Reminder: Star Trek ‘Genesis Trilogy’ Tonight in Santa Monica w/Nick Meyer + clips of recent Meyer talk

Tonight, continuing TrekMovie and Geek Monthly’s Star Trek Weekend, we are hosting a Star Trek triple feature, showing the ‘Genesis’ Trilogy at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. On hand will be Nick Meyer, to talk about his time with the Star Trek franchise. See below for clips of Meyer from another recent event talking about his book and Star Trek.

 

Saturday will be a Trek Triple Play with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan immediately followed by Q&A with director Nicholas Meyer who will discuss his work on the film as well as co-writing Star Trek IV and writing and directing Star Trek VI. This will be followed by showings of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and concluding with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The event will be moderated by Geek Monthly’s Jeff Bond and TrekMovie’s Anthony Pascale.

More information at americancinematheque.com.

Meyer on his live and Star Trek

While promoting his new book "A view from the Bridge" Nick Meyer did a tour of book stores. Here is a clip from him at a book store in LA, talking about the death of Spock scene from Star Trek II. (Thanks fora.tv)

And here is the full hour long program

American Cinematheque/TrekMovie Star Trek Movie Marathon Weekend
Here is all the info you need to know

What: Star Trek II, III, IV w/ Nick Meyer Panel and givaways

Where: American Cinematheque’s Aero Theater
1328 Montana Avenue at 14th Street in Santa Monica

When:  Saturday December 5th. Each night kicks off at 7:30PM.

Tickets: You can buy tickets at Fandango. Each day costs only $10 (with discounts for students, seniors or members). Click links below to buy at Fandango

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First!

Way to actually write something along with just “First!” Anyways, I always thought Spock’s death scene was one of the two best scenes ever in Star Trek, the other being Picard and Lilly’s argument in First Contact. If JJ’s not down to direct the next Trek movie my top two choices for sure would be to either put Meyer or Frakes back in the chair. I always thought this newest movie seemed to be lacking a familiar sense that the others have and I think either of those two would be great to bring that back and add a new depth.

Great stuff, although a pet peeve of mine is a syncophant who laughs just a little too long and a little too loud during an artist’s talk.

There’s a woman’s laugh in that Meyer clip that drives me nuts!

wouldnt mind seeing nick meyer contribute to the nexttrek flick since he and jj have good history with each other. i dont think anybody wouldnt want to see him be a part of star trek again.

Abrams and Meyer have been friends for years. So, why not have Mr. Meyer come back, in some sort of way, either as a director or even in a small role like an executive producer or consultant.

I’ve actually wondered if Meyer had at least made a set visit on ST09 and again, why not have him come in for the sequel?

Awesome. Wish I could go. Maybe I’ll just have a trilogy marathon with my new Blue RAAAAY!

Here’s what I don’t get…

Meyer has been consistent and eloquent in his description of the making of STII, including the death of Spock. I know I am a bit of a Shatner sycophant, but I have to confess… I don’t understand why he never pays tribute to the chemistry of Shatner and Nimoy, and how they created this indelible scene. It was extraordinary. It still is. You can watch it a thousand times and still tear up.

I think it was in the STVI commentary, but I am unsure, where Meyer says that both Shatner and Nimoy raised their game when they are together in scenes. It’s true. It’s somewhat painful to see how flippant Shatner is in STIII with Sulu in the turbolift when breaking out McCoy. Still… why do words fail the particularly loquacious Meyer in giving credit to these actors for this scene? Is he failing? Am I just crazy?

@7: Good question. I get the sense that Meyer worked better with Nimoy than Shatner in general.

In fact, I think there’s a bit in the book where he mentions having to do take after take with Shatner until he sort of “zoned out” and accidentally gave Meyer the line delivery he wanted cause he was bored.

Either way, the chemistry was there before he came on the scene, so maybe he just didn’t want to take undue credit or something.

I bet everyone’s having a great time down there. I wish I could have been there. Sigh.

