Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 American science fiction film, written and produced by Harve Bennett, directed by Leonard Nimoy, and based on the television series Star Trek. It is the third film in the Star Trek franchise and is the second part of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and concludes with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). After the death of Spock (Nimoy), the crew of the USS Enterprise return to Earth. When James T. Kirk (William Shatner) learns that Spock's spirit, or katra, is held in the mind of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Kirk and company steal the decommissioned USS Enterprise to return Spock's body to his homeworld. The crew must also contend with hostile Klingons, led by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), who are bent on stealing the secrets of the powerful terraforming device, Genesis.

Paramount Pictures commissioned the film after the positive critical and commercial reaction to The Wrath of Khan. Nimoy directed this film, becoming the first Star Trek cast member to do so. Producer Harve Bennett wrote the script, starting from the end and working backwards, and intended the destruction of the Enterprise to be a shocking development.

Bennett and Nimoy collaborated with effects house Industrial Light & Magic to develop storyboards and new ship designs; ILM also handled the film's many special effects sequences. Aside from a single day of location shooting, the film was shot entirely on Paramount and ILM soundstages. Composer James Horner returned to expand his themes from the previous film.

The Search for Spock opened on June 1, 1984. In its first week of release, the film grossed over $16 million from almost 2,000 theaters across North America. It went on to gross $76 million at the domestic box office, with a total of $87 million worldwide. Critical reaction to The Search for Spock was generally positive, but notably less so than the previous film. Reviewers generally praised the cast, Nimoy's direction, and characters, while criticism tended to focus on the plot; the special effects were conflictingly received. Roger Ebert called the film a compromise between the tones of the first and second Star Trek films.

Plot

The Federation starship limps back to Earth following a battle with the superhuman Khan Noonien Singh, who tried to destroy the Enterprise by detonating an experimental terraforming device known as Genesis. The casualties of the fight include Admiral James T. Kirk's Vulcan friend, Spock, whose casket has unexpectedly landed onto the surface of the planet created by the Genesis Device. Upon arriving at Earth Spacedock, Doctor Leonard McCoy begins to act strangely and is arrested. Starfleet Admiral Morrow visits Enterprise and informs the crew the ship is to be decommissioned; the crew is ordered not to speak about Genesis due to political fallout over the device.

David Marcus—Kirk's son, a key scientist in Genesis' development—and the Vulcan Saavik are investigating the Genesis planet from the science vessel USS Grissom. Discovering an unexpected life form on the surface, Marcus and Saavik transport to the planet. They find that the Genesis Device has resurrected Spock in the form of a child, although his mind is not present. Marcus, pressed by Saavik, admits that he used unstable "protomatter" in constructing the Genesis Device, meaning that Spock is rapidly aging, and the planet will be destroyed within hours. Meanwhile, commander Kruge, a member of the alien Klingon race, intercepts information about Genesis. Believing the device to be a potent weapon, he takes his cloaked ship to the Genesis planet, destroys Grissom, and captures Marcus, Saavik, and Spock.

Spock's father, Sarek, meets with Kirk about his son's death. The pair learn that before he died, Spock transferred his katra, or living spirit, to McCoy. Spock's katra and body are needed to lay him to rest on the Vulcan homeworld, and without help, McCoy will die from carrying the katra. Disobeying orders, Kirk and his officers spring McCoy from detention, disable the USS Excelsior, and steal Enterprise from Spacedock to return to the Genesis planet.

In orbit, Enterprise is attacked and disabled by Kruge. In the standoff that follows, Kruge orders that one of the hostages on the surface be executed; David is killed defending Saavik. Kirk and company feign surrender and activate Enterprises self-destruct sequence. The ship explodes, killing the Klingon boarding party while the Enterprise crew beams down to the planet's surface. Kirk lures Kruge to the planet by promising the secret of Genesis and has him beam his crew to the Klingon vessel. As the Genesis planet disintegrates, Kirk and Kruge engage in hand-to-hand combat; Kirk emerges victorious after kicking the Klingon off a cliff. Overwhelming the last member of the Klingon crew, Kirk and his officers set course for Vulcan.

