[Gates McFadden] On the eve of the '80s,
a decade after cancellation, Star Trek was back.
The motion picture had successfully relaunched the franchise,
taking more than three times its budget at the box office.
I could never believe that.
[McFadden] Well, despite earning $139 million worldwide...
[cash register dings]
...a sequel to the original motion picture was anything but a certainty.
So beam aboard and hold on tight
as we boldly go into the depths of Star Trek.
And you can see it all from here in The Center Seat.
Despite having made millions and the studio's desire
to make a follow-up to Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
there were still issues.
By that time, the perception was, despite its financial success,
which you would think would be enough,
it just didn't do what they wanted it to do.
[McFadden] "They" being the studio.
And they didn't like how the motion picture had been made.
The lack of discipline during production was legendary.
[McFadden] But the studio had a solution.
[Robert Sallin] "We're gonna make this picture,
and it's gonna be done under the eyes of the television division."
[triumphant music playing]
Thinking being, obviously, that folks in television
know how to do things cheaper.
[McFadden] You didn't need to tell Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry twice.
A TV guy through and through, he cranked out the script in no time.
Which was the crew of the Enterprise
being involved in the assassination of JFK
and sort of writing history.
[McFadden] And Paramount wrote back immediately.
They rejected it with a form letter.
"Thank you for making this submission, it's not what we're looking for."
And this was going to Gene Roddenberry.
[McFadden] Paramount had adopted a less-is-more approach to Roddenberry.
They didn't wanna deal with him.
[McFadden] No one did.
His last writer had only one message for him.
Don't ever touch my script, you bastard!
He wouldn't stop rewriting.
He was just maniacal about it.
[McFadden] Years of creative interference
had burned too many bridges with Paramount.
When Star Trek: The Motion Picture got mixed reviews...
...and because the budget went so far over,
even though that had nothing to do with Gene Roddenberry at all,
Paramount used that as an excuse
to take Star Trek away from Gene Roddenberry.
And he was demoted.
[McFadden] You could say Gene was his own worst enemy,
but there's a theory that explains complicated characters like him.
Did you ever hear of the Moses Joshua theory of creation?
[McFadden] It's the idea that some creative types are like Moses.
They bring into existence something that wasn't there before.
[McFadden] But like Moses himself, they lack certain managerial skills,
needing organized types like Joshua.
Is a can-do person.
That is brilliant.
Gene led us through the desert for 40 years, yeah,
but he couldn't deliver.
[McFadden] But Gene wasn't entirely banished from the promised land.
He was given the courtesy of a tiny, little office.
They gave him a new contract
that said that he would be a very well-paid script consultant.
[McFadden] But in Hollywood terms...
That meant that he had no power. He was not in control.
[McFadden] Well, no power officially,
but Gene, a master of the dark arts of PR,
wasn't ready to dematerialize just yet.
Meanwhile, Paramount had found their Joshua.
A guy named Harve Bennett.
[John Tenuto] Incredibly popular.
He knew how to do a science-fiction show.
[McFadden] Having cut his teeth on The Mod Squad,
The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Bionic Woman,
he knew how to make the ordinary extraordinary.
[bionic sounds]
[McFadden] And...
He knew how to do a show under budget.
[McFadden] Harve Bennett met with Paramount executives.
They asked him for his honest opinion on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
And he said, "Do I tell the truth or do I,
you know, give him something he wants to hear?"
[McFadden] What he said shocked no one.
"Kinda boring."
"My kids are falling asleep during it."
And they said, "Okay, can you make us a Star Trek movie
for less than $45 million?"
And he very famously said,
"Sir, I could make three better pictures for what you spent."
[McFadden] Harve was speaking Paramount's language,
and the budget for the sequel reflected that to the tune of...
$30 million.
[cash register dings]
[McFadden] For that kind of money,
you could barely make the opening titles of most blockbuster sci-fis,
so Harve went to a producer whose middle name is resourceful.
I had gone to the UCLA Film School before film was fashionable,
and one of my classmates was a guy named Harve Bennett.
[McFadden] And one day out of the blue,
his old friend called him.
And he says, "I'd like you to produce the Star Trek thing."
And I said, "Well, sure, why not? Okay."
[McFadden] So while Harve nailed down the story, Bob's job...
Was to do everything else.
[McFadden] With no real ideas yet,
Harve returned to Star Trek 's roots for inspiration.
Harve did screen all the previous episodes,
and it was in doing so that he came up with the idea
of bringing Khan back into the picture, as it were.
[McFadden] Khan was the genetically engineered alpha male
made famous by Ricardo Montalban in the episode "Space Seed."
My name is Khan. Please sit and entertain me.
[McFadden] And if Khan was back, Montalban was back older, wiser,
and even more famous,
thanks to some truly fantastic performances.
Welcome to Fantasy Island.
Montalban is an underrated actor. He's a fantastic actor.
He played a great variety of roles
and always a polished, beautiful performance.
[McFadden] But there would also be a spot on the bridge
for a fresh, young face.
Stand by.
[McFadden] And it seemed like the young and relatively unknown Kirstie Alley
had a knack for being a good match.
I had done Match Game.
