Star Trek Pin-up #22 FRAMED William Shatner James T. Kirk

Description

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry and under the ownership of CBS and Paramount. Star Trek: The Original Series and its live action TV spin-off shows, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise as well as the Star Trek film series make up the main canon, while the canonicity of Star Trek: The Animated Series is debated and the expansive library of Star Trek novels and comics whilst still part of the franchise, are generally considered non-canon.

Star Trek has been a cult phenomenon for decades. Fans of the franchise are called Trekkies or Trekkers. The franchise spans a wide range of spin-offs including games, figurines, novels, toys, and comics. Star Trek had a themed attraction in Las Vegas which opened in 1998 and closed in September 2008. At least two museum exhibits of props travel the world. The series has its own full-fledged constructed language, Klingon. Several parodies have been made of Star Trek. Its fans, despite the end of Star Trek episodes on TV, have produced several fan productions to fill that void.

James Tiberius “Jim” Kirk is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise, appearing in numerous television episodes, films, books, comics, and video games. As the captain of the starship USS Enterprise, Kirk leads his crew as they explore “where no man has gone before”. Often, the characters of Spock and Leonard McCoy act as his logical and emotional sounding boards, respectively.

Kirk, played by William Shatner, first appears in the broadcast pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Man Trap”, originally broadcast on September 8, 1966. Shatner continued in the role for the show’s three seasons, and later provided the voice of the animated version of Kirk in Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–74). Shatner returned to the role for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and in six subsequent films. Chris Pine portrays a young version of the character in the 2009 reboot Star Trek film, with Jimmy Bennett playing Kirk as a child. Other actors have played the character in fan-created media, and the character has been the subject of multiple spoofs and satires. The character has been praised for his leadership traits, and also criticized for his relationships with women.

Kirk became Starfleet’s youngest captain when he received command of the USS Enterprise for a five-year mission, three years of which are depicted in the original Star Trek series.

William Shatner tried to imbue the character with qualities of “awe and wonder” absent from “The Cage”. He also drew upon his experiences as a Shakespearean actor to invigorate the character, whose dialogue at times is laden with jargon. Not only did Shatner take inspiration from Roddenberry’s suggestion of Hornblower, but also from Alexander the Great – “the athlete and the intellectual of his time” – whom Shatner had played for an unsold television pilot two years earlier. In addition, the actor based Kirk partly on himself because “the fatigue factor after weeks of daily filming is such that you try to be as honest about yourself as possible”. A comedy veteran, Shatner suggested making the show’s characters as comfortable working in space as they would be at sea, thus having Kirk be a humorous “good-pal-the-captain, who in time of need would snap to and become the warrior”. Changing the character to be “a man with very human emotions” also allowed for the development of the Spock character. Shatner wrote that “Kirk was a man who marveled and greatly appreciated the endless surprises presented to him by the universe … He didn’t take things for granted and, more than anything else, respected life in every one of its weird weekly adventure forms”.

Shatner did not expect Star Trek to become a success; when Star Trek was cancelled in 1969, Shatner assumed it would be the end of his association with the show. However, Shatner went on to voice Kirk in the animated Star Trek series, star in the first seven Star Trek films, and provide voice acting for several games.

William “Bill” Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, musician, singer, author, film director, spokesman and comedian. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James Tiberius Kirk, commander of the Federation starship USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek, from 1966 to 1969; Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven of the subsequent Star Trek feature films from 1979 to 1994. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek, and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe. He has also written a series of science fiction novels called TekWar that were adapted for television.

In his role as Kirk, Shatner famously kissed actress Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) in the November 22, 1968, Star Trek episode, “Plato’s Stepchildren.” The episode is popularly cited as the first example of an interracial kiss between a white man and a black woman on scripted television in the United States.

In 2006, Shatner was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

Frame is shrinkwrapped until time of purchase. Ships boxed with packing peanuts.

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