Keeping Ilia around
- Thread starter EnriqueH
- Start date
Having Saavik interact with Valeris would have been great, I wouldn't have made Saavik that movies turncoat.
Especially since Valeris was supposed to be Saavik initially.
I hated that idea the first time I heard it. After rewatching VI with that in mind, I could see it. In fact, if it was Saavik instead of Valeris, the emotional impact would have been greater.
Valeris and Saavik did meet ... in the DC Trek comics.
Yeah, Hollywood is a pretty small town, all things considered. The people who are good or "hot" at any given moment are just going to be working a lot. I'm sure if David Gautreaux came up to Shatner while they were filming TJ Hooker & said, "Hey, I was in the first Star Trek movie," Shatner would just go, "That's nice," and go on with his day.
Shatner strikes me as a VERY busy guy.
He's got to be one of the most prolific celebrities of all time.
Movies, TV shows, interviews, commercials, books, music, convention appearances, and other personal appearances.
The man just doesn't stop working.
So it wouldn't surprise me that the man is always on the move, tight scheduling, with not a lot of time for small talk.
He's got to be one of the most prolific celebrities of all time.
Movies, TV shows, interviews, commercials, books, music, convention appearances, and other personal appearances.
The man just doesn't stop working.
So it wouldn't surprise me that the man is always on the move, tight scheduling, with not a lot of time for small talk.
I don't know if Chapel and Rand being the traitors would have had much effect on the general audience (movie goers who had not necessarily seen much/any of the TV show)
They only got very minor cameos in the prior movies and even were hardly in the TV show (especially Rand)
If it had been handled as a surprise reveal I wager it would have gone something like this:
Spock: And the traitors were Doctor Chapel and Janice Rand!
Hardcore Fans: GASP!
Most of the audience: ....who?
And if they had been featured in the movie to (re-)introduce them to the audience as old colleagues of Kirk and Spock then their betrayal would have had no more impact (again to the general public, not that familiar with the show) than Valeris had.
EnriqueH said:
The trouble with the (mandated) removal of Saavik from the script and replacement with Valeris is that, we have to buy that this new person has got an unspoken motivation for doing what she does. Whereas had it been Saavik, all the motivation we need is "Klingon bastards killed my friend, David; I've never forgiven them for the death of my friend".
So I agree that, essentially, Saavik should have been in the story. It would have made more sense from a dramatic point-of-view, and been a 'wrapping up' for her character.
Anyone else, like Chapel, Rand or whoever, would be a gut-punch to fans, and would (probably) retroactively taint the character(s) as 'villains' going all the way back to TOS, which is a deliciously devious idea in itself.
But the bigger problem is that I just couldn't see any motivation for either character to become traitors. Even 'The Future Of The Federation' blah blah-de-blah, which was pretty much Valeris' motivation, wouldn't work for a Chapel or a Rand because both characters have been repeatedly shown to be just a virtuous as our Enterprise crew, so it'd never be believable for them to be in on a 'conspiracy'. You might as well make Scotty or Chekov the traitor.
The trouble with the (mandated) removal of Saavik from the script and replacement with Valeris is that, we have to buy that this new person has got an unspoken motivation for doing what she does. Whereas had it been Saavik, all the motivation we need is "Klingon bastards killed my friend, David; I've never forgiven them for the death of my friend".
So I agree that, essentially, Saavik should have been in the story. It would have made more sense from a dramatic point-of-view, and been a 'wrapping up' for her character.
Back in 1991, I was very glad that Saavik wasn't the traitor. Now, I think it would've been much more startling and logical (sorry
) if it had been Saavik instead of Valeris, especially if Kirstie Alley had returned to the role.I don't really buy David being a good motivating factor for Saavik, though. It would be a redundant with Kirk's "I've never been able to forgive them for the death of my boy." And since the TWOK romantic subplot between Saavik & David was deleted from the film, the two of them didn't have much of connection to speak of (novelizations notwithstanding).
