SHATNER'S COMMENTS are in this link. (Why does everyone have to stick a promo for the new Trek movie in with this? I wish they'd stop trying to legitimize it, but I digress...) He also, according to another article that I can't find, was talking about the difference between the franchises being that Star Trek focused on people and philosophies and Star Wars was a bigger story picture. From my POV, there's nothing wrong with either style and it isn't offensive at all.
I gotta tell you apart from the word "create" Shatner's right. And I've never understood the whole Star Wars/Star Trek and which is better debate. It's like comparing apples and oranges. My own thoughts mirror Shatner's. Star Wars was created for the big screen and Star Trek for the small screen. That's why the Star Trek movies have always been kind of hit-and-miss.
Shatner's argument of Star Wars reinvigorating audience's desire for science fiction is valid, however, I have to add something to it. Star Wars may have been a springboard for resuscitating Trek, but I wouldn't credit it for being solely responsible for saving the Trek franchise. Getting Trek into movie format was only the first step and it was a shaky one. Shatner calls the first movie flawed. He's right again. The word I used was "snoozer."
The concept was great. There are complaints that it was just a movie length episode, but they all were actually. That's why some work and others don't. The story of this first movie was very cool and all the actors apart from the main cast were just right. However, Star Trek TMP was bogged down by the desire to play with special effects. These scenes as with Spock in the EM suite just went on and on and on forever. Lots of lights... little substance. People cared about stuff like that back then. No, I still think the fate of the franchise was more dependent on whether or not they could do better the second time. And they did.
Star Trek The Wrath of Khan is still the best of the old cast movies in my opinion. Who doesn't love a good tale of obsession and revenge? Ricardo Montalbon's charisma is off the charts.
What good were all the special effects in the first one with no soul? They were impressive, but they couldn't capture the eeriness and fear of the camp of the Botany Bay settlers. Disheveled, criminal humans were just as effective of a nemesis as the newly made over Klingons (which was a really great move, btw. Not disrespecting the updated Klingon makeup in the least.)
A breath holding battle of the starships... different than simple attack and retaliate battles. The emotion and tension generated throughout this movie was unparalleled to any other Star Trek story to date. This is the sort of story that could make fans of people that never saw the original series, as it did with me. You couldn't help but care for the characters, even the tortured and mad Khan in a strange way. And then they took a huge gamble in killing off the most popular alien character of all time, Spock. This sort of thing is common now... especially in the 90's, the main characters would sacrifice themselves left and right. But, it just wasn't done back then and especially so soon after the Star Trek universe had been revived. It could've been suicide. But no. This is the movie that saved Star Trek. Star Wars made people want more science fiction. Wrath of Khan made people want more Star Trek.
But I'm glad Shatner brought it up.
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