Yesterdays Movies on Tuesday: Star Trek The Search for Spock - 1984
Five more weeks until the premiere of Star Trek! Let’s look back that the third film in the ST franchise - Star Trek: The Search for Spock.
In 1984 the third feature film in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: The Search for Spock premiered in theaters. This film proved that in science fiction anything can happen - bringing a character back from the dead but the challenge with that is, can you do it without making the plot stupid. I don't want to call it ridiculous because it's science fiction - everything about SF is ridiculous, for the most part at least.
Star Trek: The Search for Spock isn't exactly one of the more memorable films in the ST franchise. It's a moderately good movie but doesn't hold the water that The Wrath of Khan or The Voyage Home has, however, even so The Search for Spock is a great film that people liked. In short, it's better than any of the Next Gen films with the second best villain in the franchise. The Search for Spock also serves as the second film in a three part trilogy starting with The Wrath of Khan and ending with The Voyage Home, a movie I'll talk more about next week.
The critical and financial success of The Wrath of Khan excited Paramount Pictures enough to make this sequel. Also, Leonard Nimoy was very excited on how The Wrath of Khan turned out which prompted him to reprise the role also telling Paramount that he wanted to direct the film. He got his wish! He directed one hell of an adventure.
After the incident with Khan the Enterprise returns to Earth damaged with her crew demoralized. To make matters worse Starfleet command has decided to decommission the Starship Enterprise. While at home Kirk and his crew are visited by Spock's father, Sarek. Sarek demands Spock's soul to be brought to Vulcan but Kirk is unsure what he means. This prompts Kirk to steal the Enterprise, return to Planet Genesis and find Spock's body to bring back to Vulcan but a Klingon warrior awaits him, waiting for glory. Once again returning is William Shatner as James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, Deforest Kelly as Dr. McCoy, James Doohan as Scotty, George Takei as Sulu, Walter Koenig as Chekov and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Also returning is Merritt Butrick as Dr. David Marcus the son of James Kirk. The Search for Spock introduces Robin Curis as Lt. Saavik taking over the role from Kirstie Alley who demanded too much money to reprise the role. Finally, bringing us the bad ass Klingon warrior Kruge is Christopher Lloyd.
Just like The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock is filled with great character moments - two of which stand out. First the scene McCoy shared with Spock towards the end of the film when McCoy says how much he misses him. The other scene is of course the end when Spock remembers Kirk's first name. Sure, they're is plenty of character moments to be remember in Star Trek but those two are definitely ones to remember.
I suppose the best thing The Search for Spock has to offer is the Klingon's. In this film we see for the first time who the Klingon's really are. To be more accurate, everything we know about the Klingon personality from all of the television series - TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT is shown here for the first time. That is all over shadowed by the great presence Christopher Lloyd gave to the character of Kruge. Without a doubt Kruge is one of my favorite Klingon's. He probably has a statue in the hall of heroes next to Kor.
The other thing I love about this film is it deals with the Vulcan way. The mystery and ritual's behind the Vulcan people but just like Kruge did to the Klingon's, the Vulcan part of the story is over shadowed by Sarek. Mark Lenard returns to the role of Spock's father. It's funny - Lenard only played Sarek just a couple of time but he sticks out so much because Mark Lenard made this character so amazing and memorable. I'll say this, it's going to be hard for Ben Cross to match the presence that Lenard gave to the character. Cross is of course playing Sarek in the new film coming out in May.
Robin Curtis steps into the role of Saavik and although I love the character, it's hard to figure out who I liked better as Saavik - Kirstie Alley or Curtis. Either or is great and I don't have anything bad to say about either actor.
As usual, with any Star Trek film, I could go on and on about this movie but I think this is good enough. I just wanted to get a couple of thoughts across. Until next week when I talk about the fourth film in the franchise I say that if you want to continue the story of Star Trek after seeing The Wrath of Khan, watch this movie because it's a great follow-up. In anycase, if you just want to see a movie for the hell of it, I'd say see this because you might just like it.
-Phil
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