Star Trek Into Darkness Cut An Emotional Scene Between Kirk And Rima's Daughter
The inciting incident in J.J. Abrams' 2013 sci-fi revenge thriller "Star Trek Into Darkness" was an act of terrorism. In a swift montage, audiences were introduced to a character names Thomas Harewood, a Federation citizen with a sick young daughter, Lucille (Anjini Taneja Azhar) dying of an incurable ailment. Thomas, at his wit's end, was approached by a mysterious man named "John Harrison" (Benedict Cumberbatch) who claimed to have a miracle cure, and he will administer it ... in exchange for a fatal, violent errand.
"Harrison" will later reveal himself to be the cryogenically unfrozen supervillain Khan Noonien Singh, and his miracle cure was an injection of his own genetically enhanced blood. Harewood's violent errand was to carry out a destructive suicide bombing on the Kelvin Memorial Archive. Harewood killed 42 people, including himself, and sent a message to a Starfleet admiral, alerting Kirk (Chris Pine) to the situation and getting the film's mysterious plot going. It seems Khan staged the attack merely to get several important people in a room together, knowing they would assemble to discuss the explosion's fallout. He would then fly an attack craft up to the window and assassinate everyone inside ... which happens later in the film.
Harewood was survived by his daughter (she's safe), and his wife Rima (Nazneen Contractor). In the final cut of "Star Trek Into Darkness," Rima and Lucille only appear in first-act scenes pertaining to Harewood's coerced terrorism. In an earlier edit, however, they also appeared at the end of the movie to have a sweet, connective moment with Kirk.
Kirk and Lucille share a moment in this Star Trek Into Darkness deleted scene
Recall that, at the end of "Into Darkness," Kirk died of radiation poisoning after committing a heroic act inside an irradiated engine chamber. His body was retrieved, however, and the resourceful Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) found that he could revive Kirk using Khan's genetically enhanced blood. Kirk is miraculously resurrected, and the galaxy now seems to be in possession of a cure for death. Sadly, the follow-up film, "Star Trek Beyond," doesn't address the revolutionary implications of such a cure.
This meant, however, that both Kirk and the young Lucille were magically cured of their fatalities by the same blood; both of them avoided death thanks to Khan. This similarity would be symbolically addressed in a scene that was ultimately cut for the movie. Contractor was going to be in the scene as well, and in a 2013 interview with StarTrek.com, she recalled what it would have been:
"There was a scene at the end of the movie, after the memorial service, in which Chris Pine (as Kirk) comes up to me and my daughter. He sees us, and my daughter is now healthy, with a full head of hair, and I thank him for his speech. He looks up at me and he knows who I am, and then he looks at my daughter, and they both have this moment where they know they share Khan's blood. But it got cut."
Such a scene was likely cut for pacing reasons, as it was part of the film's epilogue. It can make a film feel bottom-heavy if there's too much falling action after its climax, and the filmmakers likely had to select what kind of emotional climax they wanted the film to have.
Imagining the scene properly scored with Michael Giacchino's music, this moment could have been a bright coda at the end of a movie filled with death, violence, and, well, darkness.