They could only produce 1 trailer. Buzz in fandom was that Spock was going to die and none of us wanted to see that happen. Remember in those days there was no internet so none of us could protest this move.
You seem to remember this differently. Fans did indeed "protest this move": with a trade ad in the showbiz paper, "Variety", claiming that Paramount would lose millions in film receipts and tie-in merchandise. That ad got coverage in the "Wall Street Journal" and "Starlog".
Paramount began denying the Spock will die rumor.
But did they? No, they just put out vague comments, the same kind of vague comments every ST film has put out before a film premieres. Show me
one claim by Paramount that Spock would not die.
What Nick Meyer and Harve Bennett did, though, was
retool the script with a red herring - so that Spock (and McCoy, Sulu
and Uhura) appear to die - and then Kirk steps out to joke with Spock about his "death". Originally, Spock was slated
actually to die midway through the movie, rather like the way Yar was killed off in TNG.
But as usual the Trek fan base is alive and active and word spread that Paramount was lying
No, that's
not how it unfolded. Susan Sackett, acting on instruction by Gene Roddenberry, who'd had his control over ST stripped away, made an announcement that Spock would die in ST II at a major London "Star Trek" convention. Paramount attempted to deflect, but only to preserve their script surprises.
(I believe this to be the beginning of most Trek fans hating Paramount).
Huh? Since when do "most Trek fans" hate Paramount?
Long before ST II, Lincoln Enterprises were selling jokey bumper stickers about Paramount executives being Klingons, but that dates back to the fan-made stickers that were distributed when Bjo Trimble was conducting the "Save Star Trek" campaign that saved the show at the end of Season Two of TOS. If anything, that campaign was aimed at NBC as much as Paramount (which had recently bought out Desilu).
Paramount again reitorated that Spock will not die...
No, they didn't.
but by that time nobody believed them.
Rumor control is a normal function of filmmaking.
That had to make that trailer as vague as possible because they were at risk of ticking off the entire fan base.
The "entire fan base" you mention is/was
less than ten percent of the viewing audience. And the "Save Spock" Campaign's calculations were way off. There was
not a massive black ban by fans of the movie and its tie-ins.
If Spock was going to die...well, none of us wanted to see that!
None of who? The Bring Back Spock Campaigners, perhaps.
The rest of us, and general movie audiences, were keen to see a good movie and respectful of Nimoy's desire to distance himself from the Spock role.
They needed us to come. They needed to re-invigorate the property.
No, they didn't. TMP had already proven it could make a huge profit. It's main problem was that it had cost so much money to make that profit. ST II was intended to ensure that ST movies could be cost effective.
That and...Paramount let it slip that there will be a next movie and Spock will be once again alive.
Not until Nimoy attended the wrap party of ST II and suggested to Paramount that he'd consider returning... if he could also direct.
The original jokey title, "In Search of Spock", was coined by the media spin, in a parody of Nimoy's "In Search of..." TV documentary series, and the
actual script treatment was called "Return to Genesis" and did not necessarily require Nimoy to return Spock as a regular cast member. In fact, even the final script did not require Nimoy himself to play Spock.
