Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Was Forced To Follow A Strict William Shatner Rule
By: BY WITNEY SEIBOLD
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Was Forced To Follow A Strict William Shatner Rule
Paramount
Two of the credited screenwriters on Leonard Nimoy's "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" were Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes, the screenwriters behind the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello flick "Back to the Beach," the two-Van-Dammes-for-the-price-of-one movie "Double Impact," and the 1999 would-be Oscar darling "Anna and the King." "Star Trek IV" was one of their first major screenwriting gigs, and it was a dizzying experience. The screenwriters remembered meeting with Nimoy and with producer Harve Bennett for a brainstorming session, and it seems that no one could come to any kind of solid conclusions. Bennett mentioned that he wanted the next movie to be a throwback to "The City on the Edge of Forever," one of the most celebrated episodes of the series. Nimoy was in a weird headspace, talking about environmentalism and biodiversity. Meerson recalls: "Leonard started talking about plankton, cells, that cells become plankton, that things eat plankton ... and that's when whales entered the conversation."
That's how "Star Trek IV" became the "save the whales" movie, when it was originally going to be about saving something much smaller instead.
These stories were all told in the oral history book "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages," edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. Meerson and Krikes talked about the process of writing the film, and some of the strange mandates handed to them by the studio. For one, they had to keep Eddie Murphy in mind as a potential guest star. Murphy was an enormous box office draw at the time, and he had expressed some interest.
Frustratingly, Meerson and Krikes were ordered to include as much Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) as possible. Kirk, they were told, had to instigate every action in the movie.
When Kirk isn't on screen, everyone should be asking 'Where's Kirk?'
Paramount
Trekkies have long known about William Shatner's egotistical behavior on set, and how he always saw himself as the one true lead of "Star Trek." Extending from that assertion, Nimoy and DeForest Kelley were his co-leads, while the other actors were mere backup members of an ensemble. Because he felt he was the star, Shatner was known to be brusque and dismissive to other actors, and often hogged the spotlight, tried to steal other actors' lines for himself, and generally behaved like a big ol' a-hole. It wouldn't be for years that Shatner and some of his co-stars — but only some of them — would reconcile and, in some cases, become close friends.
In 1986, Paramount seemed willing to kowtow to Shatner's ego, and demanded that Kirk be put front and center in "Star Trek IV," even if it's not Kirk's story. Meerson recalled the instructions clearly:
"The approach we were told to take is that Kirk really had to be the one to lead everyone. [...] Not necessarily that he had to actually have the idea to do something, but it had to appear as if he has the idea."
Krikes recalled how illogical the mandate was, and how, when you watch the film, you can see how Kirk has been arbitrarily inserted into various scenes where he doesn't belong. For example, there's a scene near the end of the movie in which Spock (Nimoy) has a conversation with his father Sarek (Mark Lenard). Kirk is present in the background, watching the conversation. There is no reason for him to be there. But, golly, that's what Paramount wanted.
The Star Trek IV writers were basically instructed to use inception on Kirk
Paramount
Meerson cited another notable example of Kirk overexposure, citing the scene where Kirk appears to be the one to make a crucial decision, when in actuality it was Spock's idea. He said:
"I think the perfect example in the movie is when Spock goes into the belly of the Bird of Prey to use the computers and learns that the sound is whale songs. It's Kirk who has the idea to go back through time, although Spock is the one who plants the suggestion in Kirk's mind. Kirk verbalizes it, and that's the way it had to be played. We were told Bill had to be the leader at all times. In that scene, if you're reading it, you say, 'It's Spock's idea,' but on film, Spock's discovery that it's humpback whales is not as important as Kirk's idea of going to get them."
Shatner famously only agreed to appear in "Star Trek IV" if he would be allowed to direct and pitch a "Star Trek V." He also received a hefty $2 million paycheck. It's likely the "all Kirk all the time" approach to the "Star Trek IV" screenplay was either a mandate Shatner implemented himself, or it was Harve Bennett merely trying to make a tempestuous star happy. Either way, Kirk had to be foregrounded.
Luckily, Nimoy did an exemplary job of highlighting the rest of the ensemble as well, giving everyone vital actions to perform. Indeed, of the six extant "Trek" movies, "Star Trek IV" feels the most like an ensemble drama, even if Kirk did have the most lines. "Star Trek IV" was a huge hit, becoming the highest-grossing "Trek" movie until the release of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" in 2009.
"Star Trek V," meanwhile, bombed pretty hard.
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It's already pretty well known that Shatner was a real a'hole on the sets, but I posted this because Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was my favourite of all Star Trek episodes - TV and movie.
The Wrath of Khan was my favorite of the movies.
I think the idea of making this movie an homage to The City on the Edge of Forever was an interesting concept. Star Trek: TMP felt like an homage to The Changeling.
TMP was essentially a theatrical version of The Changeling. TWoK is the best Trek film from the original cast.
IV was my least favorite movie from that series. I would have to go with II and III as mine...
IV felt too campy to me.
My favorite Shatner Star Trek scene is the one they did for Saturday Night Live where he was a "guest" speaker at a Star Trek convention.
