by Edward Gross
While production on the film went relatively smoothly, the relationship between old college friends Robert Sallin and Harve Bennett was becoming more acrimonious, much of it stemming from the fact that Sallin was being credited as producer while Bennett had the title executive producer. On television, executive producers were considered a show’s guiding force, but on film, it’s a far less prestigious title usually reserved for financiers, line producers, and executives and not the actual filmmakers.
ROBERT SALLIN
Harve was incensed that I was credited as producer, and I said, “That’s because I’m producing. That’s what you hired me for and that’s the job I’m doing.” His idea was that everybody worked for him and he was the guiding genius behind this film, and he just wasn’t.
After production wrapped, I was called up to a meeting with Gary Nardino and he said, “We’d like you to stay on and produce more Star Trek pictures.” I said, “What about Harve?” and they said, “We want him doing television.” Precise words. I wanted to think about it, but I came back and said, “I can’t. No matter how much of a disagreement I have with Harve, I cannot do that to someone who gave me this opportunity.” So I walked away. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake. When you’re on a major lot in Hollywood, it’s quite a power base. Again, I didn’t understand how the game was played. I thought it was all about making films. It’s about making deals.
The film opened on June 4, 1982, and was an immediate smash. In response, the studio’s president of distribution, Frank Mancuso, sent a Western Union telegram to the principals to congratulate them on their success: “This weekend ST: TWK set motion picture history. ST 2 grossed $14,347,221 in 1,621 theatres, making it the biggest 3 day opening in motion picture history. I wanted to share this information with you and thank you for all your cooperation which allowed us to make history together.”
MANNY COTO (executive producer, Star Trek: Enterprise)
I totally loved Khan, but I was skeptical at first. When I heard it was going to be Ricardo Montalban returning as Khan, I was like, “Really? From Fantasy Island?” It was kind of a joke. But of course, that immediately faded away the minute he appeared on-screen. It was one of the greatest introductions of all time.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
You piss off any given fan of any given show, they will scream, rant, and rave, but they won’t boycott it. They’ll go see it because they can’t believe you’re actually doing it. When I was sitting in the first showing in Westwood and Leonard’s chair goes empty, oh my God. There was a woman in the back who went, “Oh my God, they’re doing it! They’re doing it.” They are screaming at the screen. It was beautiful. It was fabulous. It was great.
WALTER KOENIG
If you can point to one single element that makes this film successful, it is the presence of a formidable, worthy antagonist. You can’t have conflict unless you have something to butt up against. V’ger was more like something you were in awe of. Ricardo Montalban, on the other hand, did a wonderful job with the character of Khan. Not only is he a presence in terms of villainy, but he’s also a character of depth. Even when you hate him, you feel a certain sympathy toward him. That, to me, is extraordinary. Nick Meyer was quoted as saying that he wanted to direct Montalban in King Lear and I can believe it.
LEONARD NIMOY
In doing [Star Trek: The Motion Picture], somebody, somewhere decided that if we’re going to do a motion picture, it must be different than what we did on TV, so we must now start to work out the differences. We’ll change the color of the bridge, the wardrobe, the attitudes of the characters. It seemed to me that somebody was watching 2001 a lot, and getting into a cerebral, futuristic trip rather than an adventure romp, which is what Star Trek is built on. Maybe it’s because they felt that people would not pay to see in the theater what they had seen on TV, that they would want something different. My opinion is that if we can do the best Star Trek episode ever done, well produced and well acted, and put it on the big screen, it will work. What happened on Star Trek II is that our perspective of what Star Trek is really supposed to be has been verified. The audience has said, “Yes, that’s right.”
GEORGE TAKEI
In The Wrath of Khan we have genuine drama because of the confrontation of two strong, cunning, inventive adversaries who are driven to an inevitable collision. You know that they are not going to avoid each other, that there is going to be some dramatic confrontation. Ricardo Montalban is an awesomely well-suited adversary for Kirk.
DeFOREST KELLEY
In my mind, there’s no comparison [between the first two films]. It’s not easy to convince the studio that, as successful as Star Trek was, the fans nevertheless had a deep feeling about the characters, and that you can’t ignore it. In my opinion, that was the mistake that was made with the first film, ignoring the relationships that were so popular in the TV series.
JAMES DOOHAN
To me, this movie is Star Trek the way it should be. The first one was just some grandiose idea that somebody had. There is gorgeous action going on at all times. The characters all have some great things to say. It’s a beautiful blend of all of the good things that were in all of the good shows that we had in the series.
EDDIE EGAN
It was a very interesting experience working on that film in terms of just knowing these people personally that I had seen on the screen for so many years. And seeing Paramount itself just being so buoyant about it. Moviemaking is hard work and a lot of it is boring, but there was a lot of camaraderie on the set and everyone just seemed to have a sense that what they were doing could result in something really meaningful in terms of the legacy of Star Trek and, more optimistically, for the future of Star Trek.
ROBERT SALLIN
For all of the problems we had with Nick, he was a first-rate writer. It was his pulling together the dangling components. He shaped it, he did the whole thing in like ten or twelve days. He just took it and did it and I praise him for it. If we hadn’t stumbled onto him, I don’t know what we would have done.
