Story Editing: How Spock Weeping Alters the Confrontation at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
For a long time the most available home video version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the VHS release that contained 12 additional minutes of footage that was added onto the ABC TV screening in 1983. So I didn’t realize until I saw the actual, original theatrical version of TMP on the big screen a couple of years ago how adding the scene of Spock weeping for V’ger (as he would a brother) to the director’s edition has a profound effect on the film’s final confrontation.
To set the stage, for a variety of reasons (which can be read about elsewhere) director Robert Wise was forced to turn in a “final” print of Star Trek: The Motion Picture that was a rough cut at best. Specifically, there was an artificial time limit imposed on the running length (so theaters could screen it more times per day) which meant that a lot of footage which was character based but not plot based was jettisoned to allow for a shorter movie.
The differences between the original theatrical release, the TV version from 1983 (which contained 12 minutes of added footage), and the two director’s edition releases in the 21st century are well-documented. One key scene that was included in all the later releases but not the original theatrical release was a scene where Spock — overcome with empathy for V’ger — silently weeps at his station.
Nimoy was reportedly very unhappy at the premiere which was when he first realized the scene he had filmed did not make the final cut. One can understand Nimoy’s frustration. It’s a very good scene for Nimoy the actor. But it’s also a pivotal scene for Spock the character and for the movie’s entire arc.
Dating back to the original series, Spock had described his human half and his Vulcan half as being at war with each other. His human half was not something he embraced. It was something to be suppressed and avoided.
The first time we see Spock in The Motion Picture he is performing (ultimately unsuccessfully) the Kolinahr ritual (McCoy’s later mispronunciation of it makes it sound like a cooking class) which is the Vulcan ritual by which all remaining emotions are purged from one’s being. His human half would remain part of his biology but no longer part of his soul.
Flash-forward to the end of the movie and Spock has changed to the point where he has no inclination to return to Vulcan to complete the Kolinahr ceremony. His journey has mirrored V’ger voyage of realizing that there is more to life than pure logic; it’s the beginning of wisdom, not the end. He’s found his place. He knows who he is. He’s at peace with his human half and his Vulcan half. And for that arc to completely work, the scene of him weeping over V’ger needs to be present in the narrative. It’s a powerful and forceful statement and leaving it on the cutting room floor is to the film’s detriment.
So the special, longer TV version adds it back. More importantly, when Robert Wise is persuaded decades later to move TMP from a released rough cut to a director’s edition, he also adds it back in.
But that scene can’t be added back on its own.
In the context of the scene itself, the Enterprise and V’ger are facing mutual destruction. Spock is not weeping for the Enterprise and himself and his crewmates. He’s weeping for the end of V’ger. But in the theatrical version this context is broken. There’s nothing for Spock to be weeping for; the Enterprise and all of Starfleet offer no threat to V’ger.
So you also have to add in the earlier scene (which was not in the theatrical release) where Kirk covertly orders Scotty to be prepared to mix the ship’s matter and antimatter together to self-destruct the Enterprise in order to wipe out V’ger at the same time. Spock realizes that if they are unsuccessful at learning how to get V’ger to abandon its plan, V’ger will likely die.
It’s a very quick scene, but adding those few lines of dialog, in turn, changes the balance at the climax. Kirk decides he needs to confront V’ger face-to-face (as it were). He tells the Ilia probe that he knows why the Creator has not responded but he can only give the information directly to V’ger. V’ger obliges and brings the Enterprise into its inner sanctum. However, in the theatrical version, Kirk is completely bluffing. He has no such information and moving the Enterprise closer to V’ger doesn’t give him any advantage. He’s purely buying time until hopefully someone figures out a way of talking V’ger out of sterilizing the third planet.
In the longer version, he’s kind of bluffing, but he does have something more substantial than corbomite up his sleeve. Now moving the Enterprise closer to V’ger has increased the chances that the self-destruction of the ship will also take out V’ger. It changes the balance of power when he’s arguing back and forth in front of the NASA prop.
All things considered, it’s possible that Robert Wise would have added the self-destruction subplot back in regardless. It helps ramp up the tension and gives Kirk a little more agency over the situation rather than being totally helpless (although I like the alternative version of the story in which the Enterprise crew have to rely on literally nothing but their wits to defeat V’ger in the final confrontation; there is no potential self-sacrifice that will save Earth). But it is an interesting look at how the different subplots interact to change the context of scenes that they don’t directly touch.
