Star Trek The Wrath of Khan Book Club

[Tallguy]

^Reading all of this, and remembering the TWOK novelization in general, just brings back my feelings of frustration over how Saavik was made more full Vulcan for TSFS and then written out of TVH and not even name-checked in future installments. A sad waste of a rich character.

As for her coming back, it's interesting (to me) how we (I) had such an expectation for Saavik's return. (And David AND Carol.)

Did we ever have any such expectation for David Garrovick? Lt. Styles? Helen Noel?

Maybe because it was a movie? Because the ending was so open ended? Because Alley made such an impression? I accepted her as a "main character" right away.

I would have been far more accepting of Curtis as Saavik if she had felt more like Saavik. And I gather this was specifically at Nimoy's direction.

That's pretty common, or used to be, since novelizers would work from scripts and would generally need to add material to fill them out to novel length, while the final films would generally cut things out for time and pacing. (These days, studios insist that novelizations be as exactly faithful to the films as possible, which seems to squander the whole point of novelizations.)

Sure. It was just that (to me) many of these little character embellishments felt much of a piece with the embellishments that we know were hers.

That wasn't me. That was actually you, citing Memory Alpha.

I see that. I could have sworn that the only reason I looked was something you said. I must be thinking of something else.

Yes. A lot of people mistakenly attribute it to Carolyn Clowes' The Pandora Principle, but she just elaborated on what McIntyre created in her novelizations.

That's silly. She even credits Vonda in the acknowledgements. That must have seemed terribly out of left field if you didn't know in advance. Heck, that's WHY I read the book!

I gather the original intent behind introducing characters like Saavik and David was to phase out the aging TOS cast in favor of a "next generation" (so to speak) of characters who would take over as the leads in later films. Instead, the later films ended up doubling down on nostalgia and phasing out the new characters to refocus on the original cast.

It could have worked. They register far more strongly that Decker and Ilia did.

I may start another thread for this, but I understand that there were changes to the book when it was compiled into the omnibus Duty, Honor, Redemption. I've done a quick re-skim though my Kindle edition compared to my paperback. The only difference that I've found is that they added the "Remember" scene in the engine room with implied reference to it being a Vulcan ritual.

I seem to remember reading about the omnibus when it was published. And what I've been able to discover with an internet search that it

• Removed or changed the scene in the shuttle about Sulu's promotion to captain. (How on Earth did they handle almost all of Sulu's scenes in The Search for Spock?!?)
• It (according to the internet) changed or downplayed Saavik's half-Romulan heritage (HOW would it do that? They'd have to take almost all of her scenes out!)
• Changed Alpha Ceti back to Ceti Alpha and changed Regulus to Regula. (Fair? I guess?)
• It also corrected McGiver to McGivers. (Same.)

None of those changes are in my Kindle. Just the "Remember" scene.

I do remember that even the rumor of these changes kept me far away from that collection.

Fascinating.

Then there's the "What if Valeris had been Saavik" question, which I have mixed feelings about.

It would have been devastating. I feel like it would have worked. But then I despise Jim Phelps being the bad guy in the Mission: Impossible film. Different outcomes and motivations, I suppose.

Of course she was very obviously a retread of Saavik. The novel even makes her half-Klingon, IIRC.

 

[Christopher]

As for her coming back, it's interesting (to me) how we (I) had such an expectation for Saavik's return. (And David AND Carol.)

Did we ever have any such expectation for David Garrovick? Lt. Styles? Helen Noel?

Maybe because it was a movie? Because the ending was so open ended? Because Alley made such an impression? I accepted her as a "main character" right away.

It's not about audience expectations, it's about creator intentions. Guest characters in TOS were created to be strictly one-shot characters, and were only brought back if they resonated with the creative staff or the audience. Saavik and David were created (reputedly) for the specific purpose of being new continuing characters, but such characters don't always catch on.

You can see this in another Harve Bennett-adjacent production, the bionic reunion movies from the late '80s (which Bennett was not involved with, though he produced The Six Million Dollar Man). The first movie introduced Steve Austin's hitherto-unknown son Michael and had him made bionic in an accident, with the intent of focusing a revival series on him. That didn't work out, so they did a second reunion movie in which a not-yet-famous Sandra Bullock became the new bionic woman (after faking us out to think that the new young male lead would be the bionic one). Then that didn't work out, so the third bionic reunion movie was just about the wedding of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers, without any backdoor-pilot designs this time.

I would have been far more accepting of Curtis as Saavik if she had felt more like Saavik. And I gather this was specifically at Nimoy's direction.

