Spock is on New Vulcan. Uhura, Kirk, and others are all off on other assignments.
Uhura should be with Spock on New Vulcan, unless that relationship is already over at the start of the film. And in that case, is Spock with T’Pring? Or even Leila Kalomi or the female Romulan Commander? For that matter, would Uhura be with Scotty? Or even Kirk?
I would combine the idea of the "Great Experiment" and the "Refit Constitution" in one ship idea. 1701-A or possible B and Excelsior are from the new design.
No Ent-B; that should be Sulu’s daughter’s ship, and the only involvement the crew should have with it is seeing it off on its maiden voyage.
Stick with the Ent-A. There’s no reason the Ent-A can’t be the testbed for the “Great Experiment”, and receive a refit at the same time. The “Great Experiment” should be the refit!
I think the Excelsior already exists, as one of those ships with the red hull. Though its registry is NCC-1729, not NCC-2000.
The V'Ger Emergency happens and Kirk is successful in regaining Command of the refit Enterprise and the crew have one final adventure together. At the end Fleet Captain Kirk has the new Enterprise. Newly promoted Captain Sulu commands Excelsior and Una Chin Riley is Fleet Captain in command of the Constellation.
If Sulu is captain at the start of the movie, and he should be, he should have been captain for a few years.
Important that it happens differently this time. Maybe a different ship makes the initial contact, is destroyed and the "orbital devices" do serious damage to Earth. Maybe a Federation Fleet fights V'Ger but Uhura looks again at the initial message from V'Ger when she is back on ENT and sees that there is a way to communicate with it. But I would rather a different resolution. Maybe they do have to blow the ship up at the core of V'Ger and destroy it. This is a call back to ST IV where they rush from elsewhere to save Earth and sacrifice the ENT like in ST III.
Maybe V’Ger destroys several Klingon or Romulan colonies on route to Earth, and the destruction is like the what was done to San Francisco by the whale probe.
Maybe the Romulans and the Klingons can help the Enterprise defeat V’Ger, as a precursor to setting up the Nimbus III outpost.
Ilia, M'Ress, Arex, Saavik, Cmdr. Sulu and a new Captain are the bridge crew of Enterprise. Not sure who should be Captain. Maybe Una Chin Riley? Id like to see her in it, but I picture her leading the Fleet that is getting its asses kicked by V'Ger during the space battle.
Even though I already put forth Branch to be promoted to Captain in a post above, why not Scotty as Captain? Scotty in the captain’s chair is something from TOS the Kelvin films haven’t done yet. And Scotty does hold the rank of Captain in the TOS films.
Ilia…will she be Branch’s love interest in the film, or Kirk’s? Seeing as there will be no Will Decker. And I am increasingly comfortable with the idea of Carol Marcus being in a relationship with McCoy in the Kelvinverse, instead of her being with Kirk. If she’s Kirk’s love interest, when V'ger joins with the Creator, Kirk can reconcile making a sacrifice like his father did on the Kelvin, to save the crew and Earth.
Agree with M’Ress and Arex. Should also add Walking Bear, and Randi Bryce as McCoy’s daughter. Maybe Peter Preston too, though the novelization of TWOK put his age as 14 (even though the actor was 23), meaning he’s 4 during TMP. So, either retcon Preston’s age, or introduce Peter Preston’s sister who is twelve years older than him, according to the TWOK novelization.
Saavik is around the age of 9 during TMP. And for the record, so is Tuvok, if there were any plans to reference his time on the Excelsior. Maybe Sonak or Xon in her place as Spock’s protege. Could also use Dmitri Valtane (aged 15 during TMP) or Lojur as cadets, or even Demora Sulu (aged 17 in TMP, same age as Chekov in ST’09). And David Marcus (age 14-15), if they want to go there.
I already shared my thoughts on Sulu.
It could be Capt Spock. I preferred him on New Vulcan since the death of his elder self. But if he were Captain it could be like ST II. Where Kirk taking command (this time to deal with the V'Ger emergency) is something Capt Spock supports. Kirk doesnt havent to go around anyones back, like Kirk did to Decker.
If Spock’s on New Vulcan, he should be dealing with Spock Prime’s katra.
And a Captain Scott could be just as supportive of Kirk taking command.
I imagine a number of scenes like Kirks apartment in the TOS films when dealing with the death of Chekov but off world. I think they should say it happened like it did in real life. He died in an accident. Shuttle crash or somesuch. Works well with the V'Ger themes about the meaning of life. Is this all that there is?
I guess an accident with a shuttle works to explain Chekov. Though if his absence was explained as him retiring from Starfleet to settle down with Irina Galliulin and became a galactic class chess player, I would not complain about that explanation either.
Could also reference Sarek unexpectedly passing in this same timeframe, to further drive home the themes about the meaning of life.
A buddy comedy stranded on a weird alien planet. Call it Kirk and Spock. Just them. Save a fortune on the rest, maybe Uhura is on the radio at key points.
They could probably save a fortune if everyone but Kirk and Spock were on the radio.
But yeah, a buddy comedy would make a lot of sense, and would be good fun.
