Interview with William Shatner

I’ll let you know up front – this interview was conducted in 2002.? And it’s not really a Trek-oriented or Shatner-oriented interview, so much as it is a Shatner Plays Paintball interview.? Nevertheless, it is a William Shatner interview and may provide a different perspective than most interviews that have gone before.

I’ve been hunting for my copies of this thing for a while and finally found them during a bit of spring cleaning.

One of the big paintball events of 2002 was a game called SPPLATATTACK that featured William Shatner, reprising his role as Admiral James T. Kirk of the Federation (as well as other celebs including Mancow, the DJ and many paintball luminaries).? SpplatAttack was organized as a scenario game in which three large teams (several hundred players on each) represented Star Trek’s Federation, Klingons and The Borg.? (No, the game was not canonical.)? Tasks, missions and victory conditions are scripted affairs, modified by the actual play results on the field.

In the end, the Federation won.? The game had a huge impact on the paintball industry:? some of us were hoping that it could be used as a tool to re-direct the paintball culture.? (This did not happen for a variety of reasons.)

The other thing that didn’t happen was an engagement between paintball and the Trek/fandom community.? A rather large Star Trek convention was being held close by to SpplatAttack’s venue and the game was heavily promoted to Trekkies – er – Trekkers.? Unfortunately, if I recall correctly, only 6 Fans showed up.

At the time I ran a tournament series that was affiliated with Paintball News.? The publisher knew of my SF/Trek background and asked me if I’d be interested in doing the interview.? (Well duh!)

The interview itself was conducted in early December 0f 2000, over the telephone.? Mr. Shatner was scheduled for one of the New York network morning shows and I’d be talking to him between sets while he was in his dressing room.

As it turns out, while I was talking to him, Bill was wearing an elf costume.? Once I had him on the phone, I teased him a bit by mentioning our history – that the last time we’d met, he’d given me his autograph and that had been some 30 odd years before.

He accepted the ribbing graciously and we continued with the rest of the interview as you’ll see below.

There was one more SplatAttack, this one a non-Trek theme, but the series has faded for one reason or another.