The newly recut and repackaged DVD version of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is now available to become part of every Star Trek fan's collection, in a "Director's Edition" that consists of two discs with the slightly expanded movie and four hours of bonus material including interviews with the stars and producers, and an audio commentary by the director (see related story for more info, or order the DVD at Amazon.com).

The director behind that voice on the commentary track is Nicholas Meyer, a publicist who became a novelist who became a filmmaker, and stepped into the Star Trek world for the first time after the critical success of his first movie, "Time After Time." Meyer went on to co-write "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," and direct and co-write "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" — thus, he was creatively involved with all the even-numbered films featuring the Original Series cast, which are considered by many to be the best of the Star Trek movies.

Meyer sat down with STARTREK.COM to discuss his experiences making "Star Trek II" and producing the "Director's Edition" DVD.

"It was fun, it was fun," Meyer said about doing the audio commentary. "It's nice when somebody with as many opinions as I is asked to give them. It's always nice to have people say, 'Oh, what do you think about this and what do you think about that?' I have many thoughts — I don't know that any of them are interesting or relevant, but there they are."

"The movie is a movie that I am proud of"

"It took a lot of time, and I was happy to do it," he continued. "The movie is a movie that I am proud of. I had a lot of help making the movie, but in the end, it's mine. And since it is well thought-of — and more importantly, I suppose, well thought-of by me — it wasn't a hardship to talk about it."

But Meyer stressed that he agreed to do the commentary with certain stipulations on what he would address — namely, he would not try to interpret the film on behalf of the audience. "We live in a culture which has sort of a talk-show mentality," he explained. "There is great temptation to ask the artist for definitive answers, as though you are looking at a book of math equations with the answers in the back. I cannot and will not pretend to give you answers that could be construed, or misconstrued, as definitive."

"You know, artists are people who put messages in bottles. You throw the bottle out to sea, and you no longer control it. You will not be there when most people open that bottle. You will not be there to explain the message, and say, 'This is what it means.' No, no — the message must be good and sufficient unto itself."

As an example, he points out that people have often asked him why Khan spends most of the movie wearing one glove. " I say, 'Why do you think he has one glove?' I'm not going to answer that question, because what I give you is not an answer; it is just speculation, and I've got to get in line with everybody else."

"I will give you anecdotal stuff, I'll give you my recollections, but it's not to be trusted! It's not to be trusted. The thing about writers, as Conrad and Plato have both observed, is that they're liars! And if we can't give you the answer that you want, we'll make up something!" he confessed.

The "Director's Edition" version of the film is not substantively longer than the original theatrical release, as he pointed out during last week's gala premiere at Paramount (see related story). But there were certain short scenes that Meyer felt needed to be restored. A couple of those scenes involve Midshipman Peter Preston in Engineering, with dialog establishing Preston as Scotty's nephew ("my sister's youngest").

"I remember that the scenes with Scotty now made no sense"

"You have to remember that the making of this movie as an intrastudio enterprise, no pun intended, was largely collegial and successful... but even in a successful collaborative effort, they had final cut and I didn't. They said, 'Gosh, we have to get rid of this,' and I said 'Why?' Sometimes I was able to talk them out of it, and other times I couldn't. And for whatever reason Preston was one of the things I couldn't talk them out of. I don't remember why. I just remember that the scenes with Scotty now made no sense — why does he carry one guy up in an elevator? What is that about?"

But Meyer was quick to qualify, "With exceptions — and I emphasize that there are exceptions — I don't think director's cuts are better than the originals. I think they tend to be too long, and you put back things that you should never put back in." He's often asked what the differences are between this version and the original, "And I say, not a lot — I liked it before, I thought it was good."

Meyer admitted that he had never seen Star Trek before getting involved with the movie, except for the occasional glances while channel surfing at "the guy with the ears." So how did this 30-something (at the time) director with one film under his belt come to be involved in such a significant franchise? "I had a friend whose name was Karen Moore who was an executive at Paramount, and she said, 'You ought to meet Harve Bennett, he's going to do the next Star Trek movie — you guys would get along.' Well, that was an understatement."

