Nicholas Meyer Discusses Discovery

[Christopher]

You could say this about all the Kelvin timeline films. The whole thing became contrived when they decided to make it an alternate universe instead of a reboot to appease fans. J

That's true enough, but just putting the core seven cast members on the same ship a decade early is a contrivance I can live with; it's no greater a contrivance than having them all on the same ship in the Mirror Universe, say. But having them recapitulate the same specific events years or decades too early, like with the STID death scene or the first few storylines of the comics, is pushing it too far.

I've been in that position more than once, where an interviewer keeps asking leading questions to get the sound byte they want. Happened to me with vampires, happened to me with Star Trek. Always kinda awkward.

In the case of vampires, the interviewer really wanted me to say that the rising popularity of vampire fiction said something scary and ominous about modern society and kept coming at that issue from different angles, hoping that I'd give the "right" answer eventually, but I kept shooting the notion down. Ditto when some guy from the New York Post wanted me to "confirm" that all us old-school Trekkies hate the reboot movies. He had a definite editorial slant he was pushing, too.

They want drama and "controversy."

So unprofessional.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Thanks for the quotes, Lord Garth. Sounds like Meyer did a good job of avoiding being drawn into any editorial slant. I quite liked his answer to the rather ludicrous question about the use of profanity.

I caught that, too.

I do hesitate to read too much into the question. I'm not sure whether it was a leading question hoping Meyer would bite, or maybe instead it was an honest question, and I only think it was a leading question because I've known Midnight Edge to use similarly intellectually dishonesty tactics before.

However as Scotty first said () "fool me twice, shame on me", so who can blame me if I feel that ME asked that question just waiting and hoping that Meyer would agree with them. Thankfully, Meyer's answer wasn't what ME was possibly looking for...although I think even if Midnight Edge asked the leading question to get Meyer in the middle of one of their games, Meyer is bright enough to have seen right through that, and would have decided he didn't want to play (which may be the way it happened).

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm guessing Midnight's Edge slant is: "Everything after TNG ended sucks and no reaching is too far in order to prove it!"

 

[Trekkin]

That's true enough, but just putting the core seven cast members on the same ship a decade early is a contrivance I can live with; it's no greater a contrivance than having them all on the same ship in the Mirror Universe, say. But having them recapitulate the same specific events years or decades too early, like with the STID death scene or the first few storylines of the comics, is pushing it too far.

Yet the whole point of the ‘infinite combinations...’ theory, is that exact mix of similiarities and differences can (and will) happen. Somewhere. Probably more than once, with slight variations.

But ‘realism’ aside, you’re not expected to buy anything is ‘coincidentally’ happening. Because the people making these things presumably trust that everyone walks in knowing that it’s a story-book world built to explicitly to keep the broad similarities, and throw away most of the detailed lore. That’s the entire hook.

Or in STID’s case, the hook was that and ‘Come see the Cumberbatch muscle-up in tight black shirts, speak deeply, and wear lots of leather. Also, sexy Spock and Kirk crying.’

 

[fireproof78]

I know I'm in the minority but I think that Kirk's death in TWOK was earned, I think the dialog worked very well, and fit the overall theme of Kirk's arc and the film in general.

The realism part of identical scenes stretches credulity a bit, but I lay that more on the writers of this franchise not willing to ever give up on Khan. In universe that scene works very well for me. Yes, I'm in the minority and will remain thus.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

I liked Kirk's death in Into Darkness. It was Spock screaming Khan that was a step too far to be honest.

 

[Vger23]

I liked Kirk's death in Into Darkness. It was Spock screaming Khan that was a step too far to be honest.

Ruined an otherwise very emotional and well-acted scene, and took me completely out of the final act of the film. Very unfortunate actually.

 

[fireproof78]

I liked Kirk's death in Into Darkness. It was Spock screaming Khan that was a step too far to be honest.

