Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Memories [VHS]

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Before I start my review, let me address what I think is a bit of revisionism going on among Star Trek fans. Some reviews of "Star Trek Memories" (written by "Next Generation" snobs, no doubt) suggest that William Shatner had nothing to do with the success of "Star Trek," and that his career would have gone nowhere had he not been lucky enough to win the role of James T. Kirk. First, I would argue that after Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner is probably more responsible for the phenomenal success of Star Trek than any other person. Without his bold, histrionic, over-the-top performance as Kirk, I seriously doubt Star Trek would have achieved cult status shortly after its original cancellation in 1969. And without the development of that cult following into massive proportions, there would have been no movies, no "Next Generation," no "Deep Space Nine" or "Voyager" or "Enterprise" - none of it. Second, Shatner was already established when he joined the "Star Trek" cast. Before Trek, Shatner had already played Shakespeare on stage, starred on Broadway, and appeared in major motion pictures (notably "Judgement at Nuremburg"). Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Shatner brought a unique talent to the original "Star Trek" that was crucial to the show's popularity.

Anyway, on to the video review. "Star Trek Memories" is a highly condensed documentary based on Shatner and Chris Kreski's book of the same name. I recommend the book over the video - you've seen all the clips already, and after a while the documentary succumbs to "talking head" syndrome. But there are definitely some worthwhile moments here, thanks to generous allotments of time to Shatner's costars. James Doohan entertains with alternate accents for Scotty, while Nichelle Nichols offers a moving account of her meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who convinced her not to quit the show. Shatner himself offers a cogent theory about Star Trek's popularity stemming from a relatively young nation's search for its own mythology.

If you've read the book, the video isn't essential, and might even be superfluous. But it makes a nice gift for fans of the original "Star Trek" series. "Live long and prosper!"

Of all the Trek documentaries that have come out in recent years, this is one of the best. Narrated by William Shatner, the video features never-before-seen footage of all the main TOS actors, who share personal insights about the show and the characters they played. You will get to hear James Doohan do some other accents besides Scottish (er, what if "Scotty" had been a Brit instead?) Nichelle Nichols tells the story about her encounter with Martin Luther King in much more detail than I've ever heard her do before, and explains the origin of Uhura's first name, "Nyota" (meaning "star") in the Trek novels. George Takei sets the record straight about that "wildman with a rapier" incident on the set, and D.C. Fontana adds a number of behind--the-scenes stories. I especially liked Leonard Nimoy's discussion of how the Spock character grew and evolved in terms of logic versus friendship, etc. All in all, I really enjoyed this video.

At first I was skeptical that this book would be "William Shatner's version" of the Star Trek series. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the author used his access to the other people involved to get everyone's story. Almost everyone involved was heavily quoted, even when it reflected negatively on the author.

One thing to be aware of is that the book is written for Trekkies- that is people with a solid knowledge of the series and characters. Episodes are referred to by title, and the reader is expected to recall the details. The writing itself is good and enjoyable.

You would expect a Star Trek memoir written by a cast member, especially the eternally energetic William Shatner, James Kirk, himself, to offer new insight into the early days of the Trek series. You'll probably be disappointed with this book if you have such expectations.

What Shatner sets out to do in this book, co-written by Chris Kreski, whose pedigree includes writing Beavis and Butthead episodes, is to put forth a history of the original Star Trek series. I would have like to have known about the relationships between the cast members and anecdotes about the filming of the episodes. Most of the book is taken up by the story of Gene Roddenberry's fight to even get the show produced at all. We meet all the technical and production experts of the show but the whole book is left a little flat in that most of the main cast, except for interviews with Leonard Nimoy, are left out of the research of the book. In a brief epilogue at the back of the book, it becomes clear why this was so.

