In a featurette on the special features from the Blu-ray, William Shatner talks about how he was upset with Nicholas Meyer for breaking a promise regarding one of his lines. The line in question was when Kirk says "Let them die" during the scene when he and Spock are talking after the classified briefing. Shatner wanted to say the line, then gesture as if he didn't mean to say this, and he made Meyer promise to show this on camera. However, in the final cut, after Kirk says "Let them die", this cuts to Spock looking surprised, and only goes back to Kirk, cutting over when Kirk gestures with regret.
Michael Dorn plays Colonel Worf, the grandfather of his regular character Lieutenant Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).
Frankie and Johnny (1991) was being filmed in the same studio, and required Al Pacino to have a surprised expression on his face after opening a door. Director Garry Marshall arranged for Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to be on the other side of the door that Pacino opened.
Christian Slater wore the trousers made for William Shatner in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). "It was an honor to get into Shatner's pants", he quipped during a BBC interview.
Nicholas Meyer met with Gene Roddenberry following a rough cut screening, to fulfill Roddenberry's role as creative consultant. Roddenberry, who was in failing health at the time, was bound to a wheelchair, and had to be hooked up to an oxygen tank. Despite his frailty, Roddenberry demanded certain cuts to the film and, according to Meyer, engaged him in a heated argument. Roddenberry died several days after the meeting, and Meyer has expressed deep regret over his behavior in the meeting, not realizing just how sick Roddenberry really was at the time.
Nicholas Meyer: [Sherlock Holmes] Spock tells the crew, "An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the solution." The "ancestor" Spock quotes is Sherlock Holmes, another fictional character well-versed in logic. Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is often used as a role model for characters in the Star Trek Universe, e.g. Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Leonard Nimoy and Christopher Plummer have both played Holmes on stage and screen. Nicholas Meyer wrote several Sherlock Holmes "pastiche" novels, including "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", considered by many to be the best non-Doyle story of Sherlock Holmes. Spock, played by Zachary Quinto, also quotes the "eliminate the impossible" maxim in Star Trek (2009).