TWOK: How would you feel if...

[Mr Silver]

They killed of Spock near he beginning of the movie as Nicholas Meyer had planned during the development of his first script?

Would you have still enjoyed the movie? (and how would you make his death as profound as it was near the end, mean the same near the beginning?)

Also what are your feelings on the original script ideas to have Khan and Kirk fight with exotic weapons in some dreamlike reality created by the Genesis Device and Khan's mental abilities? To me it seems a bit like "jumping the shark" but it might have worked

 

[Ssosmcin]

I've often thought of this. I probably would have been so upset over Spock's death, I would have tuned out to a lot of the movie afterward. It also would have trivialized the event by blowing it off so soon. Nimoy himself said that as originally presented, Spock's role was to "wait around to be killed off." By putting it at the end, it serves a much greater story purpose. And it gives us a whole movie of Spock instead of, say, a half hour.

 

[JarodRussell]

I think having Spock killed at the beginning wouldn't have been as dramatic. Spock's death is the actual climax of the whole movie, everything leads up to it.

And had Khan killed Spock early in the movie, then I guess it would have been more like "The Wrath of Kirk" for the rest of the movie.

Also what are your feelings on the original script ideas to have Khan and Kirk fight with exotic weapons in some dreamlike reality created by the Genesis Device and Khan's mental abilities? To me it seems a bit like "jumping the shark" but it might have worked

Right now I can only imagine it in a cheap way, very reminiscent of similar things in TOS, and I don't think that would have been a good thing in the context of the movie.

 

[SPCTRE]

I think having Spock killed at the beginning wouldn't have been as dramatic. Spock's death is the actual climax of the whole movie, everything leads up to it.

And had Khan killed Spock early in the movie, then I guess it would have been more like "The Wrath of Kirk" for the rest of the movie.

Also what are your feelings on the original script ideas to have Khan and Kirk fight with exotic weapons in some dreamlike reality created by the Genesis Device and Khan's mental abilities? To me it seems a bit like "jumping the shark" but it might have worked

Right now I can only imagine it in a cheap way, very reminiscent of similar things in TOS, and I don't think that would have been a good thing in the context of the movie.

Exactly my feelings, on both aspects. The Wrath of Kirk wouldn't have worked half as well as Khan's did.

 

[Shatnertage]

It definitely works better with Spock's death at the end--it just wouldn't have the same impact at the beginning.

Also what are your feelings on the original script ideas to have Khan and Kirk fight with exotic weapons in some dreamlike reality created by the Genesis Device and Khan's mental abilities? To me it seems a bit like "jumping the shark" but it might have worked

Sounds a lot like episode three of The Deadly Assassin to me. I'm glad they didn't go that way.

 

[DonIago]

I tend to agree with the sentiments above, but I'll add that ultimately it's hard to say without knowing how the rest of the film actually would have progressed. Presumably the ending would have been significantly different..but I think from the moment Kirk & Co. beam up from Regula I to the end credits is one of the single best pieces of Trek...changing that just sounds -dangerous-.

 

[sbk1234]

^^^I agree. I had heard of the proposed idea of Kirk and Khan fighting and even as a kid I thought it sounded kind of lame. I'm glad they didn't do it. Although some kind of confrontation between the two could have been awesome, it would have ahd to be done correctly. I think if they had been in the same place together, Khan would have just ripped Kirk appart.

 

[DonIago]

Heck, Kirk was lucky enough to survive a one-on-one in "Space Seed".

 

[CorporalClegg]

I think having Spock killed at the beginning wouldn't have been as dramatic. Spock's death is the actual climax of the whole movie, everything leads up to it.

And had Khan killed Spock early in the movie, then I guess it would have been more like "The Wrath of Kirk" for the rest of the movie.

Also what are your feelings on the original script ideas to have Khan and Kirk fight with exotic weapons in some dreamlike reality created by the Genesis Device and Khan's mental abilities? To me it seems a bit like "jumping the shark" but it might have worked

Right now I can only imagine it in a cheap way, very reminiscent of similar things in TOS, and I don't think that would have been a good thing in the context of the movie.

Exactly my feelings, on both aspects. The Wrath of Kirk wouldn't have worked half as well as Khan's did.

Even still, the movie was supposed to Kirk v. Khan. All Kirk did during crunch time was helplessly sit on his fat ass and have Spock bail him out. Killing Spock and forcing Kirk to actually have to do something might have actually accomplished Nicky's thematic goal.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

IIRC, it was one of Sowards' earlier drafts that had Spock die earlier in the film, not a draft from Meyer.

Sir Rhosis