It seems that the rest of the cast resented Shatner because he was almost solely concerned about his camera time on set to the detriment of the others. Nichelle Nichols relates about a time where they were shooting an episode and Shatner told the director that Uhura didn't need to have any scenes, that it wasn't important to the story. James Doohan flat out refused to be interviewed at all for the book. Even when he spoke to the actors that played Sulu and Chekhov it became surprisingly apparent that there was very little of the familial relationships seen on the show. Shatner seemed genuinely amazed at his lack of knowledge concerning the lives of his co-stars. In fact, the others had originally planned to use Shatner's interviews for the book to air their anger at him.

It seems truly sad that the author did not attempt to write a human look at the creative process of this classic show but instead resorted to almost a fan's perspective that could have been gleaned from reading previous non-fiction works written about Trek. If you're looking for an insider's view, I wouldn't reccomend this book.

Keep in mind going in that William Shatner (with Chris Kreski) set down these "Star Trek Memories" a quarter century after Gene Roddenberry's "Wagon Train to the stars" aired on television, so this is not a contemporaneous account by the actor of the television that made him a pop culture icon. In fact, this memoir begins with a mea culpa from Shatner, who acknowledges that he was "Blind with personal problems, with fatigue and with the necessity of spending those incredibly hard hours shooting 'Star Trek,' the series." Sometime between the end of the series and when he wrote this book Shatner apparently made a transition from being a supreme egotist to someone who can make fun of his own persona (the man sold his kidney stone for charity this week), passing somewhere along the way the Shatner who did the infamous "Star Trek" convention skit on "Saturday Night Live."

Shatner began writing this book on the final day of shooting "Stark Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," which was being promoted as "the final voyage of the Starship 'Enterprise/.'" Consequently, Shatner found himself in a nostalgic state of mind, and goes back to the beginning. "Star Trek Memories" proceeds chronologically, from the creation of the series, when Shatner was not the captain of the "Enterprise," to the show's cancellation. Of course around the same time that Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, "Star Trek" was becoming enormously popular in syndication, which is why there were all those new "Star Trek" movies and television series. However, the epilogue to this book is not about the success of "Star Trek" after the original series, but about Shatner learning what his co-workers thought about him, his efforts to reconcile with them, and his regrets over the lack of stronger friendships. The final subject of the book is Roddenberry's death and the legacy of "Star Trek."

In covering the three seasons of "Star Trek," Shatner tells what he remembers about the various episodes and guest stars, with his developing friendship with Leonary Nimoy a constant element. But not as much as the series of practical jokes that took place on the "Star Trek" set. There are chapters devoted to the Shatner's favorite episode, "The Devil in the Dark," which was filmed the week Shatner buried his father, and Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever." There is much more about the first two seasons than the show's third and final season when it became obvious cancellation was inevitable. The story of the "Save 'Star Trek'" campaign receives more attention from Shatner than the season it produce, which makes sense. The result is a decent but certainly not comprehensive look back at the history of the television show, Die-hard fans should read in paperback as opposed to hardback. Shatner and Kreski followed this book up with "Star Trek Movie Memories," which continues the actor's journey to the death of the character of James T. Kirk.

In addition to his recollections and anecdotes, Shatner includes the personal recollections of cast members, producers, designers, and crew, who are able to provide some different perspectives on the series (No surprise, Nimoy provides thoughtful insights, but my favorite is Nichelle Nichols getting to the heart of the NBC suits worried about the first interracial kiss on television, which, Shatner reveals, did not really happen). There are also more than 120 photographs and illustrations scattered throughout the book, most of which include wry captions because while Shatner might be willing to give up his ego, he is always going to go for the laugh. It is clearly pathological with the man, which explains why he has won consecutive Emmy Awards as Denny Crane on "Boston Legal."

I am not s big huge Star Trek fan. I watched the old series when I was a kid and liked it. I also watched all the movies with the original cast. I have fond memories of Captain Kirk and his crew.

One of the few biographies I have read, Memories is quite good. It doesn't really deal with any of the films as Movie Memories but deals with his life and the television series.