-[host] Yeah, very good! -[audience cheering]
[McFadden] That went so well, they wanted to match her up again.
So they asked me to do Password,
and I was lucky enough to have Lucille Ball as the celebrity on Password.
[McFadden] That's right, the very same Lucille Ball
who financed Star Trek in the first place.
And although purely a coincidence...
[laughs] It was just like...
It was like a dream come true.
[McFadden] It seems that fate had decided Kirstie Alley and Star Trek
were a perfect match.
The most amazing thing about Star Trek for me,
other than it was the first job I ever had as an actor,
was that Nick Meyer and Harve Bennett really championed me.
[McFadden] Because what they saw in the young Kirstie Alley
was more than just her good looks.
You know, basically, Saavik doesn't have any humor at all.
I think it took somebody with a lot of humor
to put over that particular brand of humorlessness.
Humor.
It is a difficult concept.
[McFadden] But just as a new Vulcan was confirmed,
the original suddenly disappeared.
Leonard Nimoy did not want to do another Star Trek movie.
He thought it'd be a good time to retire the character.
[McFadden] Spock or no Spock,
Harve Bennett and Paramount continued to develop the script,
even turning to writers from the original series.
It was a revolving door, it seemed to me, of writers.
[McFadden] Taking bits and pieces from everyone,
they were far from having one script they were all happy with.
The clock was ticking. I was very concerned.
[McFadden] Then, it was an unexpected break in casting
that would give the script a new direction.
Nimoy had changed his tune, telling producers...
"I would love to do it."
[McFadden] Meaning he'd love to come back as Spock.
But under one condition.
Leonard said, "Write me out, find an exit for Spock."
That is wise.
So Harve Bennett called Leonard a few days later and said...
[McFadden] What no fan would wanna hear.
"We're gonna kill Spock."
[dramatic music playing]
And Nimoy said, "Okay, great."
[McFadden] Nimoy loved it, but the creator of Mr. Spock didn't.
Spock was supposed to get killed ten pages into the script.
Gene Roddenberry hears about this, and he feels this is the end of Star Trek.
[McFadden] Gene was incensed at the idea.
[Marc Cushman] "You don't have to kill Spock.
You can just have him going back to Vulcan."
Unfortunately, nobody would listen to him.
He did not have any responsibility for the production
or for shaping the material.
[McFadden] But that wouldn't stop him from trying.
Gene would send us memos. They were, by and large, disregarded.
[McFadden] But Gene was not going to just sit by
and watch them kill off one of his favorite characters.
This was personal for Gene.
[McFadden] So Gene resorted to one of his oldest tricks.
He leaked through Susan Sackett, his assistant,
that Spock was gonna get killed in the first ten minutes.
How do they know this?
Well, they had put sort of a code on the scripts
so they could track the scripts back.
[McFadden] But by the time they found out who did it,
it was too late.
And the fans had an uprising.
[McFadden] And once again...
Paramount was being flooded with letters and phone calls.
[phone rings]
[McFadden] Threatening to boycott the movie.
Unless Spock was not killed off.
[McFadden] But some fans took it much further than that.
[answering machine beeps]
And the next thing I know, on my home telephone answering machine,
I got a message.
[McFadden] A message that cut right to the point.
[Sallin] "You kill Spock and we'll kill you."
I served in the Marine Corps and I've served in the Air Force,
and I've never had my life in danger, but I'm producing a Star Trek picture
and my life is being threatened?
We were kind of being driven up the wall by the volume of mail,
by pressure tactics by certain people,
who, as I say, felt over possessive about Star Trek.
So we simply decided on a policy, and the policy is closed set.
[McFadden] But before they could close the set,
Robert would have to find a director.
What I found out is, a lot of people didn't wanna do Star Trek.
A lot of people didn't wanna do a sequel.
A lot of directors didn't want to do sci-fi.
And a lot of directors weren't available.
[McFadden] There must be somebody who wanted the gig.
So I made up a list.
I must have had 30 or 40 people on my list.
[McFadden] Down a long list of names, Bob came across this guy.
[bell dings]
I'm Nicholas Meyer and I write and direct movies.
[McFadden] But back in 1982, Nick had only one film under his belt,
meaning Star Trek was...
Only the second movie I'd ever made in my life.
[McFadden] And a complete novice when it came to the Star Trek universe.
But we talked and he got it.
[McFadden] Comparing Star Trek to...
Hornblower in outer space.
[McFadden] Words almost out of Gene Roddenberry's mouth.
-So we signed him. -[bell dings]
[McFadden] Cigar and all.
Harve and I walked out and Harve turned to me and said,
"I don't know."
I said, "What's wrong?"
And he said, "He's gonna be trouble."
[McFadden] But the trouble was all Nicholas' for now.
He was faced with five different scripts.
So I read them.
[McFadden] And from five scripts, Nicholas came out with one idea.
Why don't we make a list
of all the things we like in these five scripts,
and then we'll try to cobble this together
and make a new movie that incorporates as much of this as possible.
[McFadden] Which was a great idea,
until Nicholas found out he only had 12 days to write it.
Ugh.
They say, "Well, the problem is that if we don't have a draft of a script
in 12 days, ILM..."
