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

[TiberiusK]

Josan said:
I've heard about this a few times and always thought it a lousy idea. The versions I've heard though never involved the Klingons. It involved the Enterprise crew preventing the assassination. And that made no dramatic sense at all. I seem to recall Nimoy commenting on that but could be wrong.

Either way, I think the studio did the right thing in keeping Gene away from the movies. I don't think he was a good writer. He certainly wasn't the best on the series.

As far as I can tell, the first reports of Kirk and crew saving JFK come from Shat's 1991 Memories, and Justman and Solow repeated his version in their book although none of them read the scripts. Only Paramount top brass and his assistant Sackett read the drafts. According to Sackett, every draft involved the Klingons stopping the death of JFK while Kirk and Spock had to fix the timeline.

There are also quotes from Shatner where he says the opposite of what he wrote in his book, claiming that the cinematic climax involved Spock on the grassy knoll.

Mike Okuda, according to other posters here, also read it and commented on it.

Considering that, of all the published comments about the script, only Sackett actually read it, I trust her version more, especially because it follows the City/Ellison format more closely.

Still, it's a mystery.

 

[Therin of Andor]

TiberiusK said:
As far as I can tell, the first reports of Kirk and crew saving JFK come from Shat's 1991 Memories

No, no, no. One of Gene's ideas for "ST: Phase II" involved JFK and numerous other leaders from along Earth's timeline. Then, as reported in "Starlog" magazine in about late 1980, Roddenberry's first script proposal for a sequel to TMP involved the Klingons upsetting the timeline via the Guardian, and JFK living or dying was one of many quandaries.

 

[TiberiusK]

Therin of Andor said:

TiberiusK said:
As far as I can tell, the first reports of Kirk and crew saving JFK come from Shat's 1991 Memories

No, no, no. One of Gene's ideas for "ST: Phase II" involved JFK and numerous other leaders from along Earth's timeline. Then, as reported in "Starlog" magazine in about late 1980, Roddenberry's first script proposal for a sequel to TMP involved the Klingons upsetting the timeline via the Guardian, and JFK living or dying was one of many quandaries.

Ah I see. I really need to start ordering some back issues of Starlog. As always, you are a fountain of info.

Does The Lost Years or Phase II go into detail about the JFK script?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^I think "The Lost Years" mentions Jon Povill's Star Trek II (named such as it was a movie sequel to the original series not because it came after TMP) treatment, which was written during the interim years between TOS and TMP, that had Scotty thrown back in time(to around WW I) and uniting the world governments. Like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripple effect changed Earth and kept it from joining the Federation. The crew of the Enterprise, unaffected by the time change, travel back to retrieve Scotty but miss the mark by a few decades.

They met Scotty after his affected the changes. Among his staff are JFK and Hitler. I can't remember what the end of the treatment was, however.

 

[Winterwind]

That's one I hadn't heard. Interesting idea but only to briefly entertain. I would never have wanted to see that on screen.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^Yeah, it was one of the treatments written when everyone and their grandmother came into Paramount to pitch a Trek movie.

 

[NathanielM]

you know that does not sound like a half bad idea for a movie.

What would have happened if JFK was saved and wasn't assassinated.

Make you wonder...

 

[Timo]

Probably the same as if Mozart or James Dean had lived to 76. He would only be remembered for his womanizing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[NathanielM]

The real Spock when he is in command or when Kirk is off the bridge

 

[NathanielM]

sorry i just had to post that...

LOL!

 

[Shaka Zulu]

^Jeez did Roddenberry hate JFK or something?

Like many Americans who don't have blinders about JFK and know THE REAL TRUTH about him and his policies (it was he who got the Vietnam War rolling, was supportive of the plots to kill Castro, let the Bay of Pigs go forward, almost got us nuked in 1962, may have been complicit in the British overthrow of Cheddi Jagan from his presidential post in 1960's Guyana, and generally supported a lot of bullcrap that the CIA did-had he not been killed, the Vietnam War would have gone without any complaint due to his charisma as a leader), Roddenberry probably saw how flawed and warmongering he was, and wrote what he felt was wrong with leaders like JFK, LBJ, and RMN. Heck knows what he would have thought about Dubya and the Iraq War.

 

[BillJ]

^Jeez did Roddenberry hate JFK or something?

Like many Americans who don't have blinders about JFK and know THE REAL TRUTH about him and his policies (it was he who got the Vietnam War rolling, was supportive of the plots to kill Castro, let the Bay of Pigs go forward, almost got us nuked in 1962, may have been complicit in the British overthrow of Cheddi Jagan from his presidential post in 1960's Guyana, and generally supported a lot of bullcrap that the CIA did-had he not been killed, the Vietnam War would have gone without any complaint due to his charisma as a leader), Roddenberry probably saw how flawed and warmongering he was, and wrote what he felt was wrong with leaders like JFK, LBJ, and RMN. Heck knows what he would have thought about Dubya and the Iraq War.

Or the JFK assassination just provided a natural "hook" for the story that audiences could easily connect with?

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Or the JFK assassination just provided a natural "hook" for the story that audiences could easily connect with?

Agreed. I don't think most Americans living in the 1980s cared what Kennedy's policies had been unless they were alive when he was in office. The JFK assassination is an idea that the average movie-goer can relate to and become interested in regardless of his or her political stance. The same would likely be true if Roddenberry were alive today and tried to produce a Star Trek film dealing with the events of September 11.

For the record, I don't think there's any way Roddenberry would have been allowed to make a 9/11 film because the loss of life was much more significant and because of the recent nature of the event. He'd likely have been tarred and feathered for even entertaining the thought. But the point is Roddenberry wanted to use an idea that he thought would attract both fans and non-fans to his movies, and JFK was the best idea he could think of.

--Sran

 

[Melakon]

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.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

Through the years I've asked every dealer/collector from whom I've gotten scripts and outlines about the Klingon/Kennedy outline and "Planet of the Titans" outline. So far, no luck. They may be out there, but I've yet to find copies.

Sir Rhosis

 

[Melakon]

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

 

[Hound of UIster]

It's not a coincidence. The ads here are set up to display ads relevant to pages you have visited.

 

[Melakon]

Yeah, I should have used the at the end of that. I suspected something was up.

 

[SiddFinch1]

Could have been interesting. Although if the rumored Spock kills JFK was used it would have got a pretty negative backlash.

 

[trevanian]

It DID get enormous negative backlash. At least one angry letter that ran in STARLOG after the story surfaced said in effect that if Spock shoots JFK that he will be through with any form of STAR TREK for all time.

If you'd tried to do a CHALLENGER-hinged time travel story, you'd have never gotten it approved in the first decade after it happened. But the JFK thing was ramping up again already after the hearings in the 70s proved the conspiracy angle via sound recordings of the gunshots, so there was still heat on it, though nothing like what'd be coming with Stone's film a decade later. I don't think anybody really tackled the assassination in even a SF fashion till the new TWILIGHT ZONE in 85, and still you're not having a beloved character responsible for the event.

I think they'd've had a very hard time getting Nimoy onboard for it, too. They had to jump through plenty of hoops to get him interested in TWOK, and that at least wasn't designed to raise as much ire.