Title: Star Trek III The Search For Spock
Release Date: 6/1/1984
Plot Summary
Immediately after the events of Star Trek II, the Enterprise is heading back to earth, its trainee crew mostly re-assigned and the ship under a somber pall with Spock’s death. Saavik and Kirk’s son David have transferred to the science vessel Grissom to begin exploring the newly formed Genesis planet. Meanwhile the Klingons have stolen the information regarding the Genesis experiment and head to the planet to try to obtain its secrets.
When Kirk and the crew get back to spacedock, they are informed they are grounded for the time being and that the Enterprise will be dismantled. Kirk meets with his senior staff to commiserate over the changes as they don’t know if they’ll get another ship and even if they do, Kirk won’t be commanding as he’s still an Admiral. While at Kirk’s home, he’s visited by Sarek, Spock’s father. He begins to berate Kirk for not bringing Spock to Genesis, as he should know what to do. Kirk is mystified but after a mind meld, it’s made clear that Vulcans typically put their living essence, their Katra, into someone before they die to be brought to Vulcan. Since Kirk was separated from Spock and he couldn’t touch him, Sarek despairs that he’s lost forever.
But Kirk realizes that McCoy’s strange behavior lately might be the key. Sure enough, they view the ship’s recording and see that Spock melded with McCoy just before he went into the radiation room. Kirk must go to Genesis, retrieve Spock’s body and bring it and McCoy back to Vulcan as Spock’s Katra is driving McCoy insane.
Unbeknownst to Kirk, the photon tube Spock was launched in intersected with the last remnants of the Genesis wave. He was regenerated as an infant. Saavik and David discover him on the planet, aging in bursts along with the planet. Before they can bring him back up to the ship, the Grissom is attacked and destroyed by the Klingons. They begin to move to avoid capture. It’s at this point that Saavik realizes that the planet is not what David expected. David admits to using protomatter, an unstable substance, as a short cut to make Genesis work. The planet is destroying itself. They have to get Spock off the planet before he dies, not to mention to save their own lives.
Kirk, Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura make a plan to take McCoy to Genesis. Unfortunately Starfleet refuses to let them return. So they steal the Enterprise and head to Genesis, effectively ending their careers. They arrive but are met by the Klingons. After initially being successful in damaging the Bird of Prey, the automation system that allowed them to use the Enterprise completely burns out leaving them helpless to the Klingon’s counter attack.
Kirk attempts to bluff the Klingon commander Kruge, as if he’s a fully crewed starship and not a stolen, broken ship with 5 people aboard. Kruge doesn’t buy it and tells Kirk he has hostages. At this point he has captured Saavik, David, and Spock. He tells his men to kill one of the hostages to show Kirk he’s serious. The Klingon was going to kill Saavik but David stops him. Unfortunately he’s no match for a Klingon warrior and is killed.
Kirk is distraught but will not give in. He pretends to surrender to Kruge and sets the Enterprise to self-destruct. He tricks the Klingons by beaming down to the planet while the Klingons board the Enterprise to take Genesis from the computers. Unfortunately they don’t get that far as the Enterprise explodes, killing all the Klingons.
Kirk and the crew find Saavik and Spock, taking out the last remaining Klingon guard. Contacting Kruge from the planet, he goads him into beaming him and his people up if he wants the secret of Genesis. Kruge beams down, beams everyone up except Kirk and an incapacitated Spock where Kirk and Kruge have a knock-down drag-out that results in Kruge falling into a volcanic pit. Fooling the last Klingon on the ship, he and Spock beam up where the crew takes over the ship.
They all head to Vulcan where Sarek asks the Vulcan priestess to perform Fal Tor Pan, the refusion. It’s only been tried in legend, no one is sure it will work but then no one ever had their body die and come back in this manner either. The ritual is successful. McCoy is much better and Spock, although disoriented and having some memory loss, is back. He finally recognizes Jim and the crew surround him, knowing that whatever happens after this, their friend and shipmate is back with them. And that’s enough for now.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk is over his mid-life crisis from the last movie. He starts the movie in mourning and gets a second gut punch when he’s told the Enterprise isn’t getting a refit. But once Sarek visits him and explains the whole thing with the Katra, he realizes Bones and Spock need him. He’s all mission focused for the rest of the movie. Nothing will stop him. It’s not acknowledged enough that Kirk gets shit done and inspires everyone around when he needs to. Not a one of the rest of crew even questioned shredding their careers when he asked them to.
