Synopsis: For the first time in Star Trek history, five of the final frontier’s greatest names have been brought together for a 70-minute rare and unprecedented roundtable event. Filmed exclusively for the Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection, Willam Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and host Whoopi Goldberg share candid insights, humorous moments, and intimate details about life on the set, working with each other, and how Star Trek has affected their lives.
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Star Trek: The Captains’ Summit 6.5

I’m a fan of Star Trek. Fuelled mostly by the original crew (and cast, I might add ), and, supported by the TNG version of the series, I have to admit that Star Trek has bested my appreciation of Star Wars over the years. It will never, ever, match the nostalgia factor that Star Wars has, being so deeply rooted in my childhood, but it also likely will never be felled by the George Lucas factor.

…unless they continue to make Star Trek films that want to be Star Wars, that is.

Over the years, I’ve watched my fair share of documentaries related to the Trek phenomenon, including a lengthy dialogue between Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner called, of all things, ‘Mind Meld’. I’ve always found these things either informative and/or fascinating – even the one about ‘How William Shatner Changed the World’ (and I have a particularly strong dislike for the arrogant, bloated, moronic Shatman!).

So when I heard that the Blu-ray set of the original crew movies included an exclusive disc that included a full-length dialogue between Jonathan Frakes, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner and Patrick Stewart, I simply could not resist. Admittedly, I waited until I got an exceptional deal on the set, but I pretty much bought the set for this disc alone (due to the fact that the transfers of the movies themselves were trounced in various reviews. Plus which I was already happy with my DVDs).

Unfortunately, this exclusive disc, otherwise known as ‘The Captains’ Summit’, is a whole lot of hooey.

Perhaps it’s due to some admittedly high expectations, or maybe it’s because I had waited so long for all my friends to be together in one room so that we could all finally see it that, thereby creating overflowing anticipation, but this lacklustre exchange was a real bummer. In fact, it was such a lame programme that I don’t see ANY replay value in it at all; there’s no place that even casual fans hadn’t gone before and none of the “pleasantries” were actually pleasant.

Don’t get me wrong: they picked a terrific bunch of people, and Whoopi Goldberg was an excellent choice of moderator, given her connection to Star Trek and her talk show experience. But the result was far too chaotic to be intelligible and/or for intelligent exchanges to come of it: everyone talked over each other and no light was shed on anything. Only Nimoy felt compelled to cut through all the BS from time to time; Whoopi just sat there, letting egos run amok.

None of this was helped by William Shatner. Gosh… he is such a douche. Not only is he one of the least sincere and most egotistical people that I’ve ever seen, but his largely invented responses and retorts were as pathetic as they were intrusive – he was by far the biggest offender of the group, always cutting others and rambling over their exchanges. And the worst of it is: he seems to think that he is an amusing, clever person. He is so self-content that it makes me ill.

Sigh… to think that this was an edited version of the original conversation. Each of the three 20-30 minute segments started and ended with no rhyme or reason. They were quite evidently recorded separately – no doubt to give some of them time to collect their thoughts, re-energize, or drink another glass of scotch (lest they become too coherent ). Or maybe there’s some footage that had to be left on the cutting room floor because it was too awful to release. Either way, what we were privy to was the best that they could muster.

Summit indeed.