8 – Your latter hypothesis is possible. Well, also in the STII commentary I think he also says that Shatner deserves all the credit for his performance… then says that bit about how Shatner gets “bored” with the scene and gives a subdued but better line. ::shrugs:: So it *sounds* like Meyer is trying to have it both ways. Shatner gets all the credit… even though he’s not as responsible for Meyer in the performance…?

If I was at the event, I would ask: do you think Shatner’s a good actor? Do you think he did a great job in the death scene? Which scenes were his best? I don’t know. I just want to get to the bottom of his evaluation.

#10 Those are good questions. I wonder how much of Shatner’s performance had input from Nick Meyer? I also would like to know if they had run into each other recently. That would be very interesting.

#8, 10

Meyer described different approaches for each actor. Shatner, he felt, had a tendency to overact. Meyer’s solution was essentially to bore Shatner with plenty of takes (for example, in early takes Kirk’s line to Khan, “Here it comes”, Meyer felt that Shatner was telegraphing the ploy too much [wouldn’t the superman realize something was up?] so he had him do it to death.)

Ultimately, however, we don’t know how much Meyer influenced Shatner’s acting, because we can’t see all the takes that didn’t make the final cut.

On that note, Abrams would be wise to get Meyer… frankly, the writing on ST09 can’t touch that of the even-numbered Meyer entries.

I would support Meyer to direct another Star Trek, my personal favorite of the TOS movies is the Undiscovered Country. That movie itself made me watch all the TOS movies. I mean how much more awesome can you get?

You have the ethical issue of hatred/racism, helping out the enemy for the moral good, Klingon bird of preys that can fire under cloak, a conspiracy to assassinate both chancellor and president, a captain implicated on international charges, ice planet/prison, a changling, a crew trying to piece everything together. Christopher Plummer was awesome as General Chang. TWOK was great but I still think the Undiscovered Country was the best of the TOS lot. The music was awesome dark and creepy with suspense.

“I am constant as the northern star!”
-General Chang
“I would pay real money for him to shut up”
-Bones

humor too kirk saying “i cant believe i kissed you” to the changeling–was 6 the first mention of rue penthe the klignon prison planet? Yes i know archer escaped from there but that was really after 6 storywise tho before kirk trekhistory wise

Have Meyer help with the writing. I think ST09 had plenty of sound concepts but Meyer input would have been the perfect fine tuning. They should totally have him help in some way with the sequel.

I loved STVI as a kid but now that I’m a bit older I like it less. It’s just too predictable as a detective story, and doesn’t focus enough on the cast (as it’s their last movie). Although I love the last Kirk/Spock scene.

Meyer = Win, JJ = Epic Fail.

Something like a Meyer\Abrams collaboration would hopefully do the job of filtering some of the more G. Lucas cartoon humor found in ST09 too. I’m not saying Trek should be bland and humorless, just that Meyer has a talent for balancing humor that doesn’t take you out of the story. There’s enough there to give the characters depth, but you never get that ‘WTF?’ kind of feeling that things derail over a cheap ‘yuk’. You stay in the story, and the dramatic impact is all the more meaningful for it. I think it’s a part of why most people think of Meyer-Trek when ST comes up in pop-culture.

– 24thCRS

TWOK began lfe as a tv movie almost 30 years ago. Yeah, it turned out great, but … this is 2009 and Star Trek is in blockbuster movie territory now. It’s a new ballgame, and even Leonard Nimoy has said he couldn’t have handled the complexities of directing JJ’s movie.

Meyer, whose last big movie was Star Trek VI in 1991, is not likely to be viewed by Paramount as a viable choice to helm a $150 million dollar film in 2012. I love Meyer and I love my classic Trek, but I think a lot of fans have no understanding of how the film industry works if they think an old guy like him is going to be brought back.

I think if Trek 2009 is an example of how Trek movies will be for now on, I don’t think they will ever match the original crew’s 6 movies. Especially in writing and intelligence. And especially compared to TWOK.

