Captain Kirk Almost Fought Jesus Christ In ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’
The sad truth aboutStar Trekis that it took original creatorGene Roddenberrystepping away for the series to find its second wind. Although he will always rightfully be considered the genius who shepherded the finest science fiction franchise in history into existence, his later vision of whatStar Trekwas clashed not only with other creatives, but with much of what made the original television series so great in the first place. It’s no accident that he was forced out ofStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which remains arguably the best of the twelve films made so far.
But those twelve films will soon be thirteen, so it’s no accident that the new bookThe Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek – The First 25 Yearsis in stores right now (the second volume arrives in August). While I’m anticipationStar Trek Beyond, this book is what is currently grabbing my attention… mainly because it reveals that Gene Roddenberry wrote aStar Trekmovie where Captain Kirk fights Jesus Christ.
The Hollywood Reporterposted an extended excerpt from the book that is a must-read if you’re a fan of Star Trek or simply enjoy great Hollywood stories (and tip of the hat toThe Playlistfor brining this to our attention). However, the bizarre highlight deals with one of several screenplays Roddenberry wrote asStar Trek: The Motion Picturewas being developed. One version was a time travel story where the Enterprise crew attempts to stop the Kennedy assassination. Another was… well, here’s directorRichard Colla:
As bonkers as this sounds, it’s actually very much in line with theStar Trekuniverse, where religion is viewed as something that humanity has evolved beyond. Captain Kirk grappling with Jesus makes one ofTrek’s underlying themes very literal. And while this is all very interesting, authorMichael Jan Friedman, who was later hired to adapt the unmade screenplay into a novel, was not a fan of what Roddenberry put on the page:
To the best of my recollection, I received both the script and a short narrative version of it. Naturally I jumped at the chance to translate and expand it. Gene was — and still is — one of my heroes, for God’s sake, no pun intended. As he had already left the land of the living, this was a unique opportunity to collaborate with him. But when I read the material, I was dismayed. I hadn’t seen other samples of Gene’s unvarnished writing, but what I saw this time could not possibly have been his best work. It was disjointed — scenes didn’t work together, didn’t build toward anything meaningful. Kirk, Spock and McCoy didn’t seem anything like themselves. There was some mildly erotic, midlife-crisis stuff in there that didn’t serve any real purpose. In the climactic scene, Kirk had a fistfight with an alien who had assumed the image of Jesus Christ … So Kirk was slugging it out on the bridge. With Jesus.
Interestingly, the only person who seems particularly positive on this angle is Kirk himself,William Shatner… who later directedStar Trek V: The Final Frontier, which features the Enterprise crew encountering an alien being who claims to be God. Huh.
