William Shatner has volunteered to play Captain Kirk in the next Star Trek movie. Shatner, who is 86 years old, realizes that he looks like an enormous knish with arms and legs, but says that the magic of CGI can make him play the role again. He envisions computer effects being used to take the image of his face in his 30s, pasting it on a young actor's face, and then Shatner can supply the voice.

It's been done before, and quite successfully.

In the Star Wars movie Rogue One Peter Cushing, who has been dead for decades, "reprised" his role as Grand Moff Tarkin. Actor Guy Henry played the part and even provided the voice, doing such a good job that he sounded "even more Tarkin" than Cushing himself, and the visual result is about 90% convincing.

The same film showed a brief CGI cameo of a young Princess Leia, exactly reproducing how Carrie Fisher looked before she destroyed her body with drugs and alcohol, and this result was perfect.

The movie Tron Legacy featured two Jeff Bridges--the real one and a CGI younger version of himself, also quite successfully.

You may ask, why do we need a CGI Kirk when another actor could simply take the role? Well, another actor has taken the role, Chris Pine. Chris Pine looks nothing like William Shatner ever did, and his pseudo-Tom Cruise acting is so bad that it's cringeworthy:

Even fan productions like Star Trek Continues have been able to produce more convincing Kirk's than Pine. Check out the video below to see how actor Vic Mignogna has nailed Kirk's mannerisms and speaking style cold.

So, given the state of technology, would you go to a see a Star Trek movie featuring a digitally youthful Captain Kirk, using William Shatner's voice (assuming it wasn't filled with the usual PC content)?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.