[McFadden] That's effects house Industrial Light & Magic.
"...say they cannot deliver the special effects shots
in time for the June opening."
[McFadden] At which point Nicholas asked...
"What June opening?"
It never rains, but it pours.
[dramatic music playing]
And they said, "You know, we booked this thing into 600 theaters"
or something.
You booked it into the theaters and there's no movie?
[McFadden] Nonetheless, Nicholas said...
Well, okay, I think I can do this in 12 days.
[McFadden] To which Bob replied...
There's no argument from me.
[McFadden] Paramount finally had a writer-director
who could work with their ridiculous schedule.
Our concern was, they're gonna drag their feet on this upstairs
in the administration building.
[McFadden] Although Nicholas was already signed on as a director,
he would have to wait until his writing deal was complete
before starting the script.
They said, "Well, we couldn't even make your deal in 12 days."
And that's when I sort of made my mistake and I said, "Well, forget about my deal.
Forget about the money. Forget about the credit."
You know, I was really dumbstruck.
[McFadden] Nicholas agreed to write the movie.
For free.
[McFadden] Not just that.
Um...
[McFadden] He agreed to do it without any credit.
I really wanted to make this movie. I was jonesing for this thing by now.
And later he told me, he said, "My agent told me I was crazy."
[McFadden] Crazy or not, the movie was now on Nicholas' shoulders.
[McFadden] With just 12 days to write this Star Trek movie sequel...
As I worked, it was like fiddling with a Rubik's Cube.
It was Mad Libs.
[McFadden] Taking bits and pieces from previous drafts.
[Nicholas Meyer] The Genesis Project.
Genesis is life.
[Meyer] Kirk meets his son.
[grunting]
[Meyer] Lt. Saavik.
Thank you, sir.
[Meyer] The simulator sequence.
What about my performance?
I'm not a drama critic.
But along the way, certain themes are jumping out at you.
[McFadden] And Nicholas realized he was writing a movie about...
Friendship, old age, and death.
Other people have birthdays, why are we treating yours like a funeral?
Bones, I don't wanna be lectured.
And this is a cast that is getting older.
So rather than pretending that they're not...
Who am I hiding from?
...go at it head-on.
From yourself, Admiral.
Give him glasses.
[McFadden] It sounded like the answer to everyone's prayers.
He saved us.
[McFadden] Called The Wrath of Khan,
this Star Trek sequel had everything.
[phone ringing]
[Meyer] Get a call from Harve Bennett. He said, "We have a problem."
I said, "What's the problem?" He says, "Bill Shatner hates the script."
[dramatic music playing]
[stammers] He hates the script?
And I think, again, only my second movie, "Oh, that's it. We're done. We're toast."
This is a disaster.
[McFadden] There was only one thing for it:
a meeting with the producers.
All I remember about the meeting is that I had to keep getting up and going to pee.
I didn't know where to put either my embarrassment or my rage.
[McFadden] While Nicholas' bladder took the initial hit...
And I'm sitting there totally finished.
[McFadden] Drawing on years of experience,
executive producer Harve Bennett had already diagnosed the problem.
Correct.
[McFadden] With Shatter, not Nicholas' bathroom problem.
Basically figured out that Bill wanted to make sure
that he was always the first man through the door.
Permission to come aboard, Captain.
Welcome, Admiral.
He was the leading guy.
So I was learning how to write for a star.
[McFadden] And like every screen actor ever,
Shatner was also worried about the one number
more important to an actor than his fee.
The original script specified Kirk's age.
[McFadden] And Shatner felt Captain Kirk should be ageless, thinking...
You know, they don't have to put a number on him.
[McFadden] But I guess now we'll never know.
Forty-nine in the script.
Happy birthday.
That wasn't something that William Shatner wanted to do.
I think also for the character, you don't want to be pinned down like that.
Thank you.
He was understandably protective of what he had created,
the character of Kirk.
[McFadden] So Nicholas rewrote with the star's ego in mind.
I went home and, I think, fixed the thing in eight hours
and just send it back to him.
[McFadden] Shatner's response came back at warp speed.
Lights.
[Meyer] He left a message on my voice message machine.
[answering machine beeps]
[McFadden] Which said something like this...
"You are a genius" and something, something, something.
[McFadden] And with that, he had his star's blessing.
And I used to play it back to him every now and again
when I was, you know, having issues and I was like,
"Hey, Bill, just take a listen."
"You are a genius" and something, something, something.
[McFadden] Now with the script settled,
Nicholas was free to pursue his vision of an action-adventure,
taking inspiration from military dramas such as...
The movie called The Enemy Below.
[McFadden] Because for high drama on a low budget,
nothing beats a claustrophobic contest of wills.
And so I went all out to make it more like a submarine, more like destroyers.
Those things are not built for comfort.
[McFadden] That meant making everything...
Smaller, claustrophobic.
[McFadden] No minor detail was spared.
[Meyer] Why aren't there blinking lights?
Let's just put a lot of those in.
[McFadden] More than just light, Nicholas needed an epic score.
But he was short on cash.
Jerry Goldsmith's was too expensive.
