Jason Isaacs and William Shatner are back at it again.
During Isaacs’s first ever panel at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, he opened his mouth and almost immediately regretted it. He started off his panel, which was just him and a microphone on stage in front of thousands of people, talking about is first experiences with the franchise.
He said he was offered a role of the captain Star Trek Discovery, to which is response was, “Absolutely not, thank you very much. I grew up worshipping William Shatner.” At which point he paused, held out his hand and went, “and, ah, not William Shatner – Captain Kirk. There’s a difference.” To which his remark was met with smatterings of applause and laughter, and even a few whoops. It’s believed that Isaacs was inferring a previous run in with Shatner, where he had been blocked by Shatner because of an offhand comment explaining why it wouldn’t make narrative sense for Kirk to be in Discovery. After 24 hours, Shatner unblocked Isaacs, who had discovered he’d be blocked the day previous. In response to being unblocked, Isaacs responded.
Well, this set off a new round of angry tweeting.
Shatner let it lay fallow for a few days, and Isaacs said nothing until Aug 6th, but at the convention when asked by an audience member about Shatner’s reaction to the off hand remark, Shatner replied, “The person you mentioned [she referred to him as “the friend of he who should not be named,” a reference to his role of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series], is I, I don’t know what’s bothering him, but I gather he’s got something wrong. Well, he’s got something wrong, I just don’t know what it is.”
To see the remarks in full, go to the video below and jump to 19:45.
Isaac’s final word on the subject was;
Many of the fans I spoke to at the convention back up Isaac’s sentiments. A running joke among some fans is regarding his photo ops, is that it’s practically a miracle if you can get Shatner to smile during them. Another fan told me that they were surprised CBS would be making an announcement immediately following Shatner’s panel because, “No one goes to it.” There seems to be a mood among the fans that I spoke to that Shatner is very much a different person from the character he played; He’s rude, he’s short tempered, and that he’s selfish. I myself have never seen these things, but that is the attitude most of the fans I talk to have. That being said, Shatner is a philanthropist and even announced a new charitable initiative based on the charitable actions he’s helped facilitate on twitter, however it’s unclear what steps are being taken with Ubuntu Discovery. Currently there’s a twitter account, @ubuntudiscovery with 1 tweet and 152 followers that’s been around since Sept 2017, and a website that’s registered, but not set up at ubuntudiscovery.com.
Also published on Medium.