"The Three Saaviks"

[Captaindemotion]

Carcazoid wrote:

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Only a couple of times have I seen Kim Cattrall really shine: as Valeris, and as Lassie in Porky's.

She didn't just shine in Porky's, she flashed too!

[Therin of Andor]

t_smitts wrote:

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Roddenberry must've forgotten that he wrote "The Omega Glory", in which a corrupted Starfleet captain is a major character.

No, he had not forgotten. But he wanted traitorous Starfleeters to be a rarity, not the norm - and the novels and TNG had also had quite a few that had made him antsy.

But, as pointed out, above, Gene had fairly little to do with the movies after TMP.

As "Creative Consultant", he was - contractually - given copies of every version of every movie script, and returned extensive memos on all of them. But no one had to listen to him.

[lstyer]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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As "Creative Consultant", he was - contractually - given copies of every version of every movie script, and returned extensive memos on all of them. But no one had to listen to him.

It's my understanding that when sufficiently annoyed by something proposed for a movie that he didn't think he could "talk them out of," Roddenberry had some success at getting the fan base riled up, which may have given him a bit more influence than he might have been contractually entitled to.

[FalTorPan]

AggieJohn wrote:

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It would have been a good kind of bad for me. I liked STII Saavik, it sucked that her story essentially dies in STIII. I never liked Curtis as Saavik, not that she is a bad actress or anything but her version was too Vulcan ignoring the Romulan aspect Alley brought to the role. By STIII she was like a extra in the movie, completely flavorless...

I agree!

[CoveTom]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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As "Creative Consultant", he was - contractually - given copies of every version of every movie script, and returned extensive memos on all of them. But no one had to listen to him.

Interestingly, TUC is the only of the post-TMP TOS movies in which Roddenberry is, in fact, not credited as "creative consultant." Yet we know from Nimoy, from Nick Meyer, from Shatner, etc. that he was around and involved. He read the script, he gave his notes, he met with Meyer in a rather infamous confrontation, etc. So why didn't he get the standard credit?

[T'Girl]

If Roddenberry disliked the story enough, he might have asked that his name be removed from the credits.

Don't know really.

[t_smitts]

jayrath wrote:

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Thank you for polling all fans everywhere. It must have been a Herculean task.

I've been hearing and reading fans ask "why didn't they just use Saavik?" for years.

Therin of Andor wrote:

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No, he had not forgotten. But he wanted traitorous Starfleeters to be a rarity, not the norm - and the novels and TNG had also had quite a few that had made him antsy

Novels aren't canon. As for other examples, I'm not sure if there were that many at the time they were making the movie. There was arguably Ben Finney (still not sure how a guy that nuts managed to hide for years), arguably Admiral Mark Jameson, Captain Maxwell, and Admiral Nora Satie.

It wasn't until later that we got Kennelly, Pressman, Leyton, Dougherty, Ross in "Inter Arma...", Ransom, the Maquis, and Section 31.

[Therin of Andor]

t_smitts wrote:

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Novels aren't canon. As for other examples, I'm not sure if there were that many at the time they were making the movie. There was arguably Ben Finney (still not sure how a guy that nuts managed to hide for years), arguably Admiral Mark Jameson, Captain Maxwell, and Admiral Nora Satie.

Fully aware that "novels aren't canon", but I can tell you that Roddenberry did get annoyed with the number of ST novel proposals and RPG materials that were involving the plotline of Starfleeters-gone-bad, to name a few off the top of my head: "Death's Angel", "Dreadnought!", "Battlestations!" and the cancelled "The Lost Years Saga: The War Virus". Diane Carey had a proposed third Piper novel canned, too, and a sequel duology, "The Federation Mutiny".

In TNG, there was also "Conspiracy".

T'Girl wrote:

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If Roddenberry disliked the story enough, he might have asked that his name be removed from the credits.

That was always his threat, from ST II onwards; that if he did not approve his name would be withheld from the credits as a sign to the fans.

He was gravely ill at the time of ST VI but responded via memo to an early script, the one where he doubted the wisdom of making Saavik a traitor, and to Kirk's anti-Klingon attitude. He watched the work print in the Paramount theatrette from his wheelchair with his carer/chauffeur, Ernie Over, and was essentially taken straight to hospital. He never came home.

Rumours abounded that he "raced to his office" and started dashing off memos and making angry phone calls, but Ernie himself once told me that Roddenberry was too ill to do anything like that and GR's only comment on ST VI that day was, "I'm sure the Star Trek fans will like it."

[Captain Atkin]

I like Valeris as a character more than either of the two Saaviks. For a Vulcan, she had more carisma on screen than the other two did. I also liked the hair and the hairband that the actress designed. She was more than just Saavik 2.0, in my eyes. Kim Cattrall did a good job giving Valeris her own identity.

[Allyn Gibson]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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That was always his threat, from ST II onwards; that if he did not approve his name would be withheld from the credits as a sign to the fans.

