Star Trek II's Most Emotional Moment Had Everyone On Set Weeping (Except The Director)
Nicholas Meyer's well-regarded 1982 sci-fi film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is all about failure. It begins with Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) looking down the barrel of middle age, having to acknowledge that he's likely past his prime. His eyesight is failing, and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) prescribes old-fashioned glasses. As the film progresses, we learn that Kirk has an adult son named David (Merritt Butrick) that he wasn't present to raise, and an old enemy, Khan (Ricardo Montalbán), whom he had left on Ceti Alpha V decades ago and had completely forgotten about.
Kirk tells a story of taking a test in Starfleet Academy called the Kobayashi Maru, a test that is designed to make the subject fail; it's meant to gauge a student's command acumen in a no-win scenario. Kirk so wanted to win that he changed the test, effectively cheating. He had, audiences learn, never learned to accept defeat and wasn't well-suited to failure. By facing Khan, Kirk came to acknowledge his many shortcomings and youthful failures. He can lose. Indeed, in fighting Khan, Kirk emerged victorious only because Spock (Leonard Nimoy) sacrificed his own life. This time, it seems, there are finally consequences.
The film ends with a funeral for Spock. Kirk, in his eulogy, says that of all the souls he's encountered in his travels, Spock's was the most human. This is quite insulting, given that Spock aimed to reject his human side and live as a logical Vulcan.
In his autobiography "The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood," Meyer recalled filming Spock's death scene and wondering why all the people around him were misting up and crying.
The man with the dry eyes
The final scene between Kirk and Spock saw the two characters separated by a glass partition, as Spock saved the U.S.S. Enterprise by entering a radioactive chamber to fix the ship's engine by hand. While the lethal dose of radiation killed him, Kirk looked on. Their final conversation was about how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and that Spock always considered Kirk a friend. His final words were, naturally, "Live long and prosper." These final moments left a deep mark on many Trekkies, including the crew in the room, who had all been watching Kirk and Spock on TV since 1966 ("Khan" was filmed in 1981).
Meyer admitted — in "Star Trek: Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures" — that he had never seen "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" before agreeing to rewrite and direct "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." As such, his attachment to the characters of Kirk and Spock wasn't quite as intense as many of the longtime Trek filmmakers he worked among. As he said:
"I looked at my cinematographer, Gayne Rescher, and he was weeping. [...] Other people were weeping. I thought, 'What the hell is going on here?' That's how much I didn't understand about this show."
It wouldn't be until later that Meyer put together the gravity of the situation, although he saw it more through the lens of two actors doing an excellent job. He appreciated that it meant a lot for Shatner and Nimoy. He continued:
"They were totally there. [...] You know, they had started out as rivals in the early days of the show, but then they sort of realized that they needed each other. So even though they were very different people, they had a genuine friendship."
Why is everyone crying?
Meyer also noted in his autobiography that a director cannot become too emotional during a shoot, as they should be too busy overseeing the production to get emotional. A director should make sure the actors are delivering an emotional performance, but keep a professional distance. Meyer said:
"I had to be the audience surrogate and make sure there was nothing in the frame and nothing in the performances that would bounce anybody out of the emotional intensity of what was going on. [...] If I started crying, I was going to lose that objectivity! If you are the puppeteer, you cannot be out front sobbing at the performance. You must remain backstage and make sure that the strings do not become tangled."
Spock's death was undone in the 1984 sequel "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock," a film about reuniting Spock's disembodied consciousness — "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: stored inside the brain of Dr. McCoy — with his newly resurrected (but mindless) body, handily brought back to life by the Genesis planet's eerie qualities. Throughout that film, however, Kirk defied Starfleet's orders for selfish reasons, lost his son to vengeful Klingons, and had to blow up the Enterprise in self-defense. Spock's death may not have stuck, but at least both "Star Trek II" and "Star Trek III" were about failure. That part remained consistent.