"We got some threatening calls and letters," Mr. Meyer admits. "There was a fringe element that said, 'If Spock dies, you die.' We had to have a guard on the set. The studio was nervous about the protests, but I kept saying to everyone, 'The issue is not what we do, but whether we do it will. If we do it well, they'll buy it.' Robert Bresson was the one who said, 'My job is not to find out what the public wants and give it to them; my job is to make the public want what I want.' There's no way of saying this without sounding arroant, but there's only one person I have to please when I'm working, and that's me. It is impossible to second-guess millions of people whom you have never met. Would you tell me a joke that you didn't think was funny on the off chance that it might amuse me? Unfortunately, that's the way many people make movies in this town."
