TWOK Director’s Cut Omitted Dialogue

[2takesfrakes]

I tie TWOK and TMP as both embodying the best of different aspects of classic Trek. But so what if there was footage with bad acting? The same can be said of just about every movie that's ever made. That's why they shoot multiple takes and use editing to streamline everything before release.

Kor

Yes, of course there's bad acting in every STAR TREK offering. The point I was making, or trying to make, was that the deleted scenes did not measure up to the overall quality of the rest of the film's original theatrical release. But yes, there are still some awkward moments in TWoK, acting-wise, like Shatner's immortal "KHAN!!!" scream in all of its hammy, over-the-topness. Also, whilst Khan is bringing Captain Tyrell and Chekov up to speed in his grounded cargo carrier, his underlings look particularly bored and uninterested. Uhura's "now, what is that supposed to mean?" was rather flatly delivered ... There are other little nit-picky moments, acting-wise, but in the main ... the acting is generally very good in TWoK. And keeping in those deleted scenes would not have added anything worth noting to the movie, either way. They were just odd comments and moments that should've been dispensed with and - thankfully - originally were.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

It's in the novelization, but not in the script.

Ahhh, that would explain it, seems my brain has put it into the actual movie. lol

Thanks.

 

[Jeyl]

Despite George Takei's fondest dreams, Star Trek is not, and has never been, about Sulu.

I was not attempting to argue who the franchise's central focus was. And if I can just lay this out here, having a story that solely focuses on your main characters is sometimes a recipe for disappointment. You look at Star Trek V where Shatner thought that making everyone but Kirk, Spock and McCoy grossly incompetent would be a recipe for success. It turned out to be a bomb.

I honestly don't see Shatner giving a shit whether or not Sulu got a command of his own.

Really? You think the writers of STVI simply mixed up which Starship was carrying equipment to catalogue gaseous spatial anomalies, or that the Excelsior was simply meant to do nothing but get shot at when it arrived at Khitomer? No. Shatner did not want Kirk to be saved by Sulu and most of what could be changed was changed to accommodate that. If you don't believe that, might as well not believe that Valeris was originally meant to be Saavik.

He's a supporting character who didn't officially get a first name for 25 years, and only then because Peter David happened to be on set when they shot that scene in STVI.

There is no scene in Star Trek VI where a character utters Sulu's first name onscreen in STVI. Sulu says his name in the movie's opening through voice over. Voice over work is not shot on a set but recorded in a sound studio.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Really? You think the writers of STVI simply mixed up which Starship was carrying equipment to catalogue gaseous spatial anomalies, or that the Excelsior was simply meant to do nothing but get shot at when it arrived at Khitomer? No. Shatner did not want Kirk to be saved by Sulu and most of what could be changed was changed to accommodate that.

Is this true? Was the exchange about the BoP having a "tailpipe" originally supposed to be between Rand and Sulu?

 

[Kor]

I have just assumed that various Starfleet ships had such equipment aboard at that time as part of a big shared mission to "catalog gaseous anomalies in Beta Quadrant," which was really code-speak for scanning deep into the Klingon Empire for remote reconnaissance.

Kor

 

[David cgc]

I have just assumed that various Starfleet ships had such equipment aboard at that time as part of a big shared mission to "catalog gaseous anomalies in Beta Quadrant," which was really code-speak for scanning deep into the Klingon Empire for remote reconnaissance.

There is a scripted scene to this effect (the tour Kirk took Gorkon and co on before the dinner scene). Sure, that could've been a patch in a rewrite to cover the Enterprise and her crew being completely baffled and having to be saved by a crew of unknowns (give or take a couple familiar faces) in the original outline, but I don't think that would've flown with or without Shatner's ego (what, would we have seen Tuvok and Valtane bantering in the Excelsior torpedo bay?).

