The Search for Plot - please help me!

[Whill]

captrek wrote:

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If Saavik wasn’t raised as a Vulcan, what’s with the Vulcan logic stuff like “Humor is a difficult concept, it is not logical” and “This is not logical, these coordinates are deep inside a lifeless planet”?

I didn't say that Saavik wasn't raised as a Vulcan. The novelization states that she wasn't raised on Vulcan. You only quoted one statement meant to serve as a summary of a paragraph in previous post. Here's what that quote was referring to:

Whill wrote:

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I’ll also add that although it as not revealed by the film, the novelizations states that Saavik is only half-Vulcan (and half-Romulan). She was 10-year-old orphan when she was rescued from an abandoned Romulan colony by Spock sometime in the years after the five-year mission of TOS. Spock made sure she was taken care of and sponsored her enrollment in Starfleet Academy. Despite the fact that she was trained in the Vulcan language and general (logical) way of life, she had never actually been to Vulcan before the end of TSFS and had not learned about Vulcan mysticism regarding death and afterlife...

I admit even that seems thin, but Saavik's half-Vulcan nature did actually originate in TWOK script although there is no mention of it in the final product of the movie. I think that he half-Romulan orphan backstory was included in the novelization of TWOK to explain why Saavik was crying at Spock's funeral (at the director's insistance because of the emotional impact it has on the scene - think about it - if a Vulcan is crying, then the death of Spock is really sad). Then, the same author used that backstory again in TSFS novelization to explain why Saavik hadn't questioned if Spock had transfered his katra to anyone or had wondered why Spock's body hadn't been returned to Vulcan.

[Therin of Andor]

Whill wrote:

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I think that he half-Romulan orphan backstory was included in the novelization of TWOK to explain why Saavik was crying at Spock's funeral (at the director's insistance because of the emotional impact it has on the scene - think about it - if a Vulcan is crying, then the death of Spock is really sad).

No, the backstory was expanded by Vonda McIntyre, from the one line in the shooting script where Spock tells Kirk that Saavik's half Romulan, to make Vonda's novelization more interesting, and to give some much-needed background to the characters of Peter Preston and Saavik, whom Vonda features heavily, in order to pad the story out to novel length. She certainly didn't do all that to explain away one tear in one scene of a movie that she didn't even see until after she turned in her manuscript. I just checked the script and the funeral scene says, of Saavik, only that she is watching attentively, along with Sulu, Uhura, Chekov and David, and that

"SAAVIK wears her hair down..."

No scripted mention of tears at all, so Vonda would have been oblivious to the director's choices.

The ShoWest presentation/long trailer is linked here:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/20...many-fans.html