Yup, but if a two second edit can be done then a scene isn't that bad.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I liked Kirk's death in Into Darkness. It was Spock screaming Khan that was a step too far to be honest.

Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, Kirks was the most...[voice breaking]...Vulcan.

 

[mos6507]

Lots of messenger-shooting here.

I have to say, though, that the overall impression I get of Meyer from this interview is someone who is extremely unsentimental about most of his work. How he characterized his Star Trek work was that he was usually brought in late as a "fixer". This is quite different from, let's say, the amount of man-hours James Cameron has invested since childhood to build out his Avatar Universe. So this throws a lot of water on the idea that Meyer can be looked upon as a proxy for Gene Roddenberry and try to steer the franchise closer to its original mission-statement the way I had hoped when I found out he'd be involved.

In fact it seems that he was pretty passive in the writer's room and didn't really try to put up a fight over anything (including the use of language, assuming he didn't pen that dialogue himself).

I really don't get the sense that he understood or cared how much Trek fans were hitching their hopes on the show or saw his involvement as a check against Kurtzman and company.

When Meyer took control of Star Trek II, he had a mandate from Paramount to change course from TMP. So when Gene objected to some of Meyer's ideas, Meyer was willing to push back because Gene had already had everything his way and it underperformed. In this case I don't think Meyer really saw Star Trek as a franchise at that sort of crossroads and certainly was not empowered to do anything if he did.

The Khan project seemed like his way of finding something to be more passionate about, but the way that thing got shelved probably played a role in him sort of clocking out of giving a crap.

His opinions on Into Darkness suggests that in most respects he's probably more on the purist side of the creative debate, but he just seems like someone who knows his place and tries not to burn bridges.

 

[Christopher]

Yet the whole point of the ‘infinite combinations...’ theory, is that exact mix of similiarities and differences can (and will) happen. Somewhere. Probably more than once, with slight variations.

That theory is used by Mike Johnson in the IDW comics, but his understanding of the cosmology of the Kelvin Timeline is quite different from its creators' intent that it's a branching-off from the Prime Timeline created by Nero's time travel. And it's an absurd and invalid conceit, because if there are an infinite number of timelines, then the probability of people from one timeline ever observing or interacting with a timeline that's just coincidentally so similar to their own is effectively zero, because that's the reciprocal of infinity.

But ‘realism’ aside, you’re not expected to buy anything is ‘coincidentally’ happening. Because the people making these things presumably trust that everyone walks in knowing that it’s a story-book world built to explicitly to keep the broad similarities, and throw away most of the detailed lore. That’s the entire hook.

But that's my point. Keeping the broad similarities is one thing, but duplicating exact plot beats and lines of dialogue from a specific movie is the exact opposite of "broad."

Besides, the audience isn't required to accept things that make no sense just because they're needed to make the story work. The audience's suspension of disbelief isn't something the writer is automatically entitled to; it has to be earned through the writer's skill. The writer has to make the illusion credible enough and sell it well enough for the audience to accept it, just as a stage magician does.

Or in STID’s case, the hook was that and ‘Come see the Cumberbatch muscle-up in tight black shirts, speak deeply, and wear lots of leather. Also, sexy Spock and Kirk crying.’

And none of that is the problem. As I said, I'm fine with most of the movie. What I hate is that one scene that so blatantly copied the death scene from TWOK in a way that pulled many viewers out of the movie. As I said, I think that one dumb scene did a lot of damage to the overall movie's reputation.

The realism part of identical scenes stretches credulity a bit, but I lay that more on the writers of this franchise not willing to ever give up on Khan. In universe that scene works very well for me. Yes, I'm in the minority and will remain thus.