Indeed, as the scene goes, it already violates Shatner's leading man rule-of-thumb, where Spock or McCoy or whomever can walk Kirk right up to the door of the solution, but Kirk has to be the one to explicitly articulate it first, even if it gives the impression that everyone else has already figured it out and is stalling so the Captain can think it's his idea (a textbook example of which occurred in Beyond). In TUC, the whole homing torpedo plan is developed and implemented without any input from Kirk at all. Spock has the initial idea, Uhura figures out how they can implement it, and Spock drags Bones downstairs without even asking Kirk's permission. Kirk doesn't even offer so much as a "Hmm?" He just watches them work it out.

 

[Maurice]

Funny how every other mistake becomes about Shatner's ego. A lot of what we perceive as "mistakes" were in the script but ended up on the cutting room floor for various (usually good) reasons, no Shatner "sab-a-tage" required.

 

[Maurice]

I think it was probably for the same reason that Sulu's "Any chance to go aboard the Enterprise, however briefly, is always an excuse for nostalgia" line was cut. The actor gave a pretty crappy line reading. (And with the Sulu scene, it was incredibly stilted dialogue, too.)

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This is audio from the workprint of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, including the deleted dialog concerning Sulu getting captaincy of the U.S.S. Excelsior. Despite Takei's claim that Shatner sabotaged (sabataage!) the scene by performing badly, to my ear Kirk sounds just as he does in the scenes leading up to this. The deletion was more likely because the exchange was unnecessary to the story.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I was not attempting to argue who the franchise's central focus was.

I wasn't saying that you were. That criticism was towards Takei, not you. My criticism of you is you repeating rumors and Takei's biased speculation as fact.

Really? You think the writers of STVI simply mixed up which Starship was carrying equipment to catalogue gaseous spatial anomalies, or that the Excelsior was simply meant to do nothing but get shot at when it arrived at Khitomer?

There is a scripted scene to this effect (the tour Kirk took Gorkon and co on before the dinner scene).

Yep. I own a copy of that draft of the script. Whether that was the original intent or a quick fix to cover a plot hole, I don't know.

No. Shatner did not want Kirk to be saved by Sulu and most of what could be changed was changed to accommodate that.

I assume you have lots of photos from your set visit from when they were filming that scene?

There is no scene in Star Trek VI where a character utters Sulu's first name onscreen in STVI. Sulu says his name in the movie's opening through voice over. Voice over work is not shot on a set but recorded in a sound studio.

Wrong. Peter David related in his "But I Digress..." column in The Comics Buyer's Guide about his visit to the set of STVI as a guest of George Takei (the two of them wrote a Star Trek Annual together for DC Comics). While there, David suggested to director Nicholas Meyer (or Takei, I forget which) that Sulu give his first name as "Hikaru" in his log, thus canonizing the name that Vonda McIntyre introduced in The Entropy Effect in 1980. The filmmakers liked the suggestion, and it went into the film.

David references the Hikaru story in this post from June on his blog. And if you feel like tossing 20 bucks his way via his Patreon account, you can read the whole story in his own words.

And sometimes dialogue recorded on set can be used as a voiceover, too.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Really? You think the writers of STVI simply mixed up which Starship was carrying equipment to catalogue gaseous spatial anomalies, or that the Excelsior was simply meant to do nothing but get shot at when it arrived at Khitomer? No. Shatner did not want Kirk to be saved by Sulu and most of what could be changed was changed to accommodate that. .

Whether or not Shatner wanted Kirk to be saved by Sulu in the climax of the final film of the original cast, I have no idea. All I know is, I certainly didn't. It was Kirk's last mission in the captain's chair, and dammit I want him saving the day one last time in the classic films. Kirk is the main hero of the original series and films. Kirk should be saving Sulu's ass.

So either Shatner, Nicky Meyer or Denny Martin Flinn, good call.

