MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Gene Roddenberry saved Lt. Saavik from being revealed as one of the villains in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
A few days ago, I did a Movie Legends Revealed about how Lt. Saavik was written out of the Star Trek film franchise in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I noted that Harve Bennett planned to have her written out by having it revealed that she was pregnant with the child of Spock due to their off-screen Pon Farr mating in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Ultimately, though, Leonard Nimoy was uncomfortable with the idea, so Saavik was written out by simply having the rest of the USS Enterprise crew deciding that they did not want her to have to face the consequences of the crew stealing the Enterprise in Star Trek III, so Saavik remained on Vulcan with Spock's family (and thus avoided traveling through time with the others to 1986 Earth in an attempt to save the Earth of the future from an alien probe looking to make contact with the long-extinct sperm whales).
However, that was not always going to be the end of Saavik's time on in the Star Trek film world. Originally, she was going to return in the farewell film of the original Star Trek crew in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but the big twist was that she would turn out to be a VILLAIN! There are some legends out there about how Saavik was saved from being the villain (and instead replaced by ANOTHER Vulcan protégé of Spock's named Lt. Valeris, played by Kim Cattrall). So let's get into it!
WAS SAAVIK ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE THE VILLAIN OF STAR TREK VI?
Leonard Nimoy was hired to come up with the story for Star Trek VI after Harve Bennett, who had worked on the past two Star Trek films (the previous one, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, saw Bennett work on the story with William Shatner, who directed the film after Nimoy had directed the previous two films. The film proved to be a financial disappointment), had his ideas for the film rejected as not being in line with what Paramount Studios wanted and so after Nimoy had trouble himself coming up with an acceptable plot (he was aided by writers Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner), Nimoy ultimately turned to Nicholas Meyer, who had famously "saved" the Star Trek franchise with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (and who had co-wirtten Star Trek IV). Meyer also had trouble formulating an idea for the film until he centered on the idea of doing the Star Trek version of the Berlin Wall coming down. The Klingons had always represented the Soviet Union, and so this film would be about the fall of the Klingon Empire and a new era of peace.
However, with any sort of truce like this, there will be parties involved who do not want the peace to occur and so there were a number of members of both Starfleet and the Klingons (and other Federation planets) who would embark on a conspiracy to derail the peace talks for their own purposes. Well, originally, one of the members of the conspiracy was going to be Lt. Saavik (this was after Rosenthal revealed in The Making of the Trek Films that he had initially proposed a plotline where Saavik and Kirk would have a romance, ending the franchise with Saavik giving birth to a half-human/half-Vulcan child. That later developed into a Saavik/Spock romance before that, too, was dropped).
DID GENE RODDENBERRY SAVED SAAVIK FROM HER PROPOSED HEEL TURN?
Naturally, revealing that Saavik, probably the most popular new addition to the Star Trek film franchise, was a villain was a controversial decision. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who was in poor health at the time and actually died a little over a month before Star Trek VI premiered, specifically objected to the idea, arguing that Saavik was now too beloved of a character to have her turn out to be a villain. He voiced his concerns to Meyer and their initial meeting was so contentious that Meyer stormed off within five minutes. They had another, less contentious, meeting, but Meyer wasn't hiding his disapproval for Roddenberry's views. He told Cinefantastique the following damning quote about the conflict, "I wrote the character of Saavik in STAR TREK II. That wasn't a Gene Roddenberry character. If he doesn't like what I'm doing, maybe he should give the money he's [making off my films] back. Then maybe I'll care what he has to say."
Daaaaaang, Meyer! Tell us how you REALLY feel!
Meanwhile, though, the problem was that Meyer did not like Robin Curtis, the second actor to play Saavik, in the role, especially not for this juicier part in Star Trek VI. He wanted to bring Kirstie Alley, the original actor in the role, back as Saavik, but Alley, by this time, was a major TV star on Cheers and a burgeoning movie star, as well, with the Look Who's Talking film franchise, so her salary demands proved to be too high. Ultimately, it was determined that recasting Saavik a THIRD time would be ridiculous, so Valeris was invented, instead. Thus, it had nothing to do with Roddenberry's objections. In fact, Meyer noted his regrets in his autobiography, View From the Bridge, "[Saavik's] backstory from the other films would have made this especially poignant [...] In an ideal world Valeris should have been the stalwart Saavik, a character we had already come to love. And trust. This would have sharpened the pain of her betrayal."
The legend is...
STATUS: False
CBR's own Rob Voux did a nice piece about why Saavik wasn't in Star Trek VI. If it wasn't for the Roddenberry angle (and that awesome Meyer quote), I wouldn't have even bothered to cover this one, but I found the Roddenberry angle come up enough that I felt it was worth covering. My pal Alan also asked me to do this follow-up, but luckily I was already planning on it!
Be sure to check out my archive of Movie Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film. Click here for more legends specifically about Star Trek.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.