How ‘Star Trek’ Fans Try to Save Spock Before ‘Wrath of Khan’ — The Wild 1981 Campaign Explained

It’s a bit surreal to think back to what everyday life was like in 1981. Way back then, there was no internet, no social media, and, thankfully, there were very few online message boards to pick apart every leak emerging from a closed movie set. If you wanted to know what was happening in the world or the scoop on your favorite TV show or movie, you had to wait for the daily newspaper to arrive on your front porch.

With that said, the story I’m about to relate concerns a news item that surfaced during the Fall of 1981, revealing that everyone’s favorite Vulcan, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), was in critical condition and reported to be near death. The rumor mill had been busy all summer. Word had leaked out that the pointy-eared hero who had survived so many battles was going to be killed off in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Everett Collection

Paramount, the studio making the movie, played coy with those rumors, saying that the final script had not been completed and that they had no idea what might or might not happen to Spock. But you know what? The fans of Star Trek were having none of that.

You have to understand that Trekkies (or Trekkers), way back then, were very well organized. They had successfully lobbied NBC to save the original show in ’68, and they’d even convinced President Ford to name the first space shuttle after their beloved starship. So, they were not going to take this quietly.

Especially a certain lady named Laura Leach; she was at the center of it all. Laura wasn’t what people typically pictured when they thought of a die-hard sci-fi fan. She was a 35-year-old executive at AT&T in New York. In her career, she was known for approaching situations with the same cold logic that Mr. Spock might apply. And because of that, she felt like it was hard to imagine that Paramount would go into a major production without knowing the outcome of the plot.

Paramount. Courtesy: Everett Collection.

So, Laura and a group called The Concerned Supporters of Star Trek decided to speak the only language that they thought the studio would respect – money. They bought an ad in a trade paper warning the studio that killing Spock would cost them at least $28 million in lost revenue. Laura argued that most rational businessmen try to minimize their risks. She said that by killing Spock, Paramount was doing the exact opposite.

As I said earlier, the studio tried to play it cool. Producer Harve Bennett would not confirm or deny anything. He just said that they were storytellers who did not want to tell the story in advance. He also mentioned that they were working on the seventh draft of the script and were considering all their options. But the fans saw through this public relations talk. They suspected that actor Leonard Nimoy wanted to put the character behind him.

Truthfully, Leonard wasn’t all that eager to leave the franchise. However, he was worried that the second Star Trek movie, which had a lower budget than the first, was simply a cash grab by a studio looking for one final payday before admitting that transitioning Star Trek from television to movies was an experiment that had failed miserably.

Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

In a 2012 interview celebrating the 30^th anniversary of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, here’s what Leonard said, “I thought this was going to be the end of it. I thought if that was the case, maybe it makes sense for me and the Spock character to go out in a blaze of glory and be done with it. I wasn’t looking forward to finishing, but I really thought that Star Trek was finished.

As the movie got closer to its release date, speculation about Spock’s demise only increased. So much so, in fact, that even Robin Williams was making jokes about it.

When the film finally arrived in theaters in 1982, Spock did die. It was a sad moment that left theaters completely silent. However, it was also a fantastic movie. I remember seeing it on opening night in Salt Lake City with my friend Dave Nielsen, and we were both blown away.

Despite warnings from Laura Leach and her group of concerned fans, the movie was not a failure, and it did not lose $28 million. In fact, it was a massive success and is largely responsible for saving the entire series. The studio had managed to pull off a pretty darn difficult trick; they gave Nimoy the exit he wanted, while still planting a seed of hope that would eventually, after intensive negotiations, allow them to bring the beloved character back in the next film.