After what the company felt was a failure in Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
Paramount Pictures, specifically Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, decided to
give Star Trek one more chance on the silver screen. As a lead producer, they
hired Harve Bennett, a recent acquisition known for developing television series
such as the Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Bionic Woman.
Overall, the cast found the shoot far more fun and entertaining than the
previous one. Actors who had been wary of doing the film found the experience so
rewarding that they would never reconsider being a part of Star Trek again.
Even Leonard Nimoy noticed the atmosphere, and when the dailies started
coming in, he began to reconsider his character's death. Bennet and Nimoy
conspired to include the brief mind meld shot right before Spock's sacrifice,
which he felt was enough to ensure his potential return should the movie be
successful. Bennet and the studio wanted the movie to end on a more hopeful note,
so they came up with the idea of showing Spock's torpedo on the Genesis planet.
Meyer fought vehemently against this, even refusing to film that sequence, but
in the end, he was overruled. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan opened on June 4th, 1982.
In its initial run, it made a domestic box office gross of 79 million dollars,
and though that was less than Star Trek: The Motion Picture had made,
it was enough for Paramount to consider it a resounding success.
Admiral Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise is mourning the death of
Captain Spock. As they return to Earth, this feeling is made all the worse when
Dr. McCoy seems to have a mental break and when they learn that the
Enterprise is set to be decommissioned. Meanwhile, a brutal Klingon commander is
on his way to the Genesis planet, to steal its secrets from the Federation
science team that is studying it. On the surface is Kirk's son,
David Marcus, who along with Lieutenant Saavik, has just found a young boy who
appears to possess the resurrected body of Captain Spock.
When Kirk learns that Spock's spirit might still be alive in the troubled Dr. McCoy,
he and the Enterprise crew must risk everything to take back their ship
and go on one last mission to save their lost friend.
Before we really get started, if you could hit that like button,
I would be eternally grateful. If you really do like these videos,
don't forget to subscribe as well. Thank you in advance.
With that out of the way, let's get back to the subject at hand.
The day after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan hit theaters, Paramount greenlit
a third entry in the franchise, with Harve Bennett still on board to not only
produce the film, but also write the script. Nicholas Meyer, who had written
and directed the previous film, chose not to return, as he was still upset over the
changes made against his will to the ending of Star Trek II. It was pretty obvious,
given that ending, that this new film should focus on the resurrection of Spock, in one
form or another, and so the first order of business was getting Leonard Nimoy
to sign on. Exactly how that came about is a murky subject with a lot of rumors and
speculation surrounding it, but the generally accepted story
is that Bennet asked Nimoy what it would take to get him to come back as Spock,
and Nimoy said he wanted to direct. Bennett and the studio were considering
hiring James Goldstone, the director of the original series' second pilot,
"Where No Man Has Gone Before," but after some vacillation over the specifics of
Nimoy's contract from Paramount head Michael Eisner, Nimoy eventually landed
in the director's chair. With Nimoy attached and the rest of the
original series cast enthusiastic about coming back for another film, Bennett
began writing the script backwards, starting with what he knew should be
the ending--Spock recognizing Kirk and calling him "Jim"--and then figuring out how
to get there from where things left off at the end of the previous story.
He and Meyer had developed an idea during the writing of Star Trek II
that was called "Return to Genesis," in which the Enterprise, without Spock,
tries to save Saavik and David from hostile aliens trying to capture
the secrets of the Genesis planet, and Bennett build off of that as well.
Early drafts included the Romulans as the main villains, but both Nimoy and Bennett
ultimately agreed that the Klingons were more appropriate for the story they
wanted to tell, and the studio also felt that the Klingons would be a better draw.
The Romulan influence persisted through most of the early drafts, though, and almost
all the way into production, the Bird-of-Prey that faces off against the Enterprise
was envisioned as a Romulan vessel that had been hijacked by the Klingons.
To play the Klingon commander Kruge, Nimoy fought to get Christopher Lloyd.
