40 years later, William Shatner and George Takei still feuding

The TV series “Star Trek” presented a utopian vision of the future in which all humans lived in peace and harmony.

Behind the scenes of the series? Not so much.

The feud between William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk, and George Takei, who was Sulu, has been simmering for some 40 years. It just re-ignited again on Friday’s episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” when Takei was asked why he didn’t like Shatner.

“Canadians have a certain image of being even-tempered and friendly and all that,” Takei replied. “Well, he is a person who is that way with himself. He is very self-centered.”

Enjoy a few more moments in this longtime war of words.

Takei claimed in his 1994 autobiography, “To the Stars,” that Shatner would act like he didn’t know him on the “Star Trek” set in the early days. He also accused Shatner of changing the script for “Star Trek V” so that Takei’s character would not receive command of a starship.

Takei claimed that Shatner would act like he didn’t know him during their early days on “Star Trek.”Everett Collection

Takei married his husband in 2008 and Shatner became enraged when he claimed he wasn’t invited. He ranted against Takei in an online interview. “There’s such a sickness there, it’s so painfully obvious that there’s a psychosis there. I don’t know what his original thing about me was, I have no idea. I didn’t read his book that was printed many years ago,” Shatner said of Takei. “I didn’t know him very well on the series, he’d come in for a day or two, as evidenced by the role he played.”

“There must be something else inside George that is festering, and it makes him so unhappy that he takes it out on me, in effect a total stranger,” Shatner continued. “Why would he go out of his way to denigrate me? It’s sad, I feel nothing but pity for him.”

Takei says he invited Shatner to his nuptials but never heard back.

The former Captain Kirk tried to get even in a 2011 memoir called “Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large.” In the book, Shatner claimed that Takei had been “saying mean things about me for nearly 40 years now.”

Shatner called Takei’s wedding a publicity stunt and hypothesized that their feud stemmed from Takei’s unwillingness to playing second fiddle to Shatner on “Star Trek.”

Takei “says that I have a ‘big, shiny ego!’ Well, actors have big egos,” Shatner wrote. “If mine is shiny, it’s because I tend to it very carefully and lovingly. Perhaps George’s needs a good polish.”

Takei with husband Brad AltmanSplash News

In a 2010 chat with Howard Stern, Takei recounted a 1994 event intended to honor the ailing James Doohan, who played Scotty on “Star Trek.” Takei said that Shatner refused to join Doohan and the rest of the cast on stage for a final farewell. (Doohan died in 2005.)

“It was shocking,” Takei said. “This is the usual thing that happens, on the set, whether it was the TV series or the movies, or at conventions. This was another convention where he decided [Shatner] was not going to do what they wanted him to do, and he walked out.”

On a 2013 episode of “Watch What Happens Live,” Takei was asked who the biggest “douche” on “Star Trek” was. “Oh, well, I think most fans know,” the actor replied. When asked if it was Shatner, Takei nodded and laughed.

Takei also claimed that Shatner “regularly” would stop filming to ask the director to train the cameras on him instead of the actor speaking. “[Shatner was] reacting, and that’s the important thing,” Takei said.