By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek and Star Wars are two of the most famous sci-fi franchises, but they are very different from one another. The former is mostly about peaceful exploration and diplomacy and the latter is mostly about heroic battles that determine the fate of the galaxy. Of course, the two franchises have some things in common, including the fact that director J.J. Abrams helmed Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness as well as The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker. But the franchises were once even closer…specifically, Captain Kirk icon William Shatner nearly had aliens named after him for the Star Wars prequels.
William Shatner In Star Wars
Believe it or not, we only know about William Shatner nearly becoming a part of the much-maligned Star Wars Prequel Trilogy thanks to Seth McFarlane. On the DVD special features for Family Guy: It’s A Trap!, there is footage of McFarlane’s own interview with George Lucas, and the Maker admitted that he became friends with Shatner (after meeting at a Mos Eisley-like bar in San Francisco named Hombres) while filming A New Hope. Eventually, the Trek icon said, “You’ll have to name a character after me”…something he intended as a joke, but something Lucas took seriously when designing the Nemoidians for The Phantom Menace.
Like so many aliens in a galaxy far, far away, the Nemoidians were originally very different in both design and name. In that interview with McFarlane, Lucas claims that he considered naming these conniving aliens “S’hatnarians” as a way of honoring William Shatner’s request to have a Star Wars character named after himself. Such an homage would likely have been very appreciated by Shatner, whose directorial debut (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) had a planet named Sha Ka Ree as an homage to Sean Connery, the man they originally wanted to cast as Sybok, Spock’s weirdo half-brother.
However, George Lucas’ creative process is a bit like Jedi visions of upcoming events: always in motion, the future is. Originally, he was all set to make William Shatner part of the Star Wars universe by calling arguably the main alien race of The Phantom Menace “S’hatnarians,” but he later changed his mind and named them “Nemoidians” instead. It’s not entirely clear why Lucas reversed course on this, though we can’t help but wonder if someone told him it would be difficult to sell toys of guys “shat” as half of their name.
Interestingly, while William Shatner never got to officially be part of the Star Wars universe, some Star Trek fans think that Lucas decided to honor the Kirk actor’s old colleague instead. When said out loud, the first part of “Nemoidians” sounds a lot like “Nimoy.” Because of this, there are sci-fi fans who think the aliens’ final name is an homage to legendary Spock actor Leonard Nimoy, but this has never been confirmed.
Honestly, as much as we like both William Shatner and Star Wars, George Lucas most definitely made the right call here. Not only is “Nemoidian” a better name than “S’hatnarian,” but it’s easier to take these bug-eyed weirdos more seriously when they don’t sound like aliens named after poop. And for all the fans with any modicum of taste, well…we most certainly didn’t need any help associating the prequels with crap, now did we?
