15 More Things You Didn’t Know About Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

In Harve Bennett’s “Return to Genesis” outline, instead of heading straight to Earth, at McCoy’s request Kirk disobeys explicit orders and detours to Vulcan to drop him off first. When they arrive they can’t contact the planet, and upon beaming down they are “surrounded by a band of very hostile Vulcans, shouting their rage." The hostiles “attack with classic two-headed axes”, clearly evoking—albeit misremembering the details—of the Vulcan lirpa weapon introduced in “Amok Time,” which featured a fan-shaped blade on one end and a club at the other.

The attackers are repelled by “Prime Minister Sarek” and his “well-armed group of Vulcan Regulars,” and Sarek explains:

The Genesis device and the death of Spock have shaken his civilization. The implications of universal Armageddon, caused by the Federation, have proved how fragile the centuries of Vulcan evolution is. Young Vulcans will not accept their fate being in the hands of the intellectually inferior Federation.

This whole plot point went nowhere in the outline.

Of course, modern Vulcans attacking Kirk’s party with ancient melee weapons is as illogical as the idea that their culture would come apart at the seams because of Genesis and Spock—but this was only Bennett’s earliest stab at the story.