Spock's katra is reunited with his body in a dangerous procedure called fal tor pan. The ceremony is successful, and Spock is resurrected alive and well, though his memories are fragmented. At Kirk's prompting, Spock remembers he called Kirk "Jim" and recognizes the crew.

James Doohan, as Montgomery Scott: Enterprise chief engineer
George Takei as Hikaru Sulu: Enterprise helmsman. Takei was dismayed to hear that his character was called "Tiny" by a guard at McCoy's cell during the film and argued with the film's producer to have the line cut. When Takei saw the first screening of the film, he changed his mind and promptly apologized.
Walter Koenig, as Pavel Chekov: Enterprise navigation and acting science officer
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura: Enterprise communications officer. Nichols had always insisted on wearing a skirt; although the standard female uniform used trousers, the costume designer created a skirted version specifically for her. At age 87, and, at her nephew's urging, Anderson accepted the role. Nimoy wanted someone with "power and magic" for the ethereal role. Anderson claimed to be tall, but her true height was closer to , which presented a problem when the designers needed to make her look appropriately regal. The solution was to dress her with an overlong hem and built-up shoes which, combined with a crown, added to her height. Curtis had arrived in Los Angeles in 1982; she became friends with the head of Paramount's casting department, who recommended her for the role. Nimoy met with Curtis and gave her the assignment the next day.

Production

Development

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was a critical and commercial success, so Paramount Pictures quickly prepared for a third Star Trek film. The Wrath of Khans director Nicholas Meyer would not return; he had disagreed with changes made to his film's ending without his consent. Upon seeing The Wrath of Khan, Leonard Nimoy became "excited" about playing Spock again. When asked by Paramount if he wanted to reprise the role for the third feature, Nimoy agreed and told them "You're damned right, I want to direct that picture!" Studio chief Michael Eisner was reluctant to hire Nimoy because he mistakenly believed that the actor hated Star Trek and had demanded in his contract that Spock be killed. Nimoy was given the job after he persuaded Eisner that this was not the case. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's first reaction to the news was that producer Harve Bennett had "hired a director you can't fire".

Paramount gave Bennett the green light to write Star Trek III the day after The Wrath of Khan opened, the fastest go-ahead the producer had received. He began writing the screenplay, noting that "seventeen other people could have written [it]" after the hints at Spock's resurrection in the previous film. Bennett admitted that the idea of Kirk and company going back to the Genesis planet to recover Kirk's "noble self" stemmed from a poem he read in a Star Trek fan magazine. A major issue Bennett wrestled with was how to introduce the story for people who had not seen The Wrath of Khan. Bennett said that his television producer mentality "won out"; he added a "previously in Star Trek ..." film device, and had Kirk narrate a captain's log, describing his feelings and sense of loss. Early script drafts mention that Kruge stole his ship from the Romulans, but this idea was cut.

Bennett had originally intended to bring back Dr. Carol Marcus, Bibi Besch's character introduced in The Wrath of Khan. As co-inventor of Project Genesis, as well as Kirk's former love and mother to their son David, the importance of Carol to continuing the story of Genesis initially seemed inherent. "I thought it might be fun to have her relating to David and have something going with Saavik," Bennett would later say. However, as he continued to develop the outline for the story, he found that the character was extraneous. Ultimately, Bennett decided not to include her, primarily for budgetary reasons and because he couldn't reconcile either how Carol wouldn't know of her son's unethical use of unstable protomatter in the Genesis matrix or that she would have condoned it. Nimoy agreed, stating in 1986: "I gave it a lot of thought, but wasn't aware of any obligatory scene in which Carol Marcus would have worked."

