Star Trek V Writer Dies At 71

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier remains David Loughery’s most famous work, though to certain fans, it may be the most infamous. This was the Trek film where Captain Kirk fought with God (or at least, a being claiming to be God) at the end of the film. Behind the scenes, Kirk got to play God: William Shatner directed the movie and shares a story credit on it along with Loughery and Harve Bennett. 

Interestingly, David Loughery also wrote multiple films that featured future Star Trek stars. For example, he wrote Dreamscape, a 1984 movie starring Christopher Plummer, the iconic actor who would go on to portray General Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He also wrote Obsessed, the 2009 movie starring Idris Elba, who would go on to play the monstrous Krall (secretly Balthazar Edison, captain of the USS Franklin) in the Kelvinverse film Star Trek Beyond.

Going “beyond” his work on Star Trek, David Loughery also wrote several films in the ‘90s that turned into major hits. While uncredited, he co-wrote The Good Son, the psychological thriller starring a young Elijah Wood and a particularly creepy Macaulay Culkin. The screenwriter also wrote two early Wesley Snipes films: Passenger 57 and Money Train, the latter of which also starred Woody Harrelson and Jennifer Lopez.

When it comes to David Loughery’s films, perhaps the most star-studded was the 1993 film The Three Musketeers: it starred Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Oliver Platt, Chris O’Donnell, Rebecca De Mornay, and Tim Curry. While the movie didn’t impress critics, it certainly impressed audiences, earning $111 million against a budget of $30 million. In our eyes, there has never been a better attempt at translating the classic Alexandre Dumas novel to the big screen in a way that appeals to mainstream audiences.

One of the reasons that David Loughery was such a good screenwriter is that he was highly trained: after receiving his Bachelor’s from Ball State University, he went on to earn a Master’s in Fine Arts from Iowa State University. As you may know, this university is one of the most famous writing universities in the world. While there, Loughery was a member of the prestigious Iowa Playwrights Workshop, giving him a chance to work with director Joseph Ruben, with whom he would later collaborate on early career films like The Good Son and Money Train.

David Loughery remained a very prolific screenwriter in his final years, writing Shattered and co-writing End of the Road, both of which came out in 2022. He also produced Shattered, which was the seventh and final film for which he was a producer. Loughery is survived by his wife (Mel), mother (Joan), and siblings (William and Amy), and we wish his family well…their loss is shared by film lovers around the world, and Loughery’s prodigious talents will be sorely missed. 

Source: The Hollywood Reporter