Meyer, you may or may not remember, directed and co-wrote Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country and co-wrote Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Now he's written a memoir called The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood. The book is out in August, but I have an advance copy here that I've been thumbing through.
Meyer is an actual writer, and this book is much much better-written than a lot of Trek memoirs. In fact it's quite enjoyable on a purely non-Trek level. But I still, as with all Trek memoirs, find myself skimming through it and flipping pages to get the Trekkiest chunks of Trek goodness. Like the fact that the initial script for Star Trek IV had to be discarded because it contained a huge part for Eddie Murphy, and the studio was "reluctant to put their two biggest franchises in one basket." Or that Leonard Nimoy hated Spock's cheesy looking stateroom. And why they had to rip up steel gratings by hand to load a photon torpedo in Star Trek II. (Meyer wanted it to be like when they "ran out the guns" in Horation Hornblower, which he now admits is silly.)
There aren't any bombshells here, and it's not exactly a warts-and-all backstage tell-all. But it's not Pollyanna-ish either. It does contain some wart-related content. Meyer yells at Leonard Nimoy over editing issues. He yells at Deforest Kelly when he keeps blowing the line "Those people back there bought time for the Genesis with their lives" over and over again. In sum:
Though the crew of the Enterprise functions in space as a crack team, equal to any of the challenges it must confront, once off camera and subject to earth's gravitational pull, the cast was a microcosm of any other society, riven by factionalism, allegiances, and jealousies.
Riven! Riven I say!
Can't wait for Ron Moore to write a memoir.
Kemper
Jun. 5, 2009 17:46:pm
at 17:46:pm
Is Ron Moore mentioned in the book?
Church
Jun. 5, 2009 18:40:pm
at 18:40:pm
Can Ron Moore write?
But seriously, Meyer is a great guy. Back when they were first talking about making "Star Trek II" it was intended as a TV movie, mostly to amortize all the money they'd blown on the sets for the first movie. When he came aboard, they were just talking about bumping it up to a cinematic film, but with a low budget. "Do you think you could make a movie for ten million dollars?" they asked him. "Where I come from, I could make five movies for that much money."
republibotthreepointoh
Jun. 8, 2009 09:54:am
at 09:54:am
That line about making five movies within a ten million dollar budget was first uttered by Harve Bennett, not Nicholas Meyer.
Bennett was discussing the possibility of producing a Trek sequel and the head of Paramount's parent company asked him whether he could make it for under 25 million dollars. That's where the line came in, and Bennett was immediately hired as Trek's producer.
Meyer didn't join the production until story ideas were well underway. At that point, recycling of sets and budget cuts were happening all over.
There are a number of Trek producers which I'd love if they decided to stories about their production memories. Ron Moore is one of them. Brannon Braga would be another key figure worth listening. Even some of the directors like David Livingston or Allan Kroeker could provide interesting insights.
eduardojencarelli
Jun. 11, 2009 03:49:am
at 03:49:am