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A look at "The Genesis Project" Script

Sir Rhosis

Sir Rhosis

Commodore
Commodore
Recently, I've once again been writing early draft script synopses for Orion Press' "Unseen Elements" page. Here I look at the April 1981 draft of what eventually became "The Wrath of Khan." This is, as far as I can ascertain, the final script before Nicholas Meyer took over the writing chores. Enjoy, discuss, but be warned... it is not very good...
The Genesis Project (orionpressfanzines.com)

Sir Rhosis
 
The Marla McGiver (with no "s") spelling survived into the novelization, but was finally corrected in Pocket Books' 2004 "Signature Edition" trade paperback omnibus of Vonda McIntyre's reprinted trilogy (II, III, IV), entitled "Duty, Honor, Redemption".
 
Wow, originally they knew up front that Khan's people were supposed to be on that planet. That makes so much more sense than what we ended up with.

The Gamma Regula stuff is pretty interesting, with the authoritarian takeover of the research station and the scientists being branded as "rebels" for resisting it. Looks like it would've been a better illustration of what made Khan a dictator than the personal revenge motive he was left with in the final film. It was probably cut for budget reasons.

Khan's mental powers are a silly idea, though. Although I suppose TOS made frequent enough use of the '60s/'70s cliche that "superior" human development led to psychic abilities (Gary Mitchell, Charlie Evans, etc.).


Kirk asks Spock if Gamma Regula Four is too far out of the way for him to take the Enterprise there before it embarks on its new mission. Spock replies, “A couple of hundred million miles. A hop and a skip.”
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Ouch. That's an interplanetary distance, not interstellar. Why is it so hard for film and TV writers to look up some basic astronomy facts when they're writing science fiction?
 
Christopher said:
Khan's mental powers are a silly idea, though. Although I suppose TOS made frequent enough use of the '60s/'70s cliche that "superior" human development led to psychic abilities (Gary Mitchell, Charlie Evans, etc.).
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Wasn't there a scene in Space Seed where Khan "controls" a guard to open a door to he can escape? Am I mis-remembering here? Anyway, I guess the telekinetic powers were merged with the Ceti Eels and that contraption on his wrist in the final version.

Ouch. That's an interplanetary distance, not interstellar. Why is it so hard for film and TV writers to look up some basic astronomy facts when they're writing science fiction?
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Yeah, and that definitely didn't sound like something Spock would say in the first place.
 
I think the "hop and a skip" line succeeding or falling flat on its face would depend on Nimoy's delivery, and maybe depending on the other dialog in that scene. To me, "sauce for the goose" at first doesn't sound like something Spock would say, but Nimoy's reading of the line is great.

Kor
 
That was very interesting. it was also really kinda....bad...I guess.

The pacing is all off. Khan having telekinetic and mind control powers is a bit ridiculous. I like what the inclusion of Marla might have given the story...but ultimately her death is what drove Khan's madness. Also- the supporting Trek cast seems to have nothing to do when compared to the new characters. TWOK similarly focused on Saavik, David, etc....but not to the extent this story seems to have discarded them.

I also can't get my head wrapped around how they would have accomplished some of this effectively on a modest budget.
 
Vger23 said:
I like what the inclusion of Marla might have given the story...but ultimately her death is what drove Khan's madness.
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I consider that a bug of the final film, not a feature. I feel that reducing Khan to a vengeance-crazed madman was a waste of potential. Khan was supposed to be a conqueror, a deposed emperor seeking to rebuild his empire. You see that in this draft, as he has his agents take over Gamma Regula, impose a fascist police state, and hunt down those who resist it. It's in microcosm, but it shows what will happen to the galaxy if Khan gets the power of Genesis and can blackmail whole worlds into submission. In the final movie, he's just out for personal revenge against one guy, someone who wasn't even responsible for Marla's death (after all, Khan led his people into exile willingly, so he has no call to blame Kirk any more than himself), and what he intends to do with Genesis is nebulous at best (no Mutara pun intended). It makes him a much pettier threat.


Vger23 said:
Also- the supporting Trek cast seems to have nothing to do when compared to the new characters.
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The focus of a rough draft would be on working out the structure of the main story and central character arcs. Supporting cast business could be fleshed out in later drafts.

Although on the other hand, I gather that part of the thinking at this stage was to begin phasing out the aging TOS cast in favor of a younger ensemble who could take over going forward. You see that here with Savik replacing Spock as first officer, and David joining Starfleet at the end. Perhaps the idea was for the two of them to be a junior Kirk and Spock who'd become the series leads in later films. So maybe the idea was just to give the supporting cast cameos to pass the torch.


Vger23 said:
I also can't get my head wrapped around how they would have accomplished some of this effectively on a modest budget.
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Generally, the approach in screenwriting is to put everything you want in the first draft without worrying about money, then trim things down in later drafts to a more modest scale until you get to something affordable. Like how the Guardian of Forever went from a valley full of giant talking statues to a flashing stone donut with a few broken columns around it. After all, if you pre-emptively leave something out, it could turn out that you could've afforded it after all and you missed your chance. So you start by putting in everything and then you carve away the excess.

And yes, I know that seems to contradict what I said about adding character arcs later, but revision usually entails both removing things you don't need and adding things you didn't think of the first time.
 
Fascinating, as Spock would say. I seem to recall Meyer saying he took elements from multiple scripts, but the synopsis sounds like it pretty much all came from that one draft.