[McFadden] While Jerry had done a fantastic job
on Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
his fee would have consumed the entire special effects budget
on The Wrath of Khan.
So Jerry Goldsmith was out.
So we just started listening to music.
[McFadden] Back in 1982, that meant cassettes,
and lots of them.
[Meyer] Composers would send in samples of their work,
and I'd drive to and from the studio, listening to these cassettes.
[McFadden] And on one fateful morning, Nicholas came across...
James Horner, whoever that was.
[McFadden] Well, since you asked.
He was just a young composer looking for a break.
Had sent in a tape and I really liked it.
[McFadden] That's how James Horner became the composer for The Wrath of Khan.
Well, actually, that's not how Robert remembers it.
As a matter of fact, neither Harve nor Nick had anything to do with it.
You know, maybe I shouldn't talk about this.
[man] Of course you should.
[McFadden] To be fair, Nicholas isn't arguing with him.
As I wrote in my memoir, memory is fallible.
[McFadden] So how does Robert remember it?
I knew I wanted something somewhat operatic.
I went to Joel Sill, who was then the head of the music department at Paramount,
and I told him the kind of thing I was looking for.
And I said, "Joe," I said, "What I don't want is musical wallpaper."
And he gave me I don't know how many cassettes of different composers.
[McFadden] Okay, those parts line up.
And I rejected all of them except Jamie Horner.
[McFadden] Now, whether it was Robert or Nicholas
who found this diamond in the rough,
what really mattered is that Horner wouldn't break the budget.
His creative fee for scoring this film was $10,000.
[McFadden] Which was quite a steal,
so much so that Bob felt kind of guilty about it.
And they gave him a $25,000 bonus.
-[cash register dings] -[McFadden] Not bad for a first-timer.
Meanwhile, this old-timer didn't vibe with the changes.
Gene Roddenberry-- I remember getting a memo-- didn't like them.
He thought they were way too militaristic.
[McFadden] But having been relegated to a small office...
That was just the way it was gonna be.
[McFadden] Because Nicholas Meyer had drawn inspiration
from another classic film.
The Prisoner of Zenda has the high collars and the wide flaps.
[McFadden] Which not only framed the face beautifully...
Gives a color contrast.
[McFadden] But it was going to take more than fancy uniforms
-to make a splash at the box office. -How?
[McFadden] They would need state-of-the-art special effects
from the legendary wizards at ILM,
while obeying Paramount's prime directive.
"Here's your budget, doesn't change, work within that."
[McFadden] A budget that was a lot less than other films of the era.
But director Nicholas Meyer was undaunted.
Art thrives on restrictions.
And also, I had a lot of help from Robert Sallin.
[McFadden] Who oversaw much of ILM's work for the young director.
He watched my back.
[McFadden] And kept the designs under budget with a few clever tricks.
The design of the Regula 1.
[McFadden] Where the scientists were working on the Genesis Project
was actually the Orbital Office Complex.
It was left over from the first film.
And I just said, "Turn it upside down."
And that's what they did.
[McFadden] And didn't cost a cent.
If I could save a buck on the models, I was gonna do it.
[McFadden] But when it came to the USS Reliant,
a cheap hack wouldn't do.
We did the same thing.
Yeah, just flipped the Enterprise upside down.
And so instead of having the nacelles up here,
nacelles are down here.
[McFadden] Yep, totally different.
Yep.
[McFadden] So with the upside-down ships...
I said, "How does that look?"
[McFadden] A cobbled-together script, maroon uniforms, and a green director,
they began rolling on production on November 9th, 1981.
[man] Rolling.
[Meyer] We started production.
[McFadden] But just three days in, Robert sounded the distress signal.
The end of the first three days, Nick was a week behind.
[dramatic music playing]
[McFadden] So Robert did what anyone would do.
I panicked.
Pure and simple.
I I didn't know where this was gonna go,
and I didn't know what to do.
[McFadden] Robert soon found himself producing a movie
whose director he couldn't get through to.
Nick didn't know me, and I think he was protective and hesitant
and afraid that I would somehow impinge on his world or something,
and Nick was resistant.
I couldn't put my arm around Nick and say, "Nick, listen to me.
You're in trouble. Now, I'm gonna help you.
Let me see if I can do that."
His attitude was always keeping me at a distance.
I was very busy.
[McFadden] It was like there was a forcefield around Nick.
So Robert made a call he thought was the only way
to save the second Star Trek movie.
I went to management.
And I said, "Here's what's going on.
This could be a big problem, and I think you should replace him."
[McFadden] With his inexperienced director falling behind...
I went to management.
[McFadden] And delivered a scathing report to Paramount's top brass.
"I think you should replace him."
Huh.
[McFadden] But Paramount's chief operating officer, Michael Eisner,
saw things differently.
Said, "No, we're not gonna do that."
[McFadden] Eisner was concerned about Paramount's reputation.
He said, "Because nobody will wanna work at Paramount."
And I said, "Fair enough."
[McFadden] So stuck with his young director for now,
Robert put the pressure on.
We were able to get the message across to Nick, and he was receptive.
[McFadden] But being behind, he'd have to find ways to make up time.
I had to fly down quickly to get on set immediately.
