George Takei reopened his long-running feud with former Star Trek colleague William Shatner as he dismissed the actor’s space flight.
Shatner, 90, made history on Wednesday as the oldest person to reach space thanks to a rocket built by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
Takei, 84, said he was unimpressed by his former co-star’s achievements as he revisited their decades-old run of ill-feeling.
“He’s boldly going where other people have gone before,” Takei told Page Six.
“He’s a guinea pig, 90 years old and it’s important to find out what happens.
“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!”
Shatner played Captain James T Kirk of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek while Takei portrayed Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu.
They have argued publicly for years, with Takei once accusing Shatner of ignoring him on set and alleging he changed a script so Sulu did not take command of the starship in an episode.
Last year Takei appeared on David Tennant’s podcast and said Shatner felt a rivalry with the rest of the Star Trek cast and it often felt like “William Shatner against the world”.
He said the actor was ruffled by the amount of fan mail Leonard Nimoy – who played Spock – received.
Shatner chose to respond to that barb publicly.
George needs a new hobby. Now he’s making things up. We never saw fan letters. 🤷🏼♂️ That’s why there’s so many secretary signed photos. We barely saw George. He was in once a week at most-how would he know anything? The only person with jealousy is George.🙄 https://t.co/Aq8vvHvVeG
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) August 25, 2020
He tweeted: “George needs a new hobby. Now he’s making things up. We never saw fan letters. That’s why there’s so many secretary-signed photos. We barely saw George. He was in once a week at most – how would he know anything? The only person with jealousy is George.”
After Wednesday’s trip to space, Shatner was visibly awed by what he experienced.
He told billionaire Amazon founder Bezos it was “the most profound experience I can imagine”.