Khan isn't the problem. As I've been saying, that one TWOK-ripoff death scene aside, STID is a completely, completely different story from TWOK. It isn't about the vengeful madman of TWOK; it's about the cunning, charming tyrant of "Space Seed," who's a completely different and far more interesting Khan. It isn't about Khan luring Kirk into a trap to kill him; this Khan has nothing against Kirk and is trying to free his people from Admiral Marcus. It isn't about Genesis; it's about preventing a war with the Klingons. Okay, a woman named Carol Marcus is in it, but her role and her characterization are so completely different that she hardly needs to be Carol Marcus. The only thing that's TWOK-like about STID is that one stupid damn scene with the engine core and the glass wall and the "KHAAAAAANNNN." And it annoys the hell out of me that that one stupid damn scene makes everyone think STID is a copy of TWOK because it's the only part they remember.

 

[Vger23]

I think people are assuming that Nick Meyer would've come in and produced a wonderful vision of Star Trek, and in reality would find them selves sorely mistaken based on what they expected.

Nick Meyer wasn't really a science-fiction guy. For all those people clamoring that DSC "wasn't Star Treky enough," you need to remember what his contributions to Star Trek were. He created a revenge story that was a sequel to a TOS episode, wrote the middle two acts of a "timetravel to temporary Earth" story, and he co-wrote a political allegory about the collapse of the Cold War. He wasn't exactly the guy to do all the utopian exploring and science discovering stories so many fan-critics seem to be pining for these days. In fact, he outright objected to a lot of the Roddenberry philosophy. His vision was far more militaristic and even dark, which again is what the fan critics seem to grate against.

 

[fireproof78]

Khan isn't the problem. As I've been saying, that one TWOK-ripoff death scene aside, STID is a completely, completely different story from TWOK. It isn't about the vengeful madman of TWOK; it's about the cunning, charming tyrant of "Space Seed," who's a completely different and far more interesting Khan. It isn't about Khan luring Kirk into a trap to kill him; this Khan has nothing against Kirk and is trying to free his people from Admiral Marcus. It isn't about Genesis; it's about preventing a war with the Klingons. Okay, a woman named Carol Marcus is in it, but her role and her characterization are so completely different that she hardly needs to be Carol Marcus. The only thing that's TWOK-like about STID is that one stupid damn scene with the engine core and the glass wall and the "KHAAAAAANNNN." And it annoys the hell out of me that that one stupid damn scene makes everyone think STID is a copy of TWOK because it's the only part they remember.

I think I misspoke, so hopefully I can clear up, because I genuinely don't follow the rest of your post and it feels a bit like a non-sequitur. When I said writers are not willing to move past Khan, I meant TWOK as a film, vengeance driven enemy, etc. Star Trek has long labored under that shadow.

I don't think ST ID is anything like TWOK, as you described, and, of the two, I prefer STID. I'll that scene works fine in context. If I knew nothing of TWOK I could still follow the scene just fine.

 

[Lord Garth]

So this throws a lot of water on the idea that Meyer can be looked upon as a proxy for Gene Roddenberry and try to steer the franchise closer to its original mission-statement the way I had hoped when I found out he'd be involved.

I've always seen Nick Meyer as the yin and Gene Roddenberry's yang. To quote Nick Meyer in (I think) Star Trek Movie Memories, (paraphrasing): "Gene believes in the perfectibility of Man and I don't." I like 1960s Gene's vision of the future that "We didn't destroy ourselves" not the 1980s Latter-Day Roddenberry Vision of "Humanity is perfect and evolved." So, I side with Nick Meyer in this argument. And Harve Bennett who said in the same book that he thought Gene Roddenberry had over time come to confuse his revised, more "enlightened" vision with Star Trek.

It's also why the TOS Movies, DS9, and DSC are the versions of Star Trek I prefer the most when it comes to anything made after TOS itself.

I really don't get the sense that he understood or cared how much Trek fans were hitching their hopes on the show or saw his involvement as a check against Kurtzman and company.

I'm not going to lie, I was excited when I heard Nick Meyer would be involved. But I also wasn't hitching my hopes for the show on him. I long wanted a Star Trek series in the style of Prestige TV and, in general, DSC is closer to what I want than VOY and ENT (or TNG for that matter) ever were.