Besch had difficulty accepting that she had not been asked to reprise the role. In a letter she wrote to Bennett upon seeing the film, though, she told him she understood why Carol was left out and that she hoped they could use her in the future. Carol Marcus would eventually be referenced by Kirk as his pregnant girlfriend in the prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and as the Genesis device developer by Kathryn Janeway in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. An alternate timeline version would appear in the film Star Trek Into Darkness, played by Alice Eve. Years after The Search for Spock, Besch would say that she was frustrated and disappointed that she was never able to complete the character's story arc with Kirk, particularly the opportunity to mourn their son's death together.

The script was completed in six weeks. Part of the blame was laid at Gene Roddenberry's feet; Harve Bennett was made producer of The Wrath of Khan after he promised to make a sequel for much less.|group="n" Since elements such as many sets and uniforms had been established, more money was available for special effects.

Design

thumb|left|Visual supervisor [[Ken Ralston (far right) worked with Paramount early in production to develop plans for The Search for Spock effects.|alt=Five older men sit on a couch, with an arched, decorative purple background behind them. Ralston, leaning back in his seat, has short hair and wears a shirt with slacks.]]

Nimoy and Bennett worked with effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to produce special effects, models, and live-action scenes. ILM received a two-page story treatment in November 1982, titled "Return to Genesis". Production supervisor Warren Franklin said that the script they received in early 1983 was "one of the best scripts we read" out of the submissions that arrived weekly. Although ILM had provided the effects work for The Wrath of Khan, they had only been approached after effects storyboards had been completed. For The Search for Spock, ILM were brought in much earlier, meaning that visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston and his team were involved from the planning stages. Nimoy credited this early involvement with increasing the amount of creative input into the film's design and execution. The inside of the dock was simulated by an additional model, long, with a removable center section. and sculpted a reptilian dog worked into the script as Kruge's mascot. The animal's hair was made from cheap wig clippings, with creature supervisor David Sosalla spraying the material with adhesive and laid clumps of the distressed fur onto the painted puppet body to make the animal appear "beat-up and moth-eaten". During filming, Sosalla and crew sprinkled the creature with water to make it look more unpleasant. Ralston hid inside Kruge's command chair and puppeteered the animal's head and body through an opening on the creature's side; the creature's head was large enough for Ralston to fit his hand inside the spring-loaded jaw to operate it. Set designer Cameron Birnie noted that the production's security was highly unusual; sets were built out of sequence and the crew given only as many pages as they needed to fabricate each locale. Security guards checked the picture identification cards of production staff. Any mention of the production was removed from stationery and documents, and "Trois" (three, in French) was written as a code word. Offices and workshops were bereft of identifying signage, with doors double-locked for extra protection. The Search for Spock scripts were chemically treated so that copies could be traced to the original; Nimoy's name never appeared on call sheets, and Spock was referred to in the script as "Nacluv" (Vulcan spelled backwards). All but two days of production were filmed on Paramount soundstages, by cinematographer Charles Correll. The Search for Spock was one of the first major feature films to use Eastman 5294, a color high speed negative film stock. The film allowed Correll latitude in choosing a broad range of exposure indexes. Since The Search for Spock was shot with anamorphic lenses and many theatergoers would see widescreen 70 mm prints, Correll needed to produce a crisp depth of field, a difficult task on many sets. For scenes on the bridge, Correll pushed the exposure index above the Eastman recommendation to keep the image crisp at less than 50 foot-candles. Correll was unhappy that every scene save one was filmed on a soundstage. Feeling that recreating everything on set resulted in a fake look, the cinematographer suggested that Genesis be filmed on Kauai in Hawaii, The production did not have the money to shoot on location, meaning that Nimoy was preoccupied with making sure the various outdoor settings felt believable. To accommodate the effect, Correll had to use a large amount of exposure without making the bar appear overlit. Much of the lighting was provided by tables rigged with fluorescent tubes to provide an effect different from other parts of the film. Correll could not add smoke to the scene to enhance the bar "feel", because the disturbed atmosphere would have made ILM's game hard to insert. The scene was intended to end in a barroom brawl when security tried to take McCoy into custody; Nimoy decided that "it didn't feel right" and there was not enough time or money to achieve the scene successfully. While many of the scenes appeared lit with minimal light sources such as flickering fires, Correll tried to use as much light as possible. To get the fire to reflect on the actor's faces, Correll used a variety of tricks with normal lights; using natural fire would not have provided the required intensity. a slippery, slimy coating. Each worm was attached to an elevated platform by a piece of fishing line; the lines were tied to rods underneath the set. Offscreen helpers pushed the rods or pulled fishing line to create motion; the scene required many takes because the fishing line would periodically flash at the camera. The larger worms proved more problematic, with filming taking place at ILM and Paramount Stage 15. Similar to The Wrath of Khans parasitic Ceti eels, the worms featured cobra-like cowls and a ringed mouth of teeth. ILM built one of the worms with more articulation than the others; Ralston operated the creature through a hole in the set floor with his hand stuck inside the creature. The other worms were animated using pneumatic bladders that caused air to pass through hoses in sequence, creating an undulating motion. During the scene, the worms attack Kruge, who kills one of them. The usual method for achieving the effect of the creature wrapping itself around Kruge would have been to film the sequence in reverse, but this posed problems: the slime coating Kruge would have been out of place with reverse filming, and multiple takes would ruin the Klingon makeup Lloyd wore. ILM's solution involved rigging the worm with fishing lines that were pulled in a choreographed fashion by multiple off-screen helpers to simulate the wrapping movement.

