Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and JFK? (Roddenberry's movie)

[TREK_GOD_1]

This is so strange. An article on Roddenberry's rejected pitch for Star Trek II, III, and IV. Has anyone read the outline, or is there more detail about the plot?

Full text: http://startrekdom.blogspot.com/2007/06/captain-kirk-mr-spock-and-jfk-rejected.html

Short teaser:

In the spring of 1980, Gene Roddenberry sat down to write a 60-page outline for a sequel to the first Star Trek feature film. Unlike The Motion Picture, the next one, he hoped, would be a Gene Roddenberry script, not a creative mishmash that went through the hands of countless other writers and studio executives. This would be the film that he wanted to make, and no one could claim co-writer credits or file grievances with the Writers' Guild. Committees be damned! Trek was his baby, and he was confident that Paramount would welcome his storyline with open arms and open wallets.

What was his grand idea? It involved time-travel, Klingons, and a beloved American president: JFK. Apparently, after losing ships to V'GR, Klingons locate the "Guardian of Forever" (seen in "The City on the Edge of Forever"), and they diabolically use the time portal to travel back to 1963. There, amidst bell bottoms, go-go boots, and Beatles fans, these rogue Klingons succeed in stopping the assassination of JFK. Perhaps they kidnap Lee Harvey Oswald, or maybe they abduct the president and feed him Gagh! Somehow... they keep JFK alive.

In 1963, the Beatles were not a sensation as they would be only a year later, and at the time, go-go boots and bell-bottoms as common fashion were years away. Aside from that, the sci-fi/JFK idea is one of the worst, and of the stories i've read or watched, none were worth screwing with the memory of a real figure from history.

Rodddenberry's idea--particularly the time travelling Klingons was just as pointless as the motives sending the Borg back to earth's past in First Contact. Why JFK? What--is he the focal point of all history enough that preventing his death would drasically change time? Hardly.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Why JFK? What--is he the focal point of all history enough that preventing his death would drasically change time? Hardly.

I don't think Roddenberry was interested in defining JFK as a focal point so much as he was choosing an event that fans could relate to. Everyone knows who President Kennedy was, and people who were alive the day he died remember where they were when they heard the news of his assassination. And Roddenberry was hardly alone in wanting to feature JFK's importance to history. Stephen King recently published a novel dealing with this exact concept- 11/22/63- to illustrate how he thinks history might have unfolded had Kennedy survived that fateful day in Dallas.

--Sran

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

There are many historical events people can relate to--including events in the distant past. The use of JFK is simply not interesting as the writers usually project their own tired fantasties on the man: either he lives and America enters a new golden age, he lives and things take a turn for the worst, so he needs to be killed...wait...

...or, the plots simply reinforce the same real factions about the how and whodunit of the assassination (ex. that dreary, predictable Quantum Leap episode). JFK in fantasy, like World War II & Lincoln, are worn out. No meat on the bone anymore. The life of Star Trek as a franchise is fortunate TWOK was the follow-up to TMP instead of this GR non-starter.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, if we're going to raise The Walking Thread...

I'll chime in and say that I can't imagine any version of Kirk and Spock at JFK's assassination that wouldn't have been just freaking god-awful. So glad this was never made.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^I'm actually envisioning Kirk in Kevin Costner's role:

"Back... and to... the left. Back... and to... the left."

--Sran

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^If Kennedy were shot by a phaser, would the producers have shown his head exploding the way Remmick's torso did during the final moments of "Conspiracy?"

--Sran

 

[The River Temoc]

The Twilight Zone did an episode about Russell Johnson (later of Gilligan's Island) going back in time, and trying to stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Roddenberry's big idea was just a reworking of that old chestnut.

Still boggled that a 6 year old thread came back to life on Halloween.

Old chestnut or not, Stephen King wrote a novel with the same theme, which did pretty well.

 

[Commishsleer]

As much as I personally hate hate hate the idea of Spock shooting JFK it might have bought more mainstream interest in Star Trek.
I think it would have hurt Trek in the long run though,

 

[BillJ]

As much as I personally hate hate hate the idea of Spock shooting JFK it might have bought more mainstream interest in Star Trek.
I think it would have hurt Trek in the long run though,

Star Trek survived warp 10 turning people into lizards, it would've survived Spock shooting JFK.

