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Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
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Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. After the events of the previous film, The Wrath of Khan, the crew of the USS Enterprise returns to Earth after losing their friend Spock (Leonard Nimoy) through radiation. When Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) learns that Spock's essence or katra is held in the mind of Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and that neither can find peace until Spock's remains are brought to the planet Vulcan, Kirk and company hijack the Enterprise against orders and return to Spock's resting place, the engineered Genesis Planet.
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Quotations
Hikaru Sulu:
Don't call me Tiny.
Encyclopedia
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. After the events of the previous film, The Wrath of Khan, the crew of the USS Enterprise returns to Earth after losing their friend Spock (Leonard Nimoy) through radiation. When Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) learns that Spock's essence or katra is held in the mind of Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and that neither can find peace until Spock's remains are brought to the planet Vulcan, Kirk and company hijack the Enterprise against orders and return to Spock's resting place, the engineered Genesis Planet. At Genesis, hostile Klingons attempt to steal the planet's secrets to use as a weapon. The film is the second installment in a story arc that concludes with 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
After positive critical and commercial reaction to The Wrath of Khan, Paramount commissioned a new film. Leonard Nimoy took over directing duties.
Plot
The USS Enterprise limps back to Earth, heavily damaged after the battle with Khan (see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Many were lost in the costly fight, including Admiral James T. Kirk's Vulcan friend, Captain Spock; Spock's casket was shot into orbit around the newly-formed Genesis Planet, created by a torpedo designed to create life from lifelessness.
On docking, the Enterprise crew learns that the ship is due to be decommissioned. Dr. McCoy is confined by security after he begins to exhibit strange behavior. David Marcus and Lieutenant Saavik return to Genesis aboard the Oberth-class research vessel USS Grissom; discovering an unidentified lifeform. Marcus and Saavik beam down to the planet and discover that Spock has been resurrected by the Genesis Device's effects, although his mind is no longer present and he operates on a purely child-like level. Marcus, pressed by Saavik, admits that he used unstable "Proto-matter" in building the Genesis device to solve "certain problems". Without it, he claims that the Genesis Project could have been delayed by years or would have never been completed at all. The unstable matter puts the planet in a state of accelerated evolution that will conclude with its premature destruction within a few hours.
Unknown to them, a Klingon commander named Kruge has intercepted information about Genesis and becomes interested in it (for much of the same reasons as Khan: as a weapon) from a spy named Valkres. He travels to the Genesis Planet to learn its secrets after stealing additional information related to it.
Spock's father, Sarek travels to Earth and confronts Kirk about abandoning Spock's body on the Genesis planet. Sarek discovers, with Kirk's help, that McCoy possesses Spock's "katra" (soul), which explains his strange behavior. Both his katra and body are needed to properly lay him to rest on his homeworld Vulcan; without swift intervention, Spock's consciousness will overwhelm McCoy, and he will also die. Disobeying direct orders prohibiting anyone from visiting the Genesis Planet, Kirk reunites with his bridge officers and goes through a series of highly unorthodox events such as Uhura charming the watch officer (locking him in a closet), Kirk and Sulu springing McCoy from the Starfleet jail, and Scotty overriding the Starbase security system to open the Starbase doors so the Enterprise can escape, and secondly disabling the pursuing USS Excelsior's "transwarp drive", by removing several circuits.
Kruge arrives at Genesis first, accidentally destroying the Grissom with all hands (save for the landing party). He then summarily executes his weapons officer responsible for the Grissoms destruction as Kruge wanted prisoners. His crew locates and captures the scientists on the planet: David, Saavik, and a now-teenaged Spock. Kirk and the skeleton crew of the Enterprise arrive, unaware that the Klingon ship and its crew are cloaked nearby. Unable to hail the Grissom, the Enterprise crew suspects the presence of a Bird of Prey and are able to strike first, hitting the Klingon ship as it de-cloaks. The Klingon ship returns fire and cripples the automation system controlling the Enterprise. Kruge demands that they surrender, and orders the troops that he had sent to the surface of the Genesis Planet to kill one of the prisoners as a show of strength. David defends Saavik, who was to be the intended victim. David briefly tussles with the Klingon, but is no match with him physically and dies as a result. Kirk is devastated to hear his son has been killed.
Rather than surrender, Kirk orders McCoy and Sulu to the transporter room. Kirk, Scott and Chekov order the ship to self-destruct, and they leave the Enterprise for the last time. The computer countdown confuses the majority of Kruge's crew who had just beamed over to complete the ship's capture and are all killed as the ship self-destructs. The crew of the Enterprise watch from the planet's surface as their home for the last twenty years burns up in the atmosphere. They find Saavik and Spock and free them from their captors. Kirk finds a communcator and tempts Kruge, who is mourning his crew, in an attempt to get him to beam them all up before the planet destroys itself. Moments later, Kruge beams to the planet and has everyone but Kirk and Spock beamed aboard his Bird of Prey. Still demanding the technology of the Genesis project, Kruge engages Kirk in hand-to-hand combat on the disintegrating planet. Kirk tries in vain to get Kruge to cooperate so they can both escape the planet, but Kruge would prefer a fight to the death. Kirk defeats Kruge who subsequently falls into a volcanic rift. Kirk quickly grabs Spock and imitates Kruge's voice shouting the order to beam them both aboard Kruge's ship. The Enterprise crew are able to easily capture the Klingon vessel and the one crewman left on board.