I don't think I agree with the point of redundancy, because this alternate Saavik would have come to a different decision than Kirk himself. It would have been a nice segue into how loss can be dealt with in a right way on one hand and in a wrong way on the other. Valeris's dialog essentially played this way anyway, when she said:
I don't think it would be redundant. Just because the romantic subplot between David/Saavik was dropped doesn't mean they hadn't worked up a solid professional relationship, perhaps even a non-romantic friendship. That alone would be motivation enough for Saavik to say, "I saw some Klingons kill a friend of mine in front of my very eyes in cold blood, so f*** the bastards".
EnriqueH said:
The trouble with the (mandated) removal of Saavik from the script and replacement with Valeris is that, we have to buy that this new person has got an unspoken motivation for doing what she does. Whereas had it been Saavik, all the motivation we need is "Klingon bastards killed my friend, David; I've never forgiven them for the death of my friend".
So I agree that, essentially, Saavik should have been in the story. It would have made more sense from a dramatic point-of-view, and been a 'wrapping up' for her character.
Anyone else, like Chapel, Rand or whoever, would be a gut-punch to fans, and would (probably) retroactively taint the character(s) as 'villains' going all the way back to TOS, which is a deliciously devious idea in itself.
I see what you're saying, but you're also assuming that Chapel and Rand would not have been reintroduced in the movie.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they weren't traitors.
But Valeris as a traitor was what they call in boxing, "telegraphing your punches". I mean, you saw that betrayal a MILE AWAY. Everyone was acting like we didn't know who it was, but come on. A twist should be a twist. Was anyone surprised that Valeris and Chang were conspirators?
In fairness to Roddenberry, I think I understand the dilemma. Saavik was an important character in film canon, particularly in TWOK. She was a protagonist, and she had fans. That level of betrayal was and still is, as far as I know, foreign to Star Trek. Starfleet officers who'd gone bad before didn't enjoy that position.
I side with Nicholas Meyer on this one. He created the Saavik we know, not Roddenberry. So Meyer should've had more say in what happened to her than Roddenberry.
And that level of betrayal being "foreign" to Star Trek would've been all the more reason to do it. If Saavik had betrayed Starfleet, it would've been a brilliant twist and a real gut-punch at the end of the film. Discovering that a character we'd loved and followed for nearly a decade was a traitor? I bet a LOT of fans would've been surprised by that. It's a shame it never happened, IMO.
True.
It's very much a case of 'Remember the New Guy' symdrome, where we've got this new character and everybody's treating him like an equal, gee I wonder what will happen next? (Kind of like how nobody expected Lieutenant Hawk to see out the end of First Contact, even though all the main characters were treating him like their best buddy).
Nick Meyer didn't have to listen to anything Roddenberry said about the ST VI script, such was the nature of Roddenberry's credited "executive consultant" role in STs II-V. He also didn't like Cartwright being a traitor (IIRC), Kirk hating Klingons, and floating Klingon blood.
But Nimoy and Meyer did heed the advice that Saavik was "a beloved character", and switched the role to Valeris (Kim Cattrall also had refused to be "the third actress to play Saavik", contributing to the rethink).
...Roddenberry had an objection to things floating in zero gravity?
Or did he just think that the scene was too gory for Trek?
Well, the ship had already sailed on Starfleet officers going bad, as of TOS itself: Matt Decker, Ron Tracey, Garth. Granted, we never saw a rotten Admiral in TOS (assuming a Commodore isn't an Admiral).
Yeah, Roddenberry had a very selective memory. Some of TOS's best instalments (as well as some of it's worst ) revolved around Starfleet officers gone bad, or humans caving in to very realistic, understandable foibles.
He developed this whole utopian society thing that I think got in the way of his understanding of what Star Trek had actually been... things like parts of the admiralty going rogue would be a good fit for any era of TOS.
) revolved around Starfleet officers gone bad, or humans caving in to very realistic, understandable foibles.He developed this whole utopian society thing that I think got in the way of his understanding of what Star Trek had actually been... things like parts of the admiralty going rogue would be a good fit for any era of TOS.
Yeah, Roddenberry had a very selective memory. Some of TOS's best instalments (as well as some of it's worst
IIRC, his complaint had already been lodged re several novel manuscripts and TNG episodes ("Conspiracy", "Too Short a Season"...) that had recently also featured rogue Starfleet officers.
It's a fair comment: have we overdone this type of story?
"Conspiracy" didn't have any rogue Starfleet officers. They'd been taken over by parasitic aliens.
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