As I've said before, any long-running canon can and will disregard details of past stories, or even entire stories, if they're so seriously flawed that nobody wants to be beholden to them.
Didn't he also dislike the idea that all these alien cultures would have some kind of "Eden myth" involving a literal God on a planet somewhere?
I remember the thigh restraints (not very good against whiplash!) but I must admit, I don't recall seat belts in that TAS episode. I need to rewatch it. Oh, but I DO remember seatbelts in the shuttle Kirk and McCoy take to Starfleet Academy in the last movie! Got to wonder why all subsequent Starfleet ships don't still have them. And fuses in their consoles.
There were seatbelts in shuttles - TNG: Power Play I think, it's the one where Troi, O'Brien and Data get possessed anyway.
Not that I know of. Several TOS and TAS episodes explored aspects the Eden myth. When I was reading the Blish novelizations in 1980, before having seen many TOS episodes, I was really surprised how often there were references to Eden, Paradise, gods being shunned, etc. Shatner was excited that "searching for God" was a great TV Guide episode listing. GR's comment about "searching for God" on a planet was something like "What happens when you find him?"
hmmm, ok. I thought I remembered some comment by him about how absurd it is that all these various alien cultures have the same concept of a monotheistic, personal God and an Eden myth of some kind. Maybe it was another person I was thinking of.
Canon or not, it's absolutely dreadful and easily the worst Star Trek movie. Wasn't Shatner involved in writing it in some way?
Yes, he has story credit along with Harve Bennett and David Loughery. And as the director, he was responsible for approving every creative decision and shaping the script.
Yeah giving Shatner control of a film only ever turns out bad - Fire Serpent being a prominent example.
The Final Frontier has earned it's reputation as a bad movie with some nice character moments, but it has company because Insurrection and Nemesis are every bit as dreadful.
I haven't seen Nemesis, but no way in hell is Insurrection (which is far from the best Trek film) as bad as TFF.
I'm a huge TNG fan, but I'd rather scoop out my eyes with a rusty spoon than watch Insurrection again.
I adore TNG, but the Generations movie is responsible for single-handedly destroying my interest in Star Trek for 15 years, so I never bothered to see any of the subsequent movies until the Abrams Star Trek movie in '09. I watched Insurrection the other day, not sure what to expect. Like I said, it certainly isn't the best, and parts of it were ridiculous (some very out-of-character moments for Data among them), but I didn't hate it.