I like Curtis's Saavik more than Alley's, but that's partly due to the fact that I soured on Alley because of the annoying character she played on Cheers. I know I shouldn't let one role an actor plays color my opinion of a different one, but I just got so sick of watching her after a while (even though I found her really hot back in '82).

It could have worked. They register far more strongly that Decker and Ilia did.

Except that Decker and Ilia were reworked into Riker and Troi in TNG, and those characters registered pretty well. I guess it goes to show that acting and writing are greater determinants of a character's effectiveness than the concept alone.

 

[Tallguy]

It's not about audience expectations, it's about creator intentions.

In this case we're talking explicitly about audience expectation. Whatever the creators intended, the audience wanted this character back. You cited several examples where the audience didn't care what the creators intended.

One does wonder if they were going to abandon most of what made Saavik Saavik, why bring her back at all? It's obvious that Catrall's Valeris is Saavik by another name. The connection between the two Saavik's is actually more tenuous.

Except that Decker and Ilia were reworked into Riker and Troi in TNG, and those characters registered pretty well.

In a different setting with different performances. (And I'll also add: Eventually.) Nobody was saying "Oh! I hope the reboot of Star Trek brings back Decker and Ilia." Back in the day the reaction was either ignorance or slight shock that this was such a naked retread of two existing characters from a movie that (supposedly) nobody liked.

 

[David cgc]

It could have worked. They register far more strongly that Decker and Ilia did.

When I was a kid, my local library had a handful of the Best of Trek and Best of the Best of Trek fanzine essay collections (I later got the TPB Best of the Best of Trek, which seemed to be a combination of the first two MMPB BoBoTs. There's a second one, but I never got around to picking it up). Anyway, something they cycled back a few times in the period between TWOK and TSFS was the idea of cycling in a younger cast. IIRC, there was a survey or something talking about ideas of where Star Trek could go from there, and there were a few different ideas mooted, including the concept of the TOS cast staying on the big screen, and Saavik and David being the leads in a series of TV movies.

Removed or changed the scene in the shuttle about Sulu's promotion to captain. (How on Earth did they handle almost all of Sulu's scenes in The Search for Spock?!?)

I never read the collection, either, but IIRC, they just changed the part about his promotion having already gone into effect, so instead of calling him "Captain Sulu" throughout TSFS (and TWOK?), he's still "Commander Sulu."

 

[Christopher]

In this case we're talking explicitly about audience expectation. Whatever the creators intended, the audience wanted this character back.

Evidently the makers of the movies thought the audience didn't want Saavik back badly enough, given that they phased her out and abandoned the original plan to make her the new lead Vulcan in future movies. Maybe they were wrong about that, but it seems to be what they thought. Personally, I would've liked it if they'd let the status quo evolve in the movie series rather than contriving to keep all the main characters in the same jobs for decades on end.

You cited several examples where the audience didn't care what the creators intended.

Yes, that is the point -- that what creators initially intend often doesn't work out because the audience doesn't react the way they hoped. The creation of fiction is essentially gambling. You try things out, and sometimes they succeed, but more often they don't. And sometimes the audience responds to something different than you ever expected. And of course there are many other factors at play besides audience response, making any film or TV project an even bigger gamble.

One does wonder if they were going to abandon most of what made Saavik Saavik, why bring her back at all?

In the final edit of TWOK, as opposed to the script and novelization, the only thing that really differentiates Saavik from a typical Vulcan is saying "Damn" once and showing some feeling at Spock's funeral, which could just be attributed to her youth. (Even Spock grinned at the singing flowers on Talos IV.) And it was TWOK's own makers who decided to cut out the lines about her being half-Romulan and being more emotional, so that decision was made before TWOK was completed, not afterward. It's a natural part of any creative process to try things out and abandon them along the way, so a deleted line or concept is not an actual part of the final work any more than a chunk of marble on a sculptor's floor is part of the finished statue. What "made Saavik Saavik," as far as the finished version of TWOK was concerned, was not that different from how TSFS portrayed her. The difference was largely one of actor/director interpretation.

Yes, McIntyre took those leftover chunks and sculpted them into something worthwhile of her own, but that's something exclusive to the prose version of the character and isn't relevant to the version the makers of TWOK settled on by the time the film was finished.

In a different setting with different performances. (And I'll also add: Eventually.) Nobody was saying "Oh! I hope the reboot of Star Trek brings back Decker and Ilia." Back in the day the reaction was either ignorance or slight shock that this was such a naked retread of two existing characters from a movie that (supposedly) nobody liked.