#16 I totally agree with you.

Well said #17

TWOK, the Enterprise coming up behind the Reliant in the Nebula, the “Khannnn”! Just so many great sequences shows how Trek really can be well rounded. And yes I also liked Undiscovered Country also, it did have a darker tone to it. I am also relieved I can enjoy the new ST09 too, yes its different, and needs room to grow and look forward to seeing more, hopefully much more.

But I really don’t get the whole JJ=epic fail? I mean sure I thought the Motion Picture was dull, thats my opinion and I know others love it so it dose’nt make it crapfest in any way sort or form. And I am sure the same for ST09, JJ gave it a chance to go on, he managed to bring Trek to a wider audience, he secured Trek a budget it deserved. Umm, I get that some don’t like it, no prob, but one thing for sure it’s no epic fail. Hmmm…probably a wasted point.

#22

ST2009 is a epic win, the same team will deliver another exciting movie in a few years, can’t wait. The people that think it sucked are folks that really have no clue. I’ll go by the reviews/boxoffice numbers and personal opinion.

@16: If Trek 09 is epic fail, then fail me up!

*#16

epic yes-fail no–epic success is more like it-u guys gotta be kidding–all the trek movies are more like tv movies when u compare them to jjs trek-not bad but a more limited appeal-jjs trek has just started-it needs more time n room to grow–which it hopefully will-even twok is more limited in mass audience appeal-we fans enjoy the tos movies n cast cuz we have built up knowledge of our fave characters etc-new audiences are just getting to know them-the approach of the two are different-i like both approaches cuz im a fan-but jjs trek needs to be given a chance-its big epic eyecandy-its fun n youthful n fresher right now-not better or worse just different-we cant watch oldtrek at the rest home anymore-the new guys gotta make it their own,as the original crew and filmakers did-give em a chance-nicholas meyers first movie was attack of the bee girls in space heheh-

I know this is a little bit off topic, but I just wanted to share it with those who haven´t seen it yet. =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEZVwQptvWw

Yeah, bring back Meyer. With his 20th century fire extinguishers on the wall and Enterprise kitchen with stainless steel cupboards and cooks wearing white chef hats. ; )

I’m all for Nicholas Meyer working on TREK 2.0, PART 2, whatever-you -want-to-call-it.

Quite frankly, the “humor” in TREK ’09 was just as stupid and forced as anything in the TNG movies. Meyer needs to bring some real class back to the proceedings.

Am I the only one who noticed that in the video (the 2 minute one anyway) it says he directed 2, 4, and 6? it was Leonard Nimoy that directed 4.

Won’t someone ever drum up Trek film fests like this on the East Coast?

I thought the new movie was hilarious. The first time I saw it I was too busy laughing at Kirk’s giant hands and Karl Urban’s McCoy (“I haven’t seen a reaction this bad since med school”) to think about plot problems.

For example, can anyone explain why the Vulcans thought the “seismic activity” was natural when a visibly noticeable spaceship the size of the Doomsday Machine was parked over the planet with a drill stuck in it?

God, I love William Shatner, he’s so full of life and optimism, I wish I was as happy as he was.

Thanks for sharing #26.

#31

Boborci explained in another thread that the distress call was fake and sent by the Narada, as pointed out by myself that no communications could be established after the drill is activated.

Kirk: “We are flying into a trap!”

#33

Oh, interesting, OK. Thanks.

I love the nick meyer films…. but I always found some of the dialogue predictable and cliched. It was basically slam in a quote from Shakespere/Sir Arthur Conan Doyle every few scenes in an attempt to sound very intellectual. Sometimes it felt that they could not think of somthing profound that the bad guy should say so lets bang in a quote. Sometimes the final battle speech by Chang makes me cringe with how blatent it is, its just a cut and paste …..

dont get me wrong the meyer films are my favorites – i have watched them many a time – but I dont find them overly intelligent films in terms of diologue – somthing that relies on other intelligent material is not always that intelligent itself.

2 3 4 are great. I never get tired of them. Too bad TNG never had a cool story arc in their movies.

#35

You have to admit Chang had better lines than say Soran, Ruafo (spelling) and Shinzon. I hope one of these days they make Jack Nicholson a villain in Trek or Hugo Weaving, Hugo would have made a great Romulan. Hugo did play a elf in LOTR I recall and of course agent Smith.

I just wish Nero wasn’t a miner with tattoos gone mad, it would have also worked if he was a Romulan High Warlord or something cooler. I always preferred the intellectual powerful high ranking villains over the break out of prison type guys bent on revenge. If the antagonist in ST09 was from the TOS series that had a connection to Spock, it would have been even cooler.

ST09 rocked, the villain Nero was one of the few weak points in the movie, everything else I loved. Nero would have been more powerful if he was featured in a TNG or TOS series showing his character develop, just to plop him into a movie with no substance was like meh. It’s like the Borg Queen, the Borg have a Queen? meh, rather they have used Locutus from another reality or something in First Contact (more history and drama). Let the meat marinate in the series and they are ready to be grilled in the movie. I am surprised after all these years, they haven’t used the city on the edge of forever concept in a movie for time travelling and instead they opted for swinging around a sun, energy ribbons in space and temporal vortex’s/black holes.

I hope J.J Abrams directs the next film. He did a great job (with a few exceptions, like shooting scenes in a brewery) and shown everyone that he does have a clue and knows what he’s doing. If Nick Meyer were to be involved, it should be as a writer. He has shown he can come up with unconventional stories such as The Voyage Home. With the way movies are made today, especially with the use of CGI, I think the job of directing has changed too much since the last time Meyer directed.

@36

of course chang had better lines to say, he was quoting shakespere. But that is exactly my point, most of the best lines that villians had to say in the meyer movies, were just lines lifted straight from Shakespere or Melville or Doyle. That is not intelligent writing in my book, it’s lazy writing. Sure it will make a villain sound good, but it dosn’t make the film an intelligent one, nor the script writing good. It was always a bit of a cop out in my opinion.
Like I said before though I do like the meyer films, they are my favorite.
I’m just making the point that you can’t relly say the mayer films were more intelligent than say st09. They just sounded more intelligent because that copied from great writers each time the villain had somthing profound to say.

sry @37

Can we get an encore of this film fest here in the D.C. area? There are some lovely sights here, Mr. Meyer!

#37. You make some good points about Nero’s flaws as a villain. I thought my mom, a Sherlock Holmes fan, made a good point when she said she always imagined Spock’s enemies would be evil geniuses like Prof. Moriarty rather than tattooed thugs.

#39. I think this is truer of VI than II. “Undiscovered Country” overdosed on the quotes from famous literature, but the “Khan” script has so much original Nick Meyer dry wit in it. “As a physician, you of all people should know the dangers of re-opening old wounds.”

@37: “I am surprised after all these years, they haven’t used the city on the edge of forever concept… ”

Ahem. See “Ellison, Harlan, notorious litigiousness of”.

Thanks for linking to these clips!

Meyer’s assertion that he never got a call during the Berman era is interesting, as it seems to dispel the story that he was offered the chance to direct NEMESIS, and also because the Trek of the Berman era is shot through with the antiquarian obsession with Earth’s past that characterizes Meyer’s Trek films.

J.J. never said he’d be directing Star Trek 2, so considering he’s probably for sure producing it, and him being old friends with Nic Meyer, do we need more of an excuse for a write-in campaign?

Any chance we could get a recap of this event? I had to take off halfway through III.

I recommend reading Nick Meyer’s Autobiography “View From the Bridge”. I found the insight into his work on Star Trek and how he got into the Hollywood industry quite enjoyable.
https://trekmovie.com/2009/08/24/review-nicholas-meyers-the-view-from-the-bridge-memories-of-star-trek-and-a-life-in-hollywood/