6 Deleted Scenes from Star Trek Movies that Would’ve Made Them a Little Less Confusing
Ah, deleted scenes. Sometimes they should’ve been left in the original cut of the film, and sometimes they should be wiped from existence all together.
But then you have the deleted scenes that are neither good nor bad, that aren’t great or horrible. But, if they were left in the film, they would’ve helped the final cut make a lot more sense. This is the case for many of the Star Trek films.
?From unexplained crying fits to disappearing parts of someone’s anatomy, the Star Trek film franchise is chocked full of little glitches and plot holes that might confuse the average viewer and infuriate the above-average fan boy. So, without further ado, here are six deleted scenes from the Star Trek films that would’ve made them a little less confusing.
6) The Origin of Peter Preston, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Khan and his crew aboard the U.S.S. Reliant have just struck the Enterprise; many are wounded and many are dying. Among them is Cadet Peter Preston. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) is standing by the kid’s bedside in the medical bay weeping as the cadet dies. Scotty tells Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner), tearfully, that the kid “stayed at his post.” Granted, it’s probably not easy losing any of your crew members, but Scotty had been in Starfleet for many years by that point. Death should be a commonality and a part of the job to Scotty. So what gives?
Peter Preston was Scotty’s nephew. In an earlier scene, we see Kirk meeting Preston and razzing him about how young he is to be in Starfleet (Preston’s the tiny one in the pic above). It’s just after this exchange in the original script when we find out that Preston is related to Scotty. Without this bit of info, we lose quite a bit when it comes to Scotty being so damn upset when the kid dies. And why was the scene cut? To save time, which is ridiculous considering that the cut scene was only a few seconds long.
5) Saavik Gets All Weepy, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
It’s a funeral for Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Everyone is shaken. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) is in tears. Kirk’s voice trembles. Even Saavik (Kristy Alley) looks on the verge of breaking down. Saavik? A Vulcan. What the hell? How can a Vulcan of all beings get so emotional?
Turns out Saavik is half Romulan. Why this was cut out of the script is anyone’s guess. If the producers and director didn’t want to reference that she was half Romulan, maybe they should’ve jettisoned her crying scene as well, considering, you know, Vulcans aren’t known for being all weepy.
4) Nero’s Half the Man he Used to Be, Star Trek
It’s been 25 years since Nero (Eric Bana) came through a time rift into the alternate reality of 2009’s Star Trek. Nero has been waiting for Spock to come through the same rift considering that, of course, he blames Spock for destroying Romulus with Spock’s invention, red matter. We see that Nero’s hardly aged a day and looks relatively the same. Except for the fact that the points on one of his damn ears is missing!
As it turns out, Nero was captured, imprisoned, and tortured by Klingons on Rura Penthe (the prison asteroid from Star Trek VI). Attempting to find out who he really is and how he got a hold of such a massive ship, the Klingons want to put some more hurt on Nero, but he decides against that.
This, like the Peter Preston scene, was cut to save time. But, again, it’s just foolish to introduce a character and then show him later with unexplained alterations. Romulans have pointed ears, like the Vulcans, and to mess with that trademark without explanation is ridiculous. And, besides, keeping Nero’s torture and eventual escape from the Klingons would’ve added some weight and another dimension to a relatively flat character.
3) The Japanese Restaurant, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
McCoy (DeForest Kelly), Scotty, and Sulu (George Takei) are walking through the streets of 20th Century San Francisco to find a way to transport two humpback whales to the 23rd Century to save Earth from certain doom. As they’re walking along trying to figure out what to do and how to get specific information, they see a Yellow Pages mural painted on the side of a Japanese restaurant. We see a group of children run out of the restaurant and an old lady yelling at them in Japanese. Why the weird focus on the restaurant at all?
?
The place actually belongs to Sulu’s ancestors. In fact, one of the kids that ran out of the place was supposed to be Sulu’s great, great, great, great, great (you get the idea) grandfather and he and Sulu were supposed to exchange a few words. But the scene was never filmed considering the fact the kid that was supposed to be Sulu’s grandpappy sucked at acting and director Leonard Nimoy decided not to waste film time.
We’re probably cheating a little with this one, considering that cutting the scene from the movie doesn’t really make the film confusing at all. But it would’ve been a neat little addition being the fact that Sulu mentions he’s a native of the Bay Area just a few minutes earlier in the film.
2) The Mystery of Sybok’s Ponytail, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The Enterprise draws closer to center of the universe to meet, um, God. The long-haired, Vulcan hippy Sybok is in control of the ship and leads the vessel through a horrible galactic storm.
Penetrating the storm, the Enterprise comes into the planet’s orbit. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Sybok, Spock’s half brother and hostage-taker of the Enterprise, take the Galileo away-ship and head to the planet’s surface. While there we see that Sybok doesn’t have ponytail anymore!
It’s gone. Vanished. Friggin’ nowhere. For the first seventy-five percent of the movie, it’s dangling there making him look like a Vulcan roadie for the Allman Brothers, but now, he’s it’s gone for no explainable reason! So why was it cut (no pun intended)? It’s hard to say. William Shatner, director, blames bad editing on why the film was so poorly received. Apparently, according to Shatner, there are a lot of scenes from this film that got left on the cutting room floor. But, who knows? There’s no proof of that.
1) How Kirk Beat the Kobayashi Maru, Star Trek
We see Kirk (Chris Pine) attempt, for a third time, to beat the Kobayashi Maru, an unwinnable test developed for the Starfleet Academy by none other than Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto). No one has ever beaten the simulation… until now. After a glitch occurs, Kirk is able to instruct his team to beam out the survivors of the space ship Kobayashi Maru and fire on the attacking Klingon ships. Later it’s revealed that Kirk reprogrammed the test and cheated. So, how the hell did Kirk gain access to the computers?
Well, remember the Orion girl (the green chick) that Kirk was trying to get with toward the beginning of the film? Her name was Gaila, she had access to the simulation terminals, and Kirk took advantage of her specifically to have her help him cheat the test. Wow. What a dick.
As is the case with the Nero character, a scene like this should’ve been left in the movie considering it adds another dimension to Kirk’s personality. We all know that Kirk has a long history of womanizing, but to take the womanizing to the point of just beating an unbeatable test in an attempt to show up Spock is borderline sociopathic.
Oh, and there is another scene in relation to this one that was also cut later on. While on board the Enterprise (against Starfleet’s orders nonetheless) Kirk tries to apologize to Gaila. But it turns out this particular green-skinned woman isn’t Gaila at all. She’s someone totally different. And this, of course, makes Kirk look like an even bigger dick.
Maybe instead of Tiberius, his middle name should’ve been Caligula.