Meyer: Revitalizing Star Trek

[TrekToday]

After the rather lackluster Star Trek: The Motion Picture, bringing in Trek newcomer Nicholas Meyer put the Trek movies back on the right track. Meyer* didn’t hold a high opinion of Star Trek at first. When told by a Paramount executive that he should take the job of directing Star Trek II: The Wrath of […]

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[EnriqueH]

Cool.

I wish I could be at London.

He really hit out of the park with Treks II and IV. I have mixed feelings about Trek VI, though I did like it.

 

[CoveTom]

^ Agreed. Personally, I think the combination of talents that most worked in the films was that of Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer paired together. Bennett was respectful of Trek and its traditions and Meyer was unconcerned about what had gone before and eager to mold things to his vision. The two of them balanced each other well. Whenever only half of that duo was present, I think the result was less spectacular.

 

[Warped9]

I loathed Meyer's take on Star Trek and I still do. And this film is riddled with stupid things that could easily have fixed. Same with TUC.

It's an energetic film with goof pacing and some neat character moments, but the story itself is dumb as a brick. Only the performances of the cast make it work.

 

[J.T.B.]

I loathed Meyer's take on Star Trek and I still do. And this film is riddled with stupid things that could easily have fixed. Same with TUC.

It's an energetic film with goof pacing and some neat character moments, but the story itself is dumb as a brick. Only the performances of the cast make it work.

I have problems with some choices made in TWOK too, but it seems unfair to attribute everything that's "bad" to the director but give him no the credit for any of the "good" elements.

 

[Maurice]

It's an energetic film with goo[d] pacing and some neat character moments, but the story itself is dumb as a brick. Only the performances of the cast make it work.

I have problems with some choices made in TWOK too, but it seems unfair to attribute everything that's "bad" to the director but give him no the credit for any of the "good" elements.

And the bolded text aren't "good" elements???

 

[Memory Alpha]

I really like ST II, but I could do without some of the literary pedantry in ST II and ST VI. Not sure if that's Meyer or not, but he seems to like it in the audio commentary tracks. In ST VI it's a little overboard with all the Shakespeare, and I don't know that TMP is "lackluster." It is a 1970s film, it's supposed to be a big, heady, trippy, slow, contemplative film with long tracking shots and huge interiors and so on. It's a Robert Wise movie. It's almost like he tries to make the ship a character in the story like he does the mansion in The Haunting. So whatever. Meyer did a great job on ST II, though, clearly. It was very stark and rugged, and I liked the pacing.

Anyway, ha, I often wondered if Meyer's ego clashed with anyone else's, like Shatner's. It might have.

 

[Warped9]

It's an energetic film with goo[d] pacing and some neat character moments, but the story itself is dumb as a brick. Only the performances of the cast make it work.

I have problems with some choices made in TWOK too, but it seems unfair to attribute everything that's "bad" to the director but give him no the credit for any of the "good" elements.

And the bolded text aren't "good" elements???

Did I say they weren't? The sentence lists three good elements and then a counterpoint.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I have problems with some choices made in TWOK too, but it seems unfair to attribute everything that's "bad" to the director but give him no the credit for any of the "good" elements.

And the bolded text aren't "good" elements???

Did I say they weren't? The sentence lists three good elements and then a counterpoint.

But you didn't give Meyer any credit for the good elements, since you said, "Only the performances of the cast make it work" [underlining mine]. Their point seems to be that Meyer should at least share some credit with the cast for making the good elements work.

 

[Warped9]

I'm referring to the film overall. By extension Meyer gets credit for good elements in the film, but I also blame him for a lot of crap that had no business being there.

 

[Gassy Man]

Meyer is a storyteller. It's clear his sense of character and narrative -- including pacing, theme, and development -- are the best of anyone who directed the Star Trek films with the original cast. He's less interested in the sci fi idea, and that's probably good for post-Star Wars films. I met Robert Wise in the 80s, when he chatted with a bunch of us at my university's film school, and while he was a very sweet and accomplished man, he seemed more interested in the technical aspects of film making than the story-telling ones. He talked at length about how he learned to do more with less from Val Lewton, his efforts to overcome budgetary restrictions with films like The Haunting, and his early days as an editor working with Orson Welles. He seemed to treat the script and the like as the province of the writer. Nimoy directs more or less like he's making a TV show.

 

[Warped9]

Meyer is a storyteller. It's clear his sense of character and narrative -- including pacing, theme, and development -- are the best of anyone who directed the Star Trek films with the original cast. He's less interested in the sci fi idea, and that's probably good for post-Star Wars films. I met Robert Wise in the 80s, when he chatted with a bunch of us at my university's film school, and while he was a very sweet and accomplished man, he seemed more interested in the technical aspects of film making than the story-telling ones. He talked at length about how he learned to do more with less from Val Lewton, his efforts to overcome budgetary restrictions with films like The Haunting, and his early days as an editor working with Orson Welles. He seemed to treat the script and the like as the province of the writer. Nimoy directs more or less like he's making a TV show.

I read this paragragh twice to realize you're not saying what you might think you're trying to say. At least that's how it cones across.

Meyer obviously understood technical aspects, or the mechanics, of storytelling because he knew how to get good character moments, good pacing, effective action and emotion into the story. What he didn't understand was Star Trek's universe as established throughout TOS and TMP. He inderstood how to tell a story, but he didn't understand the setting in which the story was set.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I loathed Meyer's take on Star Trek and I still do. And this film is riddled with stupid things that could easily have fixed. Same with TUC.