I was just making an observation, not an argument. My point was the part you cut out of my quote, that what determines a character's effectiveness is more about execution than concept, which is illustrated by the different responses to essentially the same pair of characters in TMP vs. TNG.

 

[Tallguy]

Evidently the makers of the movies thought the audience didn't want Saavik back badly enough, given that they phased her out and abandoned the original plan to make her the new lead Vulcan in future movies.

They thought we wanted her back enough after The Wrath of Khan that they brought the character back and kept the character without the actress. Then they thought they were wrong after The Search for Spock. Hmmm. Any changes there? Alley made an impression that Curtis did not.

I was just making an observation, not an argument. My point was the part you cut out of my quote, that what determines a character's effectiveness is more about execution than concept, which is illustrated by the different responses to essentially the same pair of characters in TMP vs. TNG.

I think after Farpoint the responses were identical. (People may have liked Ilia more.) But Riker and Troi had time to find a foothold. If they had replaced much of that cast after the Pilot (a la Where No Man Has Gone Before) I'm not sure people would have cared that much.

In the final edit of TWOK, as opposed to the script and novelization, the only thing that really differentiates Saavik from a typical Vulcan is saying "Damn" once and showing some feeling at Spock's funeral, which could just be attributed to her youth. (Even Spock grinned at the singing flowers on Talos IV.)

Spock was half human.

She cries at Spock's funeral. Is there another Vulcan character where this would not be wildly out of character? I wonder if there are fans to this day that don't know the now "apocryphal" back story that think this was part of what The Wrath of Khan got "wrong" about Vulcans?

I find Meyer's story... I'll be polite and say "puzzling". He says that when Saavik cried that people asked if he was going to let her do that. But presumably those people had the script (which says she cries) and may have even been there when they filmed the scenes that stated she was half-Romulan. He makes it sound like Alley made some wild choice.

Maybe nobody else noticed anything different about Saavik when they saw TWOK. I did. I don't think I'm alone. I just know that when I saw Alley's interview where she said she was part Romulan that that made her character make sense to me. And when I read this book even more so.

 

[Christopher]

They thought we wanted her back enough after The Wrath of Khan that they brought the character back and kept the character without the actress. Then they thought they were wrong after The Search for Spock. Hmmm. Any changes there? Alley made an impression that Curtis did not.

That's not why Saavik was dropped. There have been a couple of explanations offered. Harve Bennett said he considered it a needless complication in TVH to have two Vulcans having to disguise themselves in Earth's past. Also, early drafts of the ST IV script had Saavik pregnant with Spock's child, a development that Leonard Nimoy was uncomfortable with, so he had it dropped.

The common thread seems to be that plans for the character changed. Originally, it was assumed that Spock would stay dead and Saavik would be his replacement. Once Nimoy changed his mind and decided to come back, it basically made Saavik a fifth wheel. The options were to make her storyline an extension of Spock's (the pregnancy) or to write her out as surplus to requirements. It's likely the same thing would have happened regardless of which actress was in the role.

Spock was half human.

It is a fallacy that being half-human makes Spock's emotions stronger. Vulcan emotions are intrinsically far more intense than human, which is why they need such strict emotional control to begin with. It's more likely that Spock and other Vulcans just find it a convenient fiction to blame his difficulties with emotional control on his "human half" -- which is a ridiculous formulation, really, because what is the "chocolate half" of a glass of chocolate milk, or the "oxygen half" of carbon monoxide? It's not two halves, it's an integrated whole.

She cries at Spock's funeral. Is there another Vulcan character where this would not be wildly out of character?

You could say the same about Spock laughing and shouting in early installments. It's the nature of series characters to evolve over time, to be refined as they go. The first appearance of a character may have them behave very differently than they're later developed to be.

Aside from that, though, I have a problem with people using "out of character" as if it were independent of situation, as if a character must always behave the same way no matter what the circumstances are. I would argue that the funeral of a valued mentor is a situation where uncharacteristic behavior should be not only understandable, but expected.

And really, why should we expect all Vulcans to conform to a single behavioral stereotype? We've seen pure Vulcans that embrace emotion by choice, such as Sybok and the V'tosh ka'tur. And in any population of people who aspire to a common ideal, there will be some individuals that achieve it more successfully than others.

I wonder if there are fans to this day that don't know the now "apocryphal" back story that think this was part of what The Wrath of Khan got "wrong" about Vulcans?

Probably.

Maybe nobody else noticed anything different about Saavik when they saw TWOK. I did. I don't think I'm alone. I just know that when I saw Alley's interview where she said she was part Romulan that that made her character make sense to me. And when I read this book even more so.

