The great director doesn't always make the right call.

Message:

The liner notes for the (Extended) Star Trek II soundtrack had James Horner saying "Anything for the funeral but Amazing Grace. And Nicholas Meyer insisted on Amazing Grace, and I told him the only way I'd even consider it is if Scotty played it on the bagpipes."

The "soft-land" of Spock's pod wasn't in the script, and was part of a re-shoot/re-edit Nick Meyer wasn't involved in and came close to pulling his name off the film over.

Of course test audiences hated the death of Spock.

Harve Bennett is the one who insisted on the soft-landing and the pan across the Genesis planet. To give the audiences hope...

Bennett, as Exec Producer had the power to make that call.

Red asked why Meyer didn't write Trek III. Well it was offered to him. The call probably went a bit like this:

Harve Benett: Hey, Nick, I know the entire spine of your movie was built around Spock sacrificing his life. How would you like to write the script which undoes the entire point of the last one?

Nick Meyer: Go fug yourself, the horse you rode in on, and your next of kin for seven generations. *click*

Also, Nick Meyer has a screenplay credit on Trek IV, but he didn't write the shooting script. There were still enough of his plot beats involved to get the credit, but... Not his script.

Yours,