One would think that at a certain age, you’d let go of old grudges. However, George Takei still can’t stand William Shatner after 40+ years.
Takei is one of few people in this galaxy who aren’t impressed or at least congratulatory to the nonagenarian’s recent trip into space. Commander Sulu dismissed the trip as simply a romp from someone who was “not the fittest specimen.”
“He’s boldly going where other people have gone before,” Takei, 84, said when asked by Page Six about Shatner’s launch aboard Jeff Bezos’ phallic-shaped Blue Origin rocket. The same man spoke candidly on The Howard Stern Show about grabbing men to “persuade” them to have sex with him. Jealous perhaps?
“He’s a guinea pig, 90 years old and it’s important to find out what happens,” muttered the American Internment Camp survivor. Weird how he still simps for the party that put him in there, but old habits die hard, I guess. “So, 90 years old is going to show a great deal more on the wear and tear on the human body, so he’ll be a good specimen to study. Although he’s not the fittest specimen of 90 years old, so he’ll be a specimen that’s unfit!” rambled Takei at the opening of Thoughts of a Colored Man, which seems more his speed than being part of something historic anyways. But these unfunny, unwitty hacks travel in packs. Jimmy Kimmel, on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, said of Captain Kirk’s trip, “Calling them astronauts is like claiming you lost your virginity because you found a Playboy in the woods; it doesn’t count.” It’s like if Ben Stein’s sidekick used to dress in blackface to do a knock-off Karl Malone impression; it’s still not funny.
This long-standing on-again, off-again rivalry dates back to the old days aboard the Enterprise. Takei accused Shatner of being “very self-centered” and ignoring him. For his part, Shatner pulled some creative control (brother) and changed up the script to Star Trek V so that Hikaru Sulu would not become the commander of a spaceship. Shatner also verbally jabbed, “There’s a psychosis there. There must be something else inside George that is festering, and it makes him unhappy that he takes it out on me. Why would he go out of his way to denigrate me? It’s sad; I feel nothing but pity for him.” If I were to speculate, I’d advise interested parties to assess the post-Star Trek careers. Perhaps the answer would not need a replicator to appear in front of you.