[McFadden] On such a highly technical shoot,
Ken's experience would come in handy.
Come down, I have probably my little bit of crew.
We go in.
[McFadden] And waited for the young director
to get to his special effects shots.
[crickets chirping]
[McFadden] And then waited some more.
They never got to the shot.
I'll say this for him, he's consistent.
[McFadden] The ILM effect wizards were just sitting around,
conjuring up no light nor magic.
So I had to constantly help him back into the visual effects scenes.
[McFadden] Beginning with storyboarding
many of the film's special effects sequences,
with the help of art director Mike Minor.
So I remember clearly saying to Mike, "You know, that battle..."
[McFadden] That battle would be the epic final showdown
between the Enterprise...
There she is!
[McFadden] ...and Khan's stolen Reliant.
We can't whip these things around like World War I fighter planes.
You know, they're lumbering, slow-moving things.
And I said, "We need to have some way to enhance the tension."
[McFadden] And the clever solution proved to be
right in front of their noses.
"How about if we hid them in a nebula?"
[McFadden] The gaseous clouds proved to be the perfect setting
for a spatial chess match.
My logical conclusion was to do it with a cloud tank.
[McFadden] Of course, a cloud tank.
Sorry, what's a cloud tank?
The cloud tank is basically a large, metal container
with glass panels on each side,
and it's filled with warm water up to about three-quarters of the way up.
Then, insanely, you would lay a piece of plastic on it very gently.
[McFadden] But they were not done yet.
Then, you would gently pour in cold water.
And you would create an inversion layer.
[McFadden] Meaning once the clear wrap was removed,
the two layers would mix, with lights used to add cosmic colors.
[Ken Ralston] And it starts to give almost a look of thunderheads
or clouds that are spreading out,
and there's a nice, fake sense of a scale to it when you do that.
[McFadden] Some of Robert's money-saving ideas for effects
were so cheap, they were literally the garden variety.
The original script called for a creature to attach itself
to the back of Chekov's neck.
[McFadden] But Bob felt they could do a little better.
I was going out to get my newspaper.
I saw a slug.
[dramatic music playing]
And I hate those things.
But anyway, I said, "Hey, is it feasible that a little, slimy thing like that
could enter the human ear and lodge itself
maybe in the cerebral cortex?"
[McFadden] The answer was yes.
For God's sakes.
[McFadden] Which was money in the bank for Robert.
I said, "Great!" That's when I got so excited.
So I went up to ILM, and I told Ken Ralston about it.
[McFadden] And Ken got to work crafting Bob's space slug.
I took a piece of polyfoam,
cut these little, little segments in this thing very delicately,
left. a small little thing in the middle so it was flexible,
stuck it on their face, and I had a monofilament line,
and I would just pull.
It would actually do this.
[gasps]
It could be that simple.
[McFadden] While the slug had no trouble burrowing into Chekov and Terrell's heads,
Director Nicholas Meyer was having a hard time getting through to Shatner.
There is a moment in the movie where he's supposed to give Khan some information.
Give me some time to recall the data on our computers.
I give you 60 seconds, Admiral.
[Meyer] And Kirk has a line: "Here it comes."
And first time Bill says it, he goes, "Here it comes."
[crickets chirping]
And I say, "Bill, this guy is super smart."
Time is a luxury you don't have, Admiral.
"If you say that with this, like, sarcasm dripping off the lens,
just don't give away the, you know, what you got up your sleeve."
[McFadden] His star wouldn't take the note.
It was still laden.
[McFadden] But like Captain Kirk himself, Nick had something up his sleeve.
I just kept doing it.
Time's up.
"That was no good for sound."
Time's up.
"I'm sorry, we were soft-focus."
Time's up.
And he got bored.
And look at the end result.
Here it comes.
Now, Mr. Spock.
When he became bored and less aware of how he was presenting,
he got really good.
[McFadden] But subtlety went out the window
the day Ricardo Montalban arrived on the set.
We came on, we were doing the cargo bay sequence,
which introduces Khan.
[dramatic music playing]
But he screamed the whole thing at the top of his lungs.
This is Ceti Alpha Five!
I was awestruck.
The whole crew was sort of standing around.
[McFadden] And while Nicholas was comfortable
asking William Shatner for more takes,
the esteemed Ricardo Montalban was a whole different story.
I really didn't know what to do because I was sort of awed by him.
[McFadden] And that did not bode well for the production.
A director, that's the one person you look to
for how the shoot is going to go.
[McFadden] Nicholas had a choice to make.
And I thought, "Is he going to yell at me if I try to tell him anything?"
I wasn't really sure.
[McFadden] Not wanting to incur the wrath of Khan,
Nick took the villain off set, hoping to appeal to the artist within.
I said, "You know, Laurence Olivier, my idol, once said that an actor
should never show an audience his top.
Because once you show them your top, they know you got no place else to go."
And he said, "Aha, you're going to direct me.
Oh, that's great. I need direction. I don't know what I'm doing up there."
[McFadden] Montalban returned to set to deliver his second take.
And it was flawless.
You couldn't make it any better than that.
I gave him these 23 marks to hit.
He hit every one of them.
They didn't do a second take. They didn't have to.
