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The 1989 release Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is generally regarded by Trek fans as one of the worst in the canon. With a rogue Vulcan trying to find God at the center of the universe, and the Enterprise crew in hot pursuit, it was definitely a weird premise. But it could have been a whole lot weirder.

After Sean Connery turned down the role of central baddie Sybok, stage actor Laurence Luckinbill took up the character and did an admirable job. But, according to Luckinbill, there was one more actor in the running: Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, apparently wanted to play both characters in a dual role.

"He did not say one word to me for quite a long time, other than 'Hello.' I found out later he had really, really pushed hard to have this be a double role, a dual role for him," Luckinbill told StarTrek.com. "I don't know if this is absolutely true. That was the scuttlebutt, and I got that from very high up in the food chain of information, that Leonard wanted to play Sybok and play Spock. That would have been a tremendous thing to do that, but since they weren't twins, they cast me."

Though he may not have been on the best terms with Nimoy at the time, Luckinbill said Spock eventually warmed to him a bit by the time filming started to wrap.

"The best compliment I got was, in the last scenes, 20 or 25 weeks later, Leonard looked at me and said, 'You know, you're terrific in this.' I thought that was a great send-off," he said.

Sound off: Do you think double the Nimoy would have made Trek V better, or worse?

Goliath

May 15 2012, 09:33 PM

In my opinion, the only disappointing thing about "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" was the ending, which could have been much better. I thought that Laurence Luckinbill was excellent as "Sybok," and i seriously doubt the film would have been any better, or more fondly remembered, with Leonard Nimoy playing the role.