I think it would have for a time being. Shoot, after Enterprise ended in '05, I thought that would be the end for Trek for good, but four years later we are having another movie. Different actors, but still Trek (I hope).
Would ST Have Died If Nimoy Had Not Returned for ST3?
- Thread starter Aike
- Start date
I think it would have for a time being. Shoot, after Enterprise ended in '05, I thought that would be the end for Trek for good, but four years later we are having another movie. Different actors, but still Trek (I hope).
My understanding is that Nimoy was not going to do Phase II, so they hired another actor, David Gautreaux, to play the Spock/Data-type character of Lt. Xon.
As far as The Motion Picture, I thought it was Robert Wise (because his daughter or something was a Trek fan and said he couldn't make the film without him) who forced the issue and got Roddenberry, Nimoy and Paramount to come to terms for the movie.
You're right.
Spock would not have been in a proposed first season of Phase II at all. We can only speculate if he would have appeared as a guest star later...
Either way, it is true that he only came back to work on ST:TMP because of Robert Wise. Wise forced the issue, in part because his daughter told him Star Trek would not be the same -- or worth seeing -- without Spock.
Wise's daughter was indeed wise.
Interesting post,it hard to say whenever 3 who be a success without spock,i'm sure they would had done 1 more movie with the remaining cast and i not think nimoy who have a successful career as a director if he didnt return to direct the 3rd movie.
All this is partly true. There were two principal reasons Nimoy declined to do Phase II. One reason was that he had ongoing legal battles with Paramount at the time, with regard to his image being used for advertising purposes (like the infamous beer ads in Europe) without his permission and without recompense - this issue actually almost kept him out of The Motion Picture as well, and was something he insisted be resolved before he would even discuss the project.
The other reason, according to Nimoy's I Am Spock, was that the deal he was offered to do Phase II was to appear in only two or three out of every thirteen episodes - they never even asked him to be a regular cast member. On the basis that he felt they weren't really interested in his involvement, he turned them down.
It always seemed to me that during The Wrath of Khan Bennett and Meyer were planning on moving on without Nimoy. Here's my thoughts:
They had David Marcus, Kirk's new-found son, to fill the personal void left by Spock and also serve as a quasi-science officer on the ship. They also seemed to be playing up a possible relationship between David and Saavik, the new half Vulcan/half something not Vulcan character. Both injected youth into the franchise as well. (And I always thought there might be more to Saavik, that she was Spock's daughter from 'Enterprise Incident'. Who knows...)
But when Paramount changed the ending of TWOK, and Nimoy pushed to direct TSFS (plus a lot of fan reaction about Spock's death and possible return), it seems they abandoned any post-TWOK concepts they had and instead lfocused on bringing Spock back to life.
They had David Marcus, Kirk's new-found son, to fill the personal void left by Spock and also serve as a quasi-science officer on the ship. They also seemed to be playing up a possible relationship between David and Saavik, the new half Vulcan/half something not Vulcan character. Both injected youth into the franchise as well. (And I always thought there might be more to Saavik, that she was Spock's daughter from 'Enterprise Incident'. Who knows...)
But when Paramount changed the ending of TWOK, and Nimoy pushed to direct TSFS (plus a lot of fan reaction about Spock's death and possible return), it seems they abandoned any post-TWOK concepts they had and instead lfocused on bringing Spock back to life.
Agreed fully. I may be stoned as a heretic for saying it, but in some ways I wish they'd have left Spock dead. Just make Sulu first officer, Saavik navigator, and let David get a field commission or something so he can be science officer.
Not to mention my rather obvious personal fondness for David and Saavik, but also I absolutely hate the return to the TOS status quo at the end of TVH. These people are frikkin 50 and all still in the same place they were twenty years ago? It makes no damn dramatic sense.
Incidently, I also long thought Spock was Saavik's father with the Commander. The age might have been a bit off, but all the alien kids in Trek seem to age fast anyway. Imagine the subsequent ickiness I felt when I realized just what was going on with her and Spock on the Genesis planet in TSFS, so I pushed that one aside. It would have been more compelling that way though, IMO.
I still don't understand why a blank slate Vulcan would undergo pon farr anyway. Prior to that it might have been easier to just assume the pon farr was a sort of 'pressure valve' that resulted from bottling up all those emotions, not a biological function.
This post has made me hate Leonard Nimoy a little.
Sounds to me like he's changed his story. I distinctly recall him using his stint in the stage production of Equus as his reason for not wanting to be in PII.
Everything I have ever read (and it's a LOT) on this subject has said Nimoy "wasn't available".