But from then on, Bill and Leonard's performance elevated.
[laughs] It was just-- just enough.
I don't think anyone else noticed it, but I did it and it made me smile.
[McFadden] But someone's reviews were less than stellar
for the new kid on set.
[laughs] I don't know if I've ever told this.
At one point, I was told that Bill
wanted me to have some acting lessons,
in the middle of making the movie.
[McFadden] News that Bob broke to Kirstie in the middle of lunch.
So I did and I took her to lunch and I gently made the proposition.
And I said, "How about us hiring a drama coach
to work with her?"
I was a bit of a hooligan.
I went out all the time. I wasn't great at knowing all my lines.
I was handling it a bit like a dilettante.
So I could see how someone would go like, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my freakin' God, she needs this or she needs that."
And I was like, "Okay, I guess."
But I also knew that if I just had my lines learned better
and didn't act so wild-ass
that it would appear that I was a much better actor.
[laughs] So...
[McFadden] So one way or another, Kirstie had those lessons.
And I thought her performance was better because of it.
[McFadden] But for another young actor in the cast,
all the acting lessons in the world couldn't save him.
And who do we have here?
Midshipman First Class Peter Preston.
The scene that I auditioned with
was the scene that ended up getting cut from the film.
[McFadden] A colorful exchange between Preston and Captain Kirk.
I believe you'll find everything shipshape, Admiral.
Oh, do you?
And we learn that it's Scotty's nephew.
My sister's youngest, Admiral.
And they cut that out at the time,
and it made Scotty's reaction kind of inexplicable.
[voice breaking] He stayed at his post.
[McFadden] But not quite as inexplicable as why the dead body keeps breathing.
I'd never done a death scene before.
And as I'm laying there, supposedly dead underneath this thing,
they go on to this two, two-and-a-half-minute scene
of dialogue going back and forth.
[McFadden] With poor Ike holding his breath the whole time.
And then all of a sudden, I thought, "I can't do this anymore."
And I'm going... [breathing heavily]
[McFadden] Luckily, they called cut before he passed out.
And I had to check with Nick and say, "Okay,
were you able to make it through that without seeing me breathe?"
He said, "Of course I saw your breathe, Ike,
it was like a two-and-a-half, three-minute scene.
Nobody holds their breath for that long.
Don't worry about it. I'm gonna cut away."
[McFadden] While the new cast members appeared to take the setbacks in stride,
not all egos could be managed.
Off set, there were problems too, where a brooding Gene Roddenberry
saw his vision of Star Trek being forgotten.
So he was always pushing back
against things that he felt weren't true to Star Trek
and true to the characters that he had created.
[David Gerrold] Harve was extremely polite to Gene,
and Gene was extremely polite to Harve Bennett.
[McFadden] At least publicly.
Gene didn't have any kind things to say about Harve Bennett in private.
He continued to sound off.
[McFadden] Harve was careful not to upset Gene or his legions of followers.
If the two of them had been any more polite,
there would have been blood on the floor.
[McFadden] But Gene's meddling had already created a monster
Harve Bennett couldn't possibly control.
The leak about Spock's fate had fans in open revolt.
The Spock death rumors were out there.
And they were gonna boycott the movie and boycott the merchandise,
and were professional marketers who had done a professional marketing campaign
and were spewing statistics and numbers and dollar amounts.
[McFadden] And the clamor was spilling onto the set.
I was shocked that I was holding in my hand a copy of something
that was going to be hugely disappointing to the massive fan base.
[Meyer] People said, "Oh, you can't kill Spock."
And I said, "Yeah, you can kill him.
The only question is whether you kill him well."
[McFadden] With fans threatening a boycott over rumors of Spock's demise,
Paramount was in an impossible situation.
The bottom line was, he wanted out.
They only got him in the movie promising him a big death scene.
[McFadden] Star Trek was caught in a conundrum
entirely of its creators' own making.
The only question is whether you kill him well.
[McFadden] Without the element of surprise,
some ingenious sleight of hand was required.
You have this scene where it turns out the Kobayashi Maru is a simulation.
Captain.
Put that at the beginning, let the audience see that Spock dies.
They'll say, "Oh, that's what this was all about."
Then you can catch them by surprise at the end of the picture.
-Aren't you dead? -[bell dings]
It's all just kind of a setup to throw us.
[McFadden] But when it came to euthanizing his own character,
Leonard Nimoy was suddenly uneasy.
That was a major, major difficult moment for me.
Very difficult.
I think he was having sort of jittery feelings about,
"Do I really wanna end this after all?"
[Larry Nemecek] This was a big moment.
Big enough so that the minute they do it,
Leonard Nimoy starts having second thoughts.
And I began to be concerned that maybe I'd made a mistake.
Then he was feeling very sort of jittery and testy
and nervous about it.
[McFadden] But Nimoy had no qualms about the manner of Spock's demise.
Maybe it's fitting that Spock should die saving the ship and the crew
and be a hero and go out in a blaze of glory.
[McFadden] This was potentially the most important Star Trek scene ever,
and everyone knew it.
Well, almost everyone.
