'Star Trek' Director J.J. Abrams Clears Up Confusion With William Shatner

Throughout the 40-year run of "Star Trek," the brave men and women of the USS Enterprise have battled all sorts of baddies, including the Romulans, the Borg and the Klingons.

Now, new "Trek" helmer J.J. Abrams is engaged in possibly the most absurd battle of them all — with the former captain himself.

"Here's my favorite thing: My favorite thing is turning on YouTube and seeing William Shatner talk to me," Abrams laughed in a recent interview with MTV News. "When did that become my life? How did that occur?"

The war of words between the director and the man formerly known as James T. Kirk over the latter not being offered a role in the updated "Trek" reached a crescendo last month after Abrams gave an interview with AMC, in which he stated that his team "tried desperately to put him in the movie."

Shatner was quick to respond with a video blog, in which he said no one had ever reached out to him or anyone from his camp.

It's tough to say how much of the back-and-forth is tongue-in-cheek. Talking about his character's onscreen death, for instance, Shatner suggests in his latest video that they reanimate him using DNA from the Transporter teleportation machines.

For his part, Abrams is taking the dialogue at face value, offering up to MTV News a final statement to clear up the confusion.

"I think what happened was, I said we made many efforts or something to get him in the movie. I think he or his people interpreted that as we reached out and tried to get him in. I meant internally," Abrams explained. "I didn't wanna present him with something we didn't believe in. So we were trying to make this thing work, and it didn't happen.

"I didn't [personally] write anything [for Shatner]. Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci], who wrote a spectacular script for us, we all wanted to make it work," Abrams continued. "The scene they wrote, which was good, it honestly felt like 'contrivance to insert William Shatner into our movie.' It just felt very much like what it was."

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(AP)