Nicholas Meyer writing a Trek memoir?

[ScottDS]

I was on Aint it Cool when I saw an advertisement for this:

http://www.amazon.com/View-Bridge-M...002130X?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243807608&sr=1-1

Looks like it comes out in August. Could make for some very interesting reading.

 

[Csalem]

Excellent. I enjoyed his commentaries on the DVDs so hopefully this will be just as good.

 

[Christopher]

I find it odd that Meyer would focus his memoir primarily on ST, given that he only worked on three of the movies (director on II & VI, writer on IV) and that he's never been much of a Trek fan. Maybe he figured this was the best way to market it, though. His Trek films are perhaps better-known than The Seven Per Cent Solution or Time After Time, say.

 

[LightningStorm]

Scott,

Please don't hotlink images from sites unless you own the site or it is a site dedicated to hosting images for you. I've removed the hot linked image.

Image and Hotlinking Rules

Thanks

 

[JustKate]

Man, I am so weird. I knew Nicholas Meyer only because he was the author of the book The Seven Per Cent Solution (and I think he did one or two other Sherlock Holmes books as well). I had no idea that he had anything at all to do with Trek. My areas of knowledge and of ignorance surprise even myself. I'm a multi-subject geek, but apparently an imperfect one.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Man, I am so weird. I knew Nicholas Meyer only because he was the author of the book The Seven Per Cent Solution (and I think he did one or two other Sherlock Holmes books as well).

The West End Horror involved George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and a plague of rats.

The Canary Trainer is a sequel to The Seven Per-Cent Solution, set during the Great Hiatus, and covers Holmes' romance with Irene Adler and the mysterious goings-on at the Parisian Opera House.

Meyer's The Canary Trainer had the unfortunate effect of nearly scuttling another Holmes versus the Phantom of the Opera book, Sam Siciliano's The Angel of the Opera, which was being auctioned at roughly the same time. Angel it ended up being published but with a very small print run and was difficult to come by. Of the two, I think Siciliano's book is the better of the two. (It also prefigures Laurie R. King's series in a way in that it has a non-Watson narrator.)

 

[ClayinCA]

Allyn, as is becoming my usual custom, I agree with you completely. The Angel of the Opera is a great book, being true to the characters of both Holmes and Erik (the Phantom), and a great read in its own right. (I wasn't wild about the way the narrator had to constantly belittle Watson, but it wasn't enough to ruin the book for me.)

 

[ScottDS]

Sorry LightningStorm. First time for everything.

I find it odd that Meyer would focus his memoir primarily on ST, given that he only worked on three of the movies (director on II & VI, writer on IV) and that he's never been much of a Trek fan. Maybe he figured this was the best way to market it, though. His Trek films are perhaps better-known than The Seven Per Cent Solution or Time After Time, say.

I agree Trek probably makes the book more marketable. Maybe he's simply using Trek as a jumping off point. I'm sure he'll touch on his other films.

If you like Time After Time, Film Score Monthly released a limited edition copy of Miklos Rozsa's score for the film. Meyer wrote a nice essay for the liner notes. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/cds/detail.cfm?cdID=416

 

[Csalem]

I was browsing through Wikipedia recently and I read the article on his TV movie 'The Day After' which seems to have gotten very good reviews. I'm tempted to see if I can track it down on DVD. I must say my favourite TOS films are the one's he was involved in.

 

[Steve Roby]

As posted on a certain Trek books blog two months ago...

From the publisher's catalogue (though we know those aren't always reliable sources):

​

The critically acclaimed director and writer shares his account of the making of the three classic Star Trek films

The View from the Bridge is Nicholas Meyer's enormously entertaining account of his involvement with the Star Trek films: STII: The Wrath of Khan, STIV: The Voyage Home, and STVI: The Undiscovered Country, as well as his illustrious career in the movie business. The man best known for bringing together Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud in The Seven Per-Cent Solution had ironically never been interested in Star Trek until he was brought on board to save the film series.

Meyer shares how he created the script for The Wrath of Khan, the most revered Star Trek film of all, in twelve days -- only to have William Shatner proclaim he hated it. He reveals the death threats he received when word got out that Spock would be killed, and finally answers the long-pondered question of whether Khan’s chiseled chest is truly that of Ricardo Montalban. Meyer’s reminiscences on everyone from Gene Roddenberry to Laurence Olivier will appeal not only to the countless legions of Trekkies, but to anyone fascinated by the inner workings of Hollywood.

 

[TGTheodore]

I was browsing through Wikipedia recently and I read the article on his TV movie 'The Day After' which seems to have gotten very good reviews. I'm tempted to see if I can track it down on DVD. I must say my favourite TOS films are the one's he was involved in.

It was quite bleak and frank for its day, and freaked out a lot of people -- especially for a network TV mini-series. Jason Robards, Jr. was excellent in it. I have it on VHS. I've never looked for it on DVD, so I don't know if it's available in that format.

