What if the Enterprise lost her secondary hull during the events of The Wrath of Khan?

[CaptainJordan]

What would happen if the Enterprise lost her secondary hull during the events of The Wrath of Khan? What would the subsequent films be like?

 

[Maurice]

There'd be no next movie because without the secondary hull ya gots no warp drive and they'd all have been blowed up in the Genesis kaboom.

—30—

 

[publiusr]

Star Trek The Motion Picture was going to have such a scene…with V’ger releasing a Klingon ship. Too late into the film, so scrapped.

I’m thinking Wise wanted the wide saucer from one end of the wide screen to the other…a throw-back to Forbidden Planet’s end…

 

[Firebird]

Star Trek The Motion Picture was going to have such a scene…with V’ger releasing a Klingon ship. Too late into the film, so scrapped.

I’m thinking Wise wanted the wide saucer from one end of the wide screen to the other…a throw-back to Forbidden Planet’s end…

That scene was only proposed and storyboarded by Andrew Probert when Wise, Livingston, and Roddenberry were scrambling to come up with an ending to the script. It was never seriously considered beyond Probert's artwork.

 

[CaptainJordan]

There'd be no next movie because without the secondary hull ya gots no warp drive and they'd all have been blowed up in the Genesis kaboom.

—30—

No, but if there is a warp core breach due to the damaged engines being overstressed in the escape from the Genesis blast?

 

[fireproof78]

There'd be no next movie because without the secondary hull ya gots no warp drive and they'd all have been blowed up in the Genesis kaboom.

—30—

This. Limited power and no way to get away or protect itself. Bye-bye, Enterprise.

 

[publiusr]

Reliant came close to gutting that secondary hull. The neck pylon strike had me on the edge of the seat in the theater

 

[BigDaveX]

No, but if there is a warp core breach due to the damaged engines being overstressed in the escape from the Genesis blast?

Then Spock's body would have been vaporized in the explosion, seeing how there wouldn't have been the time to safely remove it from the irradiated chamber. Which would have caused more than a few problems if Leonard Nimoy decided he wanted to come back as Spock.

 

[Kor]

So to make OP's scenario happen, perhaps the Enterprise could have barely outpaced the Genesis wave, with the warp drive being damaged just enough that they had to separate the saucer and get free. Or something.
Then in TSFS Starfleet has to send another ship to evacuate them because the Enterprise saucer isn't going to get very far without warp drive. A salvage ship and crew work on getting the Enterprise saucer back to Earth.
So then Kirk and co. have to hijack a different ship to take back to the Genesis planet (or they end up hiring some privateers). They self-destruct that ship, which has nowhere near the emotional impact of self-destructing the Enterprise.

Kor

 

[Vger23]

It would be unfortunate