Didn't you say you own TWOK DE?

Just curious, since you do not like Meyer's interpretation of ST.

 

[Warped9]

I loathed Meyer's take on Star Trek and I still do. And this film is riddled with stupid things that could easily have fixed. Same with TUC.

Didn't you say you own TWOK DE?

Just curious, since you do not like Meyer's interpretation of ST.

You're right. It's a contradiction.

I like the universe shown in TMP, but Wise didn't inject enough character dynamic into the film. Of course, that's also partly the fault of the script.

I like the energy and character bits of TWOK, but Meyer messed up the universe depicted in the film. The veneer he gave the Trek universe or Starfleet in particular turns me off.

 

[Gassy Man]

Meyer is a storyteller. It's clear his sense of character and narrative -- including pacing, theme, and development -- are the best of anyone who directed the Star Trek films with the original cast. He's less interested in the sci fi idea, and that's probably good for post-Star Wars films. I met Robert Wise in the 80s, when he chatted with a bunch of us at my university's film school, and while he was a very sweet and accomplished man, he seemed more interested in the technical aspects of film making than the story-telling ones. He talked at length about how he learned to do more with less from Val Lewton, his efforts to overcome budgetary restrictions with films like The Haunting, and his early days as an editor working with Orson Welles. He seemed to treat the script and the like as the province of the writer. Nimoy directs more or less like he's making a TV show.

I read this paragragh twice to realize you're not saying what you might think you're trying to say. At least that's how it cones across.

Meyer obviously understood technical aspects, or the mechanics, of storytelling because he knew how to get good character moments, good pacing, effective action and emotion into the story. What he didn't understand was Star Trek's universe as established throughout TOS and TMP. He inderstood how to tell a story, but he didn't understand the setting in which the story was set.

What I'm saying is that Meyer was focused more on actual storytelling than the mechanics of making a film, which is why the plot and execution of TWOK feel richer to many viewers. Wise, though he made some great films, was more focused on the technical aspects of being a director -- film, editing, lighting, camera placement, blocking actors, and so forth. In speaking with Wise and listening to his talk (he was with us for a few hours), it became obvious that the actual story being told in TMP was less important than how in a cinematic way he might tell it. And I'm not sure Wise understood the Trek universe any better than Meyer did, as he seemed to think he was telling a version of 2001 rather than the show we were used to. Wise had a vision for Star Trek, but I'm not sure it was any more accurate to the TV series than Meyer's was -- but at least Meyer got the essence of who the characters had been and understood how to nuance a plot to match that concept.

 

[bbailey861]

What I'm saying is that Meyer was focused more on actual storytelling than the mechanics of making a film, which is why the plot and execution of TWOK feel richer to many viewers. Wise, though he made some great films, was more focused on the technical aspects of being a director -- film, editing, lighting, camera placement, blocking actors, and so forth. In speaking with Wise and listening to his talk (he was with us for a few hours), it became obvious that the actual story being told in TMP was less important than how in a cinematic way he might tell it. And I'm not sure Wise understood the Trek universe any better than Meyer did, as he seemed to think he was telling a version of 2001 rather than the show we were used to. Wise had a vision for Star Trek, but I'm not sure it was any more accurate to the TV series than Meyer's was -- but at least Meyer got the essence of who the characters had been and understood how to nuance a plot to match that concept.

Meyer gave the vast majority of movie goers what they wanted to see - story worth watching. Unfortunately, Wise didn't do that for what should have been a magnificent reunion and a theatrical first outing. Sure, it was pretty, but it got boring fast.

 

[Gassy Man]

I think that's fair to say. Star Trek was essentially space opera sometimes dressed up as harder sci-fi, and that's what TWOK is. TMP took itself too seriously and tried to tell a more straightforward harder sci-fi story, forgetting that for most audiences, being dazzled by the central high concept is not enough.

Now, that said, TMP is a much more sophisticated cinematic experience. It really is the only one of the films that actually feels like a film. If they could have kept that scope while also investing more in the rest, they would have had a true masterpiece. TWOK, all things considered, comes the closest in providing that balance.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I usually agree with Warped about most things Trek, but I've always diverged with him when it comes to TWOK, which I find to be a fine film. Meyer's is the only take on Trek (since TOS) in which these ships really feel like big ships of the line, with real crews and real protocol.

 

[CoveTom]

I think TWOK does a pretty decent job of balancing all of the elements to make a good Trek film.

But in TWOK, Meyer was operating under two constraints: One, he had Harve Bennett as his producer, and Bennett was very insistent on respecting the traditions of Trek, which provided a counterbalance to Meyer's lack of concern with what had gone before. Second, because of the small budget, Meyer was limited in how much of the look of the Trek universe he could change. Yes, he changed the uniforms. But mostly he was forced to re-use sets and costumes from TMP.

When we roll around to TUC, where Bennett was no longer on board and Meyer had more freedom and more money to do things the way he wanted, I think the results were more mixed.

 

[Spock's Barber]

After the near disaster that was TMP, I don't blame Paramount for demoting GR, and replacing him with the Meyer/Bennett team. I think that The 3 Stooges could have made a better ST movie than TMP that was unleashed on theater goers on December 7th, 1979. As Robert Wise noticed, how prophetic that it premiered on Pearl Harbor Day.