As I've said before, since Vulcans and Romulans are the same species, the idea that being half-Romulan would somehow automatically make Saavik more emotional is absolute nonsense. The only difference between Vulcans and Romulans is cultural. That's why McIntyre's retcon -- that Saavik's emotionalism is not the result of her genetics but simply because she wasn't raised in Vulcan society and didn't learn Vulcan control from childhood -- was necessary to make sense of the filmmaker's very, very stupid idea.

 

[Tallguy]

I felt that this was a wider topic and I replied here: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/what-are-your-controversial-star-trek-opinions.304751/post-15336805

I suppose I could start a thread "Why Vulcans must suck".

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Unfortunately, since my Star Trek comics are in storage, I can't remember the exact details, but during DC Comics first Star Trek run, in the issues set between TWOK and TSS, I think they did two issues where they explored Saavik's backstory about being half Vulcan/half Romulan, and the writer used some of the ideas that Vonda McIntyre introduced in TWOK and expanded upon those, and some of those were then later incorporated into The Pandora Principle.

 

[Christopher]

Unfortunately, since my Star Trek comics are in storage, I can't remember the exact details, but during DC Comics first Star Trek run, in the issues set between TWOK and TSS, I think they did two issues where they explored Saavik's backstory about being half Vulcan/half Romulan, and the writer used some of the ideas that Vonda McIntyre introduced in TWOK and expanded upon those, and some of those were then later incorporated into The Pandora Principle.

Well, yes. Most depictions of Saavik in novels and comics have built on McIntyre's backstory, though they've disagreed on the details. For instance, The Pandora Principle had Saavik rescued from Hellguard shortly after TMP and had Spock take a yearlong sabbatical to raise her, while the DC storyline assumed Saavik was older and had Spock rescue her before TOS (in the turtleneck-uniform era), then break his estrangement from his father long enough to convince Sarek and Amanda to raise Saavik as their ward. Margaret Wander Bonanno's Unspoken Truth kind of splits the difference, coming close to TPP's version but also having Saavik as Sarek & Amanda's ward. Marvel's Untold Voyages had Spock rescue Saavik from Hellguard shortly after TMP, but take her to the Vulcan embassy on Earth to be raised, reuniting with her a year later.

 

[Tallguy]

Wow, this went fast. I had fun. I hope, as always that others did too. Thank you for joining me. (Even the lurkers. )

The final scene on the bridge. As we have pointed out, this is the film as originally shot and screened. It ends with this scene and Space the Final Frontier. No Genesis planet. If you like, and you have it available to you, you can hear the original score without the glorious interlude on Genesis. It seems such an obvious addition. (Even if you're not going to tease Spock's return.)

David joins Kirk on the bridge. McCoy and Carol notice.

Vonda doesn't quote Moby Dick, but she corrects the misquote of A Tale of Two Cities that is in the film. "a far, far better rest that I go to" not "a far better resting place".

There is a deleted scene that is only available in terrible quality of Kirk commenting on Saavik and David's interaction by saying "She's learning by doing." This is not here nor is it in the draft of the script that I have. This epilogue follows the script surprisingly closely. So I wonder where that line came from.

While this novel did not originally contain the "Remember" scene or the view of Spock's torpedo on Genesis there are a couple of mentions of a task that Saavik had to perform as well as the the "course (for Spock's torpedo) she had so carefully worked out". It's an interesting "mystery" for Vonda to have left. She pays it off very well in the next book. But that I suppose it assumes that she thought she might write the next book or that there would be a next movie that went in a direction that allowed her to do so.

It's an interesting choice (that puts Saavik closer to the center of the events) and I wonder what Vonda knew or guessed was going on with the production as she wrote this.

"Second star to the right. And straight on till morning."

 

[Christopher]

While this novel did not originally contain the "Remember" scene or the view of Spock's torpedo on Genesis there are a couple of mentions of a task that Saavik had to perform as well as the the "course (for Spock's torpedo) she had so carefully worked out". It's an interesting "mystery" for Vonda to have left. She pays it off very well in the next book. But that I suppose it assumes that she thought she might write the next book or that there would be a next movie that went in a direction that allowed her to do so.

It's an interesting choice (that puts Saavik closer to the center of the events) and I wonder what Vonda knew or guessed was going on with the production as she wrote this.

Is that really a mystery, though? An earlier scene specifies that the torpedo would be programmed for "a fast-decaying orbit around the Genesis world, where it would burn in the atmosphere to ashes, to nothing." TV and movie screenwriters routinely underestimate the precision required to achieve a re-entry trajectory rather than missing the planet or going into an eccentric orbit (see Into Darkness or the first two episodes of Discovery season 3, for just a few examples), but Vonda McIntyre was more likely to have known that setting the kind of decaying orbit she specified would be an exacting task.

