Malcolm McDowell Talks Kirk's Death

Malcolm McDowell, the actor that played Dr. Soran, the alien that killed James T. Kirk in Star Trek: Generations looked back on his career and his dissatisfaction with how poorly executed the iconic character's death was handled. In short, he is just as unhappy with it as most fans, much like director David Carson was. The two part interview is worth reading not just because his memorials of filming the sequence but also his thoughts on his long storied career. Below is some of the interview, click the links for the rest - Part 1 | Part 2.

Pose this one for me (to the powers that be): If you have—which they had—this icon of American television, why the hell didn’t they give him a spectacular death? Why did they give him such a really paltry death? Me shooting the bridge out or some BS whatever it was? They should have sent him off in a glorious fashion, and they didn’t. They missed an opportunity. …

Yeah, they re-shot. What did they reshoot? It was just as bad as the first one. And they spent several million dollars (on the reshoots). If you’re asking me, I thought it was poor, very poor, even the reshoot. They should have seen Shatner off in a big way.

I don’t care whose fault it was. Whoever came up with his death at the end, I thought it was really cheesy. I just think the man, whether you like him or not, should have been given a blazing death. And I, course, would have been happy to have supplied that. Look, I just think it was a missed opportunity for this great, iconic figure that everybody loved or everybody loathed. He was one of those great figures that caused dissention and debate and arguments.

It seems some of the blame can be laid on the overall lack of budget that the franchise always had to grapple with after the first few movies but there was also a real creative problem at work. There really is no excuse for how the death of an iconic character was handled and of the great missed opportunities in film history.