Even so, once they get to the bridge, he still gives Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty an out and they refuse, showing how committed and loyal they are to him. His offer shows how he really doesn’t want to make them pay the price he knows he must.
When Kirk goes through the mind meld with Sarek, he basically had to relive the entire moment of Spock’s death. Rough stuff.
Losing his son is the second gut punch in as many weeks for him. He just lost Spock and now his son is gone. Shatner does a good job with his reaction, I don’t care what anyone says. Some people say its overacted but I don’t agree at all. If it didn’t work with Spock’s rescue, I got to wonder if Kirk would’ve had a nervous breakdown.
Logical
Spock is pretty much absent this entire movie yet he is central to it. His body is an empty vessel, reformed by the genesis effect and growing in spurts. He also gets to have sex with Saavik, but he doesn’t know about it as his mind was still setting up shop in Bone’s brain.
At the end, when he’s finally back and whole, we get the little moment of him remembering, telling Kirk “Jim. Your name…is Jim.” It’s not the tear jerking moment of his death. But it’s close.
Deciding to destroy the Enterprise though? That’s a tear jerking moment. It’s well done.
He’s Dead, Jim
Bones has a helluva time this go round. The Katra is slowing driving him insane. When he finds out what happened, he reponds by calling Spock names. But once he has a moment with Spock while traveling to Vulcan, he realizes that he has to save him. He can’t stand to lose him again. We always knew it.
He’s driven by Spock without knowing why. This pushes him to try to charter a ship in a bar. Unfortunately Starfleet security is on to him. Spock may have made it so he can do a few science scans and identify illogic, but not to the point that he can do a competent nerve pinch.
He also has one of the more underrated humor moments of the movie. When T’Lar tells him that the Fal Tor Pan ritual is really dangerous to him, he chooses the danger and then sarcastically under his breath says “Helluva time to ask.” I absolutely love that little moment.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu shows off some basic martial arts skills and apparently really doesn’t like being called “tiny.” He also can apparently pilot a Klingon Bird Of Prey quite well, not only figuring out how to go to warp but to fly it in an atmosphere. He even can kinda sorta read Klingon displays well enough to know they have full power. Why? Because he’s just awesome that’s why.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura isn’t around too much but boy does she make the most of her screen time here. She puts herself at a small station on earth with a transporter she uses to send Kirk and company to the Enterprise. While she’s waiting, she has to contend with a brash young lieutenant who makes a crack about her “career winding down.” He wants excitement and boy does he get it when Uhura holds him at phaser point and puts him in the closet. It’s pretty hilarious and you can tell Nichols is relishing every moment of it.
Later on when the crew arrives on Vulcan, Saavik respectfully relinquishes her spot carrying Spock to let Uhura take her place. It’s a nice little moment and speaks volumes about Uhura’s closeness to Spock, and this crew in general. Saavik knowing that and showing her that respect was a really nice touch.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty has the most memorable joke in the movie when he tells Kirk it will take 8 weeks to refit the Enterprise but before Kirk can protest he says “But you don’t have 8 weeks, so I’ll do it for you in 2.” Kirk asks if he’s always multiplied his estimates by a factor of 4, with Scotty replying of course he does, that’s how everyone thinks he’s a miracle worker. It’s a great little moment between lifelong friends and really starts to show how the formality that was shown earlier in the series has started to break down now that these crewmates have been together for so long. Indeed after this movie, the rigid military diction will definitely give way to a more informal discussion among teammates.
Scotty mentions that the Enterprise will be fully automated by the they dock. It’s a nice touch as when they do decide to steal the ship, he doesn’t have to do to much to let them pilot it. One wonders why they need such a big crew but they only needed to take it to Genesis, pick up Spock, and go back to Vulcan. Going into battle showed how fragile the system was and without a repair crew starting work immediately, they were a sitting duck.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov happens to notice the Klingon ship just as it cloaks. If he hadn’t been keeping a watchful eye out, it might not of tipped Kirk off that something was amiss. He also takes on the science officer role in the self destruct code.
He doesn’t have as much to do this go around, but he did a ton last movie so let the others do stuff.