The fiery breakup of the Genesis planet involved fire, smoke, and earth upheaval. "The main part of the floor was rigged so that rocks would shoot up out of the ground [on catapults]. Trees were rigged to fall and start fires," Correll explained. Producing the shots required meticulous direction and between 20 and 30 helpers were on hand the day of shooting. Many ornamental touches Nimoy wanted for the procession scene ultimately never materialized. The background of the set was simply a painted piece of canvas; Nimoy had the background out of focus in all the shots as a way to hide the shortcomings of the scenery. ILM contributed 120 shots to the film. Like Correll, Ralston used Eastman 94 for all shots that did not require bluescreen.

ILM filmed starships using motion control for timed and computer-assisted model movement. The ship models required multiple camera passes because different parts of the ship and its lights were filmed at different exposure levels. The Excelsior required eight passes to supplement the main "beauty pass", the Enterprise six. ILM could have combined passes with multiple exposures, but not without risk; "If anything got out of synch, or somehow we dropped a frame, we would have to reshoot—and then you're stuck. You've ruined two pieces, two elements," Farrar said. The cafeteria was a set built at ILM and filled with 40 extras in front of a bluescreen so that the dock and Enterprise could be composited in later; matte paintings extended the ceiling of the set.

thumb|thumbtime=16|The Enterprise destruction sequence combined footage culled from multiple models, since destroying the original would have been very costly.|alt=Video of the Enterprise destruction. The first shot shows the domed bridge of the ship explode. Large explosions eat away at the flat saucer section, revealing burning decks. The front portion of the saucer violently explodes, and the rest of the damaged ship lurches forward.

Ralston, who considered the Enterprise ugly and the model hard to shoot, delighted in destroying the ship. Several shots were combined for the complete destruction sequence; while Ralston would have preferred to take a mallet to the original $150,000 model, a variety of cheaper models were used. The first part of the ship to be destroyed was the bridge, a separate miniature with stars added to the background. The shot switches to the Bird of Prey moving away as the top of the saucer burns, where explosions (filmed upside down to simulate the absence of gravity) Two- and four-ounce bombs and gasoline were used as pyrotechnics in live action scenes of the bridge being destroyed. Stuntmen used spring-loaded platforms to launch themselves in the air. Overhead shots of the lava were created by lighting a piece of clear Plexiglass with colored gels and covering the plate with methacyl, vermiculite and charcoal; the mixture dripped off the surface and coated the crew underneath. ILM simulated Kruge's demise, a long plunge into the pool of lava, with the help of a stop-motion puppet. Lloyd fell a few feet onto a black mattress; during a lightning flash the actor was replaced by the puppet that fell the rest of the distance. Because the shot was filmed on black instead of the traditional bluescreen, the animators had to remove or rotoscope the black background around Lloyd one frame at a time. The transition between the footage of Lloyd and the puppet was hidden by a single-frame flash as a bolt of lightning struck Kruge. The scene of Kirk and Spock beaming away as the ground collapses was another created at ILM, as the level of destruction was simply not possible for the live-action crew. Much like the content of the film, Horner's music was a direct continuation of the score he wrote for the previous film. When writing music for The Wrath of Khan, Horner was aware he would reuse certain cues for an impending sequel; two major themes he reworked were for Genesis and Spock. While the Genesis theme supplants the title music Horner wrote for The Wrath of Khan, the end credits were quoted "almost verbatim".

