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Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: HarperTorch
The sequel to the bestselling Star Trek Memories, documenting in deliciously lurid and candid detail all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans in the making of the six Star Trek movies, with on-the-scene reporting from the set of the seventh in which...Kirk dies! Star Trek Movie Memories recounts all the chaos, creative turmoil, backstage politics, power plays and production nightmares that permeated every one of the six Star Trek movies, including the accumulated grudges that haven't yet mellowed with the passage of time. And the stories... Nicholas Meyer writing the script for Star Trek II in twelve days... Kirstie Alley doing her Leonard Nimoy imitation in an audition... How Kirk's love interest in Star Trek IV began as a role for Eddie Murphy, and you can imagine the rest (or maybe not). With stories and quotes from the principles that have never before been uttered in public, this will deliver a truly unprecedented behind-the-scenes view of the Trek films that will amaze even the most avid Trekker. And on top of it all, the hardcover will be published in time for the seventh film, which will present the perfect opportunity to tie the old crew and stars including Robert Wise, Ricardo Montalban, Christopher Lloyd, Christopher Plummer, Christian Slater to Patrick Stewart and the cast of The Next Generation. The torch will be passed, and William Shatner will tell us all about how it feels as his character is killed off in the film's finale.
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| Very entertaining |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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I bought this book when it originally came out, and at the time, I couldn't really get into it. Like some other reviewers mentioned, I was disappointed that it dealt so much with studio politics, and the rememberances of producers I had barely heard of.
Either I've matured a lot since then, or I have different tastes now, but I was desperate for something to read, so I dug this out. I loved it now, the studio politics are actually pretty intriguing, and you can't help but get into the drama of how friendships lived and sometimes died as a result of those politics.
From what most of the producers, and Leonard Nimoy, had to say, Gene Rodenberry didn't come off well, but even if everything they said about him was true, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy, having his creation wrested from him, and being shut out of the creative process, even though I usually agreed with the suits, it was still kind of sad.
The chapter about the making of Star Trek V was especially interesting, William Shatner wrote and directed it, and you could feel his disappointment at how it turned out, he writes about it in an honest and clear eyed way, he doesn't try to white wash his own failures, but it seems there was plenty of blame to spread around.
Of course, Star Trek fans will enjoy the behind the scenes look at the making of these films, but really, anybody that's interested in the process of filmmaking should really like this book.
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| I'm an Actor, not a Writer! |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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William Shatner's STAR TREK MOVIE MEMORIES can be looked at one of two ways. Way # 1 is as a stand-alone book about a classic television series, told from the POV of its biggest star. An by those lights it's not bad. A bit superficial, and at times overly ambitious, but entertaining and informative nonetheless. Way # 2 is as a very derivitive retelling of two much older, and frankly better books. THE MAKING OF STAR TREK by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry, which came out while the show was still in production (1968 or so), and THE WORLD OF STAR TREK by David Gerrold, which came out a few years after its cancellation (1975).
If you go only by the Shatner version (1993) ghostwritten by Chris Kreski, you won't fail to be entertained. The book opens with an aged Shatner waking up early for his last day of shooting on the very last (so he believd) STAR TREK film, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (he actually appeared again in GENERATIONS, of course, never say never in the TREK-verse!). He's conscious that his life-defining role as James Tiberius Kirk was coming to an end, that he's old and tired, and that he's kind of sad about it. He gets reflective about the phenomenon that he has been part of for the last 30 odd years, and starts to do some thinking about it. That thinking, as it's examined in the book, goes along a couple of different lines:
1. The backstory of TREK - which is to say the biography of Gene Roddenberry and the long, painful, years-long process it took to get the show on the air.
2. The day-to-day mechanics of the show - how it was written, produced, executed, etc. Who did what, and how they did it.
3. Shatner's own memories of getting cast as Kirk, what it was like to be a part of the phenomenon, the internal cast dynamics, his relationship with Gene Roddenberry and with the other cast members, etc.
4. The battle with the networks in regards to the show's cancellation, and the efforts of the fans to keep it on the air. Its legacy.
As far as 1, 2 and 4 go, if you haven't read the Whitfield-Roddenberry or Gerrold books, it's pretty interesting stuff, explaining not merely how TREK came to be and was, but how it "died" and how its death contained the seeds of its ultimate rebirth. If you have, it's a boring and unimaginative retelling of something told much earlier, and much better, by insiders - Roddenberry (the creator of the show) and Gerrold (who wrote "The Trouble With Tribbles" and, while possessing many opinions vis-à-vis TREK I think are wrong, certainly understood its nuts and bolts).
It's # 3 that sells the book. Shatner has some interesting anecdotes and memories pertaining to the show, although one suspects that time, and his relative disinterest in TREK (by which I mean the fact that he's always viewed it as a job and nothing more), have dulled his memory. Kreski seems to rely heavily on the afformentioned books for source material, and Shatner is basically reacting off that material rather than doing a lot of brain-wracking himself. And the book's tone tends to mute its impact. Bill is reasonably frank about being disliked by Walther Koenig (Chekov) and George Takei (Sulu), and hated by Jimmy Doohan (Scotty), but I often got the sense his true attitudes, the ones that led to these bad feelings, are not reflected in this work. My personal take is that he was incredibly insensitive to some of his co-workers, but that he also regarded some of them (Takei, for example) as being delusional about their own place in the scheme of things...only at this age, he's too dignified to say so. He's being polite and political where some really self-scouring honesty would have made for better reading. The real problem witH MEMORIES is that memories are only a quarter of the book -- too much time is spent laying the groundwork for them, and notwhere near enough time talking about them. I don't want a biography of TREK, I want Shatner's personal take on what he experienced.