I didn't really understand the significance
to so many people of what was going on while we were shooting
until I turn around and see my cinematographer is crying.
The first A.D. is crying.
Don't grieve, Admiral.
The prop guy is crying.
The needs of the many outweigh...
The needs of the few.
Or the one.
And I was just making the movie.
Spock...
Bill and Leonard really just nailed that.
I mean, there was sobbing on the set.
I mean, they really got into it.
[Leonard Nimoy] I was always very touched by what happened in that sequence.
And it really worked in the film.
I have people still today who write me and say,
"Every time I still see that picture for the fifth, tenth time, I still cry."
[McFadden] It was the perfect end for Spock,
performed to perfection, except...
We shot the scene with no film in the camera.
[man] You're kidding.
The first time it ever happened to me in thousands and thousands of scenes.
This is a story about Kirk coming to terms with himself.
Kirk begins by saying...
I don't believe in the no-win scenario.
Until he's confronted by it.
It's a story about a man who ultimately realizes his fallibility
and perhaps accepts his humanity.
Death is the no-win scenario.
[McFadden] But Paramount did not accept that.
The studio and producers had an idea, a highly controversial one.
And I and Harve too were very strong
about the fact that we needed to plant in the audience's minds
the "maybe" idea.
Harve came to me on the set.
He said, "What can you give us that might be a thread
for the future for Spock or Star Trek ?
Just in case.
And it took me a moment.
I said, "I can do a mind meld on DeForest Kelley,
who's laying there unconscious."
[gasps]
I'm sorry, Doctor, I have no time to discuss this logically.
"And I can say something ambiguous, like..."
[Spock] Remember.
-[bell dings] -He said, "Okay, do that."
I thought, "This guy, this is a producer." [laughs]
[McFadden] This touch of Vulcan logic from the producers made Spock proud.
But for the director, they had lost the human emotion.
Oh, I hated it.
Nick was adamant.
I fought it tooth and nail.
We twist these people's feelings into knots,
and then we say, "Oh, just kidding"?
[McFadden] Nonetheless, the door was left open for Spock.
And they decided they need a button on the end of the movie,
showing the casket wherever it landed.
[McFadden] One way or another, Spock would live on.
But not everyone was happy about it.
They killed Spock.
They should have left him dead, as hard as that is.
Part of the reason why that film works
is because of the emotional impact of Spock's death.
And then at the very end, they give you the shot of the coffin
that kind of winks at you and says, "Actually, he's gonna be back."
And it kind of takes some of that away.
That said, it's a small quibble in what is really the best of the Star Trek films.
Goodbye, everybody. Thank you.
[McFadden] Paramount couldn't have been happier.
And when shooting wrapped on January 29th, 1982,
Bob, Harve, and Nick delivered a film on schedule.
And we came in on budget.
[McFadden] While Nicholas never got his say on Spock's immortality,
he had at least pulled off his own little mind meld,
winning back the faith of his producer.
It was a hard thing to pull off, and we couldn't have done it without him.
[McFadden] Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan premiered in 1982.
The first time I realized it was gonna be a big thing,
honestly, was when the premiere was at Grauman's Chinese Theater,
walking in and seeing a bajillion photographers.
I hadn't really ever seen that before.
[McFadden] What happened during the screening really took her by surprise.
The audience just kind of went wild.
So this, this was the best Star Trek that I've ever seen before.
[McFadden] The death of Spock had breathed new life into the franchise,
-$95 million worth. -[cash register dings]
-I loved it. -It was awesome.
I hated part of the ending, but I understand that
that will be remedied in the next one, right?
Star Trek III is a possibility. I think it's a distinct possibility.
When we did Star Trek II , up until the very final parts,
it was a standalone film.
[McFadden] Standalone or not,
Paramount now had 95 million reasons to bring Spock back.
I'm looking forward to discussing as soon as possible
the next Star Trek motion picture and-and my involvement with it.
The movie was such a huge hit that they came back to Nimoy and said,
"What would it take to get you to come back and do another one?"
And I said, "I would like to direct it."
To my surprise, they didn't throw me out of the office.
[McFadden] For a would-be first-time director,
Nimoy had a Vulcan's cool confidence.
When we made Star Trek II, Nicholas Meyer was directing.
I thought, "I-I can do what he does."
[McFadden] It seemed like a match made in heaven,
but this was a director arriving with serious baggage.
Certain people might have been
a little worried about Leonard's directing.
Everybody was like... "Okay."
[McFadden] Studio head Michael Eisner wanted Spock
in front of the camera, not behind it.
He said, "I can't have you direct this movie."
I said, "Why, Michael?"
He said, "You hate Star Trek.
You insisted on the Spock character being killed in Star Trek II.
You had it in your contract that Spock had to die.
I can't have you directing a Star Trek movie."
I said, "Michael, this is really crazy. I don't hate Star Trek."
It was not in my contract, and I said, "The contract is in a file
in the building that you're in.
Somebody's given you bad information.
Take a look at it and see if you can find anything like that in the contract.
It's not there. It's not true."
[McFadden] Whatever was in that contract, Eisner came back,
offering Nimoy a new one as a director.
And he said, "Okay, let's make a deal."
And we immediately made a deal and went to work.