The one thing in this version of the story that sounds better is Khan and Kirk having a face-to-face fight (even if it was illusionary). That face-to-face denouement is the only thing missing really from the final film.
 
PhotoBoy said:
Fascinating, as Spock would say. I seem to recall Meyer saying he took elements from multiple scripts, but the synopsis sounds like it pretty much all came from that one draft.
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Though I have never read it (well, I've seen a couple pages here and there), Meyer also used Samuel A. Peeples' screenplay "Worlds That Never Were" in crafting the final script. As you may know, Peeples dropped Khan and made the villains two dimension-hopping beings. His script had the Mutara Nebula cat and mouse game between the Enterprise and Reliant, as well as having Saavik now a half Vulcan, half Romulan female. Maybe other stuff as well, I don't know. The script has never made its way online as far as I know.

Sir Rhosis
 
Sir Rhosis said:
Though I have never read it (well, I've seen a couple pages here and there), Meyer also used Samuel A. Peeples' screenplay "Worlds That Never Were" in crafting the final script. As you may know, Peeples dropped Khan and made the villains two dimension-hopping beings. His script had the Mutara Nebula cat and mouse game between the Enterprise and Reliant, as well as having Saavik now a half Vulcan, half Romulan female. Maybe other stuff as well, I don't know. The script has never made its way online as far as I know.

Sir Rhosis
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We've not seen it, either. I've got a lot number of the film scripts and treatments, but not that one.
 
There was a Manta and Moray cartoon…Moray was the name of one of those beings IIRC.

I think someone suggested they were a transformed Decker/Ilya…

To me ST: TUC is the most pivotal moment in the Federation’s history..it has made me want to explain the other trek movies with a retro-causality focus.

Now, to work up the Morrow/Cartwright deal…I’d say that Starfleet knew all about Ceti Alpha V being laid waste…and Reliant’s Genesis torp was to be the clean up. Clean up Kirks mess and bring a dead world to life. The torp may have worked better there protomatter or no.

Now that would send Khan into a rage. That’s my retcon. Pain may not have been the only reason Terrell did himself. A stun setting would have worked as well. Pavel had no idea. I bet Marcus did. The apple didn’t fall far.

Who knows what takes place off screen…We thought we saw Mutiny on the Bounty…when it was all Section 31’s Bay of Pigs…into darkness.

Now, in the novels, some of Khan’s group like Ericsson were relocated to Sycorax, allowing the Sowards script to be used for a future story with some character changes.

I could see folks at Sycorax falling for Augments, perhaps given the Gary Mitchell boost.

Lastly, the footage of the child on Reliant might be introduced as a flashback…a security tape from Reliant that somehow got out.
 
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Sir Rhosis said:
Recently, I've once again been writing early draft script synopses for Orion Press' "Unseen Elements" page. Here I look at the April 1981 draft of what eventually became "The Wrath of Khan." This is, as far as I can ascertain, the final script before Nicholas Meyer took over the writing chores. Enjoy, discuss, but be warned... it is not very good...
The Genesis Project (orionpressfanzines.com)

Sir Rhosis
Click to expand...

I actually read this recently. Thank you so much for the run down of a draft that's often talked about, but has never really found it's way online!

A few observations about the draft:

- Something like this "feels" much more episodic in nature as if it would better suit the series as opposed to a feature. Khan's glowing eyes, strange magical powers and the bizarre fight scene between Kirk and Khan are all very much hallmarks of TOS.

- Marla feels out of place. Her purpose was pretty much served in "Space Seed". Her off-screen death very much adds a catalyst for Khan's vengeance.

- "You should have married her when you had the chance" is really, really cringeworthy. Again, a more "series" kind of campy dialogue that doesn't mesh well with a movie in which they killed off a defining character. William Shatner and Bibi Besch worked so damn well together on-screen, and that would have been wasted with a recurring dialogue point and a "forced" romantic rekindling between them.

- Khan as the moustache-twirling "I have all the power I can dream of at last!!" type villain... Just no, in TOS Ricardo Montalban was playing against that trope and portraying a complex character. Whoever decided upon that dialogue had clearly not seen "Space Seed".

- They do get Spock's death scene fitting for the character, albeit it doesn't have the emotional gravitas of he scene that Shatner and Nimoy scripted together which dealt primarily with their friendship. Doing the "Janet Leigh" death in the middle of the movie may have worked better with the Shatner/Nimoy version than this one, but it is much, much better placed at the conclusion of the movie.

- David as Enterprise science officer? No, just no.

- Some of the dialogue when Kirk and Khan are fighting with weapons sounds like it's scripted by somebody familiar with Montalban and not the character of Khan. It sounds like Khan could say "made with Real Corinthian leather" and it wouldn't be out of place in respect to him describing weapons.

- The only thing I really like is the introduction of these newer characters that all became the character of Saavik. I think having the movie play host to a series of officers in addition to Saavik (that weren't just background characters) may have enhanced TWOK.
 
128bits said:
I think having the movie play host to a series of officers in addition to Saavik (that weren't just background characters) may have enhanced TWOK.
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Which is what DC Comics did, starting up an ongoing comic after Spock had just died, Mike W Barr added his own cadet graduates, classmates of Saavik: Elizabeth Sherwood, Nancy Bryce, William Bearclaw, Richardson, Welkin, Fredericks and others.
 
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