A Brief Guide to Star Trek (18 page)

Opening in 859 cinemas, the movie grossed $11.8 million across the opening weekend, beating the record previously set by
Superman
(1978) for the same time of year. Within a week the box office had risen to $17 million, eventually reaching a final US total of $82.25 million. The film eventually grossed $139 million worldwide and scored three Oscar nominations (for Art Direction, Visual Effects and Original Score by Jerry Goldsmith). Despite this, within Paramount the long-gestating film was considered a disappointment. The costs of the abandoned
Star Trek: Phase II
project were attached to the movie. Blame was attached to Gene Roddenberry, and while the studio decided they would like to produce a quicker and cheaper sequel film, the creator of
Star Trek
would not be involved.

For his part, Leonard Nimoy was glad he’d returned to
Star Trek
but was equally glad that the process had come to an end with the release of
The Motion Picture
. ‘I felt liberated’, he wrote in his autobiography,
I Am Spock
. ‘No longer would I have to deal with questions like “Why won’t you do
Star Trek
again? Are you sick of Spock?” The hype and expectation brought out a large audience for a short period of time – and then it was over. I felt I’d taken off the Spock ears for the last time. That, I thought, is the end of that.’

For William Shatner, writing in his book, Star Trek
Movie Memories
, he came from playing Captain Kirk again to attending the premiere believing the film ‘was gonna be nothing short of terrific. Later, watching the film with a perspective that was a bit more honest I thought to myself, “Well, that’s it. We gave it our best shot, it wasn’t good, and that’ll never happen again.” Shows you what I know.’

Director Robert Wise would get the chance to revisit
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
and finish it to his satisfaction in 2001, just four years before he died. An extended TV cut of the movie had debuted in 1983 on ABC, with twelve minutes of restored footage, but Wise had not been involved. The arrival of DVD allowed him to return to the ‘unfinished’ movie and advances in computer special effects allowed him to not only re-edit the movie but also revise and complete some of the special effects. Using the script, storyboards, studio memos and the director’s recollections, an attempt was made in this special edition to bring the film closer to the original intentions. The re-released film was 136 minutes, four minutes longer than the original 1979 release. The re-edited Director’s Cut of
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
was better paced, featuring a better balance between special effects and character drama, and was better reviewed than the original.

For all its faults,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
succeeded in a most spectacular way. It not only brought
Star Trek
back from oblivion (thus setting the scene for all the spin-off TV shows that followed), but it also launched a new series of big screen adventures for the original
Star Trek
TV crew that would run throughout the 1980s.

After the overblown
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
, the executives at Paramount knew a very different approach had to be taken for the sequel. It had to be produced quicker, cheaper and better, yet still serve what they now had box office proof for: an audience that was hungry for more
Star Trek
. The second movie would be a chance for those now creatively in control to get it right.

Paramount’s President of Production Jeffrey Katzenberg had been concerned about the race to have the first movie ready in time for its locked-in release date. He was not about to allow the same thing to happen again, so he sought out a safe pair of hands to look after the
Star Trek
movie franchise. Paramount’s Barry Diller, Michael Eisner and Katzenberg collectively
decided that Roddenberry would carry the can for the near-fiasco of
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
.

Reluctant to alienate Roddenberry completely, and worried what he might tell the
Star Trek
fan base if he was cut loose from the studio, Paramount offered the series’ creator the role of ‘executive consultant’ on the planned second movie. It was a meaningless title with next to no creative involvement, but it came with a fee attached (and a share of the box office). More importantly for Roddenberry’s not inconsiderable ego, it avoided the ignominy of him being thrown off his own creation entirely. It was not an ideal situation, but it was one Gene Roddenberry could live with if it meant the continuation of his
Star Trek
-related income.

Producer Harve Bennett was handed the
Star Trek
movie franchise, with a tight brief to bring the second film in on time, on budget and to quality. Bennett had come to Paramount from TV and had been on the lot less than a week when he was interviewed in connection with the
Star Trek
job. On graduating from film school, Bennett had been an executive at CBS and ABC before moving into television production in the late 1960s with
The Mod Squad
. Throughout the 1970s he’d produced several television series and mini-series, including
The Six Million Dollar Man
and spin-off
The Bionic Woman
;
Rich Man, Poor Man
;
The Invisible Man
and
The Gemini Man
.

Called to a meeting with Diller and Eisner, Bennett was surprised to also meet Charles Bluhdorn, head of Paramount’s owner Gulf + Western. Bluhdorn had been very unhappy with
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
, but recognised that the company had a great asset in
Star Trek
, if used well. He quizzed Bennett about his opinion of the film. Deciding to be truthful, Bennett told the assembled executives that he’d found the movie ‘boring’. Could he do better with less than the $45 million the first film had cost? Bluhdorn asked him. Without thinking, Bennett automatically responded with: ‘Yes. In fact, I could make five or six movies for that!’ He was tasked on the spot to produce the next
Star Trek
film.

One of Bennett’s first questions was about Roddenberry’s role
in the new project. The new producer was told that Roddenberry was a consultant only, someone who’d pass comment on the script and creative elements of the film, but not someone to whom Bennett would have to report. In fact, across the next decade and four movies the bulk of their creative contact would be in the form of memos rather than in person. That was enough for Bennett, who saw an opportunity to escape his television background and make the break into feature film production. There was one problem: Bennett had never seen the
Star Trek
TV show.

