20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
8. At The Climax Of The Movie, Kirk Was Going To Take Ilia To The Starfleet Archives
In the July 19, 1978 shooting script and as late as the August 29, 1978 shooting schedule for the movie, the climax of Star Trek—The Motion Picture included an interesting tangent that wouldn’t be seen in theatres.
As in the completed film, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker, and Ilia exit the Enterprise through the saucer, walk through the heart of V’Ger (in the script and publicity materials, this is called the “wing walk” sequence), and arrive at the V’Ger “island complex” where they find what remains of the original Voyager 6 probe. Our intrepid heroes learn that the Voyager 6 probe was programmed to return to Earth orbit, and upon receipt of a specific code signal, transmit its findings back to Earth.
But unlike the finished film, Uhura isn’t able to pull up the old NASA code signal in a matter of seconds. Plus, in this draft of the script, the job is given to Sulu, who tells Kirk:
The code isn't in our records. Voyager Six was sent out by Earth's 'United States Subdivision.' The frequency and code was probably kept secret to keep the Voyager data from rival subdivisions.
Kirk orders the Starfleet Archives Section to start an immediate search for the material, and decides to beam there himself, with the Ilia robot (still called “Tasha” in this version) in tow. As V’Ger’s countdown continues to get closer to zero, Kirk finds himself in the midst of organized archival chaos on Earth:
with the Archivists still working feverishly in the b.g., but in f.g. Kirk anxiously watches Tasha rolling microfilm in her nimble fingers, her eyes taking in each single frame in a millisecond.
With Tasha’s help, Kirk is able to locate the release code with only four minutes to spare, but like the final movie, the transmission of the code does nothing to stop the countdown. Kirk and Tasha quickly beam back from V’Ger, and the climax proceeds from there much as it does in the final movie.
Although this writer certainly appreciates a moment of heroics being afforded to archival researchers, after entering the heart of V’Ger, a side trip largely spent in a conference room that quickly introduces and then discards a couple of new characters feels like a distraction at this point in the movie. As the troubled third act of the film continued to be refined and rewritten, these scenes were removed long before they could be filmed.