Star Trek Movie Memories

Star Trek Movie Memories is an autobiography written by William Shatner, with Chris Kreski. Published by HarperCollins Publishers, it was first released in . The book covers Shatner's involvement in the , starting in the 1970s with Gene Roddenberry's attempts to to revitalize the live-action franchise, through to Shatner's last performance as Kirk in .
== Summary ==
;From the book jacket
:Following up on Star Trek Memories, William Shatner covers approximately 1968 to 1994, explaining his role in "Star Trek" in that time. Starting with the final season of the original "Trek," through his somewhat lean in-between years, he then goes into rather extensive detail into the development and production of the first seven feature films.
:On top of Shatner's tale, written by himself and Chris Kreski, are narratives written or spoken by dozens of actors, writers, producers, and directors who worked on "Star Trek," resulting in a much more well-rounded piece.
:Of particular interest are his descriptions of early plots to the films, particularly his lengthy summary of his original plan for before it got bogged down in a terrible chain of events, and the many early stories pitched for what would be come .
=== Contents ===
*Acknowledgments
*Dog Days
*Meanwhile…
*Deja Vu All Over Again
*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
*Star Trek VII: Regenerations
*Captain's Epilogue
== Background information ==
*The tone in this book differed considerably from its predecessor, Star Trek Memories, in which Shatner dealt with his experiences on . While Shatner had included in that book a large amount of third person behind-the-scenes information from a wide variety of former production staffers, most of whom he had not personally worked with at the time, making it a "making-of" reference book as well, this was less evident in this book – though there were some featured in the book such as David Gautreaux and Harold Livingston in regard to , and its immediate predecessor Star Trek: Phase II, the former of which Shatner had few dealings with. What "making-of" information is present is mostly limited to that which Shatner was personally involved with, such as his dealings with his fellow co-stars (excepting James Doohan), writers and directors, most notably on the movie he himself directed, . As a consequence, the book is mostly written as a first person account and is, as such, a true autobiography. Shatner himself has given the reason for this; "My recollections of the movies and the shenanigans that went on in making them are far fresher than those of Star Trek the series, which constituted the first book." (1995, p. vii), indicating that the more third-person approach he took for Star Trek Memories had been somewhat of a stopgap solution to fill in blanks.
*Yet, when featured, Shatner still lets production staffers speak in their own words, having conducted in-depth interviews with them, just as for his previous book, and as a result, people like Livingston, Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, Leonard Nimoy (in his role as Producer/Director/Script, and Story Writer) or Richard Arnold, speak with a candor, rarely seen, if at all, before or after. This has made Shatner's second biography yet another unrecognized valuable, behind-the-scenes reference work.
* The book was later used as a reference source for Kim Masters' 2000 biography on Michael Eisner, The Keys to the Kingdom.
* For his chapter dealing with , Shatner made heavy use of the themed issue of Cinefantastique magazine (Vol. 22, No. 5); copying, for example, the mistake that the movie's producer, Steven-Charles Jaffe, was the son of interim Paramount President Stanley R. Jaffe, whereas in reality both men were unrelated.
de:Star Trek Erinnerungen – Die Filme
Category:Biography books
Category:Audiobooks