Paramount was hesitant, not thinking of Lloyd as
anything but the comedic television actor from Taxi-
"When are they gonna clean those bathrooms?"
"You were in the kitchen." "Thank goodness!"
--but Nimoy was adamant, knowing how easy it would be
for Lloyd to become typecast if nobody went to bat for him.
"Then I hope pain is something you enjoy."
Similarly, for the arrogant captain of the Excelsior, Nimoy and Bennett hired
James Sikking, known primarily for his role in Hill Street Blues at the time,
though he'd recently been in feature films such as Ordinary People and Outland.
Meritt Butrick reprised his role as David from the previous film,
but Kirstie Alley, who played Saavik, did not return. There are two
commonly cited reasons why. The first is that she didn't want to be typecast
as a Vulcan the way Nimoy had been, and the second is that, since her contract
for Wrath of Khan didn't include anything about sequels, she was able to
demand more money than Paramount was willing to give. Whatever the reason,
though, the role of Saavik had to be recast, and it went to the almost
completely unknown Robin Curtis. In Star Trek II, Saavik had
been written as a half-Romulan, but for Star Trek III, she was conceived of from
the ground up as a full-blooded Vulcan, so her performance is distinct enough
from Alley's to be able to think of her as an almost entirely different character.
Other notable actors include Dame Judith Anderson as the Vulcan High Priestess;
John Larroquette as Maltz, the only Klingon to actually survive the film;
Mark Lenard reprising his role as Spock's father, Sarek; Grace Lee Whitney in a brief
cameo as Janice Rand; the film's cinematographer, Charles Correll, as a
briefly-seen janitor, and Miguel Ferrer in one of his first on-screen appearances.
Paramount initially agreed to a budget range of ten to thirteen million dollars,
though they later increased it to sixteen million. While this was a marginal increase
over Star Trek II's budget, it was still pretty small for a major science-fiction
film at the time. Paramount, however, had faith in Bennett's proven economy
and adaptability. A lot of sets, costumes, and props were retained
from earlier films, too, and though there were a few more sets built for Star Trek III
and some of the props were redesigned, most of the increased budget went to
special effects. Those were handled once again by Industrial Light and Magic,
under the supervision of Ken Ralston. With the increased time and money
afforded to the company, ILM was able to design a new space station, a few new
starships that would become iconic mainstays of the franchise for decades,
and of course, blow up the Enterprise in spectacular fashion.
Star Trek III set a new standard for spectacle in the series
that wouldn't be matched again until a few movies later.
Principal photography began in August of 1983 under tight security. With the
exception of a single day of location shooting at Occidental College, the
entire film was done on sound stages on the Paramount lot. The stage that served
as the Genesis planet, Sound Stage 15, nearly burned down in an arson fire that
took out several of Paramount's stages, but the fire was put out, with the help of
some of the cast and crew, including William Shatner, before too much damage
was done. There was one significant plot leak during filming, namely the fact that
the Enterprise itself was going to be destroyed. This garnered some controversy,
though it wasn't treated as seriously by the fandom as Spock's death had been
when Star Trek II was in the works. Bennett and Nimoy were relieved that the
fan magazines were mostly dismissive of the leak as a rumor, when they bothered
to mention it at all, but the filmmakers were then horrified when, shortly before
the film's release, Paramount went ahead and spoiled it anyway in the movie's trailer.
"Join us on this, the final voyage of the Starship Enterprise."
Despite this, despite a surprisingly weak marketing campaign in general,
and despite the fact that it was competing with the likes of
Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters, the film earned back its entire
operating budget on its opening weekend in June of 1984. In its initial run,
it made a total domestic gross of seventy six point five million dollars,
more than enough to justify the greenlight for Star Trek IV.
