Khan30: Harve Bennett, DeForest Kelley & Nick Meyer Talk Star Trek II In Rare BTS Footage

TrekMovie continues to celebrate June as Wrath of Khan month in honor of the 30th anniversary of what we still think of as the best Star Trek feature film. Today we have Star Trek II behind the scenes footage from Entertainment Tonight in 1982 which features director Nick Meyer, producer Harve Bennett and actor DeForest Kelley talking about the movie. You can also see some scenes being shot and catch Leonard Nimoy’s final day on the set. Watch it below.

 

Watch: Behind the scenes on Star Trek II

Watch this cool behind the scenes video from the making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, featuring interview snippets with DeForest Kelley, producer Harve Bennett, and director Nicholas Meyer. Notably Kelley and Bennett talk about how Star Trek II will be bringing back the feeling of the Star Trek TV series that was "missing" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. You also can see Leonard Nimoy’s last day on set. Also of note, Meyer refers to the film as Star Trek II: The Undiscovered Country (which was the original title until it was nixed by the studio, obviously Meyer got his chance to use that subtitle later for Star Trek VI in 1991)

via Entertainment Tonight.

More Star Trek II coverage coming soon. Later today we will have the first part of our exclusive interview with Nicholas Meyer, where he talks about reports that Khan originally had a son in Wrath of Khan.

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Rare footage?? Ya gotta LOVE it!!

Cool to see those behind the scenes shots. I know exactly where each one of them was in the movie!

Very cool! Where the heck did they find that little treasure?

Amazing footage! Feels like an interview for a new movie today. Myers says trek can’t be without Spock!

Love that ol’ School… Thanks. DeForest Kelly; what a gem!

Wow, the video quality on this is amazing….looks like ET has went back to its master film and redone this to HD! Very cool!

ET (and later, MTV) always had the best coverage of Trek features, and then the TNG+ years, due to the fact that they were Paramount.

John Tesh even got to stab Worf with a pain stick.

Great footage.. loved the interviews. Nice find, Anthony.

Considering how old that footage is, it sure does look like it was filmed only yesterday (except, of course, in 16:9).

Outstanding find, enjoyed the footage from the sets and the interview with Nick Meyer and the late, great DeForest!

CORRECTION for #9 Post:

It should read: (except, of course, in 4:3 instead of 16:9)

Cool stuff. That Montalban behind the scenes stuff f the very shots that came out is great stuff!

See? You can show stuff from the movie and not ruin things.

God, I remember seeing this the first time, way back when.

Wolowitz on BIG BANG should play Meyer in a biopic.

Oh god great to see new stuff like that I love and always will love my passion for star trek and this film great to see new footage !!! And how good we’re them sets !!!! I always this the special addition of TWOK is the best !!!!

Now that was a gem of a clip. Awesome to see DeForest Kelly and Ricardo Montalbán.

That was great! Kinda weird seeing Nimoy in his uniform and smiling. My God, Spock has pearly whites!

makes me feel like i’m 6 seeing it for the first time all over again

Never seen that before. Thank you for sharing.

DeForest was a real darlin’ and a naturally charming guy.

Some great stuff. Seen this many times back in 1982. I had the pleasure of seeing Trek 2 on the big screen here in Austin at the Alamo Draft House. Talking about feeling like a kid again.

Interesting comments on the uniforms….

Really great footage! Especially watching Ricardo Montalban get ready for his scene and then perform it perfectly! What a pro he was. That was an Oscar worthy performance.

DeForest Kelly was the best ambassador that Trek ever had. Such an authentic down-to-earth personality. He was the real good soul of Star Trek.

I hope there is as interesting behind-the-scenes footage of the 2013 Trek.

Amazing – This is a great discovery!

Wow, thought I saw everything about this movie! Thanks for this. Just terrific!

Thanks for the De Kelley footage. More of the same would be extremely welcome!

ET was always doing stories about the ST movies, TV shows.. They were on the same lot. I bet ET or someone else could put out over 10 hrs of interview, behind the sceans video.

The quality on this video was great. Are they showing us a teaser for a new release of video?

Great job.

ET has some great archives. I was watching some of their stuff the other day. I hope they bring out more of these.

Nick Meyer: Star Trek II: The Undiscovered Country.

So THAT’s where they got the title for VI!

It was always comforting to me to see Deforest Kelly after Star Trek, whether it was Merv Griffin, or whatever in later years. He was always exactly how and what I thought he should be —in any era.