He was gravely ill at the time of ST VI but responded via memo to an early script, the one where he doubted the wisdom of making Saavik a traitor, and to Kirk's anti-Klingon attitude. He watched the work print in the Paramount theatrette from his wheelchair with his carer/chauffeur, Ernie Over, and was essentially taken straight to hospital. He never came home.

He also had an in-person meeting with Nick Meyer that ended badly. Meyer told him off, cursed him out, and stormed out.

Oddly, Roddenberry never had a meeting with Harve Bennett about the films during his tenure on the films. Bennett has said that he wanted to talk stories out with Roddenberry, but Roddenberry always refused, preferring to do things by paper.

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Rumours abounded that he "raced to his office" and started dashing off memos and making angry phone calls, but Ernie himself once told me that Roddenberry was too ill to do anything like that and GR's only comment on ST VI that day was, "I'm sure the Star Trek fans will like it."

But someone did write a memo with requested changes after that screening. There's also someone who made a statement to the Okudas that Star Trek VI had what Roddenberry considered "apocryphal" elements (mentioned in their introduction in A History of the Future). Personally, I've always thought the person responsible for both the memo and the "apocryphal" designation was mostly likely Richard Arnold based on certain things in his infamous interview with Tim Lynch.

[Therin of Andor]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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There's also someone who made a statement to the Okudas that Star Trek VI had what Roddenberry considered "apocryphal" elements (mentioned in their introduction in A History of the Future). Personally, I've always thought the person responsible for both the memo and the "apocryphal" designation was mostly likely Richard Arnold based on certain things in his infamous interview with Tim Lynch.

Richard Arnold did tell us at a Brisbane convention that GR considered "parts of ST V to be apocryphal" (and repeated it in "ST Communicator") and then I recall reading that the same had supposedly been said about ST VI. But, based on Ernie's version of the timing of events, I could never see how there was time for a GR memo to be written on that topic. However, I guess it's possible that GR's feelings about ST VI had been made very clear from his original impressions of the shooting script, and that RA already knew what GR would be saying about the movie itself before he saw it. No idea if RA was actually at that theatrette screening, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Kegg]

The weird thing about Valeris/Saavik is if anyone's seen the drafts of the script where the character is still named Saavik, there's no real dialogue changes - Saavik is introduced in exactly the same way as someone who did really well in graduating from Starfleet.

And I did like Kim Cattrall as Valeris. Sure, having a character from earlier movies might have had more emotional resonance, but she really worked in the role.

t_smitts wrote:

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In TNG, there was also "Conspiracy".

Whose story originally dealt with an actual conspiracy and only became about space aliens infiltrating the brains of Starfleet personnel because Roddenberry wasn't a fan of conspiracy plots.

[therealsb63]

From what I've always understood, Kirstie Alley was the first choice to play Saavik in STVI:TUC. There are two different stories on this, one is she was too involved with "Cheers" to meet the STVI production schedule and she had to decline, the other is she asked for more than what Paramount was willing to pay for her to do the movie, and the offer was withdrawn.

Robin Curtis, as noted, was never approached for the part.

I never knew Cattrall refused to take the part as "Saavik #3"...a shame, because if you tune out the name Valeris and pretend she's Saavik, the part works so much better and has so much more impact, especially Spock's almost uncontrolled anger toward her.

[starburst]

Zombie Redshirt wrote:

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Yeah they line "They killed your son" would've been really strong coming from Saavik.

Especially if they carried through the intention that there was some form of attraction between them during STII, even if they had decided not to act on it by the time they arrived on Genesis his death would have brought up those thoughts and feelings

SchwEnt wrote:

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If they weren't gonna use Saavik, then at least make a new original character. Change something, please. Make him a male, a science officer rather than helmsman, non-Vulcan.

We did get something different though, Saavik was the Enterprise science officer when they left space dock and switched to be the navigator when Spock gave Kirk command. Then on the Grissom we saw her again as a science officer.

Its possible these roles are similar to a degree as we saw Chekov take the science position during TOS and STIII when Spock wasnt there.

Being a helmsman was a slightly different take, although there was a comic set where Sulu first took command of the Excelsior and Saavik temporarily replaced him even using the same "I volunteered" line.

If they had been able to get Alley back then it would have made the movie much better, I always liked her version of the character, Curtis just seemed to be there but that could be down to Nimoy Vulcanising the character where as Meyer wanted her more emotional than Spock.

[CoveTom]

starburst wrote:

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If they had been able to get Alley back then it would have made the movie much better, I always liked her version of the character, Curtis just seemed to be there but that could be down to Nimoy Vulcanising the character where as Meyer wanted her more emotional than Spock.

It was not the difference in actresses, it was the difference in directors. Meyer originally directed Alley with the idea that Saavik was half-Vulcan/half-Romulan. The scenes that stated that were ultimately left on the cutting room floor, but that's what his direction was based on.

Nimoy then directed Curis as a full Vulcan with virtually no expression of emotion what-so-ever. Which is fine, except that since Saavik the character had already been established in TWOK, it seems a bad choice to make such a drastic character change, particularly when you're already changing actresses.