Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Plot: The crew of the Enterprise returns from the Genesis planet to make two discoveries: Dr. McCoy is going mad with a case of split personality, and Kirk has made a mistake by leaving Spock’s remains behind too soon on the quickly-mutating miracle planet. Faced with the intransigence of Starfleet, Kirk and his command crew must answer this question: to what lengths are you willing to go to save a friend? Meanwhile, a group of renegade Klingons, led by Commander Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), has intercepted the Genesis mission briefing, and will stop at nothing to capture the secret of the device.

Thoughts: This film was released when I was ten and a half years old. I am very fond of it. Nineteen eighty-four was the same release year as Gremlins, Top Secret!, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Beverly Hills Cop, Splash, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Sixteen Candles, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Terminator, The Karate Kid, Cloak and Dagger, Starman, 2010, The Last Starfighter, Revenge of the Nerds, Romancing the Stone, and many more. Star Trek III was the 9th highest grossing film of the year, making essentially the same money as ST2 ($76 million versus $79 million). If you read that list and don’t think that this is an amazing crop of movies, well, it’s possible that you weren’t born in the early 1970s.

There comes a time for sober reappraisal. ST3 does not have a great story. If pressed, I will confess I don’t know how the torpedo carrying Spock’s body could have survived its impact with either the surface of the Genesis planet or its atmosphere, or how in a matter of weeks the remains of Spock could regrow into a perfect copy of Spock as we knew him, conveniently lacking a mind or memory. What food did he eat to fuel this rapid growth and development? Genesis matrix particles, I guess. The entry of Klingons onto the scene seems contrived, even if they look fabulous.

I wish the film hadn’t taken such a jokey approach to the portrayal of its supporting characters, from the doofuses and douchebags who apparently run Starfleet, to the Klingons themselves, who, apart from Kruge, are played mostly as bumbling comedy relief. This seems like a sudden turn from the almost overdone grimness of Wrath of Khan.

ST3 was pitched just right for me at the time, however. I loved the line “Lucky shot, sir”–which Is the Klingon gunner’s explanation as to why he obliterated the U.S.S. Grissom with one torpedo, instead of targeting the engines to disable it as Kruge requested.

Let us pause, however, to praise what’s awesome about ST3. We have a considerable expansion of the world of Star Trek, including establishment of a new, definitive look for the Klingons, the introduction of several new ship designs (including the Klingon Bird of Prey), and the debut of a newly designed Starbase. I believe it was this film that cemented the importance of the camaraderie of the Enterprise’s crew above all things. After ST3, this is not just a crew that has been through a lot together, it’s a crew that will steal a starship and risk their lives and careers to rescue a comrade (as Spock once did for Pike in “The Menagerie”). As one commentator (Ronald B. Moore) says about Kirk, “He’s not saving the universe. He’s saving his friend.” Gene Rodenberry’s vision of the future becomes not just a place that has overcome wars and prejudice, but a place of all for one and one for all, where while you go on awesome adventures, you can be protected by an amazing, loyal family.

“The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.” Of course! Spock was shortsighted. This is what people love about modern Trek just as much as the science fiction, isn’t it? The crew as family concept was certainly something the producers sought to emulate in The Next Generation.

ST3 plays with strong themes besides the importance of friendship. The struggle for the Genesis device is initially linked to the struggles of the nuclear age. As the Genesis planet breaks down, it becomes a symbol of science run amuck, reminiscent of perils associated with cloning and genetic manipulation.

I enjoyed the nods to Trek history. There are tribbles in the bar, references to Pon Farr, and the return of Sarek. There are also many great lines. “How can you be deaf with ears like that?” “’What have I done?’ ‘What you’ve always done–turned death into a fighting chance for life.’”

The two big emotional moments in the film hit home–the death of David and the destruction of the Enterprise. The Enterprise flaming out in the atmosphere of the Genesis planet with her crew watching from a rise below is a beautiful, beautiful shot. First time director Leonard Nimoy should have worked harder, however, to rein in the excesses of William Shatner’s performance. The man is an amazing actor, and his energy is at the core of Star Trek’s success and appeal. His performances did sometimes need shaping, though, especially as Shatner aged. I thought I saw the genesis of the meme of Shatner’s hamminess on the fringes of the Genesis planet.

I have a nerdy nitpick. This film continues the tendency of 1980s Trek to mix up the Klingons with the Romulans. In the original script, Kruge’s Bird of Prey was supposed to be a Romulan ship that he commandeered for some reason, before going rogue against his own kind. This is why the ship is styled to resemble the Romulan Warbird from the Original Series, complete with distinctive wing markings on its underside. These story details were lost in subsequent drafts of the script, but the ship design remained, and was declared to be Klingon in origin. We now have the Romulans flying Klingon cruisers (thanks to the budget constraints of TOS season 3), and Klingons flying ships that look like the Romulans. Also unhelpful are ST2 and ST3’s ambiguous references to the Neutral Zone without referring to the Romulans, associating the term with treaties between the Federation and the Klingons (e.g., it is Klingon ships that attack Saavik after she enters the Neutral Zone during the Kobyashi Maru test). I hope this gets sorted out in later Star Trek series. The Romulans are too much fun to end up on the scrap heap of future history (see “The Enterprise Incident” and “Elaan of Troyius”), just because the Klingons seemed more famous to the movie studio bean counters.

Another nitpick: can the Enterprise really be flown by a crew of five, one of whom is half-crazy, all from the bridge? I think not. It’s a starship, not a shuttlecraft.

Bottom line: I am very fond of Star Trek III. I think it does stand up, hold its own, and has a lot to say. I wouldn’t press the case, however, that it is a better film than ST2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_III:_The_Search_for_Spock