NICHOLAS MEYER
A lot of people said Star Trek II was such a terrific movie and had a lot of unkind things to say about Star Trek I, but I don’t think they realize that Star Trek II wouldn’t have been so good if someone hadn’t gone boldly where no one had gone before and showed us, in effect, what not to do when it was really important. It’s damn hard work to make those movies and I’m not going to look down my nose at any of them.
IN SEARCH OF
“THE WORD IS NO.… I AM THEREFORE GOING ANYWAY.”
Whereas, given its cost, a sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture was questionable for some time after its release, there was no such hesitation in the aftermath of The Wrath of Khan. A critical and commercial success that was far more profitable than its predecessor due to its significantly lower budget, Paramount gave Harve Bennett the green light for a third film the day after it opened.
But somewhere around that time—and in recognition of the success and power of the Khan character—an unrealized prequel, and heretofore unknown spin-off, was briefly put into development.
EDDIE EGAN (unit publicist, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
A spin-off was being pursued and a script was written. It was called Star Trek: Prison Planet, and it was to deal with what happened after the Botany Bay crashed on Ceti Alpha V, and before the Reliant got there in The Wrath of Khan. It was completely designed as a vehicle for Ricardo Montalban, and it was supervised by Harve. But then the decision was made to focus exclusively on Star Trek III instead.
By September 16, 1982, Bennett turned in his initial story line for the film, titled Return to Genesis. Although differing quite markedly from the film that would ultimately result from it (Romulans as villains instead of Klingons, Saavik confessing her love for Kirk, Sulu masterminding the stealing of the Enterprise to save Spock while Kirk was under house arrest, Spock being discovered as a primitive Neanderthal on the Genesis Planet), there were elem
ents that would remain until the end (Kirk scuttling his starship to take out the enemy, the stealing of the Enterprise to mount a rescue mission of Spock on Genesis, with now Kirk instead of Sulu leading the effort). The rapidly aging Spock mirroring the unstable planet (an idea originally suggested by Gene Roddenberry’s secretary, Susan Sackett), the return of Spock’s katra from McCoy’s mind to his body via a Vulcan ceremony, Saavik and David on the Genesis Planet, and the Klingon Kruge are all elements which would be introduced later.
EDDIE EGAN
There was a version of the story that had a very prominent role for Spock’s brother, who somehow ended up on the Enterprise and is part of the voyage back to Vulcan to bring Spock’s body back. That was eventually dropped, but I don’t know whether that actually led later to the character of Sybok in Star Trek V, but he was certainly a big part of the script in the earliest versions.
HARVE BENNETT (producer-writer, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
I had to make a story out of the following “givens.” One, there is a casket on a planet that has been created by the reformation of life forces, and life has been created from death. Two, “There are always possibilities.” Three, before he died, Spock said, “Remember.” Remember what? The puzzle was solved so easily that I think seventeen other people could have written the script to Star Trek III.
If you end a film with a Genesis Device that can, in one poof create life where there was lifelessness, you have created an enormous story device that cannot be ignored. Now, the fans would be justified in saying, “Well, why not just create a planet as a plot solution?” Or, “What would happen if the Klingons got hold of this? They wouldn’t use it to make a planet, they would destroy a planet.”
Therefore, the final puzzle solving was the denial of the validity of the Genesis Device. That was—as “the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away”—necessary or we would have expanded the borders of Star Trek, even subliminally, that it would have had the same impact the A-bomb had on the twentieth century, so as to make conventional things no longer viable. That’s fine, but who needs to restructure Star Trek on that basis?
WILLIAM SHATNER (actor, “James T. Kirk”)
An accident happened on Star Trek II. Maybe it wasn’t an accident if you don’t believe in accidents. But it was really very strange. We were getting ready to do the death scene of Spock. This wasn’t scripted, but Leonard put his hand on DeForest’s head and he was looking for something mysterious to do. For some reason, in this last scene, Leonard said, “Remember.” It was very mysterious. It was meaningful to somebody in Star Trek, but we didn’t know what it meant. And that was the end. Spock was dead and the question was, Will there be a Star Trek III and how could you do it without Spock? But that was a whole other question. As far as everyone was concerned at that time, Spock was dead.
HARVE BENNETT
It would have been very easy to say at the conclusion of Star Trek II that all the things we had done to modify that film’s ending to be ambiguous about the death of Spock were carefully designed and that the plot for Star Trek III was already in my mind. Not true. All of that, like most decisions I have ever made, are done in a flurry of intuition and sometimes pressure of time.
LEONARD NIMOY (actor/director, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
It was obvious that there was some kind of ticking clock going on in McCoy’s mind that might be explored later. What is McCoy carrying around in his head that he may not even know about consciously yet that may spring to life later and be a factor in the new movie? Could you imagine what would happen if Kirk had any reason whatsoever, if he were given reason to believe or hope there might be a way to get Spock back? To save him or help him? He would be obsessed, wouldn’t he?