Steve, thanks for the capsule on Meyer's book. I wonder if he'll reveal just how much Denny Martin Flynn actually wrote in "their" screenplay?

--Ted

 

[JD]

I was browsing through Wikipedia recently and I read the article on his TV movie 'The Day After' which seems to have gotten very good reviews. I'm tempted to see if I can track it down on DVD. I must say my favourite TOS films are the one's he was involved in.

It was quite bleak and frank for its day, and freaked out a lot of people -- especially for a network TV mini-series. Jason Robards, Jr. was excellent in it. I have it on VHS. I've never looked for it on DVD, so I don't know if it's available in that format.

--Ted

They use the DVD cover for it's image on the wikipedia page, so it certainly is (or at least was) available. I have to admit, I am intrigued too now, by both it the Seven-Percent Solution. Would the Seven Percent Solution be good for someone unfamiliar with Holmes? The only exposure I've ever had to Sherlock Holmes was a couple episodes of the old (I think it was from the '80s) BBC series that I watched on PBS a couple months ago.

 

[cardinal biggles]

^You're thinking of the Granada/ITV series from 1984-1994 starring Jeremy Brett. I've been taking advantage of one of the local libraries' owning the entire run on VHS to see them for the first time in ages.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is probably a bit more accessible if you're a Holmes fan than not. The only story that really is a prerequisite for understanding Seven-Per-Cent is "The Final Problem," as both use Holmes's conflict with Prof. Moriarty as a starting point, though Meyer takes it in a much different direction.

The movie is good, too; Nicol Williamson makes for an interesting Holmes, Alan Arkin is great as Freud, and this is where Charles Gray originated his performance as Mycroft (which he would reprise several times during the Jeremy Brett series). Hopefully the upcoming Holmes movie with Robert Downey, Jr. will compel Universal to finally release Seven-Per-Cent Solution in widescreen.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I wonder if he'll reveal just how much Denny Martin Flynn actually wrote in "their" screenplay?

You make it sound like there's a story there...

 

[Paris]

I find it odd that Meyer would focus his memoir primarily on ST, given that he only worked on three of the movies (director on II & VI, writer on IV) and that he's never been much of a Trek fan. Maybe he figured this was the best way to market it, though. His Trek films are perhaps better-known than The Seven Per Cent Solution or Time After Time, say.

I'm not sure if i'm remembering correctly, but didn't Nick Meyer also have a hand in the story for TSFS? I think I remember seeing his name on screen for a story assist or something ?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'm not sure if i'm remembering correctly, but didn't Nick Meyer also have a hand in the story for TSFS? I think I remember seeing his name on screen for a story assist or something ?

No, he wanted nothing to do with Star Trek III if it were going to undo the ending of Star Trek II. He worked on Star Trek IV because the damage had already been done; he could work with the new status quo.

I believe he was also approached tentatively by Shatner to write Star Trek V, and when Meyer passed he approached Eric Van Lustbader. He was also rumored to have been connected with First Contact in its early development, but I've never found that rumor credible, because I can't figure out what Meyer would have done. I simply can't see Meyer taking Moore & Braga's script and shooting it as written.

 

[Paris]

Thanks Allyn . Here's hoping that the memoir can shed some light on that First Contact rumor. I enjoyed Meyer's commentaries on TWOK and TUC, so hopefully the memoir is a good read...

 

[seigezunt]

I was browsing through Wikipedia recently and I read the article on his TV movie 'The Day After' which seems to have gotten very good reviews. I'm tempted to see if I can track it down on DVD. I must say my favourite TOS films are the one's he was involved in.

It was quite bleak and frank for its day, and freaked out a lot of people -- especially for a network TV mini-series. Jason Robards, Jr. was excellent in it. I have it on VHS. I've never looked for it on DVD, so I don't know if it's available in that format.

Steve, thanks for the capsule on Meyer's book. I wonder if he'll reveal just how much Denny Martin Flynn actually wrote in "their" screenplay?

--Ted

I didn't realize Meyer did that film. Lord, I remember watching it when it came out, when I was in college. Students were stumbling around afterwards like zombies. I remember one girl weeping.

 

[Christopher]

^I had to talk my father into letting me watch The Day After, since he'd read about the depressing and frightening effect it had on people and was afraid it would traumatize my adolescent psyche. But it didn't really affect me much at all, because I was already well-read on the perils of the nuclear age thanks to books like Carl Sagan's Cosmos, John Hersey's Hiroshima, and Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth. So the movie didn't come as a shock to me. It wasn't pleasant, of course, but I was prepared.

 

[ClayinCA]

Hopefully the upcoming Holmes movie with Robert Downey, Jr. will compel Universal to finally release Seven-Per-Cent Solution in widescreen.

Your mouth to God's ears. I think the only place one can see this movie in widescreen is the occasional showing on TCM, and it hasn't even been shown there in a long time....