Abrams responds to Shatner’s explanation of nixed Star Trek cameo

Not content with flooding the fandom with its Star Trek coverage this week, EW reported yesterday on an item that only alluded to in their print magazine: What’s J.J. Abrams’ problem with William Shatner making an appearance in the new movie?

It all started when back on September 8, AMCtv.com was interviewing Abrams about his new TV series “Fringe” and a Star Trek question came up:

We tried desperately to put [Shatner] in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves. The truth is, the story that we were telling required a certain adherence to the Trek canon and consistency of storytelling. It’s funny — a lot of the people who were proclaiming that he must be in this movie were the same people saying it must adhere to canon. Well, his character died on screen. Maybe a smarter group of filmmakers could have figured out how to resolve that.

Ten days later, Shatner responded to Abrams’ remarks… on YouTube:

So what does Abrams have to say for himself now? Well, he’s sticking to his guns:

I don’t know how my life has become a thing where William Shatner talks to me through YouTube. I was such a huge fan of his, but we wrote a scene for him in the movie and it didn’t feel right. And he said to us—he said publicly—that doing a cameo didn’t interest him. Which I totally appreciate. But we did try.

Abrams clarified things more for MTV on Tuesday:

I didn’t [personally] write anything [for Shatner]. Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci], who wrote a spectacular script for us, we all wanted to make it work.… The scene they wrote, which was good, it honestly felt like “contrivance to insert William Shatner into our movie.” It just felt very much like what it was.

Shatner’s YouTube stream had no comment, however, through a spokesperson, he said, “I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to be involved in the Star Trek universe at this point.”