It's certainly one of the loonier plots, especially when McCoy wires the brainless Spock body for remote control.
But the great thing is how the whole thing is treated completely seriously by all the actors. Even Shatner plays it straight for the most part and only really hams out on some of the more outlandish lines, like "What have you done with Spock's brain?!"
The weird thing is this could have been easily made into a flat out comedy.
If this were made today, certainly the characters would have had some meta lines acknowledging the absurdity.
It's not a masterpiece but I think it's still very good. Certainly never boring.
And playing a ridiculous concept straight and not self aware can really work sometimes. For example the film Point Break has an absolutely ridiculous plot but it's played so earnestly that it's endearing. And like original Trek, that film has a hammy cast with chemistry, Reeves, Swayze and Busey.
But the great thing is how the whole thing is treated completely seriously by all the actors. Even Shatner plays it straight for the most part and only really hams out on some of the more outlandish lines, like "What have you done with Spock's brain?!"
The weird thing is this could have been easily made into a flat out comedy.
If this were made today, certainly the characters would have had some meta lines acknowledging the absurdity.
It's not a masterpiece but I think it's still very good. Certainly never boring.
And playing a ridiculous concept straight and not self aware can really work sometimes. For example the film Point Break has an absolutely ridiculous plot but it's played so earnestly that it's endearing. And like original Trek, that film has a hammy cast with chemistry, Reeves, Swayze and Busey.