 

[The Old Mixer]

In 1963, the Beatles were not a sensation as they would be only a year later

Sort of....

The Beatles were already a sensation in Britain by November of 1963...they played the Royal Variety Performance on Nov. 4, and had a few British number one singles under their belts at the time.

They'd break out in America in the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, not a full year later. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was released in America in January 1964. They came to the states and did Ed Sullivan in early February.

And all of this was already in the works before Kennedy was assassinated. On October 31, 1963, Ed Sullivan happened to be at the airport in London when the Beatles were returning from a tour in Sweden. Seeing the throngs of British fans there, he had them booked to appear on his show by Nov. 11. In what was probably not a coincidence, all three American networks and Life Magazine covered the same Beatles show in Bournemouth on Nov. 16...and footage from this show was aired on American news programs on the evening of November 21, 1963...! It's possible that the Beatles might have enjoyed the media spotlight in America a little bit earlier had it not been for the tragic event of the following day....

(And FWIW, the Beatles' second British album, With the Beatles...which would be hacked into their American debut album, Meet the Beatles...was released on November 22....)

Star Trek survived warp 10 turning people into lizards, it would've survived Spock shooting JFK.

I suspect that a movie in which the hero shoots JFK...Star Trek or otherwise...would have gotten a wee bit more negative attention from the general public....

 

[BK613]

One thing that might have changed if JFK had lived; we don't go to the Moon. Or we are much later getting there.

 

[Kruezerman]

"I read Roddenberry's JFK story treatment years ago. It really has been a long time since I read it, but I recall that Spock did NOT kill JFK, contrary to rumor. There were a lot of dramatic elements in the story, including a devastating attack on the Federation, the death of Sarek and Amanda, the Enterprise crashing in the arctic tundra, and a very different version of the Klingons. It certainly would have been far more expensive to make than Star Trek IV or any of the Trek films, with the possible exception of Star Trek: TMP."

Emphasis mine.

Maybe JJ got a hold of this and took some ideas?

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Must be a total coincidence that I'm suddenly seeing this top of page ad since this thread reappeared:

My page is wall-to-wall Asian dating site ads.

Maybe I should go back and take another look at what I've been posting recently.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

One thing that might have changed if JFK had lived; we don't go to the Moon. Or we are much later getting there.

Since it was President Kennedy himself who put the US on course to go to the Moon by the end of the decade, how exactly would that have played out in your opinion?

 

[Nebusj]

One thing that might have changed if JFK had lived; we don't go to the Moon. Or we are much later getting there.

Since it was President Kennedy himself who put the US on course to go to the Moon by the end of the decade, how exactly would that have played out in your opinion?

Kennedy's support for NASA was --- like nearly all presidents before and since --- modest and not terribly resolute. Every president likes accomplishments in space; apart from Lyndon Johnson, almost none of them are eager to expend political capital on it. (This isn't unfair to NASA; presidents have a lot of things that need attention, and space is really a niche topic, with relatively small benefits if lavished with attention and rather small drawbacks if neglected.)

NASA had already been through several budgetary squeezes in 1962-63 (to the frustration, particularly, of the Gemini program). By the summer of 1963 Kennedy was even proposing, effectively, that the Moon Race be called off, with a joint Soviet/American flight to deliver people to the moon if it were done at all. (The Soviets never formed a coherent response to this --- the Soviet space program of that era was staggeringly incoherent by Western standards and compared to what the West imagined it was; they had barely started to decide to try to put men on the moon by then.)

Kennedy's murder --- and Johnson's greater space enthusiasm --- consecrated the Moon Race in American minds, and left NASA as untouchable as it ever would be, at least, until about 1965 (when the greater demands of the Vietnam War and the Great Society were higher priorities of the President). Absent the portrayal of the moon landing as a show of love to a murdered president, it's very easy to see many points in which NASA would have gone to less costly, less risky, and slower projects.

