back at all the things he’s done with perspective. The legendary actor is the subject of a new documentary, You Can Call Me Bill, which chronicles his career. As one would assume, a big part of the retrospective is about his time on Star Trek. Many stories have been shared about his run in the Captain’s chair. And now, Shatner himself would be reflecting on certain parts of his career involving the famous sci-fi property. One thing he would look back on in particular was his attempt to helm a Star Trek movie with the sequel, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Shatner would come up with the story as well as direct the film.
The Hollywood Reporter got to sit down with Shatner as he discussed different phases of his career, including T.J. Hooker and Boston Legal. When it came to the topic of Star Trek V, Shatner gets candid about what overwhelmed him about the experience. THR acknowledges that the movie has its fans now but then would ask if Shatner intended to expand Trek by filming around the world. Shatner replied, “I wish that I’d had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, ‘Star Trek goes in search of God,’ and management said, ‘Well, who’s God? We’ll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can’t do God.’ And then somebody said, ‘What about an alien who thinks they’re God?’ Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I’m asked, ‘What do you regret the most?,’ I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn’t make the decisions I would’ve made.”
THR asked how much the budget played a part in the hindrance to realizing his vision. Shatner responded, “It is on me. [In the finale,] I wanted granite [rock creatures] to explode out of the mountain. The special effects guy said, ‘I can build you a suit that’s on fire and smoke comes out.’ I said, ‘Great, how much will that cost?’ They said, ‘$250,000 a suit.’ Can you make 10 suits? He said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s $2.5 million. You’ve got a $30 million budget. You sure you want to spend [it on that]? Those are the practical decisions. Well, wait a minute, what about one suit? And I’ll photograph it everywhere [to look like 10]. (Editor’s note: The plan to use one suit famously did not work well onscreen and was ultimately abandoned.)”
You Can Call Me Bill is set to release on March 22.