In hours-long discussions with Bennett and Nimoy, Horner agreed with the director that the "romantic and more sensitive" cues were more important than the "bombastic" ones. The theme was expanded in The Search for Spock to represent the ancient alien mysticism and culture of Spock and Vulcan. Horner also adapted music from Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet for part of the Enterprise theft sequence and its destruction, while the scoring to Spock's resurrection on Vulcan was lifted from Horner's Brainstorm ending.

Themes

thumb|The Search for Spock continues The Wrath of Khans exploration of Christian biblical themes of life, death, and rebirth.|alt=Black-and-white-engraving of the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus stands atop a stone in the center of the picture, dressed in flowing robes. He carries a staff in one hand and makes a sign of peace with the other; light radiates from his head. Around him soldiers dressed in armor cover their eyes or cower in fear and awe.

Nimoy wrote that The Search for Spocks major theme is that of friendship. "What should a person do to help a friend? How deeply should a friendship commitment go? ... And what sacrifices, what obstacles, will these people endure? That's the emotion line of the film [and] its reason for existence," he recalled.

Brown University professor Ross S. Kraemer argues that The Search for Spock "became Star Treks first and most obvious exploration of Christian themes of sacrificial, salvific death and resurrection". According to Larry J. Kreitzer, The Wrath of Khan provided "its own versions of Good Friday and a hint of the Easter Sunday to come", with the hints fulfilled by Spock's bodily restoration in The Search for Spock. David and Saavik's discovery of Spock's empty coffin and burial robes parallels the evidence the Apostles found that pointed to Jesus' resurrection in the Gospel of Luke, asserts Kraemer. Spock's resurrection not only proves the Vulcan's belief in the existence of the katra, but also affirms these are not just a belief system but a certainty. Barrett points to the Star Trek feature films in general and The Search for Spock in particular as a turn away from the irreligious television series. In more practical terms, Jeffery A. Smith pointed to The Search for Spock as one of many Hollywood films culminating in a 1990s trend where death has little permanence (Ghost, Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come, Meet Joe Black).

The Genesis planet became a doomed experiment partly for dramatic reasons; having a time limit for the characters to save Spock added tension. Nimoy was also interested in scientific ethics—how quickly can science move and what are the dangers of that movement. The Genesis Device was intended as a liberating technology, creating life from lifelessness, but in the Klingon view it is a tool for dominion (contrasting the contemporary views of how technology can promote or constrain liberty).

Release

The Search for Spock was not heavily marketed. Among the promotional merchandise created for the film's release were Search for Spock–branded calendars and glasses sold at Taco Bell. A novelization () was also released, and reached second place on The New York Times paperback bestsellers list. President Ronald Reagan screened the film for friends during a weekend away from the White House in 1984, spent with White House staff chief Mike Deaver and the president's own close friend Senator Paul Laxalt. Reagan wrote of the film: "It wasn't too good."

The Search for Spock opened June 1 in a record-breaking 1,996 theaters across North America; with competing films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Ghostbusters and Top Secret! released at the same time, more than half of the nation's screens were filled by summer blockbusters. The Search for Spock grossed over $16 million in its opening weekend. In its second weekend the film's gross dropped 42 percent. The box office strength of The Search for Spock and Indiana Jones led Paramount to dominate early summer film business. The film made $76.5 million in North America, for a total of $87 million worldwide.

