Good acting from William Shatner?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
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It's interesting you say that, because that's my least favorite performance of his thus far (we're 12 episodes into the 1st season). Naked Time, when he gets the disease, is also not so convincing. When he goes into charm mode, it's a little off-putting, too.
One of our team noted that he's excellent at understatement, a bit hammy when he goes over the top, and that he doesn't do a lot in between. On the other hand, I really liked him in The Enemy Within. Some standouts include The Man Trap and The Menagerie, and I also enjoyed the Kirk on Kirk action in Little Girls.
He was really good in the TZ ep, Nick of Time.
She may have seen those shows but I know for sure my mother had seen Shatner in "Judgement at Nuremberg". She had a very high regard for that movie and everyone who had starred in it down to Shatner in his supporting role.
I had seen "Nuremberg" myself because when Star Trek came along, I remembered shatner from that movie along with one or two other things I can't remember.
I think my mother had liked Shatner but she couldn't take Star Trek seriously. But I certainly thought he was great in ST myself.
Robert
I can't see this clip because I'm blind now but I listened to it.
I don't know if you saw ST-III when it came out but I did. It's all just make believe entertainment and so on but that was quite a shocking moment when I saw it at the theater, I just couldn't believe they had simply killed David off like that.
I remember not just the movie itself was very quiet in that scene, the whole theater was dead silent.
Robert
That scene in STIII is hand down Shatner’s best acting moment in the role.
He’s got a list of other more iconic scenes longer than my arm. But that scene is horrible in all the right ways. Also his little defeated “Goodbye, David” near the end.
And, although the lines are a little on the nose so far as subtlety goes, “I did what you wanted. I stayed away.” in TWoK is very understated and weary.
He’s got a list of other more iconic scenes longer than my arm. But that scene is horrible in all the right ways. Also his little defeated “Goodbye, David” near the end.
And, although the lines are a little on the nose so far as subtlety goes, “I did what you wanted. I stayed away.” in TWoK is very understated and weary.
If you don't think that Shatner is "honestly good" as Kirk more often than not, I don't know what to tell you. Good was his baseline, and he rose up to great many times.
Yeah, he had his cheesy moments, but so did every other actor in Trek.
Nimoy was definitely off in "Conscience of the King" -- but he's growing into the role.
The only part of that I find notable is the wordless part where he steps back and misses his chair. The moment he opens his mouth it's back to Shatner standard.
Shatner lets his drop kicks do the talking....
Did the OP abandon this party after kicking the hornet's nest.
Maybe I was too harsh. It's easy to read something the worst way, to assume the worst. Who knows.
Yeah, I agree. Nimoy let Shatner get away with several cheesy/artificial moments that I doubt Meyer would have settled for. "I--have had--enough of--YOU!!!" is another example. Meyer had the sense to make Shatner do a ton of takes in his movies, forcing Shatner to drop of a lot of the posturing he can be prone to. That's why I think Shatner's best performances in the movies are in TWOK and TUC.
That makes it sound like porn.
I never noticed.Nimoy was definitely off in "Conscience of the King" -- but he's growing into the role.
I thought he was good in it.
I'll have to watch it again.
I thought there was too much Shatner instead of Kirk in the movies. Some of that was Shatner's doing but inconsistency in writing didn't help.
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Yeah, I agree. One review of Generations I read quite rightly pointed out that the Nexus sequence in the movie was William Shatner's fantasy, not Kirk's. (Reunited with his pet Doberman, horseback riding, etc.)
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that was awesome, thanks for sharing. It almost seems like acting was different back then. Shatters later work is much less melodramatic
"They've all been answered."
Kirk spends the first half of Space Seed trying to figure out what Khan and his crew are doing on an centuries-old ship in suspended animation. There must be a great story behind that. Khan consistently avoids the question. When Kirk directly insists he answer, Khan just says he's a fundamentally superior person to Kirk. Kirk clearly expresses disapproval of Khan's bigotry.
I would have been inclined to try to coax Khan into telling the story. I would have wanted to tell him bigotry is no longer acceptable and that the UFP is founded on Enlightenment values that began starting to take sway on Earth hundreds of years before Khan's time. I would tell him authoritarian governments like the one he ran are now considered completely unacceptable. We respect anything he can build through honest trade, but use of force is unacceptable.
Kirk didn't say any of that. "[My questions] have all been answered." He knew what Khan was, and it wasn't worth talking to him or even cursing him.
Even today, if you take a Broadway cast and have them do a scene on TV for one night, the acting will look different from most TV acting.
Shatner is very naturalistic and on par with a lot of the acting at the time in the first season of TOS. It gets more and more bombastic as the show wears on. But he immediately gets Kirk from day one, whereas it took Nimoy several episodes to find Spock. And I'd argue Shatner is more charismatic as an actor and has more emotional range than Nimoy and Stewart.
He just has "it" and you can't take your eyes off him when he's on screen. Sure, he has some hammy traits ("you Klingon bastard!"). But so does Nimoy ("PAIN!") and Stewart (Sarek's emotional outburst).
Shatner is really good at convey through his body language where his character is at emotionally in a scene. For example, he taps his fingers during the Enterprise castoff in TMP... illustrating Kirk's own internal anticipation and anxiety about being back in the chair.
As for examples of great acting in Trek, "The Enemy Within" is a perfect one. He becomes more and more subdue as the split, weaker Kirk. The scene where the dog comes back dead... the anguish and fear in his face. They way he delivers the line right before, "Don't hurt him." Then when faced with what to do with his evil half, the way he rubs his face and contorts his face as the decision weighs heavily on Kirk. Then the way he amplifies everything as the "evil" double.
And at the end, when he snaps back as the whole Kirk. Great stuff.
But if you want to see more naturalistic acting from Shatner, check out the show he did right before Trek, "For the People". You can find some episodes on YouTube.
He just has "it" and you can't take your eyes off him when he's on screen. Sure, he has some hammy traits ("you Klingon bastard!"). But so does Nimoy ("PAIN!") and Stewart (Sarek's emotional outburst).
Shatner is really good at convey through his body language where his character is at emotionally in a scene. For example, he taps his fingers during the Enterprise castoff in TMP... illustrating Kirk's own internal anticipation and anxiety about being back in the chair.
As for examples of great acting in Trek, "The Enemy Within" is a perfect one. He becomes more and more subdue as the split, weaker Kirk. The scene where the dog comes back dead... the anguish and fear in his face. They way he delivers the line right before, "Don't hurt him." Then when faced with what to do with his evil half, the way he rubs his face and contorts his face as the decision weighs heavily on Kirk. Then the way he amplifies everything as the "evil" double.
And at the end, when he snaps back as the whole Kirk. Great stuff.
But if you want to see more naturalistic acting from Shatner, check out the show he did right before Trek, "For the People". You can find some episodes on YouTube.
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Great post. I always point to the light finger-tapping on the left arm of the captain's chair in TMP as a great example of Shatner's subtle physical acting method.
He's honestly way better than most people give him credit for.
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