 

[BK613]

^ excellent post, mirrors my thinking to a degree. There is no underlying pathos to drive the program to meet that end of the decade deadline.

Of course, JFK might not have reelected in '64 at all. The Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, and allowing Castro (and communism) to stay in Cuba would have been liabilities to his election campaign I think.

If reelected, he would have handled the Vietnam War differently. IIRC, he was reducing troop numbers in Vietnam and perhaps the counterculture revolution never happens.

Edit to add: Interesting thought: maybe in the Star Trek universe, JFK isn't assassinated. The program pushes along faster but safer, the Apollo 1 fire doesn't happen, there is no '70s reduced budgets, and the DY-100s are flying by century's end LOL

 

[Nebusj]

(Mods: I apologize if this gets too far away from Star Trek topics and will contentedly abandon the thread if directed.)

Of course, JFK might not have reelected in '64 at all. The Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, and allowing Castro (and communism) to stay in Cuba would have been liabilities to his election campaign I think.

Well, anything is possible certainly --- why else have elections? --- and thanks to Google Groups's newest redesign I can't find good analyses of likely John Kennedy-in-1964 campaigns. But I strongly suspect the election would be Kennedy's: the Cuban Missile Crisis was, in the popular eye, a major win for the United States (in truth, the strategic outcome were much more balanced than the public impression was, but it's the public impression that counts; and, of course, we now know historically that humanity got incredibly lucky that it didn't turn into an invasion of Cuba), and leaving Castro in power after one failed invasion attempt and one brink-of-nuclear-war attempt is not going to be hugely unpopular. (I note that in 1962 the Democrats gained three Senate seats; in an off-year election like that the incumbent party usually loses seats. In the House the Democrats lost a net four seats, from 262, which is barely anything. It suggests that in the immediate wake of the Missile Crisis people were not terribly upset with Kennedy's party.)

Then, too, the things that usually favor the incumbent were in full swing in 1964 and I don't see how many of them would be different if Kennedy had not been murdered: good economy, generally few domestic crises, the Cold War being a lot less tense than was in every voter's vivid memory. Plus, the last time the United States had not reelected its president (if you'll allow Truman to be counted as being reelected in 1948) was 1932, when Hoover had overseen a major disaster. The voters would need a compelling reason to kick Kennedy out.

The Republicans might have nominated a more acceptable candidate than Goldwater, and Kennedy might not have run as devastating a campaign as Johnson did, but I'd be surprised if, barring a major catastrophe (either national or personal, e.g., a major scandal breaking out), Kennedy were to lose in 1964.

If reelected, he would have handled the Vietnam War differently. IIRC, he was reducing troop numbers in Vietnam and perhaps the counterculture revolution never happens.

Well, that's plausible, although a lot happened in Vietnam between (say) October 1963 and March 1965, and much could have changed his mind. I'm less confident predicting how that might have gone differently, particularly as he would likely be getting much the same advice from much the same advisors as Johnson had, and both were drawing rather heavily from the historical model of ``appeasement made World War II so inhumanely awful'' that encouraged escalating the conflict sooner rather than later.

 

[publiusr]

Having Spock kill JFK is too sordin. A better movie would be the Klingon's trying to jumpstart WWIII with a larger extant arsenal by tripping off ABLE ARCHER.

Seeing a Klingon Bird of Prey stalking airliners, shooting down KAL-007 with the MiG fighters actually trying to bring the BoP down--that would have ben a cool movie. Firefox vs the Klingons. The Enterprise finally downs the BoP itself though, after having help from one of Chekov's ancestors--a MiG jockey.

That would be cool.

 

[mb22]

Edit to add: Interesting thought: maybe in the Star Trek universe, JFK isn't assassinated. The program pushes along faster but safer, the Apollo 1 fire doesn't happen, there is no '70s reduced budgets, and the DY-100s are flying by century's end LOL

LBJ's image turns up in the Enterprise's computer records, although it could have just been him as Vice President.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060103171957/memoryalpha/en/images/6/6c/Lyndon_B_Johnson.jpg