Review of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) by Kai82 — 08 Mar 2020

This movie had to followed the best Star Trek movie that was also universally acclaimed. Together with the prequel and sequel there was an overarching story arc. Star Trek 3 starts directly were the last movie ended.

The crew return home victorious but have still lost more than they can bear. Like the title said there was a way to eventually bring back Spock but the actions of the previous film created a political nightmare for the Federation.

Kirk and his crew have to trick their way out to get a chance to bring back Spock. While I admit that this movie is not as good as the previous it is still worth watching. It is directed by Leonard Nimoy and was his first big project as director.

I will praise him for this because many have failed on their first big movie. He does a good job here. All actors deliver their roles as expected. Here I will praise Mc Coy for his performance and you will see why.

Kirk, Sulu and Scotty have really awesome scenes. Uhura and Chekov are a bit underused but still deliver. Saavik was played by a different actress (I did not notice this initially). Story wise they do nothing wrong.

Especially the escape of the Kobayashi Maru to the promised land arc is a highlight ;-). It has also a later moment were you see the end of an era. The general motives are friendship and what you would do for friends with some references to christian methodology.

Also there is the theme of humanities arrogance with the Genesis project that was also mentioned by Mc Coy earlier (or in Star Trek 2?). We got an additional bit of insight in Klingon's and their different thinking caused of cultural differences.

I even think they are not truly evil here but feel their way of life and culture or even existence threatened. While I don't agree with them I can see their point of view. I must say I dislike what they did with Davis Marcus.

Overall this is a solid movie and a good debut for Leonard Nimoy as director. Bonus knowledge: Saavik and Spock are married (Non Canon). You can look this up in Memory Beta if you do not believe me..