 

[Green]

As has been stated before -- a scripted, shot but deleted scene established that the Enterprise (and all Fed ships) carried equipment to catalogue gaseous anomalies. So it wasn't a last minute change to the script of mix up. Enterprise was always going to fire the fateful shot.
And it wasn't a last minute re-write -- it was an early draft when they were still calling Valeris "Saavik"

 

[Kor]

As has been stated before -- a scripted, shot but deleted scene established that the Enterprise (and all Fed ships) carried equipment to catalogue gaseous anomalies. So it wasn't a last minute change to the script of mix up. Enterprise was always going to fire the fateful shot.
And it wasn't a last minute re-write -- it was an early draft when they were still calling Valeris "Saavik"

I would like to see this early draft.

The only STVI "script" that I have ever seen with Saavik's name was obviously a search-and-replace job somebody did on a later shooting script... unless Kirk was going senile and thought he was meeting Saavik for the first time despite all they had been through before!

Kor

 

[Green]

The script they use at Trekcore is from December of 1990 and uses "Saavik" thruout. And yes there is that one exchange where they were hedging their bets by having the introduction. If they had gotten Alley back the removal and inclusion of about 3 lines of dialogue would have fixed it easily.

 

[Pauln6]

Is this true? Was the exchange about the BoP having a "tailpipe" originally supposed to be between Rand and Sulu?

In some ways, it's a shame that this was changed. I understand why they want the Enterprise crew in on the main action, but I thought it was ludicrous that McCoy, a medical doctor was modifying a torpedo instead of a ship full of qualified engineers. Ok, as a physicist with some technical skill, Spock could probably have tweaked it on his own. The scene was played for a cheap laugh I guess.

I know it was their last outing together, but this level of self-indulgence weakens the movie for me. Another scene that does the same is Chekov, a former security chief, having absolutely no clue about the ship's safety protocols or how to conduct an investigation for another couple of cheap laughs.

Admittedly, if it had been Rand and Sulu, might be almost as daft, but they did set them up for it in the opening scene, at least Rand had been established as a technician in her last couple of outings, and Sulu was initially established as a physicist in TOS. It's marginally more plausible.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The scene was played for a cheap laugh I guess.

That's my overall problem with the films after TVH. They aren't taken nearly as seriously as the first three. Those were very straight films, very serious but peppered with wonderful moments of character humor, which is what the TV series was very good at. Thanks to the success of the all out comedy of TVH, the next two played up the laughs at the expense of the drama. As corny and in your face as the humor teneded to be in TFF, TUC was just as bad (if not worse - they should have known better) because the jokes were very much at the expense of the characters. The search for the gravity boots (Chekov was a huge idiot in this film rather than simply being naive - which he had grown out of), the books on the bridge, Kirk's "life long ambition" and so on. I'm guessing because a) Paramount wanted jokes to bring in the audiences and 2) maybe they felt that had to offset the aging cast and their expanding waistlines. Honestly, neither move was necessary. The Star Trek films worked best when they just tried to tell the best story they could instead of consciously reach the crossover audience. But, I digress...

 

[somebuddyX]

Like a lot of additions for the Director's Cut the dialogue is unnecessary and slows down the film, especially here when the music is ramping up and they're about to go into battle. It doesn't haven't any bearing on the later story developments whether Spock does or doesn't know, but also Spock isn't an idiot. We can presume he'd put two and two together.

 

[Ryann866]

Interestingly, the "Director's Cut" released on blu-ray last year and played in the theater earlier this week is a slightly different edit than the "Director's Edition" that was released on DVD in 2002.

The Director's Edition on DVD did include that dialog exchange, but it was not included on the 2016 cut. I don't know if Meyer has commented on this or not.

However, Nimoy's reading of the line "Fascinating" always seemed strangely phoned in.

Kor

Maybe because it was the very last thing Nimoy shot for TWOK on his last day of shooting. There's a behind the scenes video that was online a while back from Entertainment Tonight with great footage -- they show the last take of that scene in the Jeffries Tube being filmed and then Nimoy being wrapped on the picture, with everyone clapping. He walks off the stage past the torpedo room set and the full size travel pod

Just a guess...