20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
14. The Enterprise Wasn’t Always The Only Ship In Range
Early in the film, Admiral Kirk tells Mr. Scott, “An alien object of unbelievable destructive power is less than three days away from this planet [Earth]. The only starship in interception range is the Enterprise.”
It’s a refrain that would quickly become a Star Trek cliché. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Kirk says the Enterprise is “the only ship in the quadrant” during a brief training cruise that began in Earth orbit. In Star Trek: Generations (1994), the Enterprise B is “the only [starship] in range” while still in Earth’s solar system.
But as late as a May 17, 1978 draft of the script for Star Trek—The Motion Picture, the circumstances were a bit different. Another vessel, the light cruiser U.S.S. Aswan, is able to intercept the mysterious cloud shortly before the Enterprise. But, the instant the Aswan approaches, V’ger zaps it out of existence. In the real world, screenwriter Harold Livingston zapped the Aswan from existence before filming on the movie began, probably because the story beat of V’ger zapping yet another object on its path to Earth (after the Klingons and Epsilon 9) was redundant.