20 Most Messed Up Deaths From The Star Trek Movies

20. Captain Randolph?!

Let's start on something more positive, if only to slowly shatter your illusions. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ranks highly in fan estimations in good part because of its apparent lack of death. Director Leonard Nimoy had decided early on that The Voyage Home would be a different kind of movie. Quoted in The Art of Star Trek, he said,

[There would be] no dying, no fist-fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical 'bad guy.' I wanted people to really have a great time watching this film […] [to] lose themselves, and enjoy it.

Vijay Amritraj, the actor and tennis star who played Captain Joel Randolph of the Yorktown in The Voyage Home, wasn't quite on the same page, however. Speaking to The Indian Express in 2013, Amritraj noted, "I did Star Trek IV, they killed me in that one".

Things were certainly looking bleak for the Yorktown after contact with the whale probe. In a brief message to Starfleet Headquarters, Captain Randolph reported that his ship had been without power for three hours, that "non-essential crew" had been given "hiber-sedatives" to reduce "consumption of life support reserves". The chief engineer was then attempting to rig a "makeshift solar sail" as a last-ditch effort for survival.

The truth is we don't know the ultimate fate of the Yorktown. According to The Star Trek Encyclopedia, Gene Roddenberry suggested that a ship called Yorktown had gone on to become the Enterprise-A. Either way, that says nothing about Randolph and crew.

Already in the shooting script for Star Trek IV, dated 11 March 1986, was something much, much worse. Reporting in from the USS Shepard was communications officer Trillya, also seen, but not heard, on screen:

All attempts to reinstate main power have failed. Captain Clampett has quarantined all but minimal support crew due to failure of Bio-Sterilization capsules containing Vegan D virus, which has already killed fifteen crew members.

Not just 'the one with the whales'!