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The Captains, a feature-length documentary written and directed by William Shatner—aka James T. Kirk, captain of the original Starship Enterprise—screened before a crowd of Star Trek aficionados last night at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
The film features in-depth interviews and classic Star Trek footage with actors Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation), Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager), Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer of Star Trek: Enterprise) and Chris Pine (Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek 2009).
Shatner created the film for theEpix channel, which launched in 2009 as a joint project between Viacom/Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Lionsgate. (Though many of us can't seem to get and/or find Epix, the content, including The Captains, is available for free on their website for a limited time.)
At last night's screening, we spotted our fair share of Trek crew members in the crowd, with their tight-fitting uniforms and phasers attached to the hip. Dressed for space or not, they were all there to pay homage to Star Trek in all its variations.
The iconic Shatner briefly addressed the crowd before the screening. He got a little sentimental as he pointed to Paramount studios, almost adjacent to the cemetery, noting that the the original series was filmed at Paramount nearly 50 years ago. (As if they didn't already know!)
At 80, though, Shatner shows no sign of stopping. We overheard him tell someone that he's also working on a new album. We can only hope that it's as good as this:
