Nicholas Meyer became a Star Trek legend after directing the highly-acclaimed 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, from a final script he wrote without any credit. He went on to co-write Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and return to the director’s chair for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. In 2016 he came back to the franchise as a consulting producer for the first season of Star Trek: Discovery.
While he was working on Discovery Meyer also developed a mini-series about Khan Noonien Sigh set on Ceti Alpha V, which told the story of what happened to Khan in between the TOS episode “The Space Seed” and Star Trek II. He went on to write out a three-part mini-series for Ceti Alpha V. Over the last few weeks, Meyer has taken to Twitter and Instagram to post videos answering common fan questions about his career in and out of Star Trek. These offer some insights into that Khan mini-series and more.
Ceti Alpha V mini-series is “just sitting there”
In one video Meyer talks about the one Star Trek story he would still like to tell, as he outlines his Ceti Alpha V concept, and how he thought his script “came out pretty good,” but after handing it in, he “never heard from anybody again.”
The world of @StarTrek is so big. Many have imagined additional stories. Here's the one I’d still like to tell. pic.twitter.com/syi23uXEmf
— Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 8, 2022
How Star Trek changed him
Meyer didn’t know a lot about Star Trek before his involvement in the franchise and in a pair of videos he explains how this worked to his advantage. He says that “the purpose of art is to teach you to love life, and I think Trek does that pretty well.”
As the #StarTrek “newbie” – back in the day – I tackled everything anew, having missed so many things in the past. Do you rediscover the show when you rewatch it? – Part 1 of 2 of my thoughts… pic.twitter.com/LilypOqf6F
— Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 13, 2022
Here's the second part of my thoughts on being the "newbie" on #StarTrek and how it influenced my work on it. pic.twitter.com/N4vCm1JRMb
— Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 13, 2022
Why he was wrong about Spock’s death
In his most recent video, Meyer talks about his “original conviction that Spock should die and really be dead at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
What do you think? Should have Spock remain dead after #TheWrathOfKhan? #StarTrek pic.twitter.com/IuRQOBvPD6
— Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 16, 2022
To keep up with Meyer, follow him on Twitter and Instagram and maybe he will answer one of your burning questions.
Find more news and interviews about Nick Meyer at TrekMovie.com.
Jesus this is getting to be Star Wars level random: You know those weird ants behind the bar in 10 Forward? Well there will be a 10 part miniseries about their amazing adventures and how they became a piece of artwork in the Federation flagship’s most amazing bar! Weird Ant Colony: A Star Trek Series!”
It’s not random. Fans have always wondered how Khan & co. survived there. Not sure how the most famous villain in 56 years of Trek compares to an ant colony.
Planet blew up, they survived in the hull of the botany bay, he lost his wife, some of his men. It’s really not that hard to imagine. I guess if people need to see it then that’s fine. But to be honest it seems like filler. And famous yes, but he is overblown… he was a B list villain on the original series and they had to choose him because besides Mudd, there weren’t many villains that were worth revisiting in the film.
that’s why a 3 episode limited series is a great idea – essentially a long-ish film as opposed to a 10 episode story that could easily be a film but is drawn out to Peter Jackson Hobbit levels of unnecessary extras * cough * Picard * cough * Disco * cough *
Yeah! I mean unless they managed to put themselves in a transporter buffering pattern it’s pretty clear how they survived. It’s not hard to imagine at all. We would just see the details of it basically.
That would have been cool – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Mudd!!!
“Fans have always wondered how Khan & co. survived there.”
Pretty much no one has ever wondered that. It’s not a mystery and has never been a big point of fan discussion.
Well, I was wrong to generalize, but I’m sure man fans have contemplated how they managed to survive, considering the love fans have for STII. And it is indeed a mystery, cause that survival story has never been told. I’d much rather a Stargazer or Worf or DS9 Season 8 or some other shows before a Ceti Alpha V show, but I’d definitely welcome a 3-hour mini-series written or produced or directed by Meyer. Might not be most fans #1 choice, but who wouldn’t welcome such an event?
so many fans wondered about it they already wrote a book – in the top 100 Star Trek books on Amazon fwiw –
“To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh” – Greg Cox
“Pretty much no one has ever wondered that.”
Don’t generalize. You do not speak for everyone. After reading the comments, it is obvious that some people have.
Been watching Trek since the mid-70’s, I’ve not had any interest in knowing how Khan spent his days in exile. A couple minutes of exposition in WOK was sufficient explanation.
Same.
I hear ya. The United Federation of Planets, chocked full of strange new worlds…..but if some Trek alumni thinks that the fans really want is a series about the craftspeople who made the shiny gold spaceship models in Picard’s ready room, they’ll write a script.
No need to wonder about Khan. If you’re curious, there’s a novel. It’s a serviceable and still enjoyable read, and a lot of what you might expect.
I prefer the double novel about Khan’s time on Earth. It’s really a Gary Seven/Roberta Lincoln story and it’s just great.
There is no need for a mini-series, just read the novel by Greg Cox.
Nick Meyer… when I first read about your “original conviction that Spock should die and really be dead at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” I was like 6 years old in 1987 and thought you were wrong. We love Spock, we need Spock.
But I’ve come to (grow?) believe you were right then and wrong now. What the world needed was Star Trek II: The Series which I feel would have blown Star Wars away. We needed Admiral Kirk and the future heading out to explore an exciting full of potential but dangerous universe filled with epic unknowns like the impact of Genesis. This is what Star Trek III should have been, not the resurrection of Spock and what had been before. You gave Spock the ultimate send off… and they ruined it with III (which I still think is an awesome movie).
Savvik and David Marcus were a breath of fresh air and hinted on how Trek could have continued. You invented an exciting world where it was Horatio Hornblower in space again.
Instead Spock came back, we got Star Trek IV… but it really dumbed down the series outside VI. I love Star Trek III, IV and I love Star Trek VI, but it was not worth three decades of subpar Trek (okay, DS9 was good) for nine hours of IV and VI. Even III, the end result is they made the Klingons the Romulans with cloaking devices to the determent of all following series (you get a Bird of Prey, they get a Bird of Prey, everyone gets a Bird of prey!). I now read the Mirror Universe DC comics at the time and realize had you not brought back Spock, II would have been more powerful, and the follow ups could have continued the story that was II. You could have even brought back mirror Spock if you wanted Nimoy back but honestly you had the follow up to Spock in a totally alien Vulcan-Romulan named Saavik. You had future Kirk in a scientist learning about what Starfleet was all about with Marcus. You had Sulu and Chekov wanting to be a Captain, and Admiral Kirk trying to find his way post 5 year mission in a world where exploration is hitting some road blocks.
For VI even Harve Benett who just HAD to bring back Spock didn’t even want to do the original crew but an academy show, so again, you didn’t need to bring back Spock to.. bring back Spock!
We kind of got that with III and IV. IV was a great funny movie. Unfortunately it also led Trek to deevolve into nonsensical time travel loops (why not go back and stop WW2?). Yes, Trek has been funny, but it’s usually been situational comedy. Now it’s just blandified and Star Wars is just destroying it given the complete unrealization of any Horatio Hornblower/Wagon train to the Stars exploration of the frontier action.
I strongly urge for you to consider the Kevlin verse. There is nothing stopping anyone from using the Kelvin crew in an alternate universe during the movie era and re-start the motion picture series around the time of ST II. Or a total Trek reboot, hell, they don’t even need to call it Star Trek.
I do support the Ceti Alpha V series but only to fix Kahn after into Darkness… They took a situation where Kahn that could have tricked Starfleet Command into believing they needed him to keep the peace and they instead made him this poor guy just trying to find his family, just horrid. Bring back Kahn the mastermind unraveled only by his own ego please.
I’d put the analogy on actual space exploration too. What we thought we needed was flying hotels to near Earth orbit and wasted time, capital and crews on the space shuttle just so we could look at it and say it looks like plane (regardless of how tiles fall off the tank and smash into the wing and the crew is not safely on top of the stack to eject on a launch failure). Also flying up and down to the space station… didn’t really push anything. What we really needed was to push rockets that could land and fuel tankers in orbit. We need to push the final frontier.
“IV was a great funny movie. Unfortunately it also led Trek to deevolve into nonsensical time travel loops (why not go back and stop WW2?).”
When the crew of The Bounty was in 1986, Khan was alive. Kirk: “Hey, let’s bump off Khan while we’re here and none of this shit will have happened!”
You mean bump off the guy who caused Spock’s death and resurrection and the reason for the everyone to be on the Bounty in 1986 in the first place? And that still leaves the whale probe out there. If they’re not in that particular place and time…
Annorax would like to have a word with you.
Why would the life of Kirk’s son not be on par with the lives of anyone on Earth? What are we, Stalin?
As a matter of fact, I am Stalin. Thank you for noticing. It’s been a rough 70 years in the cryofreeze.
Oh well. Good thing Kirk, Picard or any Trek didn’t go back in time to stop you from killing all those millions then or we wouldn’t have your post! That is probably why all those people had to die in the holodomor regardless of time travel!
Yeesh, way to bring down the room…
Oh that was supposed to be some dark comedy. Humor, it is a difficult concept.
Stalingrad: alumnus of Joseph Stalin High School
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed IV when I was 6.. but as a 40 year old you have to ignore the whole plot. Great character development but bad Star Trek. With Star Trek II you had great character development AND good Star Trek, as it was meant to be.
So now we finally know when Khan met Chekov!!
While I don’t agree with you on the current state of Trek affairs, I’m also of the opinion that Spock should have remained dead at the end of WOK. That cast the die four four fairly pedestrian movies and wasted a marvelous opportunity to establish a new direction for the movie franchise.
I love TWOK- it is the very best adventure of the OG crew and probably the best 2 hours of Trek yet. Still, I have zero interest in a survival show where I already know exactly who does and doesn’t survive. Especially as it won’t star a young Ricard Montalban as Khan.
Nicholas Meyer is a great storyteller and I love his take on Trek: swashbuckling but appropriately military. Nautical but nice. If only he were cut loose on an original storyline instead of being left out of everything.
Probably easier and cheaper to just fold in the lore/vague idea behind the mini series into the Khan character in SNW, making the project moot.
No, no Kahn in SNW. Kahn was on the Botany Bay at the time, leave him where he belongs.
I DO wish Meyer had been in charge of Into Darkness. They had a chance to have Kahn back but even bigger and badder.. and they blew it. I don’t know how they could, but they did. That is the power of TNGification and bad political analogies.
If Khan is referenced in SNW … shakes head…. I just can’t
A Khan descendant is among the main characters, so it’s a safe bet he will be.
I’m okay with Kahn’s descendant. Just no Khan. Please….leave him into the cryrotube where he belongs to be found by Kirk.
I would make peace with the idea that SNW is a not-so-stealth reboot of Star Trek: The Original Series.
which – you know – if they would just say it and then do it – great. Let’s go for it.
But don’t tell us on one side of your mouth that it’s prime timeline canon and then clearly violate prime timeline canon with the other side of your mouth. That’s just disrespectful to anyone that’s paying attention to the franchise as a whole.
I totally agree. They wouldn’t lose anybody if they just said that. They might even gain some new eyes who would feel glad to not have the “pressure” of the series lore going into it. But when you’re an IP manager and not an artist with a vision or even a leader, it’s tough to take a stand or declare a direction. Too many other masters to serve, too much risk in making any changes to the status quo you’ve inherited. So, it just comes out as aimless, mealy-mouthed yet corporate-approved content sludge.
I been saying since Discovery they should’ve just rebooted the whole thing once they decided to do more prequels. People hated how much they screwed up canon with Discovery and while I think they will do a better job with it with SNW, trust me, they are still most likely to screw it up and throw things in there that really really shouldn’t be in there. For some reason they can’t help themselves.
Ack they wouldn’t would they? I thought they said SNW was prime timeline or whatever that means in the multiverse. Wishful thinking but I cannot and will not subscribe to your interpretation of that in favor of a reboot. Lol
I’m even okay with them replacing Pike with Kirk and doing some early TOS missions with Gary Mitchell coming on board, etc.
At the very least we will always have TOS and Star Trek II, III, IV and VI.
agree – Khan descendent can know of Noonien and heck, everyone else can except Uhura and Spock
They could *refer* to Khan. Malik did so in one of the augment episodes of “Enterprise.” Or maybe he just referred to the Botany Bay. I don’t remember.
I just rewatched those episodes like a week ago and Malik did name Khan specifically.
Yep. Akiva Goldsman himself hinted as much. (There’s a Hollywood Reporter article from 2/1/22 where he’s quoted)
I mean how could they not when they have one of his freaking descendants on the ship? If you do reference him, yes, it would be breaking canon in a big way. But if you don’t reference him, why is that character even there then? It’s so strange.
But she can’t be an augment herself. They made that pretty clear when Dr. Bashir was found to be one and nearly lost his career over it and that’s a century later. Khan’s direct relative with augment abilities serving on the flasgship of the Federation breaks all kind of canon if that is the case.
I’m really hoping that after 200 years her heredity would be so diluted with normal human descendants that there is virtually no augment genes left in her.
The assumption is that she’s one of his distant descendants. That might not be the case. She could be from the same genetically-engineered “batch” as Khan and either a “sister” or not actually related to him at all (both could explain the “Noonien Singh” name). Maybe she didn’t manage to escape on the Botany Bay but was cryogenically frozen on Earth instead during the final days of the Eugenics Wars, which would explain the references to her traumatic childhood, feelings of isolation etc.
Or maybe she really is Khan’s daughter in the literal sense (Khan was Indian, but his first wife may not have been, hence La’an’s potentially mixed ethnicity).
In any case, Tiger2 is correct about the possible canon-violating implications of La’an being an augment, but SNW may find a way around that issue just like Bashir ultimately wasn’t fired from Starfleet on DS9.
They should have had the Fake Khan say stuff like, “On Earth . . . 200 years ago . . . I was a prince, with power over millions.” Also, they should have cast an actor who looked/was more like Ricardo Mendelbaum.
My personal thought is that Starfleet having lost Vulcan with the Federation on the verge of collapse (they didn’t save a whole founding world!) and with the Klingon Empire on the rise in in an alliance with the returning Romulans. Then you have a starship find Khan who then says he is a strategic genius and wants to help for peace.
Little do they know he isn’t interested in helping Starfleet but using Starfleet to his own ends and taking over the galaxy. Sure he does some good, but only to backstab everyone in the end with his team of Eugenic superminds all in key posts!
It’s Kahn but with a whole fleet of starships and power over millions this time!
You have Kirk getting strange orders on the frontier and only he can save the day.
That’s more what I was expecting from Into Darkness.
That’s a better idea than what we got for sure, but also *in* what we got, they ditched the only interesting idea they started to get into — Kirk & Khan being on the same side! That was interesting. Khan clearly using Kirk to get back his “family,” but Kirk could’ve also used him to knock out the cancer growing within Starfleet, setting up a final showdown where Kirk gains the upper hand (rather than die) and either banishes Khan and his people to a planet in the Ceti Alpha system or negotiates an uneasy truce that allows Khan and his people to make their own way.
Turning Khan into a mustache-twirling villain at the end was just so dumb. He and Kirk had parallel arcs — both of them realizing how important their “families” are to them and the recognition that they need to change their behavior in order to sustain and build upon those relationships — and it just would’ve been more interesting if it came down to both of these warriors realizing that the way forward is to stand down.
Yes that would have worked too! If you wanted you could do both, have had even Kirk thinking Khan was a good guy as McGivers did. Indeed Kirk in Space Seed did treat Khan originally with honors as a historical figure from the past. If Starfleet came to you and was like “This is the strategos, our strategic genius that is saving the Federation from the Klingons” I could see Kirk following orders at first and how insane would that be… Kirk taking orders from Khan!
I lean towards Khan being the ultimate villian, but fair enough.
In either scenario Into Darkness does it wrong because they spent half the film making him into a good guy wanting his family back versus big bad Starfleet. Then they take out big bad Starfleet and everyone is like… wait a minute, this poor Khan guy is supposed to be a bad guy. Your idea is way superior if you wanted to go the other way and keep Khan just trying to save his family.
Yeah, Khan helping Starfleet fight the Klingons was right there. No need for subspace beaming and the Enterprise having to go into Klingonistan to get him.
What I don’t get is why Admiral Marcus thought Fake Khan, a guy who had been asleep for like 200 years, could design and build starships, no matter how smart he was. For one thing, he didn’t know bubkes about warp drive. Maybe Marcus gave him the same technical manuals that Kirk gave to Real Khan.
I could buy that (Marcus thinking Kahn was a strategic mastermind). Kahn has a genetically engineered super mind. What I couldn’t buy is Kahn all good and not using that power to take over the Fédération and to have power over millions again. Nope just wants his family back while beaming from Earth to Qo’nos. Gag me with a horrid nonsensical political analogy no one now can follow at all.
Yeah just a stupid idea all around. That makes no sense. And Khan was a ruler, he wasn’t an engineer or a scientist. So what would he know that actual 23rd century trained engineers wouldn’t know exactly? Reading a few technical manuals in Space Seed doesn’t mean he knows how to build a ship lol. It’s such a weird leap in logic.
“And Khan was a ruler, he wasn’t an engineer or a scientist.”
Well, they do sell rulers for engineers. You can get them at Staples.
Montalkhan figured out how to hijack the Enterprise after spending a couple of hours with the tech manuals, so why not? The leap was that Cumberkhan was going to build bigger faster bad ass better ships and weapons in this huge black ops facility in our own freakin solar system that no one happens to notice???
No, don’t want to see Khan (or any of the other TOS Trek super beings) in SNW.
They should make it. And give the lead to someone doing good drama. They could even connect the series to climate change and show how a green planet becomes a dessert hell.
“and show how a green planet becomes a dessert hell”
When your planet becomes a dessert hell, you can have your cake and Edith too.
You’re KEELing me with these posts. Stalin grad was weapons-grade stuff, kudos.
For a long time I thought Nestor Carbonell would have made an excellent Khan, but now I think he might be aging out of the role. Carbonell is one of those underrated actors who does solid work in everything he does but doesn’t seem to get the kudos he richly deserves.
A few years ago I read someone’s suggestion that a certain actor would be ideal to play a younger Khan. I don’t remember the name of the actor, but at the time I told a friend about this idea — she looked him up on The Google and was like, “OMG, yes.” I just looked up Nestor Carbonell and agree with her (if indeed he was the actor whom she looked up). I don’t know anything about his acting chops, but he definitely looks like Khan from “Space Seed.” (More so than Cumberbatch, certainly, but there are probably more than a thousand actors who look more like young Khan than Cumberbatch does.)
Carbonell would have made an excellent Khan about 10-15 years ago during the time of Into Darkness but now he’d be considered too old. I think he passed 50 years. He had a memorable role in Lost.
You’re right about Carbonell being underrated. I don’t think he’s the right option for Khan — there are more suitable choices, as I’ve just mentioned in my reply to Navamske — but I do think Carbonell would actually make a great Starfleet captain. I even recommended him in a Trekmovie comment a couple of years ago when listing suggestions for a Hispanic captain in the lead role.
I was pretty vocal about the subject here on Trekmovie, so on the off-chance that the suggestion you’re referring to was actually from me, the name of the Indian actor I’ve repeatedly suggested is Hrithik Roshan.
If so, then yes he absolutely is by far the best choice to play a younger Khan.
It’s a great concept, possibly a great survivalist story to tell as well but not under the current regime.
The suits will force it to become generic pish.
He gave us 3 great films. Let’s leave it like that and let him just write a book about it. That way he has full control.
…but that book about Khan was also already written (and isn’t terrible) so…there’s that
If they do go ahead with another Khan show, i hope they can come up with a South Asian actor to play him instead of a Mexican or Englishman – no disrespect intended to either Montalbon or Cumberbatch who both did an admirable job portraying the augment leader.
Well, Nick, you’re in good company. Quinton Tarentino thinks he had a pretty spiffy Trek treatment as well. Michael Dorn is apparently still furiously peddling more Worf centered Trek, too.
Whoa, whoa, Nicholas Meyer I think is in a league of his own having written and directed the penultimate Star Trek movie, something no one else in the entire world through the entire history of the universe has done.
Penultimate means “next to last.”
Sorry, that’s just me who now basically sees Star Trek II as the beginning of the end of good Trek (with III, IV and VI being the end). Edit – okay, DS9 was really good too.
For most that should read ultimate Star Trek movie. Nicholas Meyer has written and directed the ultimate Star Trek movie – something no one else in the entire world through the entire history of the universe has done.
Catches lightening in a bottle. AKA one hit wonders in the music industry, I believe.
That Nick Meyer?
No.
The Nick Meyer that had written a best selling Sherlock Holmes book prior to directing anything (thus, proving himself capable of taking an existing universe and making something good and profitable – oh and the screenplay for the film of the novel, which he also wrote, was nominated for an Academy Award…so…)
The Nick Meyer that re-wrote the screenplay to Time after Time. Another well received genre film.
The Nick Meyer that recevied an Emmy nomination for directing a made for tv film a year after Khan.
The Nick Meyer that recieved seven Emmy nominations for ‘Houdini’.
The Nick Meyer who is responsible for writing / directing two of the generally speaking, most revered Original Cast Trek films.
To recap:
An Oscar nominated, multi-Emmy nominee and multi-Saturn award winner.
THAT Nick Meyer.
With all that talent, you’d think he’d be busy and in demand. Apparently not, or he’s just super picky about his projects.
That Nick Meyer.
He was also given a job on Discovery and fired a year later.
Nick Meyer is an accomplished film maker, but the problem is everything you cited was decades ago. He hasn’t done anything worth wild in the last 30 years.
Fans have to face the reality that maybe his ideas today just aren’t very good. I’m not saying that is the case, I’m only saying it’s a possibility. But as I said, nothing with his stint on Discovery came to be. They may have passed on the Khan project because they read it and felt it either wasn’t very good or not something interesting enough to put money into it. He pitched a movie to them and that was rejected too.
Even if you get away from Star Trek, what has he been involved with in ANY project in the last 3 decades?
If I were a writer, I’d take getting fired from the Disco writer’s room as a badge of honor ;)
As to what he’s done – as I said, 7 emmy nominations and a writer’s guild nomination for a show he wrote in 2014.
I don’t know why I have to defend NM – he’s done more than anyone here ;D
Well maybe, but it sounded like he wanted to stay on the show. I mean they were paying him, so that’s probably reason enough.
And no one is putting Nick Meyer’s talents down. We’re just stating the reality. Hollywood is a very competitive and cut throat industry. There are people who have won Oscars or made films that went on to make hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters and many of those still struggle to get projects off the ground if they haven’t done much in the last few decades.
And we’re only talking about Nick Meyer now because he did Star Trek (and did it well). But the average person has no idea who he is or probably never seen anything he’s ever done if they are under 30. My guess is most Star Trek fans has only seen his stuff from Star Trek since nothing he’s done has been very mainstream and certainly not very recent.
And yes my point still stands. Maybe his new ideas for Star Trek just wasn’t considered that great. I’m not saying that’s the case but if they were, I think some of them would’ve been considered OR they ask him to come up with other things if the projects sounded interesting enough but just not what they are looking for like this Khan show.
Now all that said, I had no idea about the show he was involved in and got a nomination for it, so I stand corrected. That’s great, it still doesn’t mean the guy can just write his own checks either. He’s very far from the Spielberg’s or Eastwood’s of Hollywood today.
Also we have to understand the fact that the Hollywood of today versus the Hollywood of Nick Meyer’s day are wholly different and his style of filmmaking and writing probably is not considered “woke” enough for todays Hollywood. I think this is a big reason why the producers didn’t really want to continue with Meyer and why I think Tarantino’s version was shelved as well. There is a certain imagine that the current Trek showrunners want to have of Star Trek and they won’t budge from that image for any “big name” directors.
Had to go there, did you? Here’s a thought – maybe the obvious answer is actually the right one. It’s a stinker of a concept, and CBS rightly said ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you”.
I don’t know, maybe, but reading between the lines, I feel like there was something more than “stinker of a concept” at work here. Those darn NDA’s are probably preventing Meyer from saying too much.
“He was also given a job on Discovery and fired a year later.”
I assume this refers to Nicholas Meyer; for some reason I can’t scroll up to the earlier posts in this thread.
I don’t know exactly why Bryan Fuller left “Disco” or what he contributed to it, but it was probably unfortunate for the future of the show. Fuller does brilliant work. BTW, it was likely he who named SMG’s character — he has a habit of giving his female protagonists male names, like George Lass in “Dead Like Me,” Charlotte “Chuck” Charles in “Pushing Daisies” (a fantastic show), and Jaye Tyler in “Wonderfalls.”
“Well, Nick, you’re in good company. Quinton Tarentino thinks he had a pretty spiffy Trek treatment as well. Michael Dorn is apparently still furiously peddling more Worf centered Trek, too.”
Michael Dorn’s character retires from Starfleet and opens a seafood restaurant in San Francisco in “Star Trek: Fisherman’s Worf.”
I am not even the tiniest bit interested in seeing that get made.
Nor I. We know Marla McGivers dies while on Ceti Alpha with part of his crew. Khan meets his timely death, on the USS Reliant, while wearing Michael Jackson’s missing glove. It will cost around 30 mil to make this 3 episode mini series and core Trekkies will watch it. Then, we will nitpick it to death, like we always do. Nick Meyers, like Eugene Roddenberry, were listed as producers just as a publicity stunt to get us core Trek fans interested in DSC. If TWOK gets a 4K redo, we just MIGHT see this get made. I just don’t see Paramount suits ponying up the $$. I don’t see Kurtzman assigning personnel to produce it. Just write the book, Nick. I’ll pay for the hardcover. I admire Nick Meyer’s talent. The business person in me understands why this is just a script languishing in development hell.
Apparently it was intended that McGivers would appear in TWOK, but sadly Madlyn Rhue had multiple sclerosis and was using a wheelchair while the film was being written. Harve Bennett wrote her part out of the movie, believing that it would be “unfair” to recast the role. FWIW, and no disrespect intended to the late Ms. Rhue, but it probably made for a better story that McGivers had died, and particularly the way she died — it gave Khan more to be pissed at Kirk for than just “Hey, he made me live in a cargo container for 15 years.” I thought it was a nice touch that throughout the film Khan wears a pendant of the Starfleet symbol — since he obviously has no love for Starfleet, it was clearly in honor of his late wife.
BTW, Madlyn Rhue and Ricardo Mendelbaum played a married couple in an episode of “Bonanza.”
Actually the wheelchair aspect (at that time) is bull. The geniuses who are all about not printing the legend at Facttrek have resoundingly refuted Bennett’s claim — https://www.facttrek.com/blog/rhue — not that it had much weigh for many of us to start with. Dramatically, Khan would be limited, not augmented, by McGivers’ presence, so I can’t imagine Meyer sticking with that character when cobbling together his drafts, because it would have softened Khan in a way that, while interesting, wouldn’t have driven the narrative in the way it needed to be driven, fueled by her death.
“Khan would be limited, not augmented”
I see what you did there.
Interesting, thanks. Is that facttrek thing a reliable site?
Utterly reliable. I know one of the two primaries there and I find him both committed and trustworthy.
They also own up to their own occasional inaccuracies instead of certain other folks who make up more stuff to cover their errors.
I second what kmart said. They’re a good pair of diligent academic-minded Trek fans. They have a long standing reputation for that kind of work which started on TrekBBS, and then spun off into their older blog startrekfactcheck, and then their efforts were reborn as facttrek.
this will be infinitely better and more interesting than a section 31 garbage
True but that’s not saying much at all. Everything about that section 31 show will defy canon from it’s very inception
I would much much rather watch Meyer’s Khan Ceti Alpha V mini-series than the Michelle Yeo-centered Section 31 series that absolutely no one asked for or wants, minus some fans of Disco. I would want the Khan show to also show flashbacks of his rise to power and the Eugenics Wars, prior to his leaving Earth in 1996. I don’t care if Picard retcons the Eugenic Wars as being in the 21st century. Meyer’s show can ignore that and re-retcon it back to the 1990s. Star Trek is Science FICTION, we already know that there was no Eugenics War in the 90s or that one will begin in 2024-25 either. It’s clear that the Star Trek timeline is not the real-world timeline and that’s absolutely fine with me, it’s meant to be entertainment not a real-world documentary. So YES PLASE, make Meyer’s Khan Ceti Alpha V series.
I didn’t even consider that a Ceti Alpha V show might include flashbacks. That… isn’t such a bad idea, I’d go as far to say that the story should center more in the past, with mostly bookends or other “flash fowards” to Ceti Alpha and could mirror the rise and fall of Khan on Earth and Ceti Alpha V at the same time.
My biggest problem with Trek is that it’s been unwilling for +3 decades to just accept that *we do not live in the Star Trek universe*.
I think science fiction fans can handle keeping the Eugenics Wars set in the 90s. Trek Universe is not our Universe. I don’t think the writers are capable of that kind of original thinking.
Did Picard really retcon the start of the Eugenics wars to be decades later than it was established?
I agree that would actually be a clever way to handle this, including making the show mainly focus on the Eugenics Wars (that might require an HBO-level budget and extremely skilled writers, but anyway…). Retconning the timeframe to merge the Eugenics Wars with World War 3 could be explained by showing PIC-era Section 31 tinkering with the timeline, including S31 playing a direct-but-covert role in Khan’s rise and fall on 21st century Earth. There’s plenty of current real-world geopolitical stuff that could be extrapolated for timely story ideas too.
I should add that I haven’t seen PIC Season 2 yet, so I don’t know if that show has already retconned the start of the Eugenics Wars or how it explained this.
A Khan show set on Ceti Alpha V? Not necessarily the best idea (unless Meyer intends to include some unexpected plot twists, eg. Starfleet accidentally or deliberately blew up the planet’s neighbour during an early version of the Genesis Project), and in any case Greg Cox’s excellent novel already told the story very well.
A Khan show based on the ideas you, I and the good Captain Gomez have suggested? Now that’s where things could get interesting ;)
Khan on Ceti Alpha V just sounds boring. We already know that he won’t escape the planet or really accomplish much much of anything. He and his friends will just be dying there, and rereading Moby Dick for fifteen years. A Eugenics War show could be cool, but I don’t see any point to Ceti Alpha V. I’d definitely prefeer Section 31 to tthis.
I don’t know, A&E has managed to milk ten years of interest in Storage Wars, so maybe Khan waiting around for the Federation Abandoned Storage Locker Auctioneers to show up might be interesting to….well….someone.
Budget for Storage Wars <<<< Budget for any nu Trek
Look, Meyer is responsible for my all-time favourite Star Trek Movie, but I prefer Star Trek shows to be centered on the Federation and Starfleet.
I think most people. That seems pretty obvious over how excited everyone got over the first episode of Picard this season and the Stargazer. Now many are begging for a Stargazer spin off. NO ONE is begging for a Ceti Alpha Five show for a reason. ;)
And that’s because while some fans (like me) really like the idea of seeing different aspects of the Federation, colony life and so on; my guess is the great majority just want to see Starfleet officers doing things on a starship and have crazy adventures on it. And if you put them on one named Enterprise, even better. ;)
And the Ceti Alpha V idea is removed from all of that. It’s just a bunch of people marooned on a dead planet that we already know how it ends. That’s only interesting for the most hardcore group of fans out there and that doesn’t even interest a lot of them as this board shows.
Nick should get his TV series I’m sure P+ or Amazon or both combined can find the $30-40M this needs to get made for TV!
Look, I like Wrath of Khan, but imo it’s not the best movie. That probably makes me a bad Trekkie lol.
But even if it is the best movie, what is the point of a Ceti Alpha V show? What does it add to the franchise? Especially since SNW for some reason has a Khan descendant already.
I’m glad this project doesn’t seem to be moving. Hopefully the S31 project grinds to a halt too. Neither would be a plus for the franchise.
I would favor anything Nick Meyer does. I loved his Star Trek and his Sherlock Holmes. I don’t understand to this day why Hollywood never made better use of his talent. Would love to give him one more shot at the goal. By the way, I find it interesting that he and Gene Roddenberry butted heads about their approach to Trek, but BOTH of them approached it as “Horatio Hornblower in Space”.
The big difference is that Gene Roddenberry believed in the perfection of humanity. Nick Meyer did not.
Perfectability is I think the right word, but since I don’t believe in humanity even achieving much above mediocrity (though the folks fighting for Ukraine are certainly delivering excellence in admirable levels), I won’t take you to task for it.
Well, that wasn’t really within the scope of my comment, I was thinking more about the format and tone of the Meyer movies (and Kirk’s character) vs the tv show vs the Hornblower novels. As far as the perfectability of humanity, Roddenberry may be right that it might be possible but only after we almost destroy ourselves.
“It’s just sitting there.”
GOOD! Let it sit for all of eternity for all I care.
I like Nick Meyer and I would love to see him do something in this franchise again since it clearly didn’t work out with Discovery. But it would be nice to do something new and innovative instead of rehashing a one-note story we all know how it’s going to end. And TPTB probably felt the same way and why it never went anywhere.
I’m sure it has been suggested before, but since Meyer likes to play with existing tropes, it seems to me that a nice meshing of Meyer, military and TREK has been in plain sight all the while. He should have been the one to take on Garth of Izar, not that thieving nincompoop who besmirched and ruined fan films with his ongoing fleecing and non-delivery of product (which is apparently also very applicable to his prop sales business.)
I could imagine Garth as the subject of a miniseries that has him starting out like Michael in THE GODFATHER, a bright shining hope for the future, and winding up like … well, you know how he wound up. From my read of Steve Inhat’s portrayal, Garth actually possesses some of Khan’s more interesting attributes, but there’s also so much more (am a big fan of Ihnat, he was in everything during the 60s — along with William Windom and William Schallert and almost-Decker Robert Ryan, he was in HOUR OF THE GUN, played a bad guy in IN LIKE FLINT and got to kill Richard Widmark in MADIGAN after being an utter monster in a sea of monsters in THE CHASE — but died very young.)
You’re not wrong with that observation. He’d likely also be a good fit for a short treatment (very, very short) of the Romulan war.
Give him that shelved Jenderson script about the Rom war and tell him, you have 12 days to fix this! Then see what happens. BTW, I had never seen anything Jenderson had written before this last week, but I finally watched all of BAND OF BROTHERS (he wrote a few of them.) Tremendous series, was engaged throughout.
Meyer has done some great work that I love, not just in Star Trek but outside it as well. That said, I really don’t want a Khan show.
“Meyer has done some great work that I love, not just in Star Trek but outside it as well. That said, I really don’t want a Khan show.”
It would be a Khan job.
Better that than a Han Solo series, as that would be …
(drumroll please)
a Han Job …
(probably only offering modest satisfaction at best.)
Best Headline Ever: A few years ago there was some kind of competition involving tightrope walkers traversing the Han River in South Korea. A newspaper reported on this event under the headline “Skywalkers Cross Han Solo.”
“Better that than a Han Solo series, as that would be …
(drumroll please)
a Han Job …”
If they did make a film or a series with that title, I wouldn’t want to be there for the shoot.
Well, at least, this has me thinking about picking up To Reign In hell.
it’s been awhile.
I read To Reign In Hell a long time ago. As someone who doesn’t really read any of the Trek expanded universe novels I actually found it to be a very well written story that held my interest. It was also one of the most depressing things I ever read as the whole situation Khan and his people were thrust into was impossibly hopeless and what happens to Khan’s people at the end of TWOK actually feels like a blessing in disguise compared to their lives on Ceti Alpha V.
I think any TV treatment of that era would by necessity be similarly dour and largely hopeless. It probably would be fascinating to see but also not particularly fun to watch and I wonder if one of the reasons the project is languishing is precisely because it may also be a dark story.
I know I’m in the minority here but I’d be down with a 3 hour event series about Khan. I enjoy the new series but considering how serialised shows were supposed to be liberating for the franchise they actually feel more restrictive and the filler episodes are more detrimental to their respective series than they ever were in the nineties. I’d like to see them being more flexible with the formats. If there’s enough story to fill 10-13 hours then that’s fantastic, have a season long arc but if there’s not then just tell a story in as many episodes as it takes. I know the idea of Khan midquel is not the most inspiring idea, there’s definitely stories and characters that I’d rather see but I bet if it does ever see the light of day it will end up surprising and pleasing a lot of the naysayers and it would open up a door for exploring other corners of the Trek universe.
This would be a great idea (the Greg Cox novel and IDW comic are great) and could be marketed as a direct prequel to the iconic TWOK (and pleasing middle chapter between Space Seed/Trek II) and if Meyer were to direct it would be even more amazing. Who for Khan? Well wed definitely be at the ‘get me a young Richardo Montalban’ stage of Richardo’s 5 act theory! I hope Kurtzman comes to his senses and greenlights this project and allows Meyer to ‘indulge himself’
If this was going to be made about 10 years ago I would have suggested Nestor Carbonell for the role of Khan. Now he would be too old though so I don’t know who could star currently.
I still think it won’t work like Star Trek II, no Kirk as a foil in the story. Its not about our heroes or the Enterprise family so why should we care? Where are the stakes, no Spock dying. No Kirk getting humbled and having his ass handed to him when he doesn’t raise shields in time. No realising he put himself up on a pedestal as a genius when he nearly cost his entire crew their lives. No dining on ashes like when he had to lay Spock to rest.
It could be interesting. ST2 Khan is more maniacal and driven than SS Khan. Might be worth seeing that transition. At the same time, we’re buried under so many reboots, revisits, prequels, backstories, and so on, that I’m not sure we need another one.
I don’t understand the criticism about us already knowing how it turns out. Isn’t that everything nowadays? How is that different from Discovery (season 1 & 2 anyway)? Or Enterprise, which got a lot of criticism but mostly about its overall quality. One big complaint about ENT was that it didn’t feel like a proper precursor to TOS, at least until its last season. And outside of Trek? Madalorian is very good, even though we know a lot of how things must turn out eventually.
But whatever. It’ll never happen. Meyer isn’t one of the cool kids and doesn’t get to play with the nice toys.
Ikr, what a lazy argument. Its like every prequel ever. why bother with literally ANY prequel in that case.
it would be a fun thing to do, I guess wed have something of a recreation of TOS at the start possibly seeing the Enterprise and some security guards marooning Khan and his followers on CA5. then CA6 blowing up and CA5 turn into the sandy wasteland, attack of the eels, leadership challenges, Joaquin/Joachim finally cleared up, SS Khan gradually morphing into TWOK Khan.. and potential flashbacks to the eugenics wars.
as for Meyer not being one of the ‘cool kidz’ and someone like Alex Kurtzman is determining if he gets to make more star trek or not, is both hilarious and upsetting in equal measure.
I think there’s just not a lot of cultural hunger for Trek right now. So a show that promises to tell the story of Khan is going to get met with lukewarm reactions. It doesn’t help that they dilute the mystery by having Khan’s descendants in a new show, and reference to augments already out, and of course the STID debacle.
Still, in another context, without the current empty-calorie state of the franchise, a SS -> TWoK saga could have been interesting.
Regarding Meyer, I know nothing but what I read on sites like this, but based on things he’s said in interviews and knowing what I do know about how TV production is made nowadays (and how big American corporations function from firsthand experience), I have little doubt he’s seen as outdated and not in sync with the new ways of thinking about characterization. His lens is too different. But that’s just an interpretation in this particular case.
The franchise is as strong as ever right now. You’re just an angry internet nerd
You’re the one resorting to personal attacks but I’m the angry internet nerd?
Weird.
Show me any creative endeavour where the criteria for success — amongst its fans! — is heavily invested in business models and involves the word franchise — and I’ll show you an at-best compromised aesthetic vision. Quantity of product is meaningless if there is no quality control, unless you’re deliberately setting out to limit yourself to grinding out sausage.
So, to take your words and mean-spiritedness right back at you, you’re just a overly-defensive, trek-loving lemming. Quit sucking on Paramount’s teat and get some real nourishment, that way you’ll finally realize what real food tastes like instead of hungering for TrekDonald’s.
I am also curious about the definition of “strong” being used here. Back in the days before streaming and even TiVo, you could safely gauge a show’s success by its ratings. Watching one show meant you passed up on watching another. It was as close to voting with your wallet as you could do. At its peak, TNG was pulling in ~11M viewers per episode.
Nowadays, viewing numbers don’t mean as much. Between viewing on demand and fewer episodes of any given series to compete for time, sheer audience numbers don’t tell a clear story.
TOS and TNG were popular enough to justify multiple decent-budget Hollywood movies. I don’t expect Discovery movies any time soon.
“Ikr, what a lazy argument. Its like every prequel ever. why bother with literally ANY prequel in that case.”
Well that’s the thing, the majority of people who don’t like this idea usually don’t like idea of prequels in general. There are a lot of fans out there who didn’t want to go backwards at all and DIDN’T like the idea of Enterprise and Discovery. Many only wanted shows and films to continue after Voyage or Nemesis. I was certainly one off them. Now I have grown to like both shows over time (to different degrees) but if I had my way neither would’ve ever existed to begin with. I would’ve said the same thing about a Pike show a few years ago as well. So it’s not a lazy argument, many people just really shun the idea of prequels and especially given Star Trek hasn’t done one yet in a truly satisfying way for even people who DO like prequels.
And this Khan show just sounds worse than those because at least Enterprise and Discovery were new entities, just set in earlier time periods. We had no idea who the characters were and what would become of them. We know every important detail about Khan that matters and why it’s not an appealing idea for a lot of fans.
But I’m not speaking for all of fandom either and if they actually made it, sure, most of us will watch it anyway lol. And it was only 3 hours so not a huge deal. But I just feel they can put their energy to something more original or better use.
Will it explain how his followers mysteriously got decades *younger* in between?