Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
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Nuke67 remembers...Star Trek 3 was very good despite the lower budget, granted it wasn't as powerful as Star Trek 2, as ... More »
Posted on 08/04/08
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The third film in the epic franchise turned out to be a very literal sequel to the second film. Although Leonard Nimoy’s character, Dr. Spock, supposedly died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nimoy agreed to resurrect the popular character on condition that he be given the director’s chair. With a rather low budget of $17 million, Nimoy and the rest of the Enterprise crew returned for yet another foray into the final frontier. The film contained more humor than its predecessors, in part for the increased role of James Doohan’s character Scotty, but also for the Klingon characters portrayed by Christopher Lloyd and John Laroquette. The film also contained many firsts for the franchise: The first ever instance of Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) speaking Russian; the first ever instance of a starship stalling; and the first ever use of the Klingon language developed by linguist Marc Okrand, and which would be used in all future productions. Production was halted due to a fire at Paramount, in which William Shatner fought the flames and saved one of the crew members before firefighters arrived.
Picking up where the last film left off, the U.S.S. starship Enterprise limps back to Starfleet to be retired from duty. While there, Kirk meets Spock’s father, Sarek (Mark Lenard) who informs him that Spock’s mind must be returned to his body in order to be properly interred on Vulcan. This is fortuitously made possible by Dr. Bones, who now possesses Spock’s soul since the Vulcan mind-melded with him prior to his death.
Meanwhile, Kirk’s son David Marcus (Merritt Butrick) and Lieutenant Saavik (Robin Curtis) return to the Genesis planet and discover that its regenerative powers have created a new Spock, albeit only a child. Their discovery is shortly accompanied by the arrival of a Klingon Bird-of-prey under the direction of Commander Kruge (Lloyd). Drawn by the possibility of using the Genesis project as a weapon, Kruge imprisons the scientists just before the arrival of Kirk and the now stolen Enterprise. After a brief clash cripples the Enterprise, Kirk can only stand by helplessly while the Klingons murder his son. A battle ensues in which Kirk orders the destruction of the enterprise before beaming his skeleton crew to the planet’s surface. There, Kirk and Kruge meet in a hand-to-hand death match that finds Kirk the victor when Kruge is upended into a rift full of lava. Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew commandeer the Bird-of-Prey and take Spock to Vulcan where they can restore his mind to his body before time runs out.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock virtually recuperated all of its production costs on its opening weekend with just under $17 million in ticket sales. The film would eventually tally over $75 million. As it had for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Atari produced a video game but never released it. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home would complete the mini-trilogy in 1986, with six more films following after that.
