rusty-26 Worth seeing because of Shatners bizarre "interview" with Avery Brooks. This surpasses most of what I have seen with regard to absurdities. First Shatner and Brooks engages in some sort of word-game or word-duel where they "challenge" each other. Then Brooks sets himself at the piano and with a "mad" facial expression, he comes up with a melody to which both Brooks and Shatner try to "improvise" lyrics. Both at the same time. Truly strange. About the same caliber as Shatner's version of "rocket man".

sddavis63 There are definitely some things you learn from this documentary about the various actors who have played "The Captain" on all the various incarnations of Star Trek. They all worked hard. There were lots of references to 12 or 14 or 18 hour days, or being at the studio until 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning. So being the star of a TV show (I assume the same would hold true for any TV show) is hard and demanding work. I get that. And we learn that the gruelling demands on their time lead to a lot of family problems. William Shatner and Patrick Stewart and Scott Bakula were open about the divorces they experienced (Stewart especially expressing great regret about them) and Kate Mulgrew was very candid about the challenges of being a single mother to two children while she was shooting Voyager. (Apparently both of her children still resent the show and won't watch it.) So there are some interesting things here, and I think Shatner did a pretty decent job as an interviewer, drawing some of that material out of the various "captains." Overall, though, I wasn't entirely sure what this documentary was trying to accomplish.It's basically Shatner interviewing all of those who have played "The Captain" on the various incarnations of Star Trek. So you have Stewart (Picard on TNG) and Bakula (Archer on Enterprise) and Mulgrew (Janeway on Voyager), along with Avery Brooks (Sisko on DS9) and even Chris Pine (Kirk in the Star Trek reboot) talking about their experiences in the captain's chair. But it's more personal than professional. A lot of their chats are more about their lives and Star Trek's impact than on Star Trek itself. You don't learn much "behind the scenes" stuff, for example. In that sense it was a wee bit of a let down. Especially disappointing, I thought, was Shatner's interviews with Brooks. I got very little out of Brooks comments. He spent most of his time playing the piano and singing jazz with Shatner. And even Bakula's focus seemed less on "Star Trek" than it was on "Quantum Leap." There is some interesting material about the actors respective backgrounds. Most started out on stage, Bakula and Brooks have music backgrounds, and Brooks is a professor of Theatre Arts at Rutgers University. It seemed to me as if most of these actors have had to "come to terms" with their Trek background. It was only Stewart of all of them (who probably has the most accomplished acting background) who was actually able to say that he will be very happy to be remembered mostly as Captain Picard rather than as any of the Shakespearean or other characters he's played.As might be expected, the documentary centres on Shatner, and I was unconvinced about the need to repeatedly cut back to Shatner at Star Trek conventions being greeted by adoring crowds. It was good to see him working the crowds and interacting with fans (especially the young man in the wheelchair) but the number of times the film cut back to Shatner at the conventions made it seem a little bit self- serving.Parts of this were interesting. It wasn't exactly what I expected. I was thinking there would be a lot more background, behind the scenes Star Trek material as opposed to the personal stories (often the non-Trek stories) of the actors. Not bad, but to me it fell a little bit short. (6/10)

ironhorse_iv Since the 1960's Star Trek has became one of the most beloved film and television franchises of all times. Each generation has it's own spin off series, with each series having a captain to command the ship to areas where no man has ever gone before. The original series captain, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) goes off to find these actors that play the captains in this darting documentary. The documentary introducts these character actors from their beginnings, how they got to become captain, and how their series has impact the world and it's fans. The first of these captain after the original series, was Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) who captain, the 'Next Generation' Series. The documentary shows how much a serious actor he was, and how he change for the better out of it, with great cost of his personal life. The next captain, William Shatner meets is Avery Brooks who played Benjamin Sisko on 'Deep Space Nine'. Avery, the actor seems a very deep and free thinker, who's mind is out there. Drama came ahead to ahead, with personal philosophy and morals between William Shatner and Kate Mulgrew of 'Star Trek Voyager' captain Katryn Janeaway fame. She nearly bump heads with Shatner over morality, and gender roles issues. It was a bit easier for Shatner to hang out with Scott Bakula, the captain of 'Enterprise' Jonathan Archer. There were a few laughs, and was less taken serious questions. The same goes with his short interview with Chris Pike who plays Captain Kirk in the modern day film 'Star Trek". The interview with both Bakula and Pike were a bit too short. Christoper Plummer guest stars in the documentary talking his part as Chang in the film 'Star Trek VI' was surprising. While his part was interesting, the time he spent on screen would better be serve to explaining more about Bakula and Pike, since the titled is called 'The Captains'. There are a bit weird interjects in the documentary where fans interrupt the filming. It doesn't serve anything to the story, it's better used as a DVD extra then leaving it in the film. There is a bit of a feeling of James Lipton's In the Actor Studio in the interview style. It can be direly, when some of the questions verve off that doesn't have anything to related to 'Star Trek' or their own careers. Last, William Shatner come into the reality about his past as Captain Kirk and overall opinion on himself and 'Star Trek' all together. It's a movie for the die hard Star Trek fans, it's not that interesting for the common fan due to seriousness of the philosophic questions the actors are forced to answer. In the end-- Scotty, have to beam me up to watch it again. It's just felt a one time viewing.

Henry (hen3d45) I have fallen in love with the documentaries on Netflix.I found this movie, and was very pleased with it's insights and depth. People love to have an easy target, and William Shatner has been that for a lot of critics, but I think this movie will show his deeper side. William Shatner seems to have such an easy time talking and getting people to interact with him. Seeing the scene where he walks through the convention floor shows his talent for identifying with people. It was a wonderful glimpse into the lives of these great actors. Thanks William for making this film.You should watch this film, and I hope when you do you enjoy it as much as i did.