[McFadden] With Spock returning in some form,
Paramount had gained one Vulcan,
only to lose another
after an unhappy experience on The Wrath of Khan.
She didn't seem to be very comfortable about it.
[McFadden] Kirstie Alley would not be returning.
One day, she came to my dressing room,
and she was in absolute tears.
All of a sudden, she said to me, "You know what?
If this is what Hollywood is like,
I don't think I want anything to do with it.
I think I'm done."
[McFadden] When invited to reprise her role as Lt. Saavik,
the actress' eye-watering asking price sent a clear message to Paramount.
That's 100% false.
The thing that's always bothered me
was the fans thought I was too good to do Star Trek III.
And so I said, "I don't wanna do Star Trek III."
Which was 100% false.
[McFadden] She says it was the other way around.
They offered me less money for Star Trek III than Star Trek II,
and I'd done quite a bit of work in between those two things.
[McFadden] And the rising star had no choice but to politely pass.
It wasn't me just going, "I'm too good to be in Star Trek III."
[McFadden] So with Kirstie Alley stepping aside,
Robin was introduced to Saavik.
And I was tickled pink, you know, to come in and take over the role.
[McFadden] Robin relaxed into the character,
safe in the knowledge that her director
was the world authority on all things Vulcan.
What more expert hands to be in than Leonard Nimoy
to be directed to play a Vulcan?
He said, "Vulcans have 1,000 years of wisdom behind the eyes."
How many have paid the price for your impatience?
He had this lovely way of gently kind of guiding me, you know,
to whatever moment it was that Saavik was having.
[McFadden] But even a thousand years of wisdom
wouldn't help Robin work out how to negotiate Vulcan romance.
God, I remember the day Steven Manley and I were all-all aflutter,
wondering, "Okay, what-- what is Vulcan foreplay going to be?"
[McFadden] Stephen Manley portrayed a hormone-addled, teenage Spock.
[Robin Curtis] Because the scene on the page
definitely read that Spock and Saavik are about to have this important moment.
[McFadden] This was the ritual mating of the Vulcan.
Pon farr.
Oh, my God, what is this gonna be?
You know, what parts of our bodies are gonna be interacting?
[McFadden] Luckily for them, the director was quite familiar with Vulcan biology.
And Leonard Nimoy took us very gently aside,
very quiet part of the soundstage,
and he took our hands and he formed them like this.
And he said, "You're just going to gently stroke each other like this."
[McFadden] Although it was a bit demure,
it showed just enough to preserve a little...
Vulcan mystique.
My lord, the ship appears to be deserted.
How can that be?
[McFadden] The Klingons may not have been known for their mystique.
Oh, yeah!
[McFadden] But with Taxi 's Christopher Lloyd
having swapped his furrowed brow for a Klingon forehead,
they had some star power in their ranks.
Chris Lloyd was well known for comedy,
but he was also wonderful in a movie called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Why don't you knock off the... and get to the point?
Terrific actor, he's like a chameleon.
Charming.
[McFadden] Star Trek III also saw the return
of the previously undiscovered composer.
James Horner was out there with a 102-piece orchestra
at Paramount, and what a blast that was
to sit there, see the sequence
everyone at ILM put so much sweat and tears in.
And then there's this 102-piece orchestra-- boom-- backing it up.
[orchestral music playing]
Nothing like it.
[McFadden] Music or not, one scene would be particularly dramatic.
We thought, "Well, let's create a great death scene
like a great actor would do."
[McFadden] Perhaps even more traumatic than the death of Spock,
especially for Gene, was the demise of the Enterprise itself.
He said, "That's a character.
Audiences loved the Enterprise. That's their home away from home."
That's the premise, you know. It's not me and my friends,
it's "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise."
And you're gonna blow it up?
[McFadden] But if the ship was going to go down,
it was going to go down in a blaze of glory,
thanks to some ILM magic.
When we got to the final blow-up,
at the last second, I remember, "Hey give me some talcum powder."
And I just sprinkled it on top of the ship
so when it goes off, you can see it in the movie too,
this interesting, sort of fine stuff comes up.
Which added to the scale of it.
[McFadden] And made the whole thing really, really fun to blow up.
I personally am very hurt by the destruction of the Enterprise.
I feel that more deeply than I did the death of Spock.
[McFadden] And he wasn't the only one.
The movie was coming out.
I made a point of saying, "Well, I finally got to blow up that Enterprise ship.
It's such a pain to shoot."
And I got, like, death threats.
[McFadden] Welcome to the club.
It's like, "Whoa, okay, no more jokes."
[McFadden] Whatever fans thought of this,
they loved the film.
Star Trek: The Search for Spock raked in a cool $87 million.
[cash register dings]
Essentially guaranteeing another outing.
I think this is really the best Star Trek yet.
Leonard Nimoy has turned in, I think, a magnificent job.
That point in time felt like the original cast
was still gonna keep doing some features.
[McFadden] Even if Kirk and crew would need a new ride.
Jeff Katzenberg tells Leonard Nimoy, "We want you to make Star Trek IV."
[McFadden] Leonard quickly accepted.
But that's a tale for another time.
[theme music playing]