The first CGI toupee.

It's relatively well known that the "Genesis wave" scene in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was one of the first ever major CGI (computer-generated imagery) sequences in motion picture history (a bald moon revived with lush foliage - more inspiration from Bill Shatner's toupee?).

"...life from lifelessness."

But perhaps less well known is the fact that a brief sequence in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home may contain the world's first ever CGI rendering of a toupee.


A risky time-travel slingshot around the sun propels the Trek team back in time, rendering them temporarily unconscious. Captain Kirk has a surreal dream where he sees the hairstyles of the entire crew. Last to emerge is a vision of Kirk himself with a thick "TJ curly" toupee:

We don't know just how many pioneering man hours were required to get the CGI toupee right. Were measurements taken, changes requested? We don't know, but what we do know is that the more we look, the more it is evident just how much credit the toupee must receive for some of Star Trek's most ambitious and inspiring moments and stories:

"I looked at Bill Shatner's head one day and realized that it was unfortunate how many of his real hair follicles were permanently extinct," recalled* Star Trek movie producer Harve Bennett shortly before his death. "But then I started thinking, what if there were a crisis and for some reason Bill needed his real hair? The only way he could get it would be to go back in time...and that's really where the Star Trek IV story was born."

You can read our analysis of Bill Shatner's underwater swimming in Star Trek IV here.

* not really