Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
08/16/20091984. Directed by Leonard Nimoy.
The third Star Trek motion picture is a little more fast paced than it’s predecessors and therefore has been the most enjoyable so far. It’s story is fairly lean, taking place immediately after the event’s of The Wrath Of Khan, Captain Kirk and crew steal the Starship Enterprise to return to the Genesis planet to recover Spock’s remains. What they didn’t count on is the Genesis machine’s ability to give life to the lifeless, even if it is unstable.
The Search for Spock is kind of low on secondary characters, which is great, we get to focus on the characters that the series is known for. The villains in this installment are the Klingons whose leader is played by Christopher Lloyd. They are suitably menacing and evil, if a little bit one dimensional. These Klingons give The Search For Spock an almost western feel. We know clearly who the good guys are and who are the bad.
The special effects are really fun, as are the Klingon prosthetic effects. Leonard Nimoy directs the action admirably and clearly understands the characters and their relationships with each other. There’s some moments that don’t work to great on film. The Enterprise’s escape sequence is so slow that it becomes almost laughable, I know that in space things would move at that rate, but for an action picture they could have given that scene a little more excitement. There’s also some questionable moments of character development, such as when Kirk learns his son has been executed by the Klingons. Kirk mourns for about two seconds, and his son isn’t mentioned again until the final moments of the film.
My goal has been to make it through the first four Star Trek pictures, as I understand Part IV is pretty campy. I’m looking forward to it.
