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: La nouvelle génération (1987).
Frankie & 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 : La Colère de Khan (1982). "It was an honor to get into Shatner's pants", he quipped during a BBC interview.
Nichelle Nichols objected to the scene in which the crew desperately searches through old printed Klingon translation dictionaries in order to speak the language without the standard universal translator being used. It seemed more logical to her that Uhura, being the ship's chief communications officer, would know the language of the Federation's main enemy, or at least have the appropriate information in the computer. However, Nicholas Meyer bluntly overruled her. Probably in response to this discrepancy, Uhura specializes in xenolinguistics in Star Trek (2009) where she intercepts and translates a Klingon communication, and speaks fluent Klingon in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
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: La nouvelle génération (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).