William Shatner is in his eighties, an age when most people have retired, but he is still working and that work includes attending many Star Trek conventions.
It took a book and then a film documentary for Shatner to get why people attend Trek conventions.
“I wrote a book called Get a Life years ago, where I felt I’d done my due diligence and figured out why it is that people come to these conventions,” said Shatner. “And it’s to see each other. That was my final conclusion. Then I did a film documentary and some deeper research. And it was therein that I discovered that this pop culture goes deeper than we’d imagined.
“There is a mythological component, especially with science fiction. It’s people looking for answers – and science fiction offers to explain the inexplicable, the same as religion tends to do. Although ninety-nine percent of the people that come to these conventions don’t realize it, they’re going through the rituals that religion and mythology provide.”
Times have changed in the convention world and Shatner has been there to see how the conventions have evolved over time. “It’s metastasized, I guess is the word,” he said. “It’s become a huge, huge business. There used to be one or two conventions a year. Now I have to be careful and pick and choose where I go.”
Shatner also spoke briefly about the loss of his co-actor and friend, Leonard Nimoy. “I loved him,” he said. “He was a wonderful man. And we’re all so much the less with his passing. Two other people connected to Star Trek have also passed away recently: Maurice Hurley, who produced and wrote the first two seasons of Next Generation, and Harve Bennett, who produced four or five of the Star Trek movies I was in. We’ve lost a lot of wonderful people of late. It makes you consider your own mortality.”
Shatner will be appearing at the Wizard World Raleigh Comic-Con in Raleigh, N.C. this weekend.
Source: Raleigh News-Observer
