Your Ideas: Star Trek III but no Leonard Nimoy

[somebuddyX]

Hi, just looking for your ideas for if you wondered what a whole plot or just concepts for Star Trek III might have been like if Leonard Nimoy hadn't returned. Kinda a bit of both "what you think would happen" and "what you would like to have happened" in this particular scenario.

 

[Tosk]

You could basically do the exact same movie but with a real bummer of an ending.

 

[BillJ]

Spy thriller with Romulans over the Genesis Device. Kirk and company steal the Enterprise to save Carol and David Marcus.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

They could have gone with the younger actor they cast for Spock and have an adolescent version be the subject of the search.

The entire movie stays the same except that small casting change. It’d work just fine.

 

[BillJ]

The entire movie stays the same except that small casting change. It’d work just fine.

I mostly agree, but I just don’t think the tail end of the movie would’ve had the same emotional hook without Nimoy.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I mostly agree, but I just don’t think the tail end of the movie would’ve had the same emotional hook without Nimoy.

Agreed. The movie itself would be worse for a lack of Nimoy generally.

However, if Nimoy wasn’t going to be playing ball, they had options.

 

[XCV330]

they merge David Marcus with Spock via the Genesis Effect. Part of McCoy also transfers into this strange ghola during the katra router download ceremony thingy.

Merrit Butrick plays "Dock" for a couple of movies until Nimoy comes back. Everyone agrees not to talk about it.

 

[somebuddyX]

My ideas are all just very general and kind of more questions:

• Would they start the film in the same place as TSFS or do another time jump like between TMP and TWOK?
• What happens when the Enterprise got back to Earth? Does it stay a training ship? Is it still getting retired? If it's not, does it get a new captain? Does Kirk try to stay on again? Does one of the other cast get bumped up to captain?
• Do you keep Saavik, David and Carol?
• This one's more if TWOK had ended a little differently, but if there was no "remember" and no final scene on Genesis with the torpedo, how would that affect this Star Trek III? I know Nick Meyer didn't want them but Harve did. And if they were in TWOK and Nimoy hadn't returned, would fans have been okay with that thread being not used?
• What happens to Genesis? Would you see it in the film? Or is it just referenced? Would you still have a Romulan/Klingon plot with someone like Kruge? I think Leonard was the one to suggest Klingons, so maybe we would have got Romulans instead. Would Genesis still blow up and have been made with protomatter?
• If they didn't have stealing the Enterprise as a component, maybe there would be no Spacedock or Excelsior

I wish I could go back and read like old starlog issues or fanzines from like 1983 to see what the fan speculation was.

Spy thriller with Romulans over the Genesis Device. Kirk and company steal the Enterprise to save Carol and David Marcus.

I really like this!

 

[Cyfa]

They could have gone with the younger actor they cast for Spock and have an adolescent version be the subject of the search.

The entire movie stays the same except that small casting change. It’d work just fine.

~ And TVH would be pretty much the same, too.

A couple of years ago, I put together a poster for an alternate TSFS featuring some of my favourite characters, scenes, props etc. I don't have a specific story or anything, but I'd like to see more of Uhura, Valkris, Rand, and the science ship Grissom amongst other things.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

~ And TVH would be pretty much the same, too.

A couple of years ago, I put together a poster for an alternate TSFS featuring some of my favourite characters, scenes, props etc. I don't have a specific story or anything, but I'd like to see more of Uhura, Valkris, Rand, and the science ship Grissom amongst other things.

I remember from the last time! A very impressive poster (if a *tad* overcrowded :-) )

 

[BillJ]

I wish I could go back and read like old starlog issues or fanzines from like 1983 to see what the fan speculation was.

I believe a lot of them are digitally available. You’d have to Google it.

 

[BillJ]

Do you keep Saavik, David and Carol?

I don’t want to bogart the whole thread, so I picked one…

In my idea, Saavik would be the face of Romulan Intelligence. A plant to keep an eye on Kirk because of his known history with Carol and David. She would have a more active role in this version of the story.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I wish I could go back and read like old starlog issues or fanzines from like 1983 to see what the fan speculation was.

One of the articles in one of The Best of Trek volumes that came out after Wrath was titled something like "Spock: Now That They Killed Him, How Do We Get Him Back?"

That sums up what a lot of active Trek fandom was saying at the time. From the moment many fans watched TWoK, they were strategizing how to bring Spock back from the dead. I wasn't -- I wanted Spock to stay dead, because I felt like bringing him back cheapened his sacrifice (still do.)

If it had been me, a Spock-free Star Trek III would have had no threads connecting it to Star Trek II, other than a subplot about Saavik and David (and maybe Carol, but probably not) integrating into the Enterprise crew. While undertaking a completely new adventure. I like the idea of using Romulans, because I was already tired of Klingons.