While the sample on Google Books is missing a few pages, it seems to have all the Saavik scenes in the funeral and after, and I don't see any mention of Saavik having any other task besides seting a course for Alpha Ceti V (which is the correct name for the star system despite "Space Seed"'s strange choice to transpose it) to pick up the Reliant survivors. David says there's something he has to do, but that's the setup for his reconciliation scene in Kirk's quarters.

The Google Books version does seem to be a 1994 re-release with the "Remember" scene, though. There's also a bit where Saavik is sitting by Spock's torpedo-casket and imagines she senses a presence. Was that in the original edition?

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I'm at work, I'll check my copy when I get back this evening to see what the original ending with Saavik is like.

 

[Tallguy]

There's also a bit where Saavik is sitting by Spock's torpedo-casket and imagines she senses a presence. Was that in the original edition?

It is.

I didn't know that Remember was added in 1994. That would appear to be the edition that Kindle has because it doesn't have any of the other changes the I understand the Omnibus to have.

 

[David cgc]

There is a deleted scene that is only available in terrible quality of Kirk commenting on Saavik and David's interaction by saying "She's learning by doing." This is not here nor is it in the draft of the script that I have. This epilogue follows the script surprisingly closely. So I wonder where that line came from.

I was looking for the ShoWest trailer with those moments recently on YouTube and couldn't find it (well, I couldn't find the full version, I found a shorter cut) to support something I was saying about Meyer sometimes getting odd line-readings and pronunciations (I was looking for Alley calling the planet "C-T Alpha," and while those scenes weren't in the version I found, it did have her saying "Hee-dra," which is arguably more egregious; "hydra" is a more common word than "ceti").

 

[Commander Troi]

(Goes and checks his original paperback.) Nope. This was most certainly not there in 1982. Now I want to know what else they may have changed that I missed?

I'm reading the original paperback and was surprised by your quote.

Spock dies.

I will never not cry.

Afterwards Saavik stands guard over Peter and Spock's bodies. This is one of my favorite scenes in the book. Possibly just my favorite. You can just feel that this is the climax to Vonda's story here. She just happened to wrap it in a movie to tell it.

That is a beautiful scene. I had completely forgotten about it.

Because Alley made such an impression? I accepted her as a "main character" right away.

Ditto. I definitely expected to see her again.

The only difference that I've found is that they added the "Remember" scene in the engine room with implied reference to it being a Vulcan ritual.

OK, cool.

Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for doing this! It was fun rediscovering all the character-building.

 

[Firebird]

There is a deleted scene that is only available in terrible quality of Kirk commenting on Saavik and David's interaction by saying "She's learning by doing." This is not here nor is it in the draft of the script that I have. This epilogue follows the script surprisingly closely. So I wonder where that line came from.

TWOK's workprint sadly cuts before the final minutes of the film (right when Enterprise is backing away from Reliant in the nebula), so I can't completely confirm this. My suspicion is it's as a wry response to the following exchange on page 116 of the shooting script:

247 CONTINUED:

KIRK​

Good. I believe you already know​

my, uh, son --​

​

Saavik comes close to blushing --​

​

KIRK​

(continuing)​

Yes, well, why don't you show him​

around and...​

​

SAAVIK​

Aye, sir --​

​

She takes him off, deadpan amusement --​

​

SAAVIK​

(continuing)​

So you turn out to be the dumb​

bastard. *​

​

They stare at her.​

​

SAAVIK​

(continuing)​

That is a little joke.​

​

Kirk has a smile.​

​

KIRK **​

Ah, she's learning by doing.​

​

He joins Bones and Carol facing the screen.​

* A reference to a cut line from David in the originally-filmed version of his surprise knife attack on Kirk in the Genesis Cave.
** My theorized placement in the scene.

I was looking for the ShoWest trailer with those moments recently on YouTube and couldn't find it (well, I couldn't find the full version, I found a shorter cut) to support something I was saying about Meyer sometimes getting odd line-readings and pronunciations (I was looking for Alley calling the planet "C-T Alpha," and while those scenes weren't in the version I found, it did have her saying "Hee-dra," which is arguably more egregious; "hydra" is a more common word than "ceti").

Alley's entire (and I do mean entire) performance was redubbed during the ADR process in post-production. Those odd pronouncements were the least of her problem. Ironically, her on-set performance was far more dispassionate and wooden - more in line with the more stoic Vulcan concept Nimoy had Robin Curtis portray in TSFS.