What's the deal with Saavik?

Revenge was changed ridiculously late in the day, and I thought it was because George decided Jedi wouldn’t do vengeance.

Edit. Ninjas. Or more accurately I read threads backwards.

 

I wonder if the stuff about Cochranes bipolar implant were in the script for First Contact.

 

It would have been interesting if they had cast Linda Hamilton for Saavik in TWOK and kept her all the way through TUC. Her twin sister Leslie could also have been hired for TUC for some fascinating alternatives for that story.

 

Agreed. TUC's "A lie? / An omission," "A lie? / An error," and "A lie? / A choice" exchanges between Valeris and Spock are clear callbacks to the "You lied. / I exaggerated" exchange between Saavik and Spock in TWOK.

And yeah, if it had been Saavik betraying Spock, we really wouldn't have seen it coming, especially if Kirstie Alley returned to the role. As it turned out, the resulting mystery was rather easy to guess, since it was the brand new crewman who turned out to be the guilty party.

Saavik, BTW, started as a male Vulcan character in one of the pre-Meyer STII scripts. He was referred to as "Savik," which follows the TOS naming convention for male Vulcans (five letters, beginning w "S" and ending with "K.") If they'd planned the character as female from the start, they may very well have gone with T'-something.

Meyer did not choose either the "Vengeance" or "Wrath" titles, and is on record as having thought they were stupid. The titles were selected by a studio exec hadn't seen any of the still-in-progress film, and Meyer didn't find out about them until after the fact. But yes, "Revenge of the Jedi" coming out soon was one of the reasons that Meyer objected to the "Vengeance of Khan" title, but by no means the only reason.

 

Yes, how obvious was it that Saavik is a male Vulcan name and that T' something is a female! A bit like how all Klingons pre TNG and DS9 all had names beginning with K! Except the women like Mara! Does that mean then by comparison that Martok was originally meant to be a woman?
JB

 

Maltz and Valkris from The Search for Spock beg to differ.

 

Human errors, haste, inattention, and hearing things wrong, like what happened at Ellis Island....where there were spelling errors, letters omitted that caused shortening of names, and where a family might get marked down as having the same last name as the family ahead of them in line, etc.

The names were originally Kamaltz and Malkris.

 

I like that! Kamaltz and Malkris! Shame that the writers didn't do their homework on Vulcan and Klingon names! Ooops!
JB

 

The one responsible had a wonky pen that was running out of ink and the next one in the process didn't know about it. The K-a was completely illegible and the sides of the M were too faint, making it into a V.

So, it was a complete accident.

This is 'headcanon' at its finest!



***Hey, this type of thing is not completely without precedent. There was an old Donald Duck comic book in which a package of invisibility fluid was addressed to a scientist, but drops of the fluid got spilled on the label and altered it to Donald's name and address. When he received the package....it caused some problems.

 

Just to play Devil's Advocate, we had a very small sample size of both Vulcan and Klingon names at the time TWOK and TSFS were made. Off the top of my head, we were only given the names of four male Vulcans in TOS and TMP (Spock, Sarek, Stonn, and Sonak) and two females (T'Pring and T'Pau). With Klingons, we'd gotten Kor, Koloth, Korax, Kras (unnamed in the episode, I think?), the unnamed Klingon in "A Private Little War," Kang, and Kahless. And I'm pretty sure that Mara was the only Klingon female we saw until Valkris in TSFS. So hardly enough to make assumptions about the whole planet.

If the only people you'd ever met from Earth were named Robert, Roger, Ronald, and Rex, you might assume that people from Earth only had names that began with "R," but you'd be wrong there.

 

Krell (unused in the episode)

 

Thank you. I'd forgotten that, obviously.

 

Good questioning, Johnny! I like it! But I think I'd still prefer all my Klingons with a K!
JB

 

John M. Ford had a cool concept in The Final Reflection that Klingon males added a "K" to the front of their names once they'd reached a certain age or maturity. So the main protagonist went from "Vrenn" to "Krenn" mid-book.

 

Haven't read that since it first came out, but I do remember that it's one of Pocket's best.

 

I didn't think it was the only reason.

 

It would have been okay in the end as Lucas changed his movie to Return of The Jedi anyway!
JB

 

re TWOK title change, coincidently have been rereading some old Official Fan Club magazines around the VI/25th anniversary period and in one theres an interview with Meyer and hes asked about the title. just what we already know really - he states the original Trek II title was TUC. then he learned from his secretary itd been changed to Vengeance of Khan and he was angry and called up a Paramount executive and was told it had been changed as it was a more exciting title and meyer was like 'it sounds like a B movie title' and that in any case Lucas had recently revealed the title for SW III 'Revenge of the Jedi' and there was no way hed let them use TVOK..then he said sure enough before he changed it to 'Return' Lucas got in touch and was 'hey I don't want you to use this title'' so Paramount changed it at the last minute to Wrath which he thought was even worse!..then of course when he came on board VI he used TUC as it was as 'applicable to VI as it was for II' albeit in a slightly different context. and thought it was a great title for a SciFi movie and a 'flowing, romantic, mysterious title' (which it was, I remember thinking at the time how strange and mysterious it sounded.. i knew there was the Hamlet connection probably from having read various interviews like this one but didn't study Hamlet until a couple of years later)

 

re Valeris as Saavik. in another Official Fan Club mag for VI theres an interview with Cattrall and she states she was offered VI as Saavik which she wasn't interested in as itd be the 3rd interpretation but said Meyer was 'relentless' in wanting her to do the film so she said she would if the name changed. Meyer agreed and she chose Eris, the godess of strife as a nod to the various Zen, Buddhist, Greek cultures that she felt the vulcan society was based to which meyer added a 'Val' to make it more Vulcan (guess 'Saeris' wouldnt have sounded right ). Also she wanted a look similar to Nimoy and different to Alley/Curtis and wanted a more 'warrior/revolutionary' look and worked with a friend whod previously started the rock band Devo to come up with the Valeris look and she dyed her hair jet black and shaved the sides and also gave it a retro 60s look like Nimoy had. The interviewer then says thats quite unusual that an actor is given the freedom to choose the name and look of their character which is usually determined by others in the production and she states she wanted to make the role her own and to look cool! I remember a few years after having seen VI in 91/92 finding out that it was the same actress who was in Big Trouble in Little China and Police Academy and Mannequin and thinking wow totally didnt realize it was her in VI as she looked COMPLETLY different literally like another person altogether. So much so maybe she even kind of gets forgotten abit unlike say Alley.. like 'Kim Cattrall was in a Trek movie? Really? which one? Thats her!?' (which sort of happened when she was on Graham Norton with Cumberbatch when he was promoting STID and it came up shed been in a previous Trek movie and they showed a photo of her) Wonder if Meyer expected her something more approaching her 'Big Trouble' long hair look as the character? and more inline with Alley. But obviously allowed her to change the name and do her own look as he wanted her to be in the movie (apparently Catrall was his original choice for saavik for II anyway.)

other stuff of interest in the interview when she got the role she told her mom who was thrilled but thought it was for TNG as she was a huge fan and was abit deflated when she said it was for a movie with the original cast but knew it was a much bigger deal but was still like 'no do TNG instead!' so she asked Brent Spiner who shed become friends with for a signed photo for her mom and then sent it to her and she framed it lol

 

It's fascinating to see the way movie makers are sometimes forced to adapt to changing real life circumstances.

Another reason why Saavik being in VI would've been cool is it would give her a greater reason for her actions: she too wishes to avenge David's death, in a way, having been there and literally seen with her own eyes the Klingons murder him.