Remembering Harve Bennett, STAR TREK’s Cinematic Shepherd

March 16, 2015 4:29 PM

A personal tribute to the man who helped save the STAR TREK franchise.

Harve Bennett, Quiz Kid and ‘Star Trek’ Producer, Dies at 84

posted by brundlefly (8 comments total)

Excellent!
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:38 PM on March 16, 2015

He explains the creation of Khan and later Trek films in the Star Trek 25th Anniversary documentary. (He even had a cameo in Star Trek V as Starfleet Chief of Staff!)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:41 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

And arghhh, that Starfleet Academy prequel could have been so much better than the J. J. Aimless claptrap if they had gotten Nick Meyer in there and if ST-V hadn't sucked.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:44 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

.
posted by Lynsey at 5:44 PM on March 16, 2015

Star Trek would be in a far worse place without Mr. Bennett.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:53 PM on March 16, 2015

Thanks so much for posting this. He sounded like a wonderful person. From the Ken Foley article:

Even more important than the career opportunities I got through Harve, was his friendship. When I was going through some family problems, he opened up about his own. After my producer and I had a falling out, Harve related the time Leonard Nimoy had him thrown off and banned from the Star Trek IV set. When a close friend was in the throes of addiction, he suggested I get someone in recovery to talk to him. “But I don’t know anyone in recovery,” I said. “Sure you do,” he replied. “You know me.” He then recounted his post‐Paramount dark days and how a certain pointy‐eared Vulcan helped him with his own recovery.

But Harve didn’t suffer fools lightly. When I griped about how much my film was costing me out of my own pocket, he took me aside and rightfully scolded me for being ungrateful. “In filmmaking you can have it fast, you can have it cheap, or you can have it good. But you can’t have all three. There are people who’d kill for your opportunity and resources.” That’s a lesson I’ll never forget.

He also warned me not to base my happiness on how my creative projects were received. “For every Mod Squad and Six Million Dollar Man, and Star Trek III, there was a Gemini Man, Salvage One, American Girls, Powers of Mathew Star" and Star Trek V. “I liked all those,” I confessed. “Yeah, but you’ve got taste,” he joked. He didn’t consider them failures because each one taught him something new.

posted by zarq at 8:29 AM on March 17, 2015

THR's obit also has this:

After the first Star Trek movie, Nimoy famously said he wanted no part of playing Mr. Spock ever again.

“Everyone said, ‘How are you going to get Leonard to do another one?’" he said in a 2006 interview with the website The Trek Nation. “I had an idea. I went to see Leonard who was then in a play and we had dinner afterward, and I said to him, ‘I know you don’t want to do any more Star Trek. Leonard, do you remember Psycho? Do you remember that the biggest star in that picture was killed, to everyone's shock, one-third of the way into the picture?’ He said yes, and I said, ‘I want to do that with Spock. I will give you the most glorious death scene ever played.’ He said that was a great idea, and he was on.”

And it was a glorious death scene.
posted by zarq at 8:30 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

And at the wrap party for Star Trek II ("Wrap of Khan") Nimoy apparently said, "I can't wait to do this again!"
posted by brundlefly at 10:29 AM on March 17, 2015