Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Directed by the man the studio thought wanted Spock dead

Studio chief Michael Eisner hesitated to hire Leonard Nimoy, wrongly believing the actor hated Star Trek and had demanded in his contract that Spock be killed. Nimoy persuaded him otherwise and became the first member of the Star Trek cast to direct one of the films. Gene Roddenberry said Harve Bennett had hired a director he could not fire.

Nimoy wanted the Klingon bird of prey to recall an attacking bird, with movable wings that change between cruising and attack positions. The destruction of the Enterprise was filmed with cheaper models rather than the original, worth 150,000 dollars, including a Styrofoam model dissolved with acetone. James Horner adapted music from Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet for part of the ship's theft and destruction.

The Story

The Enterprise limps back to Earth, Spock's casket has landed on the planet created by the Genesis device, and McCoy begins to act strangely. Kirk and Sarek, Spock's father, learn that Spock transferred his katra, his living spirit, to McCoy before dying, and that the katra and body are needed to lay him to rest on Vulcan. Kirk and his officers steal the Enterprise to return to the Genesis planet, while a Klingon commander, Kruge, wants the secrets of Genesis as a weapon.

Harve Bennett wrote the script backwards from its ending, in six weeks. The scripts were chemically treated so that any copy could be traced, and Spock appeared in them as Nacluv, Vulcan spelled backwards. Word of the Enterprise's destruction leaked out before release.

The Ideal Audience

The film opened in North America on 1 June 1984, the same summer as Gremlins and Ghostbusters. It is the middle part of a three-film story, from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and we would not start here.

Common Sense Media recommends it from age ten, citing starship battles and hand-to-hand combat with casualties. Gary Arnold, in the Washington Post, wrote that Nimoy concentrates on the actors in ways that flatter and enhance their work, which is why we would watch it.