I met Shatner briefly back in the early 2000's when he was filming a movie in Bisbee, Arizona and staying at the Gadsden Hotel 23 miles away. My late son was working the front desk of the hotel and Shatner and his lady executive assistant came in around 10;30 PM or so, I was sitting in the front lobby reading a newspaper when they came in and went to the elevator. The elevator was a antique that required a human operator who closed and locked the elevator at 10:00 PM when he went home. Shatner threw a fit and demanded that my son get the keys and unlock the elevator. My son calmy told him the operator took the keys home with him. As they stormed to the main stairway past me, without lowering my paper I told them I guess they would get their exercise before bed. Shatner started swearing at me. I lowered my paper and just smiled at him. His jaw dropped and he just turned and walked away. Funny thing is my son later managed to get my copy of his book TekWar autographed for me.
I forgot to mention above that the movie was titled "Groom Lake". It was very cheesy and totally sucked. Shatner should have been very embarrassed about that one. It was so bad it was actually funny!
Well, I guess he's not the best example of a Canadian actor that Canada could show the world. Maybe its better to consider Mary Pickford, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Plummer, Sandra Oh, Anna Paquin, John Candy, Leslie Nielson, John Carey, and a lot of others better-behaved examples.
Shatner does have a reputation. I did meet some Trek stars over time, a more recent one being Johnathan Frakes, aka Cmdr/Capt Riker.
Sucked more than Star Trek V: TFF? If Shatner wasn't embarrassed about that one, then he has no shame. To his credit though, he's not a bad author. His Trek books are good. Although, I have not read all of them.
Jealous!
Also saw Terry Ferrell, but didn't get to meet her. She had a long line of fans waiting to greet her. I did meet Wayoun/Brunt himself, Jeffrey Combs.
I never watched the series, but that was interesting.
It was a full-length Hollywood movie.
Hard to believe.
Actually, I'm really glad to see that we all have different tastes and choices - It reinforces the fact that we are not robots, or feel required to "follow the fold". Good for all of us. Individualism rules.
Capt Picard is better than Capt. Kirk. But Capt Sisko is the best Trek captain of all. To be fair, Capt Pike hasn't had enough time to reach his full potential yet.
I wasn't a fan of Sisko. Picard was the best captain overall, IMO. But Pike is looking pretty good, too.
Sisko was a bad ass captain who wasn't afraid to bend or even break rules to get the job done. Consider, Picard would only preach to Q, but Sisko knocked Q on his ass and smiled. When one stands toe to toe and engages in fisticuffs with an omnipotent entity, that puts you on top tier captaincy alone 😆
Sisko was a little too willing to break the rules, IMO.
But we do agree about knocking Q on his ass.
I never watched many episodes with Picard, no episodes after that, and notwithstanding his inflated ego I guess I'll always think of Shatner as Kirk, just as I will always think of Connery as Bond.
To be fair, Kirk broke rules many times too. Sometimes breaking rules gets results. Sisko was also one to hold a grudge. But seeing Kirk & Sisko interact was awesome. Sisko did have a little bit of hero worship hoing on.
That's your loss Buzz. TNG was a great series. The Picard-centric episodes tended to be the better episodes too, with "Tapestry" being arguably the best Picard episode.
Kirk was pretty much born to break the rules. Like Sisko, I thought he did it a bit too easily. They all did it, to some extent. Even Picard. But I think Picard really had to be provoked into it. Kirk and Sisko were a bit scary in their disregard for the Prime Directive. Janeway was somewhere in the middle.
Kirk was the biggest violator of the Prime Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive. Sisko ignored regulations when it suited him. Picard & Janeway were big on upholding the Prime directive.
I'm a big boy, Gordy, and I can handle thihgs like that. Over my lifetime I've lost many things, but I've also gained many things, and in my personal opinion I've gained much more than I've lost.
Catch up on Trek and you can gain much more Buzz 😉
Where would you place Archer?
I still haven't watched Enterprise.
I would if I could, Gordy.
Enterprise was underrated. It really started to get good in its 4th season, especially its standalone Mirror universe episode. Had it not been moved to a Friday `death slot time, it might have avoided cancellation.
I'll get there eventually. I'm still working on DS9. I'm still pissed about Jadzia.
Archer is something of an anomaly among the Trek captains. Unlike the other Captains who had Federation guidelines and long established Starfleet regulations to go by, Archer kind of had to make things up as he went along. He seemed to more emotional in his command style than the other captains. But he was willing to do what it took to get the mission done, especially during the Xindi arc.
Most everyone was pissed about Jadzia. Although you have to admit, it was sudden and a gut punch, which actually played into the dark storylines of the Dominion War. You got the feeling that maybe no one was safe. But give Ezri a chance. I found her rather adorable.
I don't have anything against Ezri, and even kind of like her. But I was attached to Jadzia.
Ezri did have big shoes to fill and only 1 season to do it. She did well with what she was given, IMO. No doubt she would be compared to Jadzia, but her bubbly personality won me over. That and Nicole de Boer was easy on the eyes. I wouldn't have minded counting her spots.
Well, I'm working through season 7, so I'll get there eventually, and move on to Enterprise.
I'm sure you'll enjoy the ride
Siince I watched only the original Shatner/Limoy series, and some of the Pickard ones, I'm at a loss with respect to following where the dialogue is going here, but I'm grateful for the keeping of one of my articles on the Front (Home) Page for so long when American political articles are overwhelming. I should point out that there actually is a group on NT totally dedicated to Star Trek, that is called Star Trek.