I Know That Guy
Grace Lee Whitney makes a cameo as Janice Rand. She is shown sitting in a spacedock lounge and grimaces at the state of the Enterprise when it docks and she sees the damage Khan had wrought. I recall back in 84 me wondering who the heck this random woman was and I just assumed it was just someone reacting to what happened. Took me years to realize who it was. We didn’t have on-demand viewing back then so I was watching whatever episode the UHF station decided re-run. I just wasn’t as familiar with her yet and she looks really different.
Robert Hooks plays Admiral Morrow. He had steady work but nothing to write home about. But he worked with Doug Ward and Gerald Krone to create the Negro Ensemble Company. This group is credited with launching the careers of many black performers in all disciplines. They did it the right way, looking for merit. They resisted calls to be based in Harlem, instead locating downtown because that’s where the audiences were. Krone was white and the BLM types of the time criticized that. I feel like this was a very positive way to uplift black actors by showing their talent more than their skin color. It was a different time when it was created, 1964 so I understand need then. I would assume by now it’s been completely overtaken by woke nonsense but let’s give Hooks credit for what he tried to do back then.
Phillip R Allen plays the uptight JT Esteban. He was a working actor, lots of parts like this in TV and movies but nothing stands out, other than this part. He passed away in 2012.
Catherine Schriff plays Valkris. She had some work in the 70s and 80s but retired and became a real estate agent.
Stephen Liska plays Torg. As with the others in this list, he’s a constantly working actor with nothing that stands out.
In the first of three actors who are in the “before they were famous” category, we have John Larroquette as Maltz. Larroquette started playing Dan Fielding that same year in Night Court and went on to a pretty prolific career. He would reunite with Shatner in Boston Legal 22 years later.
Miguel Ferrer played the first officer on the Excelsior. In a few years he would be creating Robocop. After that he was in a ton of projects in film and TV, too numerous to mention. Sadly he died at the way too early age of 61 due to throat cancer in 2017.
Finally we have James B Sikking as the smug Captain Styles. You can always tell a smug bad guy in movie if they are either using a putting green in an office or carrying around a riding crop. He would go on to play Doogie Houser’s dad. He was already somewhat known for Hill Street Blues but really it was Doogie that made him a household name. He worked a ton and only passed away in 2024 at age 90.
Dame Judith Anderson played the regal T’Lar. She was pretty well known but mostly for theater work rather than film. Still she was quite respected at the time and she brought it for this role.
Mark Lenard returns to Trek as Sarek. He would be back for the next movie as well as Star Trek VI. He really improves on his early work as Sarek and that’s no small feat.
Merritt Butrick returns as David. I mentioned his credits in the Khan review.
Robin Curtis makes her debut as Saavik after Kirstie Alley declined to return. It’s a shame she didn’t, I would’ve liked to see how she would’ve handled the role in this movie. Still, Curtis does an admirable job and makes the role hers. She would return briefly in the next movie and back to Star Trek in the seventh season of TNG but after the 90s she mostly seemed to retire from acting.
And finally we have Christopher Lloyd as Kruge. Man does he own the role. I feel like he’s a bit underrated as a great Star Trek Villain but mostly because his motivations are a little vague. He really wants Genesis for his people or something. He takes it too personally to just be his duty. It undercuts his great performance. Of course he was already well known from Taxi and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. He’d go on the following year to play his most well-known role Doc Brown. He also was in the Addams Family movies, Judge Doom in Roger Rabbit, and a metric shitton of other memorable roles also too numerous to mention here.
Canon Maker
The spacedock makes its first appearance and what an appearance it is. It is a thing of beauty and really feels right in the Trek universe as something you would expect in earth’s orbit. It’s enormous and holds a lot of ships. Makes a lot of sense in the heart of the federation. It doubles as a defense for the planet as well.
Speaking of ships, we get our first look at the Excelsior. It’s a good design and certainly became a classic. Personally I think it lacks the elegance of the Enterprise but it certainly does convey a sense of toughness and strength. It was such a good design that it lasted in various forms well into the 24th century. The Enterprise B would be an Excelsior class vessel.
The Klingon Language was developed for this movie and continued to be used throughout the rest of franchise. KaPlah was cemented for “Success!” and was used frequently whenever Klingons would be used in various stories. You can speak the entire language if you so choose to study it. I love Star Trek, but not that much. We also get the first use of “Kellicams” a measurement I assume is roughly the same as a kilometer.
