Kelley had good comic delivery. His “oh, joy” in IV is a line reading for the ages.
The musical cue right after “We have cleared space doors” is a top 10 Trek moment.
I also love the moment when the battle-scarred Enterprise arrives at dock and everyone stops talking and stares at the damage.
We also get the comedy Klingon crew. Not just Christopher Lloyd, but also John Larroquette!
Finally, the destruction of the Enterprise was an incredible moment for the audience and for the characters. And it always bothered me how the Generations filmmakers destroy the Ent-D for spectacle, and there’s absolutely no emotional weight for a starship that lived on the small screen far longer than the original series’ Enterprise. For many, it was our Enterprise. Sure, call it a Hilton in Space if you want, but she deserved far better, even in destruction.
Star Trek III isn’t a bad movie, but it also isn’t a good one. I guess I’d call it functional. It doesn’t come close to the emotional highs of Khan, and it does not have the epic scope of TMP. If I were to describe what this movies is about, it would be perhaps “what we do for friendship” or as Kirk puts it at the end, “The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many”.
So I think there’s probably a good movie here, but it’s hampered by Nimoy’s journeyman style direction, some questionable editing, and a script that probably needed one more pass. It also looks and feel cheap (with the exception of the Enterprise blowing up).
Some thoughts:
Christopher Lloyd is fine but the Klingon angle here seems underdeveloped despite a strong first scene.
There a some bits at humor here that feel really off the mark. I thinking of the trans-warp drive failure. Tonally, the film is grappling with gravitas of the Spock situation and David’s death, and trying to have some humorous banter. The whole Uhura and the Ensign bit just sucked, especially when she whips out a phaser and says, “This is fantasy!” like that’s some really clever line.
The pon farr bit really should have been removed. Teen Spock getting a Vulcan hand job doesn’t lead to anything, although apparently there was going to be more with this? I didn’t read up on the production of this movie, but my wife said Saavik was going to end up pregnant?
I love me some James Horner, but I was surprised to notice how many scenes had zero music cues. The whole fight scene at the end. David’s death. There were other bits as well.
Speaking of David’s death (and David in general). The Klingon is going to kill one of them and instead of looking them in the eye, he goes around to stab Saavik in the back? That doesn’t feel very Klingon to me. David’s death is underwhelming. It just kind of happens. And I think I know what they were going for, but I don’t think it works. And Genesis failed because David cheated? Where’s Carol Marcus in all this? She appeared to run a tight ship in STII, but somehow David snuck proto-matter into the matrix. Whatever.
I did like Kelly’s work as McCoy in this. He’s just so good with nearly any material he’s given.
The beginning of this movie is strong. That scene with Sarek is excellent. The end (on Vulcan) is strong. Nearly everything in the middle is plodding. This might be my least favorite Original Cast Film (still need to re-watch 5).
Hahaha, oh yes you do.
V is a mess, but it did give us “what does God need with a starship?”
And “please, not in front of the klingons.”
V is a complete mess of a movie, but at least it’s kinda fun. That’s more than I can say for TMP, honestly. I’d say III is better than both by a comfortable margin in that it’s way more entertaining than TMP and way more coherent than V.
It’s interesting in that II-III-IV are the only overarching arc of the movie series. Spock dies. They steal the Enterprise and Spock is resurrected. Then they save Earth and find their way back to the Federation’s good graces. Every other movie has been stand-alone, even the Abramsverse movies. It’s strange in this franchise-centric era when every franchise movie isn’t complete unles it has plugs to three or four related and upcoming movies.
Yeah, although there are definite threads tying VI back to those, like Admiral Cartwright, who has a substantial supporting role in IV, and of course the Excelsior. All told I think 2-3-4-6 make a pretty excellent set of films even if you haven’t really ever seen the original series.
I finally watched Star Trek III again.
Some thoughts:
- I love that when McCoy is sitting in the darkness, speaking with Spock’s voice, Kirk is not having ANY of it. He grabs him by the shoulders. What the hell is the matter with you!
- Suddenly all the various members of Starfleet except for the Enterprise crew are really exaggerated 80s braggarts? What the hell is going on with this movie? The way the Captain of the Science vessel talks above the Genesis planet. The way the guy talks who is stationed with Uhura? The two security guards guarding McCoy’s cell? It’s ridiculous. It’s like they’re from some other weird 80s movie.
- I had less objection to Christopher Lloyd this time than I did the first time I watched. I remember that time, it was the first Klingon I’d seen who was so obviously recognizable as the actor playing him, and that really bothered me. Heck, I even look at Michael Dorn speaking without makeup today, and I still see no resemblance to Worf. As it should be! For some reason, this time I just found Lloyd’s character to be a Klingon. I didn’t see Christopher Lloyd at all. Yay!
- I can’t believe you guys are praising the heist of the Enterprise. What was with the security personnel’s ridiculous outfits? Why weren’t they wearing something resembling Starfleet uniforms? The “heist” was over in 5 minutes, it was ridiculously short and not an important part of the movie. I’d love for them to have extended this sequence out and made it more interesting, more exciting. To have filmed it in a more interesting way, or to score it with more exciting music at least. But no, it’s all very run of the mill, walking into a room, saying some lines, walking into another room, saying some lines, it’s not filmed in an interesting way, it’s not scored with music to get your heart rate up, it’s just blah.