HARVE BENNETT
Somewhere along the line I read a fan poem in one of the hundreds of fan magazines about Star Trek. It was first-person Kirk. It said, “I left you there. Why did I do that? I must come back to you, my friend.” I thought, “That’s it!” I suddenly had a thrust. It got a lot easier from that point.
Behind the scenes, there were a number of changes between films. Producer Robert Sallin, following his falling-out with Bennett, departed. Ralph Winter, a producer working for the studio in postproduction who had been enormously helpful on the previous film, joined the team as associate producer, and Harve Bennett chose to serve as both sole writer and producer of the film.
RALPH WINTER (associate producer, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)
I was working on the second movie as an executive. I worked for Paramount in postproduction. Because I had familiarity with computer graphics and computer science from my years at Caltech, I was attracted to it and no one else cared about it. What happened was I helped Harve Bennett with some other projects, cutting trailers for him, doing some work on the side. Sallin was the producer, Harve was the executive producer on Star Trek II, and we created a relationship, and he said, “Why don’t you leave Paramount and come work for me because I’ve got Star Trek, I’ve got The Powers of Matthew Star and A Woman Called Golda.” So I went and joined Harve’s staff and I was the associate producer on Star Trek III.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN (assistant to Harve Bennett and Bob Sallin)
I really didn’t enjoy working with Ralph Winter the way I enjoyed working with Bob Sallin. I was much less invested. Sallin and Harve had a huge falling-out which was kind of painful to watch. When the movie started, there was only four of us in the office. It was like a suite of offices, and Bob and Harve were constantly going back and forth. It was great in the beginning, but somewhere toward the end those doors closed and did not reopen. It was extremely uncomfortable. It certainly wasn’t because Bob wasn’t doing a great job—he did a spectacular job. It is hard for me to imagine a friendship of that many years coming to an end like that.
SUSAN SACKETT (assistant to Gene Roddenberry)
Harve did a lot of things that annoyed Gene, so I wasn’t crazy about that because I didn’t want to see him hurting Gene, but I thought he was very good at what he did. He knew how to get things done, but I never trusted him too much. He finally gave me credit for the Genesis revival of Spock, where he begins to regenerate after he’s dead on the Genesis Planet and comes back to life as an infant, which was my idea.
The primary inducement for convincing Leonard Nimoy to reprise his role as Spock in The Wrath of Khan was the death of his character in the film. The question for the next entry was whether the actor would be willing to reprise the character yet again. His answer, naturally enough, would become the catalyst for the third film—driven home by the fact that director Nicholas Meyer would not be returning to the franchise at that juncture.
NICHOLAS MEYER (director, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
I didn’t know how to do resurrections. I thought Spock should be dead. And I thought it’d be unfair to the fans—like we were fucking with them.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
The notion of the third one became very real when Leonard came into the office one day and said, “I had such a good time on this, let’s do another one.” And it’s like, “But you’re dead…”
LEONARD NIMOY
When Spock died in the end of Star Trek II and the studio started talking about a resurrection—for lack of a better word—they called me and asked if there was anything I would like to do at the studio, adding, “We would like you to be involved in the making of Star Trek III.” Meaning that they wanted me to act in the picture. I said I wanted to direct. The reaction was very good. They put me through the coals later to test my commitment and sincerity. I felt that it was time I stopped fooling around with directing and really got serious about it.
DAVID GERROLD (writer, “The Trouble with Tribbles”)
Leonard had wanted off Trek. He did not want to do Star Trek II, did not want to do the first film. It wasn’t just a negotiating ploy. He truly wanted to put Spock behind him. He finally got smart and said, “I can’t put Spock behind me, so I will use Spock to e
levate my career elsewhere.” Leonard Nimoy is no dummy.
LEONARD NIMOY
I had been directing for a very long time, I started directing theater in the fifties and films in the seventies. I didn’t pursue it simply because I was having too good a time as an actor. I had wanted to direct Star Trek from the time we started doing the series. Bill Shatner and I both did. We were not allowed to. It’s just as simple as that. We were refused the opportunity. But the idea of directing is something I had been dealing with for some time, although not prominently.
While Nimoy was directing plays in the early sixties, Gene Roddenberry secured him a set visit to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to audit the directing of the series. MGM executive David Victor offered prophetically in a letter at the time, “I hope someday he will be a very successful director.” In fact, had Star Trek survived to a fourth season, it’s likely Nimoy would have helmed an episode, following in the footsteps of his costar William Shatner who was going to direct a third-season episode, “The Joy Machine,” when the network order was truncated. Subsequently, Nimoy did direct several episodes of episodic television, including episodes of Night Gallery, T.J. Hooker, and The Powers of Matthew Star.
LEONARD NIMOY
For many years my concern had been to try to build a career outside of Star Trek so that it wasn’t that single straight line of only Trek-oriented work. So there was nothing for us to discuss. I said to Gary Nardino—I was being arrogant—with all due respect to Bob Wise, who directed the first picture, a top-notch filmmaker; and all due respect to Nick Meyer, an extremely talented writer-director who directed Trek II, I know more about Star Trek than either of them and I said I could direct Star Trek III successfully. When I first presented the idea of my directing to Paramount, the response was very good—but there were certain trepidations. We had to talk them through.
