TUC Early Draft -- Pretty Bad

[CovePhanTom]

I've been reading through a script that is labeled as the "fifth draft" of TUC. It is dated December 28, 1990. I'm not sure how many drafts of TUC there were, but at this stage, it still includes Saavik rather than Valeris, though it's clear they ultimately just swapped names without really changing the dialogue.

What I'm struck by is just how bad it is. Like, cringeworthy bad. I would be curious to see other drafts, but I am wondering if it wasn't ultimately Leonard Nimoy who got Meyer and Flynn to make significant changes to the script. I've always felt that Nick Meyer worked best when his instincts were constrained by someone else, like a Harve Bennett. Here's an example of one scene from this draft:



I'm not sure that I really have a point to this post, other than that I was just struck by how bad it was.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I audibly let out a "NO!" when I read Chekov's line, lmao.

 

[Fire(BOO!)]

The fifth draft was used as the final shooting script, with considerable rounds of revisions.

 

[Tosk]

It feels a bit like the current approach to Trek, where everybody gets to make a 'funny' comment.
I guess Meyer and Flinn knew the way, but Meyer second-guessed himself at the last minute.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Some of those lines made it into the novelization.

 

[Grant]

Yeah, except for all the dopey dialogue during the end battle being cut (or never filmed) -- that is the draft they used.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Several years after Star Trek VI, Denny Martin Flinn wrote a Star Trek novel, The Fearful Summons, some of it based on cut material from the film. It's a bit silly, it's well written but not particularly good, and the dialogue throughout reads like that.

As I understand it, the film's credits notwithstanding, the script was by Flinn. The credits are the way they are because two guys Nimoy talked to were awarded story credit which sound have gone to Meyer, so Meyer got a screenplay co-write credit.

 

[CovePhanTom]

Several years after Star Trek VI, Denny Martin Flinn wrote a Star Trek novel, The Fearful Summons, some of it based on cut material from the film. It's a bit silly, it's well written but not particularly good, and the dialogue throughout reads like that.

As I understand it, the film's credits notwithstanding, the script was by Flinn. The credits are the way they are because two guys Nimoy talked to were awarded story credit which sound have gone to Meyer, so Meyer got a screenplay co-write credit.

Meyer claims that he and Flinn did truly co-write the screenplay collaboratively. Whether that is true or not is, of course, another matter.

 

[David cgc]

I'm not sure how many drafts of TUC there were, but at this stage, it still includes Saavik rather than Valeris, though it's clear they ultimately just swapped names without really changing the dialogue.

There seems to have been a progression with regards to that. I’ve seen an excerpt from an earlier draft where it’s revealed at the end that the new Saavik (I don’t remember if there was anything communicated to me one way or the other about if it has been commented on earlier in the script that she wasn’t the same character as in the earlier movies) was named after her mother, and Spock was the father after the Pon Farr thing in TSFS. I’d conclude that as they were writing, they went from “Saavik is back,” to “Saavik’s daughter is here, also named Saavik, there may or may not be a meta joke that everyone on-screen thinks it’s a coincidence but knows she’s a different person while the audience assumes it’s another recasting until we spell it out,” to this draft, “Fine, we’ll make her a totally new character, we’ll think of a new name later.”

Filmmaking truly is a collaborative medium, and the final draft is written in the editing room. Let’s not even talk about the early Generations draft. “A transporter is just like a man,” Data seducing the Duras sisters…

 

[Fire(BOO!)]

For reference, here is the final cover page of the script, which shows the multiple revisions throughout.

​

The revisions listed at the bottom through February 6 were the batch that removed the original "gathering the crew" opening of the film, saving about $5 Million on the budget. I transcribed that early version of the script from De Kelley's papers at the Academy Library... and it's still pretty rough. There's even a line in there which reveals that the Saavik in that script was not the Kirstie Alley/Robin Curtis character, but the daughter of Spock and Saavik. This line is not present in any other draft or revision.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Man, think if this had been back during TWoK

Khan: "I never forget a smell..."