The producer screened all seventy-nine episodes of the ori -ginal series, both to familiarise himself with the show and to get a feel for the series – he was also on the lookout for suitable story ideas for the second film. One episode stood out for Bennett. ‘Space Seed’ starred Ricardo Montalban as a genetically enhanced villain named Khan Noonien Singh. Khan and his followers had been exiled upon a barren planet at the end of the instalment, with Kirk and Spock speculating about what might become of them. An answer to that question, and the return of the charismatic Khan, would form the basis for Bennett’s
Star Trek II
.

Bennett worked out a sequel story that brought Kirk and Spock into conflict with Khan once again – and would result in the death of the Vulcan science officer. ‘I wanted to do it suddenly’, said Bennett of the death of Spock, originally planned for an end-of-act-one surprise, like the death of Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho
(1960). He brought TV screenwriter Jack B. Sowards onto the project to draft an initial screenplay from his story, while he dealt with strong objections to the storyline from Gene Roddenberry.

Bennett was obliged to treat Roddenberry’s input in good faith. ‘I would estimate that about 20 per cent of the points that he made were included in some form in the next script draft’, recalled Bennett, although the central storyline and approach formulated by the new producer changed little. Bennett believed that the death of Spock would up the ante for the
Star Trek
film series and prove to be an irresistible draw to fans and a wider audience.

Another reason for including that story development was to
secure the participation of Leonard Nimoy one more time. The actor had made it clear that following
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
he was once more done with the series. He refused to come back for the sequel, until Bennett said to him: ‘How would you like a great death scene?’ The promised death of Spock was enough to make the actor reconsider his position and sign on to star in the new film.

The surprise plot development was leaked to wider
Star Trek
fandom (almost certainly by a disgruntled Roddenberry) and was quickly distributed through a network of fan groups and fanzines (this was, of course, long before the days of the internet when such information is communicated so much more easily and widely). As a result, Paramount faced a ‘Don’t Kill Spock’ letter-writing campaign run by
Star Trek
fans. Roddenberry seized on the outcry he had more likely than not created (after all, the producer did have form) to back up his argument that killing off such a pivotal character would be a mistake. Bennett continued to resist, arguing in favour of the drama of the scene and its consequences for the
Star Trek
universe, and concluding that he would not allow fans to dictate the dramatic development of
Star Trek
. The one concession he did make – now that the ‘secret’ plot point had leaked – was to move Spock’s death to the climax of the film.

Hired to direct was Nicholas Meyer, whose only previous directorial credit was
Time After Time
(1979), which saw H. G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) travel to modern San Francisco in pursuit of Jack the Ripper (David Warner). He would later direct the controversial nuclear holocaust TV movie
The Day After
(1983). Meyer was initially brought onto the project to write a further draft of the Bennett–Sowards screenplay (he’d started his career as a novelist, and had written a screenplay based on his own Sherlock Holmes novel,
The Seven Per Cent Solution
, made into a movie by Herbert Ross in 1977). Within twelve days Meyer delivered a reworked screenplay that was better organised dramatically and seemed to meet the needs of all the interested parties at Paramount. He was then confirmed as the director of the second
Star Trek
film.

Meyer recalled the writing process in his memoir,
The View From the Bridge
. ‘I worked, juggling the plots, subplots and characters we had all agreed on – materials first imagined in bits and pieces by five disparate authors – trying to weave them into a cohesive whole. I was not burdened by reverence for the series. I was of the opinion that
Star Trek
could stand some fixing. I made up the rules as I needed them and wrote my own dialogue. I was writing the movie I wanted to see.’

Meyer combined the action-adventure requirements of a populist
Star Trek
movie with some thoughtful themes about ageing and death. ‘This was going to be a story in which Spock died, so it was going to be a story about death, and it was only a short hop, skip, and a jump to realize that it was going to be about old age and friendship’, noted Meyer.

He confronted head-on something that those involved in
Star Trek
could all see, but were reluctant to acknowledge – the 1960s cast was beginning to visibly age, despite their various Hollywood attempts to appear timeless and unchanging. By the early 1980s, none of the original
Star Trek
cast looked the same as they had in the 1960s, and Meyer felt it important to acknowledge what would be staring movie audiences clearly in the face on giant cinema screens. He opted to make that part of the theme of the film, a driving force for various characters’ motivations and decision points. Meyer noted: ‘The second
Star Trek
movie revolves around a training cruise aboard the
Enterprise
, supervised by a reluctant Kirk, who, promoted to Admiral, is now a depressed desk jockey, brooding about his age. Thirsting for vengeance, Khan and his band (marooned by Kirk) hijack the
Reliant
and lay a trap for Kirk. The climax of the film is a ‘submarine’ battle between Kirk and his nemesis in a lightning-splattered nebula, in which Spock sacrifices his life to save his captain and the crew of the
Enterprise
.’

Complicating the thematic content of the film and heightening the dramatic stakes, Meyer gave Kirk a long-lost old flame in the form of research scientist Carol Marcus and a son – David – whose life he’d not been involved in. Both are caught up in the
machinations of Khan, and serve to remind Kirk of the kind of life he has missed through his commitment to Starfleet. These were issues that
The Original Series
had only occasionally been able to touch upon. Given the prominence of death in the movie, Meyer turned to Shakespeare for a quote to use as a title, settling on ‘The Undiscovered Country’, Hamlet’s phrase for the world beyond death.

Leonard Nimoy had been tempted back aboard the
Enterprise
by the promise of a dramatic death scene, but the ship was still without a captain, the now Admiral Kirk. William Shatner reportedly hated the screenplay, probably because a lot of the dramatic focus fell on the character he’d always seen as his side-kick, Spock (although
Star Trek
fans had long ago decided on the importance of Spock’s role to the franchise). While the screenplay contained many solid, dramatic scenes for Shatner to play, the actor was predictably uncomfortable with confronting the theme of ageing that was central to the drama.