He went on to explain that Bennett, the executive producer of the film, apprised him of the extensive homework he had already done on the Trek legacy. "Harve very methodically watched all the episodes, and he figured out some very important things about the 'hierarchy' of Star Trek — about how it was really about Kirk mediating between the extreme bleeding-heart humanism of McCoy, and the somewhat cerebrally dry-as-parchment logic of Spock," Meyer recalled. "I just blundered in and said, 'This reminds me of these books I used to read when I was a kid.' That was when the lightbulb went off for me — this is Captain Hornblower. I remembered that movie with Gregory Peck, 'The Adventures of Captain Horatio Hornblower' and the C.S. Forester books... It was all about the Navy." And he came to realize about Star Trek: "Oh, this is the Navy in outer space!" It was at that point that Meyer became passionate about the project and wanted to do it.

Interestingly, he found out later from William Shatner that Gene Roddenberry had always said that Star Trek was inspired by Horatio Hornblower. So on some level he must have been in sync with the original vision of the show. (By the way, Meyer explained that Roddenberry was not involved in the making of "Star Trek II," and as far as he knew, didn't even read the script. Meyer did not meet Roddenberry until the making of "Star Trek VI.")

"I had really gotten stoked on the whole idea of doing Hornblower"

It is widely known that Meyer wrote the script for "Star Trek II," yet he does not have a writing credit on screen. Why is that? Meyer recounted the process of arriving at a script for this movie. At the time he met Bennett, the producer was waiting for delivery of a fifth draft, promising he'd send it to Meyer when he got it. But then he didn't like the draft and wouldn't forward it. "I said, 'Aww. come on,' and he said, 'No no, it's not good.' By this time I had really gotten stoked on the whole idea of doing Hornblower. I said, 'So where's draft four?' And he said, 'Kid, you don't get it — [all five drafts] are simply five separate attempts to get another Star Trek movie — they're not related.' I said, 'Well, send them all up, I want to read them.'"

So he read all five versions of the script and called Bennett to his house to discuss them. "I said, here's my idea... Let's make a list of everything we like in these five scripts — it could be just one line of dialog, it could be a character, it could be a scene, it could be a subplot, it could be a plot — let's make a list. And then I'll write a screenplay and include all those things." There was a problem, though. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) was doing the special effects, and they needed a script in 12 days or they couldn't guarantee delivery of the shots in time for the movie's scheduled release. Meyer said, "Oh, I think I could do this in 12 days." Bennett responded, "We couldn't even make your deal in 12 days." (His writing deal, that is.)

"I've regretted this ever since, but at the time I didn't see another way around — I said, forget my deal, forget the money, forget the credit, because if I don't do this there is no movie. Just worry about my directing part and we'll let the rest take care of itself." His agent was furious with him, and as a Writers Guild member he realized it was wrong, but at the time forgoing a writing credit was the only way to ensure there would be another Star Trek movie.

"[Shakespeare] writes the best dialog that's not protected by copyright"

Talking to Meyer, one can tell immediately how literate and well-educated this man is. But that's obvious just by listening to the dialog he writes, where references to Shakespeare and other classics abound. Does he believe this erudition has helped his films stand out? As far as Shakespeare is concerned, "Well, I figure he writes the best dialog that's not protected by copyright, so... steal!" But regarding the "even-numbered movie" phenomenon, he remarked, "I don't know why they work better than others, if they do work better than others. I'm happy to hear that they do — we all want to be the best."

But he's certainly not beyond self-criticism, especially when it comes to revisiting a project many years later. "When I look at movies that I've made, I tend to only see the things I did wrong — 'why didn't you move the camera more, why didn't you do this, why didn't you do that.' So I always look at these things with a measure of annoyance, and self-consciousness, and pain. Having said that, I'm very happy that the movie resides in the affectionate embrace of so many people. I just feel lucky and proud to have been associated with it."

Discuss Nicholas Meyer's comments on the Star Trek message boards!