Critical response

The Search for Spock received generally positive reviews from critics. Richard Schickel of Time praised the film as "perhaps the first space opera to deserve that term in its grandest sense". Janet Maslin of The New York Times and Newsweek wrote that while the film felt weighed down by the increasingly aged actors and television tropes, it was leavened by its dedication. Roger Ebert called the film "good, but not great" and a compromise between the special effects-dependent The Motion Picture and the character-driven The Wrath of Khan. Conversely, USA Today praised the film as the best of the three and the closest to the original spirit of the television series. An overwhelmingly negative view of the film was offered by The Globe and Mails Susan Ferrier Mackay, who summed the film up as "ba-a-a-d". In a 2010 retrospective of the film franchise, author Jill Sherwin suggests the aging Enterprise served as a metaphor for the aging Star Trek franchise. On Metacritic the film has a score of 56 out of 100 based on reviews from 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 78% based on reviews from 49 critics.

Critics praised Nimoy's direction, to which USA Today attributed the film's success in capturing the essence of the television show. The Washington Posts Rita Kempley wrote that Nimoy's direction was competent, but his background in television showed—"the film feels made-for-TV", she summarized.

The Search for Spocks plot often received negative reviews. Schickel called the film "overplotted" and filled with "heavy expository burdens", comparing it to real opera. Pauline Kael wrote that "this new film seems to take a churlish attitude toward its light-hearted, delicately self-mocking predecessor: almost vindictively, the new film requires that Genesis disintegrate."

The film's sense of self-seriousness and the camaraderie amongst the characters were generally cited as positive aspects. Maslin wrote that certain tacky elements of the film's television roots were outweighed by the closeness of the Enterprise crew and "by their seriousness and avidity about what seem to be the silliest minutiae [...] That's what longtime Trekkies love about the series, and it's still here—a little the worse for wear, but mostly untarnished." The Los Angeles Times wrote that despite its spectacle, the film's "humanity once again outweighs the hardware, and its innocence is downright endearing".

The film's effects were conflictingly appraised. Schickel wrote that the effects were "technically adroit" and occasionally "witty", Kempley appreciated the sets' low values, writing that "the fakier the sets", the closer the film felt to its television origins.

John Nubbin reviewed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock for Different Worlds magazine and stated that "The Search for Spock is only a long TV episode. At $4 to $5 a pop, even the fans may grow weary of such productions. This is not to say that the Trek phenomenon is over, or even dying."

Home media

The Search for Spock was released on home video in the United States in February 1985. The initial retail offerings included VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc and CED formats with closed captioning. As part of a plan to support its push of 8mm video cassette, Sony partnered with Paramount Home Video to bring titles like The Search for Spock to the platform in 1986.

The film was given a "bare bones" DVD release on May 11, 2000, with no extra features—the release was several months earlier than the release of The Wrath of Khan. Two years later, a two-disc "Collector's Edition" was released with supplemental material and the same video transfer as the original DVD release. It featured a text commentary by Michael Okuda and audio commentary from Nimoy, Bennett, Correll, and Curtis.

The film was released on high-definition Blu-ray Disc in May 2009 to coincide with the new Star Trek feature, along with the other five films featuring the original crew in Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection. The Search for Spock was remastered in 1080p high-definition from the 2000 DVD transfer. All six films in the set have new 7.1 Dolby TrueHD audio. The disc features a new commentary track by former Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager television writers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor.

On July 7, 2021, it was announced that the first four films in the Star Trek franchise were to be remastered from original elements and would be released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on September 7 to commemorate the franchise's 55th anniversary, alongside individual Blu-rays of the same films.

The film was briefly removed from Netflix in July 2013 because of missing English subtitles for the Klingon and Vulcan dialogue.

Notes

References

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