Yes, I am also familiar with the legal wrangling, but that came out after the "Equus eq-scuse".
Whatever. It still doesn't change the fact that Robert Wise was instrumental in resolving whatever differences there were between Paramount and Nimoy.
Of course only Nimoy knows how the events unfolded. My memory and that of other fans can become clouded over time...and confused with several different accounts of what alledgedly transpired.
Got to agree with you there, except the hating Nimoy bit. Business is business, and I'm not sad with what did turn out. I just wonder some times what would have been if circumstances were different.
One unexplored plotline from TSFS was the "relationship" between Saavik and young Spock during pon farr. I remember hearing Robin Curtis wasn't available for TVH because she was pregnant. But I also remember reading fan specualtion that perhaps Saavik stayed on Vulcan because she was pregnant with Spock's child. I guess one could be just as mad at Shatner for not exploring that in Trek 5.
Then you heard a false rumour. She was in ST IV.
The line in the ST IV script had Kirk understanding Saavik's decision to stay on Vulcan "in your condition", leaving the possible plot thread for future movies that Saavik was carrying Spock's child.
When Kim Cattrall refused to be Saavik #3, and wanted to create an all-new Vulcan character, the writers toyed with having Valeris be a rapidly aged daughter of Spock & Saavik.
Kirstie Alley's Saavik was not ever meant to be a daughter of the female Romulan Commander and Spock. That came from fan speculation, and numerous fanzines.
Yeah thanks.
What I MEANT was she wasn't available for the whole movie shoot because she was pregnant - just the cameo appearance.
Nimoy was hardly in TSFS anyway. Except for the last scene. The rest of the cast did just fine without him. And it gave Scotty, Chekov, and Sulu some more lines than usual. I think they would have continued the TOS movies without Nimoy if he didn't come back.
Yeah thanks.
What I MEANT was she wasn't available for the whole movie shoot because she was pregnant - just the cameo appearance.
No need for the eye rolling. It was still a false rumor. Robin Curtis was not pregnant but, as scripted, her character was. (Not many films shoot for longer than three months, and sequences aren't shot in order. If the script requires a character throughout, then shooting around a pregnant actress, even at the latter stages, is quite simply done. That's what closeups, props and stand-ins are for.)
Harve Bennett was once interviewed about ST IV and he said they simply couldn't find Saavik anything interesting to do. Had she remained on the Klingon ship, her Vulcan brain would have been covering for Spock, so the risky time travel computations would be less dangerous and less funny. Once they reached San Francisco she'd either be stuck minding the invisible ship, or she'd be yet another pair of pointed ears to hide, again diminishing the comedy of Spock's "fish out of water" routine.
I understand that the SPFX people had made a Saavik head for that weird, morphing time travel sequence.
Yeah thanks.
What I MEANT was she wasn't available for the whole movie shoot because she was pregnant - just the cameo appearance.
No need for the eye rolling. It was still a false rumor. Robin Curtis was not pregnant but, as scripted, her character was. (Not many films shoot for longer than three months, and sequences aren't shot in order. If the script requires a character throughout, then shooting around a pregnant actress, even at the latter stages, is quite simply done. That's what closeups, props and stand-ins are for.)
Harve Bennett was once interviewed about ST IV and he said they simply couldn't find Saavik anything interesting to do. Had she remained on the Klingon ship, her Vulcan brain would have been covering for Spock, so the risky time travel computations would be less dangerous and less funny. Once they reached San Francisco she'd either be stuck minding the invisible ship, or she'd be yet another pair of pointed ears to hide, again diminishing the comedy of Spock's "fish out of water" routine.
I understand that the SPFX people had made a Saavik head for that weird, morphing time travel sequence.
I don't care what anyone says Kirsty alley was a sexier Savvik than Curtis...
When she took off the jacket when they were beamed up by spock from regulus ater the coded message sequence she has some NICE HOOTERS!Its too bad she got too big for herself in ego and wanted too much money.
Robin Curtis, I noted just didn't fit the part well enough, and barely sqweeked by... She also has a bigger caboose than Alley did.
Just observations.
Nathaniel
She didn't. Paramount offered her agent less money than she received for ST II. Her agent counter-offered with an amount equal to Shatner's salary, expecting Paramount to counter the counter offer with a happy medium. Normal Hollywood practice. What wasn't normal was that Paramount never counter offered, but now that their contractual agreement was resolved, they went off to recast.
Since ST II was her first acting role in Hollywood, Kirstie Alley was probably sensible to do the next thing her agent was offered for her: a play - the lead in "A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", IIRC. It prevented her getting keyholed as a sci-fi actress.
Similar threads