The crew travel to Vulcan, where Spock's katra is reunited with his body in a dangerous procedure called "Fal-tor-pan". Dr. McCoy agrees to the ritual, knowing the extreme risk for both him and Spock. The ritual is successful and Spock is resurrected alive and well, though his memories are still extremely fragmented. The final scene, a brief discussion between Kirk and Spock, ends with Spock slowly remembering the man before him: "Jim. Your name is Jim."
Cast
- William Shatner as Admiral James T. Kirk: Shatner remarked that being directed by his longtime co-star and friend was initially awkward, although as the shoot went on it became easier as Shatner realized how confident Nimoy was.
- Leonard Nimoy as Captain Spock: Nimoy found the most difficult scene to direct was the one where McCoy talks to an unconscious Spock in sickbay. "Not only am I in the scene, but I have to play [it] with my eyes closed. So I can't even look to see if the actor I am playing the scene with is looking anything like I think he should look. It drove DeForest crazy. He swears that I was trying to direct him with the movement and flutter of my eyelids." Nimoy was thankful the story only permitted him to appear in a minimal amount of scenes.
The Wrath of Khan because Alley demanded too much money.
Production
Upon seeing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Leonard Nimoy became "excited" again with playing Spock. When asked by Paramount Pictures if he wanted to reprise the role, Nimoy also told them "You're damned right, I want to direct that picture!" Harve Bennett began writing the screenplay, which he noted "seventeen other people could have written" due to the hints at Spock's resurrection in the second film. Nimoy remarked if Spock had not been resurrected and instead, they just had "Captain Kirk turn to the camera and say 'Sorry, we didn't find him,' people would throw rocks at the screen." Because of the story's predictability, Bennett decided to have the USS Enterprise destroyed, and intended this plot element to be kept a secret (that was until a television spot showed the scene two weeks before the film's release, without Bennett knowing).
Originally, the Romulans were the villains, but Nimoy preferred the more "theatrical" Klingons. However, the name of the antagonists' ship, the Bird-of-Prey, remain unchanged. Early script drafts mention Kruge stole his ship from the Romulans, but this was eventually left out. Costumer and make-up designer Robert Fletcher wanted the forehead designs of the Klingons in the film to be less pronounced than those seen in Star Trek: The Motion Pictures opening sequence. Fletcher was satisfied with the costumes he made on the first film, which he intended to have the feel of feudal Japanese armor, but he had to make new versions as the previous costumes had been lost, destroyed or loaned to other productions and altered beyond repair. Kruge's dog-like pet was not in the script, but was added by Industrial Light & Magic's Ken Ralston for atmosphere. The full-scale puppet was controlled by three people, including Ralston, who hid inside Kruge's chair.
Production on the film was temporarily shut down after a fire destroyed several soundstages at Paramount Studios in 1983, one of which was adjacent to the set for the Genesis Planet. Initially, the set's pyrotechnics were suspected of causing the fire, but the cause was ultimately ruled to be arson. The fire is discussed in a making-of featurette included with the Special Edition DVD.
Visual Effects Supervisor Ken Ralston supervised the destruction of the Enterprise. In an interview with Cinefex Magazine in 1984, Ralston said that he had always hated the model's design, which made it difficult to film and mount, and delighted in destroying parts of it. A smaller 12' model was used for the vessel's final plunge to the Genesis Planet, while only the saucer section of the main 25' model was actually destroyed. Insert shots of the saucer section dissolving were accomplished by dissolving styrene plastic with acetone, while the burning underneath was steel wool set ablaze.
Novelization
A novelization was published to coincide with the movie premiere.
The novel expands greatly on what happens between the end of Star Trek II and where the Star Trek III movie begins, including a romantic story between Saavik and David Marcus, the re-assigning of David and Saavik to the USS Grissom and the introduction of Captain Esteban and the Grissom returning to Regula and David and Saavik noticing that the Genesis Cave has greatly developed its plant life at an accelerated rate. Another sub-plot involves Scotty returning the body of his nephew Peter Preston to the family plot in Scotland and having an argument with his niece. Also it is revealed in the novel that Sulu's command of The Excelsior is taken away from him due to the ongoing investigation of the Genesis Planet.
Release
The film received mostly positive reviews. Upon its release in 1984, film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film two thumbs up calling it "good but not great" - the only odd numbered Star Trek film to receive a thumbs up from both critics. The Los Angeles Times praised the film because "for all its spectacle in space, its humanity once again outweighs the hardware, and its innocence is downright endearing". USA Today praised it as the best of the three, "and the closest to the original spirit" of the show, which they attributed to Nimoy's direction. Richard Schickel called it "the first space opera to deserve that term in its grandest sense," while The Washington Post found the cast "agreeable, familiar old fixtures that you feel absurdly protective and tender about them".
The film has a 77% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The film broke the opening weekend gross that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom set just a week before, and it made $76,471,046 in the domestic box office.
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