What If...No More Nimoy?

[Bry_Sinclair]

A thought occured to me over the weekend: what if, after Spock's death in TWOK, Nimoy refused to return to Trek in any way, shape or form. What might've happened to the subsequent films and characters?

Would McCoy take on elements of Spock's personality and mannerism? Would Saavik remain as Science Officer? Would Kirk get over the death of his friend? Would David have survived the film series? Would Sulu become the new Executive Officer?

Would Star Trek 3 still have involved the Genesis Planet (ST3: New Genesis or ST3: End of Genesis perhaps?)? Would it have been something more of a personal journey through grief and loss?

Thoughts?

 

[Khan 2.0]

Characters - Savvik (Kirstie Alley) filling out the Spock role as science officer, David as a love interest for Savvik/Decker like chum for Kirk (probably would've still died in some tragedy), perhaps some occasional Spockisims from Bones (but no katra) maybe his Spock meld would've had him save the day at the climax. No change for the supporting cast (Shatner still calling the shots ).

Director - maybe Meyer would've done it had it not involved the resurrection of Spock (think he was offered it but he was totally against Spock coming back at the time. Plus maybe hed have got Alley back as Savvik). If not Meyer some other SF movie director of the time like John Badham, Peter Hyams, Michael Crichton etc

Plot - maybe something to do with Genesis (Bennett would still be writing with Meyer if hed come back). Maybe something similar to TSFS involving Genesis/Klingons (or Romulans) but without the whole Spock thing. Kirk and Co trying to protect the secret of Genesis from the Klingons (maybe a rescue operation for Carol/David), destruction of the Enterprise, exploding planet etc. Title - I imagine 'Genesis' would've featured (Star Trek III: The Genesis Project, The Fall of Genesis etc)

Actually DC continued the threads of II (without returning to Genesis) at the time.

 

[Lance]

Yeah, I like to think that Saavik was a contingency for Nimoy's possible exit from the franchise. Once it became clear that Nimoy was invested enough to come back, it was bye-bye Saavik.

 

[dub]

And if Kirstie Alley ended up taking a continuing role as Saavik instead of her role on Cheers...Cheers would have sucked.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Would Cheers have interfered with Alley's future participation in Trek movies, though? Shatner found time to make III while working on T.J. Hooker, and Michael Dorn was able to balance his DS9 schedule with First Contact and Insurrection (though I'm sure having the same producer behind all three was a help).

 

[BillJ]

Recast the role. Just use the Genesis effect as an explanation for any physical differences.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've a feeling STIII and IV as we know them would not exist. They only revisited Genesis as a way to bring Spock back and IIRC, the whales were Nimoy's idea. So all new ideas for both films with David and Saavik in different roles. Perhaps David as a civilian science specialist and Saavik as XO. It's possible the Enterprise would still be destroyed in III, as it seems they wanted to that and replace it with the Excelsior.

 

[EnriqueH]

Another actor as Spock, eh?

That would've been worse than the two Bo & Luke Duke clones on Dukes of Hazzard.

Star Trek would've probably been laughed out of the theaters.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Another actor as Spock, eh?

That would've been worse than the two Bo & Luke Duke clones on Dukes of Hazzard.

Star Trek would've probably been laughed out of the theaters.

Why? It's not like different actor haven't played the same roles before. A few ST fans might have been upset, but the vast majority of the audience wouldn't care.

 

[Khan 2.0]

"and starring Richard Gere as Spock 2"

 

[Nerys Myk]

^They wish.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think if Nimoy had refused to come back as Spock in any capacity, I doubt they would've tried to recast the character, as he was strongly identified with Leonard Nimoy. We probably would have seen Kirstie Alley come back as Saavik in the subsequent movies, with Saavik taking over as the Enterprise's science officer (We see something similar to this in the first eight issues of DC's Star Trek comic from the early 80s, done before TSFS came out).

We wouldn't have had to see anything with McCoy suffering from having Spock's katra, as that plot was a function of TSFS bringing Spock back to life. Don't forget McCoy's line towards the end of TWOK: "He isn't really dead, as long as we remember him." If Nimoy didn't come back, that could've been all that the mind meld/"Remember" scene amounted to.

And if they weren't resurrecting Spock, Harve Bennett might've been able to get Nicholas Meyer to return to write/direct STIII. And Paramount might've been more willing to meet Kirstie Alley's salary demands, as she'd now be playing a more important character.

So that would've definitely been an interesting direction for the movies to go, with a new generation of actors/characters organically coming in to take over for the original crew as they aged out of the roles. It certainly could've worked if they'd done it right, but I have a feeling that the ST probably wouldn't have been as popular with the general public in the long run, as Spock was a very recognizable character who was synonymous with Trek.

So basically, I think we would've gotten just a couple more interesting but ultimately less popular movies before they called it quits around STIV. Star Trek dies again for a while, and then they try to resurrect the show again in some form about 10 years later.

 

[Nerys Myk]

We've no idea how popular the movies would have been. Perhaps III would have been more popular and IV could have bombed.

 

[sonak]

We've no idea how popular the movies would have been. Perhaps III would have been more popular and IV could have bombed.

hard to say since, as others have pointed out, the plots would have likely been totally different since much of III and IV had to do with bringing Spock back and dealing with the repercussions of that.

By the time of TWOK, while Spock was undoubtedly the most well-known and popular character, I don't think that the financial success of the franchise was dependent on Nimoy's presence in the movies. Assuming the rest of the cast stayed on and the movies were well-written I think they'd have done well.

 

[T'Girl]

Over a quarter of a cetury later, would there have been a "re-boot" that included the character of Mr. Spock?

 

[2takesfrakes]

As long as Lenny made it obvious in the press that he wasn't pressured or wronged, that he just didn't want to play Spock anymore, then everything would've been alright, as far as going ahead and making movies without him. But the cast was already aging so bad and the movies were always like "let's see how this one performs in theatres before we commit to another one," anyway.

 

[Nerys Myk]

As long as Lenny made it obvious in the press that he wasn't pressured or wronged, that he just didn't want to play Spock anymore, then everything would've been alright, as far as going ahead and making movies without him. But the cast was already aging so bad and the movies were always like "let's see how this one performs in theatres before we commit to another one," anyway.

I think the idea behind David and Saavik (and Decker and Ilia before them) was to inject some "young blood") into the series. Perhaps without Nimoy that trend would have continued.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

We've no idea how popular the movies would have been. Perhaps III would have been more popular and IV could have bombed.

Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious. This is ALL just theorizing.

 

[Nerys Myk]

We've no idea how popular the movies would have been. Perhaps III would have been more popular and IV could have bombed.

Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious. This is ALL just theorizing.

Well yeah. We can't really theorize about popularity though.

 

[Sidewinder]

Wasn't the whole Mindmeld/"Remember" part added after the movie was first screened because so many people who screened it were so down about Spock's death?

People basically didn't want to let him go and he caved and came back.