Savik's Accusation

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
I just finished rewatching "The Search for Spock" and I am confused about something...

David Marcus admitted to using protomatter in the Genisis matrix to speed up the creation of the Genisis device to successfully complete his experiments.

The thing I don't get it, besides creating an unstable planet, what was his crime?

Savik looks at him accusingly and says, "How many have paid the price for your impatience? How many have died? How much damage have you done, and what is yet to come?

Is she honestly blaming him for the deaths of the Regula 1 scientists and the crew of the USS Grisom? Or is it something else all togther?

Also, did Carol Marcus know about any of this? I can't believe that she was oblivious in any way to what was going on with HER experiment.
 
I felt that Saavik's accusation was more along the lines that the crimes were as follows:

1. Using protomatter which is unstable, and thus should not be used by ethical scientists
2. David was in a hurry to get the Genesis project done, and in his haste created something that could be turned into a weapon(he voices his concerns about this in Star Trek II)
3. Bending the rules - This is probably the most offensive to not only her, but other Vulcans as well
 
I felt that Saavik's accusation was more along the lines that the crimes were as follows:

1. Using protomatter which is unstable, and thus should not be used by ethical scientists
2. David was in a hurry to get the Genesis project done, and in his haste created something that could be turned into a weapon(he voices his concerns about this in Star Trek II)
3. Bending the rules - This is probably the most offensive to not only her, but other Vulcans as well

Well thats what I figured too, but what "deaths" is she placing on his head??
 
Well thats what I figured too, but what "deaths" is she placing on his head??

Probably all of them. If Genesis weren't something that could double as a weapon then neither Khan nor the Klingons would have been especially interested in it. He made the decision that ultimately lead to others killing the Regula One and the Grissom crews.
 
Probably all of them. If Genesis weren't something that could double as a weapon then neither Khan nor the Klingons would have been especially interested in it. He made the decision that ultimately lead to others killing the Regula One and the Grissom crews.

Maybe... that just seems a bit extreme though. Especially for a Vulcan.
 
I think Saavik was getting a little hot headed over their situation when she said it, she is half Romulan after all. Blaming David for the deaths of the Regula One and Grissom crews was probably more of an unjust emotional outburst than a serious accusation.
 
I think Saavik was getting a little hot headed over their situation when she said it, she is half Romulan after all. Blaming David for the deaths of the Regula One and Grissom crews was probably more of an unjust emotional outburst than a serious accusation.

Is it recognized Canon that she is part Romi though? I read that in a comic and was like... wtf? Granted we do see her emotions are closer to the surface then most Vulcans. We do see her crying at the end of WOK.
 
Is it recognized Canon that she is part Romi though? I read that in a comic and was like... wtf? Granted we do see her emotions are closer to the surface then most Vulcans. We do see her crying at the end of WOK.

The WOK book talks about it.

The ST Encyclopedia, sort of the accepted source for canon, states that there was a line in ST2's script that would imply she was half Romulan but I guess it wasn't shot.

At the bottom of it all, though, Saavik's lineage has been brought up in a number of books from the Pocket Books series, not connected to the film novelizations. The rules for writing for the PB series is that you can not add anything, including character history, to canon that can not be reconciled back to the status quo by the end of the book, beyond characters you have created for the story. So you can have a plumber on the Enterprise who is a good friend of Kirk, but he can't really turn out to be Kirk's long lost brother, at least not without clearance from those in charge of the franchise. So Saavik's genetic mix should therefore be canon.
 
The WOK book talks about it.

but he can't really turn out to be Kirk's long lost brother, at least not without clearance from those in charge of the franchise. So Saavik's genetic mix should therefore be canon.

I see, very good then thats just about good enough for me.
 
The WOK book talks about it.

The ST Encyclopedia, sort of the accepted source for canon, states that there was a line in ST2's script that would imply she was half Romulan but I guess it wasn't shot.

At the bottom of it all, though, Saavik's lineage has been brought up in a number of books from the Pocket Books series, not connected to the film novelizations. The rules for writing for the PB series is that you can not add anything, including character history, to canon that can not be reconciled back to the status quo by the end of the book, beyond characters you have created for the story. So you can have a plumber on the Enterprise who is a good friend of Kirk, but he can't really turn out to be Kirk's long lost brother, at least not without clearance from those in charge of the franchise. So Saavik's genetic mix should therefore be canon.

True, you see her trying to hold her emotions down throughout most of TWOK, though she only partially succeeds:

- As the Kobayashi Maru is ending, she's unbelieving of the way it's going
- With Kirk lecturing her, she's quite annoyed..."As I indicated, Admiral, that thought had not occurred to me."
- Unsurity with her first command experience taking the ship out of dock
- Bothered when her regulation quotation is cut short by Spock
- Looks as if to say, "Oh, please" when Kirk tells her, "There's no such regulation!"
- Is rather incredulous at Kirk's revelation at changing the Maru test
- And, as pointed out earlier, tears up at Spock's funeral

I think they could have done more with that character, but I personally think that giving the recasting to Robin Curtis was the gravest of errors. She bothered me to no end with the way she played that role.
 
I think they could have done more with that character, but I personally think that giving the recasting to Robin Curtis was the gravest of errors. She bothered me to no end with the way she played that role.

Its not like they had much choice... personally when someone mentions Lt. Savik I think of Kristie Alley not Robin Curtis. But Kirstie apparently did not want to be type casted as a sci-fi actress and turned down the role in "Search for Spock."

Personally, I have a feeling that the creators of Star Trek weren't too thrilled with Robin Curtis' job either. Had Kirstie continued, I'm willing to bet she'dve become a regular part of TOS' movie cast and we would have learned more about her. This is speculation of course.
 
Another thing that I don't understand is why were they searching for a planet to detonate it on, while the whole time they could of detonated it in space?
 
Personally, I have a feeling that the creators of Star Trek weren't too thrilled with Robin Curtis' job either. Had Kirstie continued, I'm willing to bet she'dve become a regular part of TOS' movie cast and we would have learned more about her. This is speculation of course.

I don't think it's that simple; despite the uniform cinematography there wasn't a great deal of continuity in terms of 'creators' for Star Treks II through VI. Gene Rodenberry was edged out entirely after TMP and decisions like casting and re-casting Saavik were made movie-to-movie by the individual directors. Which is to say, Nimoy liked Curtis and invited her back for Voyage Home... while Nicholas Meyer didn't even keep her in consideration for Undiscovered Country (he wanted Alley back and had to settle for a different actress playing a different character instead).

(For my money, Kirstie Alley always bugged me. It's hard to put my finger on it, but TVH was the first one I saw in the theater... so maybe she was always the woman who ruined Cheers sort of pretending to be a Vulcan to me.)

Is it recognized Canon that she is part Romi though? I read that in a comic and was like... wtf? Granted we do see her emotions are closer to the surface then most Vulcans. We do see her crying at the end of WOK.

It isn't "canon" in the increasingly limited sense that such things matter to Star Trek - it wasn't included 'on screen' and so no other Star Trek story is bound to accept it. It was, however, in the Star Trek II script (and the highly respected novelization)... so you will find it turn ups a lot more often than a character element introduced by a novelist or a video game designer.)
 
Another thing that I don't understand is why were they searching for a planet to detonate it on, while the whole time they could of detonated it in space?

I don't really think they knew that would work. That was more a freak thing that happened as a result of Khan detonating the device. It probably reconfigured the matter in the Mutara nebula and the remains of the Reliant to make the planet.

(For my money, Kirstie Alley always bugged me. It's hard to put my finger on it, but TVH was the first one I saw in the theater... so maybe she was always the woman who ruined Cheers sort of pretending to be a Vulcan to me.)

You thought she ruined cheers too? Christ for years for me I thought she was terrible! The first 5 seasons were the best ones. But everyone said Woody and Kristie made the show famous. I sit there and watch the first three seasons with Shelly and Coach and I thought they were funny as hell... felt like the only one.