His opinions on Into Darkness suggests that in most respects he's probably more on the purist side of the creative debate, but he just seems like someone who knows his place and tries not to burn bridges.

It's possible but I've always gotten the impression that purists don't want a franchise to adapt to the times but to stay the same. And Nick Meyer's response about how everything is a product of its time, which is something he also said in the TWOK DVD Commentary back in 2002 would suggest he's not a purist so much as he just wants whatever is new to have something to add. In general, he seems to be more in favor of artists expressing themselves in a meaningful way than anything else.

 

[mos6507]

Which seems kind of odd considering how much of an anachronist he is. Consider that he's working on a period drama right now. He seems more interested in exporing anything other than the present.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But way too contrived, because it isn't a direct analog. It's set in 2259, a full 26 years before TWOK and 8 years before "Space Seed." It's a radically different situation in every respect, so it beggars credibility that any part of it would coincidentally happen to play out as a mirror image of a much later, entirely different Enterprise/Khan encounter in another timeline. It's a gratuitous bit of fan service that does not fit into the story.

No more so than Trek has already long established in AU's. In Trek's world, the same things will always happen and the same people will always interact despite massively different circumstances. See: Every generation of mirror universe, the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline, "Before and After"/"Year of Hell" etc.

Fate doesn't exist IRL, but some fantasy version of it in Trek's world does.

 

[Trekkin]

And it's an absurd and invalid conceit, because if there are an infinite number of timelines, then the probability of people from one timeline ever observing or interacting with a timeline that's just coincidentally so similar to their own is effectively zero, because that's the reciprocal of infinity.

‘Effectively zero’ is just another way of saying not zero. And yes, the Kelvin was caused by a ‘for want of a nail’ situation. That also factors into the ‘If it could happen, it has.’

Probabilities: More complicated than your bookie makes out. DS9 did an episode about it once.

Out of universe, events in a story don’t have to be ‘probable.’ The entire point of writing or watching soft sci-fi like Trek, is that your can settle for a vague guideline of ‘maaaaaaaybe possible.’

But that's my point. Keeping the broad similarities is one thing, but duplicating exact plot beats and lines of dialogue from a specific movie is the exact opposite of "broad."

Besides, the audience isn't required to accept things that make no sense just because they're needed to make the story work. The audience's suspension of disbelief isn't something the writer is automatically entitled to; it has to be earned through the writer's skill. The writer has to make the illusion credible enough and sell it well enough for the audience to accept it, just as a stage magician does.

1. Writers who put out a work of fiction, are most definitely automatically entitled to a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Its part of the unspoken contract that the audience signs, called ‘if you want a documentary, then fuck off.’

2. We are so far past Trek’s usage of time travel and alternate universes making ‘no sense’, that the ‘suspension of disbelief’ issie damn near can’t apply. Unless you’re a new viewer with that movie, then your disbelief suspenders will have long-since solidified into pure adamantium.

3. Case to point: aside from the characters of Khan and Carol, literally everything you’ve listed as a ‘too specific’ coincidence, had previously been repeated more than once in the Prime timeline.

 

[Christopher]

I think I misspoke, so hopefully I can clear up, because I genuinely don't follow the rest of your post and it feels a bit like a non-sequitur. When I said writers are not willing to move past Khan, I meant TWOK as a film, vengeance driven enemy, etc. Star Trek has long labored under that shadow.

That's not TWOK, it's just the generic action-movie formula. There were already countless movies about vengeance-seeking villains long before 1982. The problems with Trek movies are the problems with action movies in general. They're under pressure to conform to the conventions and tropes and formulas of the medium, many of which are a clumsy fit at best with the Star Trek style and ethos.

No more so than Trek has already long established in AU's. In Trek's world, the same things will always happen and the same people will always interact despite massively different circumstances. See: Every generation of mirror universe, the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline, "Before and After"/"Year of Hell" etc.