The Klingon Bird Of Prey is introduced and it becomes ubiquitous in all of subsequent Trek. It’s used to great effect in the next movie, another is brought in for Star Trek VI, and it shows up all over TNG and DS9. It’s a great design, an instant classic.
Canon Breaker
Kirk wants to go back to genesis at the beginning, but why? He mentions it to Admiral Morrow but at that point, he had no idea what was going on with Spock and Bones.
Morrow mentions the Enterprise is 20 years old. This creates a lot of issues. Now stay with me here. In The Menagerie, the year was 2267. Same year that they picked up Khan. Khan said it was 15 years ago that they found him. In real time, this makes sense, 1967 to 1982. In Pike episode, the flashback took place in 2254. The movies say they take place in 2285. This would be 18 years after the Khan episode and make the Enterprise at least 31 years old. That’s assuming that the Cage was taking place the same year the Enterprise was commissioned, which it wasn’t since it’s also known that Robert April commanded the Enterprise before Pike. While the animated series wasn’t canon, the April years are.
So let’s be charitable here and say the Enterprise is at least 40 years old. Morrow is way off. Maybe he meant the refit. Well TMP took place 3 years after the five year mission. Based on my last estimates, that would be about 2273. So only 12 years after the refit. Point is, they said 20 years old because it was about 20 years after the original series aired, not based on what the actual history of the Enterprise was. Given his lack of attention to detail, and the fact he let the Enterprise get stolen, I’m guessing that’s why Morrow was replaced by Admiral Cartwright by the next movie.
No I’m not in therapy, why do you ask?
The Enterprise hits the Klingon Bird Of Prey with a couple of torpedoes before it gets its shields up. It should be space dust.
When the bacteria get hit with the Genesis wave that were on Spock’s photon tube, they evolve into multicellular creatures. But Spock doesn’t evolve, he just ages. Why didn’t he become an ultra-evolved Vulcan? Why did the Genesis wave affect the planet by fast tracking it to destruction but Spock just grew older?
Speaking of which, he went through Pon Farr. Supposedly that happens to Vulcans every 7 years. He looked as if his first Pon Farr he was in his early 20s. He went to his correct age when he died, shouldn’t he have had a bunch more? Maybe he did and Saavik’s a big freak.
When Kirk orders Scotty to be ready to do self destruct in TMP, Scotty mentions that when that much matter and antimatter come together, they’ll take out Vejur. So why does the self destruct basically blow up the saucer only? Sure it falls into the planet’s atmosphere and burns up but what if it wasn’t near a planet? Feel like a half-assed self destruct. It should’ve blown up so big that it took the Bird Of Prey with it, if TMP is any guide.
Kirk and company beam down to the planet and immediately the Klingon crew appear on the platform from their ship. This brings up something I never quite understood. Why don’t the Klingons just beam onto the bridge? Occasionally you see people beam from transporter room to transporter room while most of the time, they go from room to new location, like a planet. Why go from room to room? If the Enterprise beamed on the Klingons- and given the look of the beam effect, it did- then why did the Klingons go to their transporter pads? We know the transporter room can just beam you up from wherever. It’s just a little inconsistency that’s always bugged me and it’s not just in this movie, it happens all over the franchise and I never understood why.
Bones tells the alien “place you name, money I got.” In the very next movie Kirk will protest to Gillian when she says, “Let me guess, they don’t have money in the future?” he replies “Well we don’t!” As I have said many times in the various Trek On’s, the economics of Trek is confusing to say the least.
When the Klingon Bird of Prey decloaks behind the freighter, it’s massive. It’s too massive, since we see how big it really is later when the crew disembarks. That freighter must’ve been the size of a moderate Winnebago.
When Kruge gets the Genesis demonstration, it’s presented by Kirk. So Kirk saw it for the first time in a while just before Khan attacks, goes through all that, deals with Spock’s death, the transfer of the trainee crew, discovery of a son, and takes the time to re-record Carol’s speech, put it on the video, send it back to Starfleet where it gets stored somewhere for Valkris to steal it and get it Kruge. Damn, Kirk’s dedicated. Or maybe the producers didn’t want to pay Bibi Besch even for that little archive footage.
When Chekov sees that there is a lifeform in Spock’s quarters, he looks at a readout that has the diagram of the Enterprise on the screen. However it’s the pre-refit Enterprise instead of the current version. Why? I can’t figure out even a movie making reason that makes sense. Someone had to make that and put it on a computer screen. Why did they take the time and effort to create this for the movie and use the wrong version of the Enterprise?
Why is Kirk and Sulu able to see the Klingon ship when cloaked? Never before or after is a cloaked ship visible in any way unless you do some techno-bullshit like a tachyon net or trace its exhaust pipe. Maybe this was an old ship.
Technobabble
The Enterprise’s self destruct routine is exactly the same as established in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. That was a nice nod to continuity.
Protomatter is really bad. Don’t use it. Especially don’t use it to make planets. Don’t even use it on a sandwich.
The Excelsior has transwarp drive. For years I had no idea what that was. It was like warp speed but trans? Does it have pronouns too? Later on in TNG, the borg would use transwarp corridors. It apparently tunneled through space and sped up travel by several orders of magnitude. Weirdly it wouldn’t be used and scrapped by the federation. Not sure why, just because Scotty sabotaged it doesn’t mean that there was a problem with it but the idea was never brought up again.
The Grissom on the other hand is a weird ship. I can’t quite get on board with its design. The lack of a center support pylon down to the secondary hull makes getting from the saucer to the lower sections maddeningly complicated. It’s difficult to tell but the turbolifts through those pylons looks overly complicated. It’s a good looking ship but it really feels impractical as hell.
Library Computer
The bar has some tribbles that people are petting on a table. I’m guessing they got the whole breeding thing under control. In fact it was hinted at in the animated series even. Nice touch.
Captain Styles mentions breaking some of the Enterprise’s speed records to Scotty as I mentioned earlier. Question is, what records? Sometimes the Enterprise was screwed with to make it go so fast it would get to Andromeda in only 300 years. But does that count? Or just what it could do on its own? How fast was that? Ah screw it, it’s the Enterprise, of course it set speed records.
The Paramount lot had a nasty fire in one of its soundstages adjacent to the Genesis sets. Shatner was one of the many crewmembers who got hoses on the fire and save the set. Weirdly yet, the cause turned out to be arson.
When Scotty tells the turbolift “up your shaft,” it was Nimoy’s voice for that elevator. Wonder if that was Doohan having a go at the director.
A Novel Approach
Vonda McIntyre returns to pen this middle movie of what I call the Genesis Trilogy. I don’t know if it’s got an official name but I think since Genesis is really the reason all this happens, it seems fitting. Star Trek III’s novel is by far the most expanded on of all the movies. A ton of extra stuff is in this and it’s a lot to go over. So… let’s get started!
Opening
The entire first 20 percent of the book takes place before the movie starts. In fact it appears to take place hours after the end of Khan, maybe even less time. We start with a wake for the various dead from the previous movie. Carol and David drink to their lost colleagues from the Genesis team. Kirk and crew drink to Spock of course. Scotty gets really sauced having a drinks for his nephew. He gets so out of control that Kirk finally has to order him to bed,. But it’s Mccoy that acts the weirdest. He’s not quite what we see at the beginning of the movie but he’s definitely starting to act out of sorts. He blames it on the drink except he doesn’t have a drop.
Meanwhile Saavik and David strike up a conversation and begin their relationship. They decide to leave to spend time with each other. Kirk on the other hand makes an ass of himself with Carol thinking that maybe they could pick up where they left off. He didn’t realize that she was in a relationship with Vance Madison of the Genesis team and she was in a lot of grief.
Saavik And David
Saavik and David end up over the next few days having a pretty serious relationship, spending the night with each other at one point. Later they go down to Regula to get some information and records from the planetoid that were left there and find the tunnel system filled with vines. Worse, the vines have some sort of fruit and flower that’s practically a narcotic. They don’t realize it and David gets really silly and insubordinate while down there. Saavik is affected but her discipline wins out. She analyzes a sample of the vines and finds out about the potency and confronts David on why he would create something like this but he is completely mystified by it. A clue that things aren’t all good with Genesis as we find out later on.
Saavik ends up opening up to David quite a bit about her past and David in turn is fascinated (pun intended) by her. Later on this makes the confrontation about Genesis a bit more intense as she sees that Genesis is indirectly the reason Spock dies.
When David confesses about using protomatter, it turns out that it really wasn’t his decision, or at least not all his. In the movie it seems like the whole thing was his responsibility but that really wasn’t fair. There was a whole team and he wasn’t the leader in any way. It was more Vance Madison’s and Del March’s decision and certainly the entire team has blame to go around. Sure, he could’ve said something and went along with it, but to put it all on him wasn’t accurate. For the movie, it makes sense, it shows David cheats just like his dad, he’s not so different so I get it thematically.
The book fleshes it a out bit but in the end, David does have culpability. Saavik realizes that if they had been patient and done things the right way, then Reliant wouldn’t have been on the mission to find a planet, wouldn’t have found Khan, Peter would be alive, and Spock wouldn’t have died and resurrected. She doesn’t take it well. Like in the Wrath Of Khan book when she lost it when Peter died, she staggers off and screams in rage.
Though she is angry with David, she does confess that she loves him. So when he gets killed, she absolutely loses her shit. She holds him as he dies but once the light leaves his eyes, she attacks one of the Klingons. She lets “the madness” overtake her. They have to stun her several times. By the time she comes to, she has a bit of a tough time, not from the multiple stuns, but from how losing it affects her physically. It was the same when she trashed the conference room after Peter died.
The Freighter
In the movie the freighter that gets blown up by the Klingons doesn’t get a lot screen time. But in the book we find out a little bit about the crew, including a cat like alien named Farrendahl and a human named Tran. She got on with Tran but had little use for the Captain who only was the captain because he owned the ship, not because he inspired any confidence in his leadership.
The Klingon Valkris gets a little bit more backstory. Her brother had pretty much plunged the whole family into dishonor. Gambling and whatnot. Her sacrificing herself was all about her restoring honor to her family. She’s intrigued by Farrendahl and offers her a dagger, to which Farrendahl is aware of its significance, even asking who a particular gem on its hilt represents. This greatly impresses Valkris even more and through the gift, she’s able to warn Farrendahl that doom is ahead, even though its not spoken aloud.
Farrendahl ends up getting Tran and both make it to an escape pod and hid amongst the debris after the freighter is destroyed until Kruge leaves. Later on it’s mentioned they were picked up and warned the federation that Klingons were in the area, but to no avail.
It’s difficult to tell if Valkris’s family did get their honor restored as Kruge and his crew were all killed. It’s possible McIntyre wrote this little subplot with the dagger to allow a possible pathway in a different novel as Farrendahl might’ve been able to take the dagger to the Klingons and explain the whole thing. Alas, we’re getting into my head canon now.
The Enterprise
Kirk had planned to pick up the Reliant’s crew but was denied by Starfleet. They first met up with the Grissom and Captain JT Esteban. Esteban comes off a little “by the book” in the movie but in book, he’s damn near autistic in his inability to read a room. He orders Carol Marcus to accompany him to the Genesis planet and she tells him to pound sand. Carol must deal with the deaths of her friends and go and visit the various families to try to do this in the best way possible. David on the other hand is kind of brushed over and has to throw a tantrum to be a part of the mission. He blames Kirk for keeping him off the project unfairly as Kirk assumed he would want to accompany his mother. In any case, David ends up on the mission partially to give his mother a chance to do what’s necessary and partially because he doesn’t trust Starfleet any farther than he can throw them.
Kirk’s moment with Bones in Spock’s quarters is in the novel but a more subdued version of it takes place in a turbolift. Bones does the same thing with Spock’s voice and Kirk is a little shocked by it but Bones doesn’t collapse and need to be taken to sickbay. Instead he exits the turbolift and finally says he can’t get Spock out of his head and he’d give anything to understand why.
Later on it turns out that receiving the Katra should’ve been more cut and dried. He should’ve known what was going on and what to do. However there are two things. One is that it’s a good thing that Spock’s body didn’t burn up in the atmosphere, Sarek explains that the mind and body are far more connected, even in death. Two, it turns out that the closest analogy to what is happening to Bones is an allergic reaction. Kirk finds this funny in its absurdity, musing Bones would too if he were in any condition to appreciate it. After a beat he realizes Spock would be pretty amused by it as well if the situation weren’t so serious.
Sulu
Continuing from the last book, Sulu is a full captain and is set to take command of the Excelsior. His anticipation of Transwarp drive is because he had quite a hand in the design of the ship. Genesis however is much more than just a “galactic controversy.” Not only is the crew not supposed to talk about it but they will be part of a general inquiry. In Sulu’s case this means basically he loses command of Excelsior and it’s given to Captain Styles. Supposedly it’s temporary but Sulu is no fool. He knows he’ll never get it back. It’s because of this he’s pretty ok with helping Kirk. He’s not too happy with Starfleet anyway.
Uhura
One of the things that wasn’t really apparent is why Uhura stayed on earth? Why didn’t she go with them? Well it turns out there was a very good reason. The station she went to wasn’t just a transporter station, it was a comm station. She picked it on purpose and once Kirk and company was on the Enterprise, she then turned to using her communications skills to absolutely make mincemeat out of Starfleet’s ability to communicate. They couldn’t figure out what was going on because she was blasting crap all over every frequency. At one point someone managed to say over a comm line “How do you have a yellow alert in spacedock?” and she took a line from the old Butch and Sundance movie to immediately follow it up with “Who ARE those guys?” Sulu muses that she always does things with flair and humor.
Kirk was assuming she was going with them and she made the decision to do all this and argued with the Admiral even. She made sure that the only ships that could come after the Enterprise were the ones that could actually see what was going on in Spacedock and that was only the Excelsior. Every other ship in the sector had no idea because they couldn’t get any communications out to them.
After they get away, she has to beam out to the street. She needs to get to Vulcan embassy where Sarek grants her asylum. Because of diplomatic rules and whatnot, she couldn’t just beam into the embassy so it was a bit of a footrace for her to outrun security who were hot on her heels. From there, Sarek takes Uhura to Vulcan, showing he was in on some of the plans all along. Not much Starfleet could do about it unless they wanted an international… well, interplanetary incident. It’s why they were able to sit on Vulcan for 3 months into Star Trek IV.
Scotty
Scotty puts up a lot more of a protest to Admiral Morrow on the mothballing of the Enterprise, damn near getting brought up on insubordination charges. He also doesn’t go straight to Excelsior, instead he has take Peter home and attend the funeral. There he meets Dannan, Pete’s sister. Those two don’t get along. Also, in the last review I mentioned Grenni, Pete’s friend who was one of the trainees that ran. He’s eaten up by grief and guilt. At one point he gets a delivery from Starfleet and assumes it’s a court martial summons but instead is a medal from Kirk. Most of the trainee crew got one, as Kirk felt they were put in a situation they should have never been in.
Grenni takes the medal to Pete’s grave where Dannan finds him. When he explains that Peter stayed while he ran, she nearly kills him. If not for the fact he puts up absolutely no resistance is the only reason she doesn’t end up reaching for his throat. Instead she takes him back to the home where Scotty appreciates his visit and forgives him. He does state correctly that Grenni was cowardly but also understands that a sneak attack on a trainee ship wasn’t what any of them had prepared for and doesn’t blame him for his weakness. Dannan, not so much.
Odds And Ends
On the Grissom Saavik meets an alien called a Glaeziver. His name was unpronounceable but answered to Fred. His people were without a planet and it was hoped Genesis would be the answer. Not only it wasn’t, but he ended up dying in Kruge’s attack on Grissom.
Kruge’s pet is named Warrigul. It accompanied him down to the planet where it attacked the worms that Kruge was struggling with. It’s fairly obvious that they couldn’t film that with a puppet.
Dannan made an interesting observation when she was fighting with Scotty in her grief with Peter, blaming Kirk for his death. She says she wouldn’t let Kirk get anywhere near a starship again, the last two times he did, both the Captains died: Decker and Spock. Obviously we know there was a lot of story to this she doesn’t know but technically, she’s not wrong.
Carol doesn’t disappear from the story, not only do we have the stuff I mentioned from the beginning but she also visit’s Vance Madison’s parents and they have some moments talking about what happened as well as knowing that she and Vance were in a relationship. I liked that McIntyre included this but the placement of this was just after Kirk stole the Enterprise and just before Kruge takes Saavik and David hostage. It’s an odd placement pacing-wise and could’ve been put in a lot earlier.
After Genesis explodes and the team is heading to Vulcan, Saavik makes a transmission to Starfleet letting them know the vessel is not an enemy vessel and that more casualties will happen if they don’t get there. She deftly sidesteps a lot of questions about Kirk and the Enterprise and is successful in making sure the Federation leaves them alone as they make their way towards Vulcan. Kirk is appreciative as if anyone else in the group made the communications, they would’ve immediately been ordered to stand down and probably intercepted before they could’ve gotten to Vulcan.