I really enjoyed hearing about the behind the scenes making of the show. His life before and during Star Trek was neat to hear as well.

This autobiography is a good read for those of you who were entertained by Star Trek and would like to know a little more.

While Star Trek made a great deal of television history, there were many other significant consequences. To the best of my knowledge, it was the first show to make significant profits via syndication. It was so popular that three subsequent television series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager" each ran for years. Finally, there is also the enormous number of books about Star Trek. I own nearly one hundred Star Trek novels and have read nearly every one of the "memories" books written by a major cast member of the original series.
In this book, Shatner sets down many of his recollections about the original series. To his credit, Shatner is very honest about things, giving all of the other major players the opportunity to contribute to the book. Those contributions are included even when they are critical of his actions on and off camera. In defense of Shatner, it is difficult to see how it could have been any other way. This was a show about a quasi-military ship that by necessity had to operate independently of any central command structure. The captain of the ship was lord of his surroundings, so the premise of the show was that all the action had to resolve around the captain. Secondly, television shows, especially in that period of time, revolved around the stars of the show.
These are the reasons why I have always taken comments critical of Shatner by the secondary members of the cast with a grain of salt. Had the show simply languished and died off, none of them would have ever achieved the fame that they did. Therefore, they are criticizing the very means whereby they achieved their fame.
As Shatner makes very clear in this book, all the members of the cast and production crew were under enormous pressure to get the work done. Given those circumstances, it is amazing that more serious and lasting rifts between the principals did not occur. The fact that they did not speaks to the sense of purpose and community that existed between them.

After reading this book, I was able to tell that William Shatner knows how to write! Not that I had any doubts, but this book is so intriguing, it feels like he is talking to me as a friend while I read. This is written like a documentary, and it is just as interesting. There are facts in here that I never knew, and stories are told about things that happened in front of and behind the camera. About the smallest detail of how Star Trek works that you wanted to know is talked about. Shatner not only talks about and interviews the cast, but the behind the scenes set builders and script writers among other people that are revealed and talked about.

The book is written in a light hearted, joking way, with Shatner making fun of himself and having fun at other people's expense. The only problem I had is that the book also kind of brags on how great Shatner is, and how many problems some of the other cast members had while filming. Coming from the man who wrote the book, it feels kind of like an ego trip since it occurs many times throughout the read. There is also a very nice collection of pictures that are on some of the pages that shows behind the scenes laughs and on set memorable scenes. Overall, this is a book I recommend to all fans. It hardly ever gets dull and by the end, it feels too short and could have lasted longer.

The first big chunk of this book is taken up with giving lots of attention and credit to Gene Roddenberry and the many people behind the scenes, and explaining the interworkings of network TV- very interesting to those who like to know how the series was created and why it started losing in the ratings wars and why it was eventually cancelled.

I would have loved to hear more about the crew of the USS Enterprise and enjoyed immensely the few stories related. The book became much more interesting once he launched into the separate sections with the interviews with Grace Lee Whitney, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, but there was not much on the rest of the crew. The format used of letting others speak for themselves was unique and entertaining. The conversational style of writing made one feel right at home. William Shatner is a fine actor and a gifted writer. Obviously, he was the star of the series and movies and that caused much friction, especially since the other cast members didn't let him know when he upset them or hurt their feelings. I would have loved to read much more concerning all the crew of the Starship Enterprise. "The Captain" turned the spotlight on the cast and crew but overall kept out of the spotlight in this book. Since William Shatner has all the notes from extensive interviews and possibly the ability to gain more information from the other actors, I would love to see one more book on our Star Trek heroes.

Shatner wrote an excellent book about his experience during the making of the Star Trek series. It's funny, it brings back memories of watching the TV series, it's sad at points, but it's a lot of fun, and history. Shatner may have been unfair over the years with his costars, but he allows them moments at the conclusion of the book to state their unhappiness with him over the years, allowing for a fair and accurate book.