As I've already tried to convey, it's a matter of degree. The same people coming together in the same place, that's broad-strokes enough that I can live with it. But when it gets to the point that they're actually quoting the exact same lines of dialogue, that's too granular for me.

Again, the point is that suspension of disbelief is a voluntary thing. It's something the storyteller has to earn from the audience. And we all have thresholds of disbelief. We can accept an implausibility up to a point, but push the implausibility too far, make it too extreme, and it breaks us out of the narrative. And that's my threshold. The TOS seven all coming together on the Enterprise a decade early? That's pushing my threshold quite a lot, and I'd rather not accept it, but the entire conceit of the series depends on it so I can live with it. But putting Kirk and Spock on opposite sides of a radiation shield and having the dying Kirk say "Ship... out of danger?" I'm sorry, that's just clumsy and crass and stupid and fanboyish, and completely unnecessary to the story. It's the same type of conceit, yes, but it just pushes it too far and destroys the illusion.

‘Effectively zero’ is just another way of saying not zero.

No, it's another way of saying "statistically indistinguishable from zero."

Out of universe, events in a story don’t have to be ‘probable.’ The entire point of writing or watching soft sci-fi like Trek, is that your can settle for a vague guideline of ‘maaaaaaaybe possible.’

1. Writers who put out a work of fiction, are most definitely automatically entitled to a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Its part of the unspoken contract that the audience signs, called ‘if you want a documentary, then fuck off.’

One more time: Suspension of disbelief has to be earned. We as readers and viewers are not required to swallow whatever writers tell us, no matter how ridiculous. We aren't doing this for their benefit, they're doing it for ours. So if they want our suspension of disbelief about the ideas they present to us, they have to sell them. We as audience members have every right to say "That story is too implausible for me."

Being a writer is like being a magician. Yes, the audience comes hoping to be fooled by the illusions. But it's still up to the magician to perform the illusions well enough to sell them to the audience. If the magician doesn't have enough skill to sell the illusions, if there are mistakes or blatant giveaways that spoil the illusions, then the audience has every right to express dissatisfaction. It's called willing suspension of disbelief, not mandatory.

2. We are so far past Trek’s usage of time travel and alternate universes making ‘no sense’, that the ‘suspension of disbelief’ issie damn near can’t apply.

Suspension of disbelief is a personal choice. What works for you and what works for me are two totally different things.

 

[fireproof78]

That's not TWOK, it's just the generic action-movie formula. There were already countless movies about vengeance-seeking villains long before 1982. The problems with Trek movies are the problems with action movies in general. They're under pressure to conform to the conventions and tropes and formulas of the medium, many of which are a clumsy fit at best with the Star Trek style and ethos.

While I agree on the problems part, I think that TWOK is still regarded as the gold standard for Trek films, and therefore they keep coming back to that well, regardless of the problems with that formula.

 

[Rahul]

As I've already tried to convey, it's a matter of degree. The same people coming together in the same place, that's broad-strokes enough that I can live with it. But when it gets to the point that they're actually quoting the exact same lines of dialogue, that's too granular for me.

Again, the point is that suspension of disbelief is a voluntary thing. It's something the storyteller has to earn from the audience. And we all have thresholds of disbelief. We can accept an implausibility up to a point, but push the implausibility too far, make it too extreme, and it breaks us out of the narrative. And that's my threshold. The TOS seven all coming together on the Enterprise a decade early? That's pushing my threshold quite a lot, and I'd rather not accept it, but the entire conceit of the series depends on it so I can live with it. But putting Kirk and Spock on opposite sides of a radiation shield and having the dying Kirk say "Ship... out of danger?" I'm sorry, that's just clumsy and crass and stupid and fanboyish, and completely unnecessary to the story. It's the same type of conceit, yes, but it just pushes it too far and destroys the illusion.

Oh, you forgot it's a J.J. Abrams movie! It was destiny for the characters come together, even in another universe! And have the exact same conversations and scenarios there! One could even say, an invisible force put them there together. Haven't you watched 'Felicity'?