Critics were mostly happy with it, too, praising its operatic style, special effects,
and overall design aesthetic, though they didn't rate it quite as highly as they had
its predecessor. As for my personal opinion of Star Trek III, I have to admit
to being pretty torn on it. On one hand, it is a brisk and exciting adventure
that feels more like the original Star Trek television show than its cinematic
predecessors. I enjoy its unabashed sense of fun, and Christopher Lloyd's Commander
Kruge is a memorable villain, maybe not as cunning and intelligent as Khan,
but somehow even more ruthless. He's certainly the best and most memorable
Klingon up to this point in the canon. And I also don't mind the inversion of
Spock's logic from Star Trek II, the idea that, for humans, sometimes the needs of
the one can be more important than the needs of the many, despite all logic.
I especially like Kirk's line near the end about how, even though he sacrificed a
lot to bring Spock back, he would have lost part of his soul if he hadn't tried.
On the other hand, the writer in me finds the story absolutely infuriating in how
it undoes pretty much everything that was built in the Wrath of Khan.
I don't know if this was Bennett's television instincts kicking in, but the
direction of the plot seems to be heading backward to the status quo
rather than forward into brave, new worlds. Bringing Spock back is one thing
that is perfectly forgivable, especially given how much the ending of Star Trek II
sets it up, but the movie goes out of its way to try to put the Genesis genie back
in the bottle, to kill off Kirk's son, and to downplay the embrace of middle age
that was so important for these characters. It even lays the groundwork
for Kirk's eventual demotion back to captain, in addition to layering on
William Shatner's makeup so thick you'd think he was trying to paint away twenty
years. The only character with a satisfying arc is Bones, who comes to
realize just how close he was to Spock and how much he relied on that connection.
When combined with DeForest Kelley's performance, Bones is probably
the best thing about the movie, but even his emotional journey feels a little
underdeveloped, relegated to only one or two poignant scenes.
That said, the movie does have some thematic depth, and it's bold enough to
destroy the Enterprise for the first and probably most emotionally impactful time
in all of Star Trek. It develops both the Klingons and the Vulcans in ways that
would greatly inform their portrayals in future films and television series,
and the comedic moments are endearing without taking away from the story's
more serious emotional beats. No, it's not the masterpiece that Star Trek II is, and
yes, I do have some problems with it, but it's still a better movie than is
suggested by its general reputation with Trekkies and Trekkers, who tend
to lump it in with the other, less popular, odd-numbered films in the franchise.
"I need my pain!"
The Search for Spock is often looked back on as the middle chapter in a trilogy within
the Star Trek film series, and as such, it does its job pretty well. It manages to
continue the successes of its predecessor and lay the groundwork for its sequel,
ensuring that Star Trek would be an enduring franchise for years to come.
It wasn't long after Star Trek III that plans started getting drawn up for Star Trek's
eventual return to television with The Next Generation, and so maybe the film
deserves credit for proving that Star Trek II wasn't a fluke, that the franchise
was just as influential and popular as ever. It's also worth noting that it set
a new trend for Trek behind the scenes. When Nimoy came on to direct, some of
the original cast members were a bit wary of the idea of one of their own taking
charge, but after some initial awkwardness and hesitation, they did come to learn
that they were actually pretty happy with the arrangement. Nimoy had already
secured the job for the next film, and it became extremely common from
Star Trek III onward for various cast members to direct not only the Star Trek
films, but also episodes of the television series that followed.
Far from being just a throwaway anecdote in Star Trek's story, then,
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is an essential turning point, the first movie in
the franchise to be made with high hopes for its future. If that doesn't make it
quintessentially Star Trek, I don't know what else it could be.
And that's all for today, my fellow Earthlings. Where do you think The Search
for Spock stacks up against the other Star Trek movies? Let me know in the
comments, and while you're down there, don't forget to like and subscribe if
you haven't already. If you really do like these videos, consider becoming a
Patron, to get early access to new content, vote on future topics, and more.
You can also check out my website at emagill.com, where you can find
written reviews of plenty more sci-fi classics in both film and literature.
Until next time, though, when we'll get prehistoric and supersonic, this is
The Unapologetic Geek, telling you to never be ashamed of what you love
...as long as you're not hurting anybody.
"Help us or die!" "I do not deserve to live."
"Fine. I'll kill you later."