Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock

Directed by Leonard Nimoy

Starring: William Shatner, Christopher Lloyd, Mark Leonard, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Leonard Nimoy, Robin Curtis

Movie: B DVD: C-

The Search For Spock serves as a good follow up to The Wrath of Khan. Unfortunately The Wrath of Khan is a tough act to follow, and this one doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. The third movie in the Star Trek series is the only true sequel, in that it directly relates to what happened in part two. The Search For Spock has a dual storyline. One, as indicated by the title, involves the crew searching for Spock's body, which was jettisoned at the end of part two. The other involves Klingons who are trying to gain control of the Genesis project for their own evil purposes.

The storyline involving Spock is very clever, and involves some very funny scenes with Bones who mindmelded with Spock at the end of part two. Shortly after arriving back at Earth Captain Kirk becomes aware that Spock is not as dead as we all thought he was. The crew (minus Nichelle Nichols, who decides to stay behind for some reason), heads back to the newly formed Genesis planet. It is there they encounter the Klingons, led by an unrecognizeable Christopher Lloyd. The Klingons are a formidable enemy, but this whole storyline left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. They seemed to be lacking any real tension, particularly the scene involving Kirk's son, David. The scene just didn't have the impact it should have considering its outcome. It seemed to me to handled somewhat offhandedly, with most of action framed off in the distance. The final battle between Shatner and Lloyd was handled similarly. I also have to say the encounter with the Klingons ended rather abruptly as it was not really the climax of the movie. This left me with a "this is it?" type feeling.

The true climax of the movie takes place on Spock's homeworld of Vulcan. It is a very good sequence, but again to me it was lacking tension or much suspense. Despite the movie's inperfections it is still very enjoyable and the performances from William Shatner, Christopher Lloyd and DeForest Kelley are excellent.

I wish I could say this is a great DVD package, but unfortunately it is not. The featurettes are some of the most poorly done I have ever seen. You would think with a franchise like Star Trek they would put a little more care into producing top notch extras, but these are some of the cheapest featurettes I have seen. The only one of real note is the Captain's Log, which features interviews from William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Robin Curtis and Christopher Lloyd. This one did leave me wondering...is William Shatner serious? The other featurettes should have been good, but are actually sleep inducing. There is one about whether or not something like the Genesis project could happen. Almost the entire thing is just a continuous interview with someone who works for NASA. It is never really tied in to the movie, and just gets kind of boring. The most excruciating is the Speaking Klingon feature. This sounds like it should be good, but it is just boring. The actual creator of the Klingon language gives a lesson on how he came up with it. This feature is simply too long, I believe it is about a half hour. With a little editing and some creativity this could have been an excellent feature. There are also featurettes on the ship designs and the costume design, which are somewhat interesting but also poorly done. Disc One features a text commentary, and commentary from Nimoy as well as Harve Bennett (writer/producer), Charles Correll (director of photography) and Robin Curtis (Savik). The commentaries provide some good information on the making of the film and are definately the better features.

Review by Sherry Read my Star Trek the Motion Picture review.

Read my Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan review.