William Shatner notable work Star Trek series
1979–1989: Star Trek movies and T. J. Hooker
After Star Trek was cancelled, it acquired a cult following among people watching syndicated reruns of the series, and Captain Kirk became a cultural icon. Fans of the show—so-called Trekkies—began organizing conventions where they could meet like-minded enthusiasts, buy Star Trek merchandise and enjoy question and answer sessions with members of the show's regular cast. Many of the actors who had crewed the Enterprise became frequent guests at these events, Shatner included.In the mid-1970s, noting the growing appetite for Star Trek, Paramount began pre-producing a sequel show, Star Trek: Phase II, in which they planned to present new, younger actors alongside the stars of the original series. However, astounded by the enormous success that George Lucas's film Star Wars achieved in 1977, the studio decided that Star Trek would earn them more money if the next adventure of the Enterprise took place not on television but in theatres. Shatner and all the other original Star Trek cast members returned to their roles when Paramount produced Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released in 1979. He went on to play Kirk in six further Star Trek films: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and—in a story that culminated in the captain's self-sacrificial death—Star Trek Generations (1994). His final appearances as James Tiberius were in the movie sequences of the video game Starfleet Academy (1997), in a 2006 DirecTV advertisement that used footage from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and at the 2013 Academy Awards, in which he reprised the role for a comedic interlude with the show's host, Seth MacFarlane.
Although the resurrection of Star Trek from oblivion only came about because of the enthusiasm of Trekkies, Shatner's attitude towards them is not uncritical. In a much-discussed 1986 Saturday Night Live sketch about a Star Trek convention, he advised a room full of Trekkies to "get a life". The comment was an apt summary of the view of his fans that he had expressed in several interviews. Their adoration of him took unwelcome forms almost from the beginning of his time as Captain Kirk; as early as April 1968, a group of them attempted to tear his clothes from him as he left 30 Rockefeller Plaza. His amusement at the behaviour of the lunatic fringe of his admirers was reflected in the romantic comedy movie Free Enterprise (1998), in which he contributed a caricature of himself to a film that satirized some Trekkies' Kirk idolatry. He also mocked the cavalier, almost superhuman, persona of Captain Kirk in the films Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993).Bibliography
Fiction
The TekWar series, co-written with Ron Goulart
TekWar (1989) ISBN 0-399-13495-6
TekLords (1991) ISBN 0-399-13616-9
TekLab (1991) ISBN 0-399-13736-X
Tek Vengeance (1993) ISBN 0-399-13788-2
Tek Secret (1993) ISBN 0-399-13892-7
Tek Power (1994) ISBN 0-399-13997-4
Tek Money (1995) ISBN 0-399-14109-X
Tek Kill (1996) ISBN 0-399-14202-9
Tek Net (1997) ISBN 0-399-14339-4
Star Trek series, with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden, 1995, ISBN 0-671-52035-0
Star Trek: The Return, 1996, ISBN 0-671-52610-3
Star Trek: Avenger, 1997, ISBN 0-671-55132-9
Star Trek: Spectre, 1998, ISBN 0-671-00878-1
Star Trek: Dark Victory, 1999, ISBN 0-671-00882-X
Star Trek: Preserver, 2000, ISBN 0-671-02125-7
Star Trek: Captain's Peril, 2002, ISBN 0-7434-4819-7
Star Trek: Captain's Blood, 2003, ISBN 0-671-02129-X
Star Trek: Captain's Glory, 2006, ISBN 0-7434-5343-3
Star Trek: The Academy – Collision Course, 2007 ISBN 1-4165-0396-X
War series
Man o' War, 1996, ISBN 0-399-14131-6
The Law of War, 1998, ISBN 0-399-14360-2
Quest for Tomorrow series
Delta Search, 1997, ISBN 0-06-105274-4
In Alien Hands, 1997, ISBN 0-06-105275-2
Step into Chaos, 1999, ISBN 0-06-105276-0
Beyond the Stars, 2000, ISBN 0-06-105118-7
Shadow Planet, 2002, ISBN 0-06-105119-5
Believe (with Michael Tobias), 1992, ISBN 978-0-425-13296-8
Comic book adaptations
William Shatner's TekWorld (129 pages, February 1994, ISBN 0-87135-985-5)
Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden, DC Comics graphic novel, 1995, ISBN 1-56389-235-9
Samuel Lord Series
Zero-G: Book 1, with Jeff Rovin, 2016, ISBN 978-1501111556
Zero-G: Green Space , with Jeff Rovin, 2017, ISBN 978-1501111587
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