The book also addresses Amanda’s absence. She was studying to become a Vulcan priestess under T’Lar. As such, her training was still in progress and her presence, as well as her closeness to Spock and her emotional state, made it dangerous to be nearby when they attempted the Fal Tor Pan. She’s none too happy about it.
What’s The Score?
James Horner returns to score this third movie. Much of what he did was somewhat cut and pasted from Star Trek II. The end credits music is identical. But he does some good work here. For instance, the Klingon theme is pretty good. It feels similar to what Goldsmith created but not the same. I like it.
The last moments of Genesis are poignant and melancholy all at the same time. I really like this one.
But what’s possibly his best score of either movie has to be the theft of the Enterprise. It’s absolute perfection and really conveys the sense of adventure, tension, and importance of the moment.
Horner is Horner and he does a fine job in whatever he’s done. While I agree that he does lift things from his other work a bit too much, his work in general is worth lifting from. When he does bring it, he brings it as well as anyone. I only wished he did the entire trilogy.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
After Star Trek IV, the whole odd/even trope started with the TOS Trek movies where odd movies were “bad” and even numbered movies were “good.” Star Trek V really cemented it in stone but in my opinion, the only bad Star Trek movie was V. And even it has some entertainment value. The Motion Picture has undergone a re-evaluation over the last several years, thanks to the director’s cut and some polished special effects, people have really come around to how good that movie really is.
Star Trek III, The Search For Spock is probably the most underrated Star Trek movie. II, IV, and VI are all respected and were always well received. The Motion Picture has become a new favorite, and V is continued to be rated what it should be. III has become the unloved step child of the first six and in my opinion, doesn’t get enough love.
The biggest criticism people have of many stories these days, especially the super-hero genre, is that death isn’t permanent. Typically I agree with this sentiment. Half the time it’s a hand wave to bring someone back from the dead. But III made the entire movie about bringing Spock back and it didn’t make it easy. Kirk and the crew end up shredding their careers, risk prison, the Enterprise is lost, and Kirk loses his son. The point is, a major price is paid for this result and I recall vividly at the end of the movie in 1984 wondering what was going to happen to them all.
The rest of the crew gets more things to do as well. Sulu gets a moment, Scotty with the Excelsior, and Uhura with the young Lieutenant. From a character building standpoint, you can see how this crew interacts with each other before and after this movie. There’s an underlying bond that is much more apparent between all of them.
The centerpiece action scene of the crew stealing the Enterprise is pretty awesome. As I mentioned in “What’s The Score” James Horner’s music really works but the scene itself is just a masterpiece of tension.
My gripes about this film are mostly about what’s left out, much of which was put in the novelization. Where was Carol Marcus? And sure, Genesis destroys itself but it was never designed to be blown up in a nebula, maybe don’t give up on it so quickly?
Kruge’s motivations are also not as well defined as they should be. He seems to be as single minded and obsessed as Khan, thereby seeming to take it very personally with Kirk. But Khan had a history with Kirk, it was clear why he was so obsessed. Kruge just was doing his duty, why get so obsessed?
Christopher Lloyd does such a good job though that you end up buying it anyway.
The destruction of the Enterprise is just heart breaking. This was before they destroyed the Enterprise every other movie. It actually meant something here and was handled with the weight it should’ve been.
I know a lot of people think the whole Katra thing was pulled out of the writer’s asses but given all they had to work with was Spock doing a quick mind meld saying “Remember”, I think they came up with a pretty darn good story with what was set up. At least we didn’t get a “Somehow, Spock has returned.” (*cough* Rise of Skywalker *cough*)
Maybe I have more nostalgia glasses on seeing this at age 14 and not being nearly as discerning as I am I now. I agree, it’s not as good as the even numbered and is probably 5 out the 6 movies. But the gap between it and Star Trek V is very wide. It’s not that far behind the rest.
I see this as the middle chapter of a trilogy and it does what it’s supposed to do: take the characters down to their lowest point with the end being only a bit of hope for the final chapter. I did a video a while back comparing the Genesis trilogy to the original Star Wars trilogy and believe it or not, they are much closer than you think. Give Star Trek III another look as part of larger story, I think it holds up well.
Also we have NuTrek to compare how bad Trek can get, so a re-evaluation is warranted.
