15 More Things You Didn’t Know About Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
13. Nicholas Meyer Was Pro Blowing Up the Enterprise
Immediately after Bennett completed his Return to Genesis treatment, he sent it to Khan-director Nicholas Meyer, who replied with a two-page letter of feedback. Notably, he wrote:
I loved the blowing up and loss of the Enterprise because the thing I hate most about “Star Trek” which I suppose I must hate about television is the everything-must-be-where-it-was-at-the-beginning dictum that governs all endings. That’s why I tried so desperately to kill Spock — just for a change. Blowing up the Enterprise seems to be grown-up stuff and I enjoyed it. I think there you can have again legitimate emotion as opposed to manufactured stuff.
Meyer did have some issues with the proposed story, though…
My most serious single problem has to do with the question of payoffs. Why is Spock an apparition? Why isn't he dead? Why is he half-bestial when found? Did I miss something? How did he come back to life? And why in this fashion? And by what means does he manifest himself as an apparition to the crew of the Enterprise and for what purpose? And what is it Bones was supposed to remember?
Good questions, all largely addressed or eliminated by the final script.