Although it’s been a few months since their initial disagreement, George Takei has now responded to William Shatner’s criticism of his account of on set tensions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the two Star Trek legends have found a way to resolve their differences, though, and Takei isn’t going to go down without a fight, particularly when it comes to Shatner’s past reputation.
Speaking to Yahoo, Takei dismissed his colleague’s contention that he was making up a rivalry between himself and Leonard Nimoy, wherein he accused his fellow actor of jealousy. Here’s what Takei had to say when asked about these comments:
“Well, you can tell by those words that he is upset, to put it mildly. All that is bile. He’s had that same kind of relationship with everybody….Jimmy Doohan used to rail at Star Trek conventions about Bill and the latest offense that he committed on him. Every one of us have had experiences…in terms of Bill Shatner, I go by (the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader) Ginsberg advice, ‘Sometimes it helps to be deaf in a marriage.'”
Shatner has since been quick to call out Takei on Twitter, and doubled down on these apparently inaccurate statements, writing:
It doesn’t bother me if he speaks about HIS time on the show. It’s his stories about me from fan letter numbers to the most idiotic lies he concocts. He wasn’t on set much but the way he talks he was executive producer, director, Gene’s BFF and on set 24 hours a day. It’s sad.🤷🏼♂️ https://t.co/0DnIkM5ezy
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 14, 2020
🤷🏼♂️ The assumption is that when conventions started in the 70’s that the Star Trek day players found that if they talked about scandalous stuff on stage that made them popular in conventions. 45 yrs later George still has new material? He spend a total of 3 weeks on set over 3 yrs https://t.co/aqqT2LnL5T
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 14, 2020
He was in less than 2/3rds of the episodes. He was a day player. He came in one or 2 days a week. Do the math. That’s why I don’t know him. He was on set maybe 3 weeks total per year. That’s why I say he has all of these fake stories from the set; when did he have time to act?🙄 https://t.co/T8BebZpoPH
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 14, 2020
To be fair, Shatner does seem to have a point here, in that a lot of what Takei is claiming is difficult to really square up with what actually happened, pending any feedback from other members of the classic Trek crew. It doesn’t appear that Takei has replied yet to Shatner’s posts, either, and from the former’s timeline, it seems most of his attention is taken up with the forthcoming election.
At this point, a clear and definitive view of what actually occurred behind the scenes on Star Trek is unlikely to arise, especially given that a lot of what both men are saying is hard to prove. Considering that it took Takei a few months to publicly react to Shatner’s remarks in the first place, we also don’t imagine that he’s losing any sleep over it.
Other Star Trek news is slightly more positive right now, thankfully, with reports that CBS want to bring back more captains for their own shows, whilst there’s been talk that the future of the television franchise has been mapped out to 2027. Whether Takei and Shatner will have patched up their dispute by then is another question entirely.