Star Trek – What You Missed

TNMC got their hands on a shooting draft of the “Star Trek” script and described a few scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut. Some of them probably didn’t get filmed either, so we won’t be able to enjoy them on the DVD extras, but they’re interesting nonetheless. The full article can be read here, I’ll stick the parts concerning Zach’s Spock under the cut for possible spoilers.

Right off the bat, we have a scene where Spock is born. The thrust of the scene is Spock’s mother Amanda expressing her displeasure with Sarek when he isn’t present for the birth and then doesn’t understand the emotional implications of this. One gets the feeling that this probably happened an awful lot in this relationship. The script then jumps to the scene where Kirk is born, which is where the movie opened.

The sequence where Kirk and Spock beam on to the Narada has a little extra bit where Spock gets cruelly violent to Romulans at Kirk’s order. It’s an unattractive moment, best forgotten. It was replaced with the nifty gun battle where the effects guys made the Federation phasers very cool. Definitely a change for the better.

Finally, at the end of the script is provided an alternate take on the scene in which Spock and Spock Prime meet. Before saying goodbye, Spock Prime hands Spock a locket. Spock activates the locket and sees a holographic video of Kirk, and by that I mean Shatner, singing happy birthday to Spock and congratulating him on becoming an ambassador. The message continues, basically telling Spock that the two of them should get back together one more time with a starship and just… explore. It’s a nice idea but I can see any number of reasons it was cut like pacing, being overly sentimental, Shatner not being interested or simply recognizing that by this point in the movie this new version of old favorites have earned the right to stand on their own. Whatever the case I think the movie is just fine without it. Better even. They are rebooting Trek here. Leaning too much on the old Trek is just a sign of weakness. Leaving this out is a sign of confidence.