I doubt one gets to see five captains from the Star Trek universe together that often unless there is a big Paramount to-do somewhere. Luckily, those who attended Wizard World Philadelphia this weekend, had a chance to meet those actors in one place. From left to right William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula.
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
17 Comments
Wow. Shatner is even fatter than I am. Avery Brooks looks like a vampire, and poor Kate hasn’t aged well at all. I’m sorry I looked at this picture, I prefer to remember them as they used to be. Did I mention that in the 70s I had a chance to meet, speak to and shake the hand of Gene Roddenberry? He came to the Oregon State Fair and show blooper reels under a tent. It was a thrill!
I look at these 5 people as 5 fantastic actors.All were fantastic in their roles we love them best for.I think they all have stories to tell about their influencial roles.And they could all easily be in upcoming projects,if Paramount is done with the old franchise yet.
If I live to be in my 80’s(like Bill) and still be as active,I’d be thrilled.
Love the diversity: 20% women, 20% people of color, 20% non-American!
Now, statistically, one of these 5 should also be gay…….
Just wait ’till DC retcons one of them.
Well, it would be consistent, but not statistically accurate.
(Insert trek nerd voice here) Actually it’s at least 40% non american, as Shatner is Canadian & Stewart is British. Not sure about the rest of the group.
I would defy anyone to correctly sort them by age just by looking at this picture.
You can say that again. Looks like most of them have pictures in their attics, except Scott Bakula who’s got two!
Don’t forget Chris Pine. Shatner has a “Captains” documentary on Netflix with all six of them. Most of the movie is Shatner badgering them into saying what Shatner wants to hear. It’s awesome.
Shatner doesn’t look bad for 81, though…
Kate will still always be Mary Ryan to me.
It was a great show. Brooks was hung over. He answered all the questions with one word answers. When some total nerd started asking a long winded ten part question, the cameraman would pan over to Brooks, he’d look grumpy and everyone would crack up.
Kate Mulgrew has become a salty dame of the theater, like Dianne Wiest in Bullets over Broadway, she was flirting with everybody, talking about her lovers and playing Salome and Clemenestra off Broadway.
Bakula was doing a boyish fun loving out of work actor thing. His fifty something show got cancelled so he was doing a lot of self-deprecating jokes about how he can’t stay on the air. He looked like such a kids up there with those guys.
Stewart was pretty much what you would expect. He went back and forth between that quirky silly sense of humor of his and deep conversations about acting and stage craft. At one point he jumped off the stage to give a fangirl a hug. It was a good five foot drop, I was impressed.
It was Shatner that surprised me. He’s doing that old guy trying to get into heaven thing. He was effusive in his praise for the other actors. He went off about Bakula’s singing voice and he’s seen everybody else’s stage performances. Mulgrew said something like, she would rather have one friend than seven lovers and Shatner said “Oh, there was a day…”
But I think the best part was what good friends they have apparently become. You got the sense in the old days that there was tension among them when they were on the air, competition for attention and resources, but now they’re all in the same boat and have gotten to know and like each other. I like that. For an aging fanboy it was a nice capstone for my thirty-something years of trekkidom.
But don’t get me started on Bruce Cambell…
It’s a shame Avery Brooks and “Deep Space Nine” never got a big-screen shot. I was a big Sisko fan.
They were going to be in First Contact but the TNG team clicked up and put a stop to it. They were worried that if they started mixing and matching casts that lesser characters would be cut to make room for other show characters.
Nice pic. Cool to see them all together like that, relaxed and IMHO looking good enough to captain again (not that I imagine any will). Gives me that same warm, fuzzy feeling I get from a fistful of Doctors.
I got to listen to Kate Mulgrew talk at Dragon Con last year, and I don’t really care what anyone has to say about how well she’s aged or not, she put on an unbelievably good speech. She’s smart, and funny, and awesome. I would pull out my eyeteeth by hand to listen to Patrick Stewart talk though. I think he will always be my favourite.
The fact that Kate Mulgrew is the only one not smiling:
Kate: “Alright, which one of you farted?”
Scott: “Shatner”
Avery: “Shatner”
Patrick: “Shatner”
Bill: “Me.”