Walter Koenig Had His One Request Ripped Away From Him In Star Trek: Generations
David Carson's 1994 film "Star Trek: Generations," set mostly in 2371, began with a flashback to 2293 when Admiral Kirk (William Shatner), Commander Chekov (Walter Koenig), and Captain Scott (James Doohan) attended the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise-B. In the original draft of the script, the Enterprise-B scenes were meant to include the entire original cast of "Star Trek," so Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley refused because their roles were insignificant and they didn't like the story. Nichelle Nichols and George Takei likewise turned down the film.
"Generations" involves a colossal negative space wedgie — a spatial energy ribbon called the Nexus — that scoops Kirk out of the Enterprise-B and holds him in a form of temporal stasis for 87 years until Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) can enter the same wedgie to retrieve him. Chekov and Scotty don't play a major part in the story. They are essentially there to assure anyone still not accustomed to "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that this is still the same film series.
According to a recent interview with TrekMovie, Koenig also initially balked at the idea of appearing in "Generations." The money was good, but his role, he felt, was not entirely significant. There was nothing, Koenig felt, to expand Chekov as a character or for him to contribute to the plot in any way. So Koenig agreed to come back only if he could appear in a vital scene where he actually was allowed to act, a scene which would have allowed Chekov to express some real, raw emotions. The way he tells it, the scene was written and he had memorized his lines before being rudely informed that the scene had been cut.
The Nexus
The way the theatrical cut of "Generations" ran was that Kirk was located in a fore section of the Enterprise-B repairing a vital system during a crisis. The Nexus outside was damaging the ship and the Enterprise had trouble breaking free from its gravitational pull. Just as the Enterprise was escaping, the ribbon zapped the ship, blew a hole in the hull, and bodily removed Kirk. Scotty and Captain John Harriman (Alan Ruck) rushed to the section where Kirk was located to make sure he was okay, only to be greeted by a massive hole in the wall, staring out into space. Checkov then ran in to join them. "My God!" Chekov said. "Was anyone in here?" Scotty, knowing Kirk was gone, gravely replied "Aye." The action then almost immediately faded to the year 2371.
Koenig felt that he and Scotty should be allowed at least a brief scene where they could express a moment of mourning. He didn't even recall the final scene because, well, there wasn't a scene. He said:
"I wanted the moment. When Kirk gets blown out of the ship in the beginning of the film, there is a moment when you go back and look at it, where Jimmy and I stand together, and we say something on the order of ... I don't know what we say, [but] we say something. And the reason I don't know what we said is that we didn't say what I had written."
It seems that Koenig had actually penned a brief moment where he and Scotty got to finally talk a little bout about how they felt, and Koenig was eager to play the scene because of a personal tragedy he had recently experienced.
A personal disappointment
Walter Koenig doesn't mention what personal loss he had suffered, but it was hard enough that he wanted to interpret it on camera, perhaps as a form of personal therapy. He noted that the scene he wrote — and actually filmed — moved him deeply. But then, the studio got other ideas. He said:
"[T]here was a moment between Jimmy and I, when we talk about the loss of our captain ... there's no more Captain Kirk. And that was painful. And if the truth be known ... I had suffered a devastating loss in my life at this point, and I was able to bring that to that moment when Kirk gets blown out of the ship. And the only time in my life that I've ever brought forth tears was during the exchange between Scotty and Chekov. So they shot it. The writer took down what I had to say ... and we memorized it. And we got on the set, and we shot it."
Then, he said, they cut the scene. Koenig was diplomatic about the cut, knowing that Hollywood follows its own caprices and that actors' ideas often get squashed and films are recut on a whim. But that didn't mean he wasn't disappointed. He said:
"[T]hat was the only reason why I did the film, was because I thought at last I got to say something about how the character should be played. And it's just one moment, it's not going to turn the plot upside down, twist anything, you're not going to have to bring in other actors, you're not going to have to have dialogue that explains why I'm saying this. I mean, it's generated from human compassion."
What a pity. Koenig's scene sounds like it might have been a meaningful moment for Scotty.