William Shatner, the original Captain James T. Kirk, has announced he is in talks with director Robert Orci to appear in the next installment of the new Star Trek franchise.
“I had a talk with him the other day,” said Shatner. “So there’s talk, simply talk about the next movie.”
There is no indication how they might bring Shatner into the movie since the original Kirk was killed in 1994’s “Star Trek: Generations.”
Since when have timelines ever posed a problem in Star Trek? :dubious: 
Shatner’s Kirk was in his 60s when he was brought out of the Nexus by Picard and died. Shatner is now 83. How would they explain Kirk looking 20 years older than at his death? Unless they revive Kirk in a way similar to how he was revived in Shatner’s own novels. And if they did, he’d be alive in the 24th century contemporaneous with Spock.
Okay, I’ll give them a free pass when they used Nimoy to pass the baton so to speak in the first movie. But this shit wherein they pay tribute to the original series in every new installment is just beyond stupid.
The current series is built around things playing out differently than they did the first time around; there may never even be a Picard who (a) brings anyone out of the Nexus, or (b) serves as Captain of the Enterprise; the next movie could begin with young Sulu and young Chekov dropping dead and staying dead; Christopher Pike may well never wind up beeping once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’ before returning to Talos IV.
In this new timeline, Kirk may age for another ten decades or another ten minutes.
This may or may not turn out to be the case in the show someday, but “in real life” (so to speak) this would almost certainly be true.
Supposing a person’s parents had had sex just a few seconds off from when they actually did, that person wouldn’t exist. Which would in turn affect (even if just slightly) when other people have sex. And so on. Even just a seemingly tiny change at one point in time would propagate out and completely change the population of the world in relatively short order. (I’m not sure how short but it seems within a hundred or maybe two hundred years?)
That’s a single tiny change. In the new Trek movies, there are some fairly huge changes–for example countless people have died in the new Trek who didn’t die in the original. So within just a few generations the Trek Earth (and probably other planets as well) will be populated by a completely different set of people.
In this re-boot, Star Trek used a college freshman to take over as the Commanding Officer of the Star Fleet flag ship, so I don’t think logic or continuity is a primary (or even secondary) consideration.
I just don’t know what Shatner would add at this point. It will be the third movie of the re-boot. If you are going to make a break with the past make it and move on.
The only way they could possibly fit him into a movie is if they do an incredible job making him and Nimoy look younger, and have them do a flashback to the original timeline. "New " Kirk is only in his 20’s, how else can we show Old “Old” Kirk, that is at least 40 years into this timeline’s future?
Now I think of another way- “New” Kirk Time travels to the future and meets himself - Shatner.
Well, technically he was a third-year student, so… a Junior, not a Freshman. It was stupid writing in any case.
I’m not sure the reboot has brought enough to stand on its own. Big splashy special effects and lens flares, but I’m hard pressed to see anything more .
I stand corrected . . .Junior 
I’m not impressed with the reboot either. Perhaps it’s because I remember the first (in reruns) and TNG. But having said that, I’m not sure what Shatter will do to help.
This is just Shatner saying that he is in talks. It may be nothing more than him calling Orci’s office and saying “please please pleeeease!”
They’re going to remake The Deadly Years, and get Shatner to play elderly Kirk.
Shatner plays Kirk’s grandfather.
An alternate timeline where Kirk didn’t die.
It turns out to be an imposter.
Shatner plays a different, unrelated character.
Any of these might make a good story. Might.
Futurama could do it. they will figure it out.
I think you’re all misunderstanding the casting, here. Shatner will be playing the new-timeline Enterprise A.
He’s going to play one of the whales in a remake of The Voyage Home.
Honestly, they just need to invite the cast of Galaxy Quest onto the next film as “special guest stars” and have them all killed by “the chompers” in the first five minutes to demonstrate how dangerous the situation is. Except for Guy; he’s the plucky comic relief.
Stranger
They only need to use his head.
Maybe the Enterprise meets the aliens from *Third Rock From the Sun. *
I’ve been to one convention in my adult life, it featured Shatner and Nimoy.
(Geeky kid asks question about Futurama)
Shatner: “What?..Futur…what?”
(Nimoy whispers to Shatner to remind him that he did do a cartoon called Futurama)
Shatner: “Oh.”
Given that they killed Pike in that last movie, I’m pretty sure that one’s out.
No time travel is required for William Shatner to appear, it could be that new Kirk encounters some Trek Technobabble that causes him to age for a time in the film. Shows like this have already been done in Trek so it would be an homage of sorts to the series. While older, he’d be played by William Shatner. I agree with others that original Spock in the new series is getting old, but having William Shatner play an older version of the current character would be fun.