Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Kobayashi Maru
7. He's Already Dead Already
In Harve Bennett's very first treatment for Star Trek II, Spock didn't die. Spock, in fact, wasn't even in it. Little point, as Leonard Nimoy didn't want to don the ears in a movie again. According to Star Trek: The Magazine, volume 3, issue 05, it was writer Jack Sowards — "a self-confessed Star Trek fan" — who thought that a good death might become the actor as much as it did the character. As Harve Bennett joked on the Wrath of Khan special feature, Inception, "Nimoy's own ears went up" when they told him the plan.
There was one problem with killing off Spock. Two words — Gene Roddenberry. In a twist that no-one saw coming, like 2D Khan in the Mutara Nebula, Star Trek's creator leaked one of the scripts. Fans learnt about Spock's death as a result. Letters were written!
Director Nicholas Meyer came up with a solution to throw off the fans for a bit, in the form of the Kobayashi Maru. As writer, Trek historian, and co-host of Inglorious Treksperts, Mark A. Altman noted during a Paramount livestream in 2020 (via CinemaBlend):
The thing that's so brilliant, that Nick did, he said, 'Let's kill Spock in the simulator scene and everyone's going to think 'Oh, it's all a publicity gimmick. Of course he doesn't really die. Spock is going to be fine.'
As Meyer himself stated in Star Trek: The Magazine, he was, in fact, sitting with Harve Bennett when he suggested opening the film with the Kobayashi Maru and killing Spock in it. "I sort of thought I was being funny," Meyer added, but Bennett loved the idea.