Also, listening to Harve Bennett there tells me again what I always have thought they he was pretty intuitive about what it was all about and had a lot on the ball. I still think his ‘Academy Years’ idea that never happened would’ve been great. “Yes, I remember, it was required reading at ‘the Academy”, ……”John Gil was an instructor of mine at ‘The Academy’ “…… “I knew him Spock. We were classmates together at ‘the Academy’ “….. I mean, how many times did Kirk throw a quick reference out there about those years? Man! If there was anyone thing that solidified Trek lore and just ignited my imagination of things that were, it was hearing those quick little asides the writers cleverly inserted into episodes. That’s one of the many things I was disappointed about with the Abrams movie. Instead of really seeing the plethora of stories and new retconned character material that could have been explored (at least 3 or 4 good seasons of network run on TV I would say – who knows?)….I still say it would be a good idea. Missed opportunity now.

Instead we got “3 years later” and that was it.

He tasks me..he tasks me…was a great line

I remember seeing that when I was a kid, and guess what didnt ruin or spoil anything from the first time i watched the film .

one of the many reasons i disagree with what Damon said about fans dont want to see unfinished or temporary footage.

there is nothing wrong with showing footage, to excite audiences. and keep in mind this was aired on ET a little less than year before the release of TWOK.

Also this clip again reminds us that Harve, and Nicholas “GOT” trek, I still dont fully believe that JJ “GETS” Trek.
dont get me wrong I ve said it before but I really enjoyed Trek 09, but it really did feel more like star trek than classic Trek.

If George ever decides to make episode 7-9 he should definately hire JJ, as I am sure we would get a excllent star wars movie from JJ

Thanks for sharing! That was great to watch. :)

Awesome! Great to watch!!

This one really took me back. Star Trek II remains the standard by which all other Trek films are judged. The video quality was awesome, especially after 30 years.

Wonderful to see DeForest. I’d love to see James Doohan in a similar interview as well.

Enjoyed seeing this, I missed it back in the day. Some trivia or gossip from way back then that maybe some of y’all here missed due to being a lot younger than me: One of those two female actresses who were background eye candy as part of Khan’s group posed in a nude layout back then very close to the release date of the film in GALLERY or a similar type magazine. Judson Scott (Joachim) and/or his agent got into a dispute with somebody at Paramount over where his name should appear in the film credits. They lost big time as his name didn’t appear in the credits at all. You don’t see that happen very often.

DeForest Kelley sure seems like a genuine Southern gentleman. I swear a heard a twinge in his voice here that really sounded like Gary Sinise’s voice. Gary probably would have been a very good choice for the updated Trek if the age difference between him and Karl Urban wasn’t 17 years or for whatever other reason(s). No disrespect at all intended to Karl Urban, who is excellent as Bones v2.0.

Great to see DeForest Kelley again. We all miss him.

I think “Undiscovered Country” was a better fit for II than VI. But regardless, it’s the coolest ST subtitle ever. I can nitpick some things I disagree with Nic Meyer on, but overall he’s the best thing that ever happened to Trek.

I wonder…. will JJ (2nd best thing that ever happend to Trek?) ever want Meyer to be involved again? To direct, or… whatever…

And again, CONGRATULATIONS TO THE LOS ANGELES KING FOR BEING THE WINNERS OF THE STANLEY CUP ONCE AGAIN!!!

Did anyone happen to see Chris Pine in attendance of game 6? WOW! That was an instant classic!

Vidi, veni.

This is FANTASTIC footage… amazing to see in such clarity after all these years. I wish ET would dig all of their Trek behind the scenes footage out and put it on a DVD. There’s some great stuff with John Tesh on the set of TNG as the sets are being constructed back in 87. Notice that Nimoy walks past the full sized travel pod set in this clip. Awesome! One of the best posts on this site!

Nimoy’s teeth are startlingly white, more so than in life or in the movie. Odd

That was really great.

Anthony – what a treat, thanks so much for putting this up.

Why does the footage look so clear? It’s extraordinary.

“The Undiscovered Country” would have required explaination in a scene somewhere, as happened in Star Trek VI. It’s not really a good fit for II, if most the audience had gone Huh? Or howabout “Young at Heart”? :))

Young Whipper Snappers, Back in the days before the WWW the only place you could get upcoming info on Star Trek movies was ET and Starlog Magazine. Can you imagine having to wait a month for the next issue or get lucky to catch a snippet of info from ET?
Back when ET started they actually were a pretty good source for upcoming movies and news and didn’t really report on Tabloid crap like they do now.

I’ve wanted to see this again since I first saw it air, before I had a VCR!!

The quality is amazing and the behind the scenes is beyond belief!!

the greatest trek movie. ever.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

De Forest Kelley sounds incredibly human, as usual. Great find. Thanks for sharing.

Anyone else having problems getting the video to play on a Mac (Lion)? I can’t get it to play in either Safari or Firefox.

That. Was. Awesome!