- Genesis planet is sooooooo bad.
- I liked the Pon Farr sequence. I don’t know, just the rubbing of the fingers, it was very sensual. It was a small thing, but well done.
- The Sarek scene with Kirk where he mind melds was really well done. Some really close-up shots of Sarek’s lips and Kirk’s face, reliving the dialog of Spock’s death. Very nice.
- The battle scene was interesting. The bird of Prey totally had the drop on the Enterprise, and yet, they still lost. Enterprise shot first. And yet, the shot from the Klingon vessel blew the stuff that Scotty had jury-rigged for the Enterprise to be able to be run with a skeleton crew. I guess blowing up the Enterprise was the only option. It made sense to me. Besides, the ship was going to be decommissioned anyway if they hadn’t stolen it and blown it up. Surprising really, considering how much in Star Trek: The Motion Picture they made a big deal about how it was being retrofitted and turned into a modern ship, which was the whole reason why it wasn’t yet ready to face V’Ger. But now suddenly in Star Trek III it’s over 20 years old and they have no use for it anymore. Come on screenwriters. Stay more consistent please.
- Kirk reacting to the death of his son was great. And I liked that he tried to help up the Klingon Commander before booting him off the cliff.
- Vulcan priestess to McCoy: There is a great danger to you if you attempt this, but it’s your choice. McCoy: I’ll choose the danger. (Under his breath to Kirk: Hell of a time to bring it up). Heeeheee, my sentiments exactly.
- Overall, the movie is a lot better than I remember, and yet also a lot worse. The music is good, the main crew are all good. The direction is very pedestrian, the sets are terrible, and worst of all is the acting of random Starfleet personnel. That shit really bothered me this time. But overall not bad. I would still rate it higher than the Next Generation movies, probably. Just because of the high stakes, the fact that it’s connecting the thread between two good movies, and that it’s actually a clever way to bring back a character from death that doesn’t feel like cheating.
As I understood it, after the events of The Motion Picture there was another five year mission with Kirk running things. And then Enterprise is turned into a training ship for the academy. So the gap between TMP and WOK is longer than most people think.
Indeed, according to Wikpedia, the best guess is that there’s a 14 year gap.
- the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture take place in 2271 (Kirk has been Chief of Starfleet Operations for two-and-a-half years, according to dialog from Kirk and Decker)
- The “Q2” dating for Kirk’s five-year mission, moves the first film to c. 2273.
- Numerous sources, including the Chronology , postulate a second five-year mission under now-Admiral Kirk’s command began soon after the events of the first movie; in part this is to take into account the unproduced revival series Star Trek: Phase II.
- the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock take place in 2285
I just figured that Starfleet was writing off the Enterprise after all the battle damage from WOK. Easier to decommission and replace than repair her.
That was really strange. That Captain of the ship orbiting Genesis was just a dick for no reason.
That sounds ridiculous. 5 years, I can accept. 14 just seems way too long of a gap.
I have encountered that trait in a number of real-world humans, and they somehow often find their way into leadership positions.
I’m fine with that idea, but it’s just bizarre that these 70s-80s-used-car-salesmen type of people don’t show up in any Star Trek shows as Starfleet personnel. Only in Star Trek III. It just felt really out of place to me.
Um, every admiral, commodore, or amabassador in TOS. :)
Star Trek: The Search for Spock.
Make not mistake, this is a pretty bad movie. I don’t know who Harve Bennett is, but he appears to me to be the worst thing to ever happen to Star Trek. On the other hand, I thought Nimoy did a competent job as a director.
The plot is stupid. Just stupid. The entire Genesis thing is stupid. The fact that it somehow revived Spock as a baby who then grew up to EXACTLY the correct age to be Leonard Nimoy again is even stupider. Just badly written from beginning to end. The actor who plays Kirk’s son is terrible, the Kirstie Alley replacement is even more wooden than she needs to be. The whole Klingon subplot feels wedged-on, with no explanation as to how they ever even found out about Genesis. Christopher Lloyd does NOT make a good Klingon.
And did Genesis make itself a sun as well as a planet? Out of one little nebula? Damn that is amazing…;ly stupid.
On the 1-5 scale, maybe a 2?
Planetary systems form out of nebulae along with their stars in reality. The time scale is totally different and there’s no indication in any previous discussion of Genesis that it’s capable of doing this, but it’s not outlandish that a nebula could form a star - that happens all the time. Anyway, the star system forms at the end of II, so if it’s a knock on one of these movies it’s got to be a knock on that one.
I’m pretty sure the novelization of II (which surprisingly has a bunch of extra stuff on Regula I) lists the various functions of the device. One of them was to transform a single planet, but another (occurring in a nebula, as it did at the end of II) would form a small star for said planet. I believe there was a tiny star-like object formed within the asteroid in II as well (could be misremembering).
Now you can laugh at me for reading the book. But seriously, it’s got loads of extra info that actually contributes to the story.
I’ve read the tie-ins for all of these first 5 movies we’ve reconsidered and I agree – there’s plenty of room there to flesh out the ideas. It REALLY comes through in STV. The Motion Picture has a lot of particulars on Roddenberry’s utopian ideas of the future, free love, etc.