20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek⁠: The Motion Picture (1979)

Once Leonard Nimoy resolved his long-standing legal and financial issues with Paramount and signed on to star in the first Star Trek movie, it came time to find a place for Spock in the movie’s script.

But, when Nimoy and the rest of the cast participated in Paramount’s grand press conference announcing the movie on March 28, 1978, Spock wasn’t in the script at all. At that stage, the screenplay still featured Spock’s Vulcan replacement, Xon, leftover from the Star Trek II television series concept. (Xon was eventually eliminated and the actor who had been cast in the part, David Gautreaux, ended up with the part of Commander Branch on Epsilon 9.)

Nimoy, who was always creative (on Star Trek—The Motion Picture he participated in nightly writing conferences with Harold Livingston to improve the script, and he would earn story credits on two subsequent Star Trek movies), decided to sit in front of his typewriter and write his character's introduction for the movie. He called this 12-page story document, “The Final Plain.”

In Nimoy’s conception, the Final Plain is a testing ground in the deserts of Vulcan, a place “for the accomplishment of the highest level of Vulcan achievement. Pure rational thought.” The way the test works is simple. First, you spend a year in total silence and in total isolation. No words can be spoken and no sounds can be heard. Then, you are to return to Vulcan society, “to judge for himself whether or not he is prepared to withstand the pressures and tensions which are imposed upon him in any social environment.” Finally, when you are ready, you set out across the Final Plain during the height of the day, walking a mile between two poles that have been planted in the ground. When you reach the other side, you wait until the sun sets and it is night. Because Vulcan has no moon (well...in most depictions of the planet), “the nights are the deepest black of blacks.” You must retrace every step, every movement, and reach the pole at the other side of the plain within the same time limit you crossed the plain during the day. It’s a task which requires total mental concentration.

Nimoy indicates that Spock left the space service after the Enterprise completed its five year mission, and after two years of teaching at the Vulcan Institute of Technology, he set out to complete this final test. After two years of total silence (after the first year, Spock decides he is not yet ready for the final test, and so he returns to isolation), Spock sets out across the plain.

However, during his daytime crossing, Spock becomes aware of a tiny signal that “has been received and amplified through his receptive senses.” He stops in his tracks and listens, hearing a voice that says, over and over, “Come....Spock....Come....” The first time he hears this voice, he decides to soldier on, and he completes his journey across the desert and waits for nightfall. However, upon his return journey at night, he hears the voice again, and the call grows stronger. Only a half mile left in his journey, Spock suddenly stops, and after a moment, makes a decision. Turning to the left, he “walks off the path into the direction of a space station six miles away.”

As in the finished movie, Nimoy writes that the Spock who arrives on the Enterprise, although welcome, is not the Spock the crew has expected. Instead, he is completely detached from their emotional concerns, and is totally dedicated “to the scientific phenomenon that is taking place.”

You can also see elements of Nimoy’s idea, in truncated form, on screen during the movie’s Vulcan sequence. The actor himself would resurrect the idea of the Final Plain for a section of his revised memoir, I Am Spock, published in 1995.