Somewhat hilariously, nobody quite ever seems to get my point when I try to talk about the "Meyerverse". They don't get it, they're determined to not get it.

The Nicholas Meyer Star Trek diverges so far from Trek that, when he had meetings with Gene Roddenberry during the Undiscovered Country planning meetings, that Gene nearly stormed out, and I've seen it said more than once that Nichelle Nichols, Brock Peters had problems with the script. Shatner has said that he got pissed at Meyer about the "let them die!" line, as being an extremely non-Kirk thing to do. He worked in this thing where he would get a shocked look on his face after he said it, then sort of shake his head and wave his hands, as if he was too shocked at his own words to even say anything. They let him do it, then cut it out.

And as much as I love that movie, it's bothered me for years. Peters' problem, and Shatner's problem, is that they wrote their characters as being horribly racist.

But somehow, showing Dr. Marcus in a Wonderbra is worse than racism...but I digress.

I suppose the real point I had is that with TOS, from WoK on, it was no longer Gene Roddenberry's vision. (And after re-watching Season 1 of TNG a while back, I have to think that's a good thing.) Between TMP and WoK, it went from being about exploration, new life, new civiliaztions, to being a submarine show. Really, watch WoK and The Undiscovered Country; they both are, and Meyer makes no secret of it that it's less of a futuristic utopia and more of a Space Navy movie.

I wonder sometimes, too, how much of those cerebral, underlying themes are actually there, and how much of it is us reading a lot into it after viewing them dozens of times. I re-watched WoK after having put it aside for a few years, and it changed my perception of the movie. I won't say how, because it's such a beloved movie by fans, but to gloss it over I didn't find it to be nearly as deep as I once thought it was. But it was good, amazingly so given that they had a fraction of the budget that Robert Wise had on TMP, and a great excuse to show off some early Pixar tech.