Video: Nicholas Meyer on Directing Spock's Death

This is about a 2 1/2 minute clip of Nicholas Meyer talking about directing the death of Spock in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. He's promoting his new book The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek, II, IV and VI and a Life in Hollywood.

Meyer was (like the director of the STAR TREK big screen revamp) not a fan of the TV show and says that, at the time, he just didn't get it. Without his writing and direction (and producer Harve Bennett, who hired him), the STAR TREK series would have stopped short in 1982. Meyer took a couple of scripts, all titled STAR TREK II, and weaved them together to create what is now called the STAR TREK movie template.

When writer Ron Moore (now better known as the guy who reimagined BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) was working on the first STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION theatrical movie in 1994, KHAN was the yardstick of STAR TREK movies.

" ... [A]t that point in time the gold standard was Wrath of Khan and everyone wanted to do Wrath of Khan by some other name. Even in Generations we were talking about Wrath of Khan. Wrath of Khan says ‘here is how you do a Star Trek movie.’ It’s action-adventure. You’ve got a big villain. You’ve got themes of aging and great little character moments, small moments of humor interspersed throughout. It embraces all the characters. You laugh with them, you cry with them. It ends on a bittersweet but hopeful note. It is just a great movie and it really stands up."
- from a Trekmovie interview with Ronald D. Moore

The rumors about the new J.J. Abrams STAR TREK big screen sequel is that it will be a reimagined version of THE WRATH OF KHAN.



Much more video of Mr. Meyer at the FORA.tv Web site.

Reuters: "Star Trek" Veteran Boldly Saved Movie Franchise

Above photo of Director Meyer and Leanard Nimoy nicked from the Forgotten Trek site.