That was awesome! Great answers by both of them. Never knew why Roddenberry left the show the 3rd season - it was always cast as he didn't care anymore. What he said make sense.
Thank you. Never heard it before. Very insightful. The Prime Directive was something they took very seriously. (Although Shatner makes a little joke about it, he does agree with the philosophy. Strongly.)
As a Star Trek Fan, I hadn't heard this interview before. Its nice to hear Bill and Gene both discuss Star Trek together. Bill actually comes off as both insufferable & egotistical but slightly thoughtful & intelligent especially when he discusses the prime directive and themes of the show. Gene comes off as a bit contemplative about his tenure creating and producing Star Trek. As Spock would say Fascinating .
Captain Kirk is a character up to a point, in Star Trek V and Generations Shatner played himself. There is a lot of Nimoy in Spock. None of the actors who took over the role of Kirk or Spock came close.
I think Spock's character changed dramatically from the first season of Trek because Roddenberry was not there, and Nimoy didn't want to change his character for every new director they'd be assigned each week. He'd lost his major supporter by then. He was the only one in the same character from the 1964 pilot. Spock was almost emotionless by the third season.
Kirk and Spock would have zero trouble pointing out WHO the real enemy is to the Earth that have kept it in perpetual war and financial servitude, Shatner and Nimoy probably wouldn't.
