Captain James T. Kirk can be appalled on the speedy acceleration of local weather change on Earth, says William Shatner, the Montreal-born actor who performed the pinnacle of the USS Enterprise within the “Star Trek” franchise for many years.
“I feel he would most likely be as appalled as I’m,” Shatner mentioned throughout a latest video name from his dwelling in Los Angeles.
The actor mentioned he may think about Kirk “skywriting” a message to his fellow Earthlings, urging them to take motion.
“Schooling, schooling, learn every thing,” Shatner mentioned. “All people ought to acquaint themselves with the issue, and decide.”
The 94-year-old actor might be in his hometown of Montreal later this week for the town’s Comiccon occasion. The three-day fan conference begins Friday on the Palais des congrès.
Get each day Nationwide information
Get the day’s high information, political, financial, and present affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox as soon as a day.
Shatner is scheduled to make an look on the second and third days of the convention. Different scheduled friends embody Wil Wheaton, who performed Wesley Crusher in “Star Trek: The Subsequent Era.”
Shatner was born in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood in 1931, and he nonetheless has a deep emotional connection to the town. “That’s my complete childhood,” he mentioned, including that he has a “huge” variety of family residing there, together with a sister.
He started performing when he was a small youngster, and he continued even after graduating from McGill College in 1952 with a commerce diploma. The varsity’s college centre is thought to college students because the Shatner Constructing, although the college confirmed it isn’t the constructing’s official identify.
He first performed Captain Kirk within the “Star Trek” TV present in 1966. His final look within the franchise was within the 1994 movie “Star Trek Generations,” the place Kirk is killed off.
He additionally starred within the reveals “Boston Authorized” and “T.J. Hooker.” He wrote a number of books, together with “Star Trek” novels and a memoir about his friendship with the late actor Leonard Nimoy, who famously performed Spock within the unique collection. And he recorded greater than a dozen albums, from 1968’s “The Remodeled Man,” a group of dramatic readings of fashionable songs, to final yr’s kids’s album, “The place Will the Animals Sleep? Songs for Youngsters and Different Dwelling Issues.”
Final month, he was onstage in Seattle with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking about area and life in a present they referred to as “The Universe Is Absurd.”
He went to Antarctica final yr, with deGrasse Tyson, and he went to area in 2021, aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin shuttle.
At all times curious and hungry for data, Shatner mentioned he’s impressed and fascinated by the capabilities of synthetic intelligence and functions equivalent to ChatGPT.
“I used to be researching a speech I used to be making, and I may use ChatGPT instantly, (as an alternative of) taking place to the library, looking for the e book, learn what the e book says, come again dwelling and notice I had a query I didn’t ask,” he mentioned. “Synthetic intelligence has been a revolution in mankind’s acquisition of data.”
Even nonetheless, Shatner mentioned he was annoyed by how baby man can ever actually know.
“I’m going to die very unhappily as a result of I don’t know something,” he mentioned. “There’s a lot wonderful data on the market that it’s inconceivable to accumulate. However what little bits and items the human mind can comprise in a lifetime are fascinating.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