By the way, did anyone else ever notice she seemed to have animosity towards Spock in STIV? Like she was mad at him for something... and why didn't she go to Earth with them?
 
On K.A.: Huh. I always thought it was because she wanted more money than Paramount was willing to give her that she didn't reprise the role...I remember reading that in a David Gerrold book way back called "The World of Star Trek". 'Course I could be remembering that quite wrongly.

I always took it as they needed a dead planetary body in order to allow Genesis to accomplish the phase where, "Matter is reorganized with life-generating results". It did end up forming the planet and its star out of the gases of the nebula and what remained of the Reliant, along with whatever matter would have been in the area.

In the meantime, I found this on YouTube and probably what SHOULD have happened. Then again, it also would have made a vastly shorter film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k5Aju0AHT4
 
By the way, did anyone else ever notice she seemed to have animosity towards Spock in STIV? Like she was mad at him for something... and why didn't she go to Earth with them?

The original idea was that she was pregnant with Spock's child, the result of having helped him through Pon Farr during his rapid aging on the Genesis planet; the script had a line for Kirk suggesting this (it wasn't filmed).

I'd say it makes a good amount of sense without that subtext, though. Saavik wasn't being charged with mutiny -- she was there because they rescued her from Genesis -- and so didn't need to go back to Earth and answer for her crimes.

They make a point of Spock's explaining to his mother that he must stand with his friends; having Saavik along for the ride would diminish that... (and then you'd run into other problems later in the narrative; having two aliens-out-of-water in the 20th century would just divide the story and pull apart some conceptual strings.)
 
By the way, did anyone else ever notice she seemed to have animosity towards Spock in STIV? Like she was mad at him for something... and why didn't she go to Earth with them?

The way I always took it was that she expected a bond out of Spock, considering he "married/mated" her during his Pon Farr stage on Genesis. That bond never kept its hold, which is where I think the animosity came from.

As for not going to Earth...storywise, they probably wouldn't have had anything for her to do, kind of a fifth wheel. In simple thinking terms, I think she just didn't accompany the crew as everyone aboard was a fugitive and she wasn't...and as Kirk said, "This is goodbye", seemed to me it was one of those unspoken orders that she wasn't going.

If you take the novelization seriously, however, it was because she was pregnant and taking a leave of absence from Starfleet on Vulcan because of it. Add the multiplier of the animosity factor if taking that into consideration...again, only in book form, though.
 
I don't really think they knew that would work. That was more a freak thing that happened as a result of Khan detonating the device. It probably reconfigured the matter in the Mutara nebula and the remains of the Reliant to make the planet.

If I remember right, either the WOK or SOS novelizations explain exactly this. When the Genesis torpedo went off there was enough material in the nebula to not only create the planet but also its star. But then again it's been close to fifteen years since I read them both so I'm not 100% sure, more 75.
 
You guys all do realize what nebulae are, right? Of course there's enough matter in them to form a planet and a star. And probably a few more planets and several hundred thousand other objects.
 
The original idea was that she was pregnant with Spock's child, the result of having helped him through Pon Farr during his rapid aging on the Genesis planet; the script had a line for Kirk suggesting this (it wasn't filmed).

I'd say it makes a good amount of sense without that subtext, though. Saavik wasn't being charged with mutiny -- she was there because they rescued her from Genesis -- and so didn't need to go back to Earth and answer for her crimes.

They make a point of Spock's explaining to his mother that he must stand with his friends; having Saavik along for the ride would diminish that... (and then you'd run into other problems later in the narrative; having two aliens-out-of-water in the 20th century would just divide the story and pull apart some conceptual strings.)

I seem to remember a scene in the novelization for Star Trek III that suggested that David and Saavik we're having some kind of relationship... Not that the novels are the gospel truth on the matter, but I'm curious if this was a consideration in the script as well or a fabrication by the author... or I may just be imagining things.
 
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