Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Introduction
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was supposed to be the last Star Trek film, but it became a surprise hit and Paramount decided to continue the franchise. In fact, this film was greenlit one day after Khan opened. However, Paramount faced a glaring problem: Spock, the second main character of Star Trek (and easily the most popular and recognizable character) was dead. At this point, they could probably have forged ahead with the rest of the crew using Saavik as a sort of replacement Spock (which is what the DC Star Trek comics published between the two movies did), or they could play it safe and resurrect Spock. To perhaps no one's surprise, they did the latter.
It's easy to call this cowardice in hindsight, but remember that this was before the days when Star Trek consisted of multiple TV and movie series with completely different sets of characters. At this point, Kirk and Spock were Star Trek. There was no indication that a Trek with new characters could succeed, and after the debacle of The Motion Picture Paramount was unwilling to take risks with a potential cash cow franchise. If that meant writing a story where death was somehow not a permanent condition, well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had done that for similar reasons a hundred years earlier.
Paramount recruited Harve Bennett to produce and write the script, again; they wanted Nicholas Meyer to direct, but he didn't want to ruin the ending of Star Trek II and declined. Leonard Nimoy unexpectedly offered to direct, and despite having no experience was given his chance (after personally convincing Michael Eisner that he did not, in fact, hate Spock after all). He proved capable and went on to direct several more movies, notably Star Trek IV and Three Men and a Baby.
Bennett has said that in writing the movie he started from the closing scene of Spock alive, and worked backwards. With the hints dropped by the previous movie--the Genesis planet, the mind-meld with McCoy--the main Spock plot seems to have fallen into place easily. Bennett decided that the Genesis project was too much power for the Federation to have, so he had the Genesis planet destroy itself; he and the other writers also decided that David Marcus should pay the price for his hubris in creating it. The writers decided that, as a twist , they were going to destroy the USS Enterprise. This was supposed to be a surprise, but the first trailers for the movie openly proclaimed it "The Last Voyage of the Enterprise!". Fans were somewhat outraged, but after Spock's death and return they probably figured the Enterprise would return somehow. (They were right, of course.)
Bennett and Nimoy wanted some recurring aliens from the show to appear as villains; in the first draft they used Romulans. Paramount execs thought Klingons were better known and so they were substituted, but they had already created the "Bird of Prey" ship model so they went ahead and used it anyway. They even hired a linguist, Marc Okrand, to create a Klingon language for the villains of this movie to use; this became the basis for the Klingon speech heard in all later Star Trek movies and shows. In an unexpected move, Christopher Lloyd of Taxi was cast as the Klingon captain. It was certainly a change for Lloyd, who loved doing it and acted his heart out, but people still argue about whether they can take "Reverend Jim" (or Doc Brown) seriously in a villanous role or not. (Everybody agrees he's no Ricardo Montalban...but who is?) This is the first major appearance of the bumpy-headed Klingons, who are still mostly in the evil TOS Klingon mode but show signs of their "honorable" TNG incarnation as well.
In a final note on the production, the role of Saavik was recast when Kirstie Alley demanded more money than the producers were willing to pay. (Alley much later revealed that she had been subject to harassment by Shatner on the set of Star Trek II. I suspect she wanted to avoid being typecast as well, which may have been wise--would she have been hired for Cheers if she had the "stigma" of being a recurring Star Trek character? Well, who knows.) Robin Curtis was hired to play Saavik; however she looked and acted nothing like Alley had in the role, making their versions of the character seem like different people.
It's easy to call this cowardice in hindsight, but remember that this was before the days when Star Trek consisted of multiple TV and movie series with completely different sets of characters. At this point, Kirk and Spock were Star Trek. There was no indication that a Trek with new characters could succeed, and after the debacle of The Motion Picture Paramount was unwilling to take risks with a potential cash cow franchise. If that meant writing a story where death was somehow not a permanent condition, well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had done that for similar reasons a hundred years earlier.
Paramount recruited Harve Bennett to produce and write the script, again; they wanted Nicholas Meyer to direct, but he didn't want to ruin the ending of Star Trek II and declined. Leonard Nimoy unexpectedly offered to direct, and despite having no experience was given his chance (after personally convincing Michael Eisner that he did not, in fact, hate Spock after all). He proved capable and went on to direct several more movies, notably Star Trek IV and Three Men and a Baby.
Bennett has said that in writing the movie he started from the closing scene of Spock alive, and worked backwards. With the hints dropped by the previous movie--the Genesis planet, the mind-meld with McCoy--the main Spock plot seems to have fallen into place easily. Bennett decided that the Genesis project was too much power for the Federation to have, so he had the Genesis planet destroy itself; he and the other writers also decided that David Marcus should pay the price for his hubris in creating it. The writers decided that, as a twist , they were going to destroy the USS Enterprise. This was supposed to be a surprise, but the first trailers for the movie openly proclaimed it "The Last Voyage of the Enterprise!". Fans were somewhat outraged, but after Spock's death and return they probably figured the Enterprise would return somehow. (They were right, of course.)
Bennett and Nimoy wanted some recurring aliens from the show to appear as villains; in the first draft they used Romulans. Paramount execs thought Klingons were better known and so they were substituted, but they had already created the "Bird of Prey" ship model so they went ahead and used it anyway. They even hired a linguist, Marc Okrand, to create a Klingon language for the villains of this movie to use; this became the basis for the Klingon speech heard in all later Star Trek movies and shows. In an unexpected move, Christopher Lloyd of Taxi was cast as the Klingon captain. It was certainly a change for Lloyd, who loved doing it and acted his heart out, but people still argue about whether they can take "Reverend Jim" (or Doc Brown) seriously in a villanous role or not. (Everybody agrees he's no Ricardo Montalban...but who is?) This is the first major appearance of the bumpy-headed Klingons, who are still mostly in the evil TOS Klingon mode but show signs of their "honorable" TNG incarnation as well.
In a final note on the production, the role of Saavik was recast when Kirstie Alley demanded more money than the producers were willing to pay. (Alley much later revealed that she had been subject to harassment by Shatner on the set of Star Trek II. I suspect she wanted to avoid being typecast as well, which may have been wise--would she have been hired for Cheers if she had the "stigma" of being a recurring Star Trek character? Well, who knows.) Robin Curtis was hired to play Saavik; however she looked and acted nothing like Alley had in the role, making their versions of the character seem like different people.