Don't get me wrong. I like Shatner a lot, and I enjoyed the book, especially when his memory was sharp and his opinions unguarded. I would recommend it to any fan of TREK or to anyone who wants an inkling of why the show refuses to die even after 40 years off the air. But I would qualify it by saying that a great deal of what the book attempts to do - tell the story of the show rather than Shatner's story - has been done before, and better, by other men.
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| Too much studio politicking - not enough amusing anecdote |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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The term memoir is a misnomer. It's more a background history of the Star Trek movies. Shatner and Kreski have spent far too much time delving into the backroom fighting and creative disagreements, and not enough time reminiscing. As a useful study on what actually goes into the making of individual episodes of a major motion picture franchise, this book surely has few equals, and I hope it appears on the shelves of all important film schools. It has indeed been well researched. But really that should be a book with Kreski's name alone on it.
Surely what we want from William Shatner, actor, director and Star Trek star, is more a true memoir of his own personal relationships with the other members of the cast (good or bad), and to recall some of the laughter as well as the tears that took place while they were filming. The most we get of this is the tale of how the only two of the original cast to join Shatner in "Star Trek Generations" were his two greatest critics, Walter Koenig and James Doohan, and how Shatner, attempting to rebuild bridges, eventually persuaded them to pose for a photo, all holding hands. Koenig remarked that "a photo of the three of *us* holding hands must be worth at least $500, fifteen hundred if it was signed." Apart from that and one story from George Takei about being referred to as "Tiny" in Star Trek III, the rest is all about Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, Leonard Nimoy (with his director and producer hat on) and (via memo) Gene Roddenberry, all of whom ended on very bad terms with each other. As to the cast, Nichelle Nicholls scarcely features at all, and neither does De Forest Kelley.
"Star Trek Memories", this book's predecessor, managed a better mix of stories from behind and in front of the camera, although in fairness there is already an inherent romanticism about the 1960s television industry which was to that book's advantage. "Movie Memories" generally leaves one with a nasty taste in the mouth.
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| William Shatner waxes nostalgic about the "Star Trek" movies |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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After writing "Star Trek Memories" with Chris Kreski in 1993, William Shatner came back a year later with "Star Trek Movie Memories." Whereas Shatner was uncertain as to the fate of Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship "Enterprise" at the end of the first book, by the time he wrote the second the character had officially died in "Star Trek: Generations." This provided an obvious stopping point for Shatner's memoirs and gives this book more of a sense of finality than the first one, especially since the book's epilogue is about shooting the death scene. There are less "Star Trek" movies to have memories about than there were television episodes and all of the films were made more recently so that the memories are fresher. Shatner also becomes more than just an actor when he directs "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" and is one of three writers who came up with the story.
The format is the same, so that "Star Trek Movie Memories" combines his own reminiscences with in-depth interviews with other actors and various people associated in one way or another with making the movies. As was the case last time, Leonard Nimoy is always thoughtful and insightful, and he shares his feelings on having to shoot Spock's death scene in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and his anger at the machinations of studios and guilds (it is dangerous to let Nimoy speak for himself because he is always captivating, but clearly Shatner does not mind letting his co-star take the stage to talk about things in his own words). Perhaps the most interesting stories come from David Gautreau, the actor who never really got to play Xon, the Vulcan science officer in the first film (it is a long story and a classical example of the sort of sick joke that happens in the wacky world of Hollywood). The narrative actually picks up after the original "Star Trek" is cancelled in 1969 as Armstrong and Aldrin are walking on the moon. Shatner covers the highlights and lowlights of his career and persona life, played against the undercurrent of fans support for the show that ultimately manifests itself as the space shuttle "Enterprise" and the first "Star Trek" movie.
If you know anything about Shatner it is that he has an omnipresent sense of humor, which is clear from the titles given each chapter devoted to a "Star Trek" movie. The seven films become, in order, "Star Trek: The Emotional Picture," "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Bennett...and Meyer, and Montalban, and Diller, and Eisner, and Katzenberg, and....," "Star Trek III: The Perch for Spock," "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Roams," "Star Trek V: The Frantic Frontier," "Star Trek VI: Discovered Country," and "Star Trek VII: Regenerations." Shatner does devote due consideration to what it was like to be a movie director, but clearly he is much happier talking about his ploy to get Nicholas Meyer to stop smoking his stinking cigars. The book is filled with dozens of black & white photographs throughout and eight pages of color photographs in the middle. However, the attraction here for fans of "Star Trek," whatever nomenclature you feel best describes the group, are the behind the scenes stories, like when Nimoy and Shatner talk about Kirk's finest moment on celluloid in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" when he learns his son David has been killed. I always find it interesting to see how happenstance plays a role in memorable movie moments. So while this book is not definitive, it is an enjoyable read and you should learn enough after the making of these movies to feel it was worth the time.
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| "Captain Kirk" recalls his theatrical "voyages" |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Forever emblazoned in popular culture as the captain of TV's original "Star Trek", William Shatner, along with co-author Chris Kreski, takes the reader on a journey where "no man has gone before": that is, the soundstages of each of the seven films in which he was featured as the stalwart captain. From the first, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", to the transitional "Star Trek: Generations", Shatner reveals the backstage drama of film production. He debunks some misconceptions about his "arrogance" and makes apologies to those that may have been offended. The author also chronicles how the "suits" in the offices of Paramount made some budget changes that, no doubt, played an integral part in the failure of the Shatner-directed "Star Trek: The Final Frontier". All in all, the book is a decent read for the true Trek fan; it's not one, however, that bodes well with the uninitiated.
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