‘Saavik Would’ve Been Infinitely More Unexpected & Emotionally Devastating’
Social media posts reopen debate over "Star Trek VI"
One of the things we Star Trek fans love to think about is, “What if?”
That's certainly true about a recent, good-natured debate between two very well-known fans over social media about Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Specifically, the discussion reopened disagreement among fans about the replacement of the character of Saavik with the new Lt Valeris as a villain of the story, as played by Kim Cattrall.
Terry Matalas, showrunner of the celebrated third season of Star Trek: Picard, took issue with a recent piece published by John Orquiola, Star Trek editor at Screen Rant.
In the article, Orquiola sides with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s objection to turning Saavik into a traitor against the Federation and someone who would betray Spock (Leonard Nimoy) personally.
Director Nicholas Meyer originally planned to make Saavik Star Trek VI’s Vulcan traitor. Further, he wanted to pass over Robin Curtis, who played the Vulcan officer in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock and bring back Kirstie Alley who originated the role in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Despite being near the end of his life, Roddenberry came out very strongly against that plan, arguing that Saavik had become a “beloved character.”
And in the end, Roddenberry won out, and Spock’s entirely new — and never-before-seen — protege, Valeris, was born.
(Complicating any planned return of Saavik was the fact that at the time, Alley was on the popular TV sitcom, Cheers, and would have been too expensive to hire for Star Trek VI, anyway.)
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And Saavik, finally, got her due in Star Trek canon, as Orquiola wrote:
Star Trek: Picard gave Saavik her due 37 years after she was last seen in Star Trek IV. Canonical backstory setting up Picard season 3 on Instagram revealed that Saavik was promoted to Captain in 2293, and the Vulcan was, in fact, the first Captain of the USS Titan. Further, the Titan was briefly the flagship of the Federation. This essentially made Saavik one of the most important Starfleet Captains of the late 23rd century era, thanks to Gene Roddenberry fighting to keep Saavik from going down in Star Trek history as a traitor.
Except that the showrunner of that aforementioned Picard has another view, which he shared as a comment to Orquiola’s post of his article on X (formerly known as Twitter).
“No, Saavik would’ve been infinitely more unexpected & emotionally devastating — especially to Spock. Plus they wanted to get Kirstie back. Would’ve been really amazing to see. I have this version of the script. It’s pretty powerful,” Matalas posted.
If only all debates on social media could be so friendly and agreeable…
What do you think about how Star Trek VI turned out? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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