Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Director:

Leonard Nimoy

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek)
Harve Bennett (written by)

Release Date:

1 June 1984 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Join the search

Plot:

Admiral Kirk and his bridge crew risk their careers stealing the decommissioned Enterprise to return to the restricted Genesis planet to recover Spock's body.

Plot Keywords:

Admiral | Commander | Ceremony | Star Trek | Space

Awards:

7 nominations

Cast

William Shatner	...	Admiral James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Capt. Spock / Elevator Voice (also as Frank Force)
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy
James Doohan	...	Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
George Takei	...	Hikaru Sulu
Walter Koenig	...	Pavel Chekov
Nichelle Nichols	...	Cmdr. Uhura
Merritt Butrick	...	Dr. David Marcus
Phil Morris	...	Trainee Foster
Scott McGinnis	...	Mr. Adventure
Robin Curtis	...	Lt. Saavik
Robert Hooks	...	Adm. Morrow
Carl Steven	...	Spock...Age 9
Vadia Potenza	...	Spock...Age 13
Stephen Manley	...	Spock...Age 17

Also Known As:

Star Trek III: Return to Genesis (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Klingon | Russian

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Italy:T | Iceland:10 | South Korea:12 | Brazil:Livre | New Zealand:G | Canada:G (Régie du Cinéma Québec) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Canada:PG | Finland:K-11 (DVD rating) | France:U | Netherlands:AL | Norway:11 (re-rerating) | Norway:12 | Singapore:PG | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Cinema Group Ventures

Trivia:

Christopher Lloyd, who is most famous for playing Doc Brown, inventor of the time machine in the Back to the Future (1985) trilogy, plays the Klingon captain who's ship is taken over by Kirk and his crew. In the next movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Kirk ironically uses this same ship to travel back to the 1980s, near the 1985 date that Brown first used his famous DeLorean time traveler.

Goofs:

Plot holes: The subtitle "The Search for Spock" is a bit of a goof in itself, since there is no actual search for Spock in the film. He is presumed dead at the beginning of the film, then they return to his coffin site to investigate life forms, then they find Spock as a young boy.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[Spock's dying words, repeated from the previous film]
Captain Spock: Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh...
Kirk: ...the needs of the few.
Captain Spock: Or the one. I have been and always shall be your friend. Live long and prosper.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Star Trek: The Next Generation: 11001001 (#1.14)" (1988)

You'll never watch "Taxi" reruns the same way again!

Christopher Lloyd has to be one of the most brilliant actors in history. When I first saw him, as Reverend Jim Ignatowski, I was very young, and his presence was very "memorable." As with Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, it takes several different performances to truly grasp his range.

The rest of the cast? If you have to ask....

The plot? If you have to ask...okay, this time the crew goes on a mission to find Spock, whose mind has been placed in Dr. McCoy for safekeeping while his body chilled out at the Genesis spa. Only a vulcan ritual can make everything right, but first the crew has to retrieve Spock's body from Genesis, and in doing so they encounter the evil Klingon commander Kruge (Lloyd).

The special effects on this film were subpar, particularly the fight scenes on the exploding Genesis planet; I've seen better special effects with fire on a soap opera. That's acceptable, however, since when the film came out, we needed Spock to return to the living, though today's audiences wouldn't understand the significance of having killed him off at the end of II.

To those who don't know, when Kruge says "I come all this way for Genesis, and this is what I find," Lloyd is in the character of Reverend Jim from Taxi, and the theater I was in exploded in laughter at the time; this joke would be lost on anyone who hasn't seen that series. All that was missing was Danny DeVito as a space dispatcher or Andy Kaufman as an alien.

Whereas Star Trek I tilted a little too much towards the hardcore fan base, and Star Trek II was perfect for everyone (by far the best of the series), Star Trek III was a decent film that satisfied the intense cravings of Trekkies (not Trekkers, as there was no shame in being a Trekkie back then) for more footage of the famous crew of space pioneers. This was before the internet, before cable and even video stores (almost), and when all we had were the 78/79 episodes that were in reruns and which we had memorized every line to. I left the theater pleased with the film, knowing it could have been better, but it also could have been far worse.

Perhaps the film's greatest achievement is that it was obviously made to cash in on the growing rerun audience from the series, yet it still managed to be superior to most episodes, while stacking up decently against every other Trek film ever made, except for Star Trek II and First Contact.

If you're a hardcore fan, buy the DVD; if not, catch it on cable. Either way, you'll be pleased.