Star Trek Fest - Star Trek III The Search for Spock (1984)

Welcome back, midnight viewers to Star Trek Fast. I'm follow alone with me as always, navigating the spaceways. Mister hbhbi you do, it's the spaceways.

I'm doing good, follow blone, Thanks for having me again. Let's get into it.

Oh man, we're here. We are number three. We're here to prove whether or not the fucking numerical coding with the Star Trek movies is true or not. Are the even movies good? Are the odd numbers bad? We're gonna find out because we're talking about Star Trek three, the search for spot.

Now join the search to the final frontier of space adventure.

These are the continuing voyages of the Starship Enterprise, her ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to vocally go where no man has gone before.

Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise take off on their greatest mission, beyond anything they have ever accomplished before.

Kurt, you do this, You'll never sit in the Captain's chair again.

For the one thing that really matters, to find their friends. Why did you leave him on Genesis Stock trusted you an obviously to the planet man created a savage world that could destroy them all.

Environment Scott.

The needs of the many ways the.

Shoe join the search. Since the overwhelming power of an adventure that troubles anything that has drawn.

Before, this entire crew seems on the edge of obsessive behavior concerning mister Spock, Sir Security reports the door to Spox quarters has been forced.

In Star Trek three, The Search for Spock.

Star Trek three, The Search per Spock, directed by Leonard Namoy, written by Harve Bennett, and based on Star Trek by Gene Rodberry. This one stars William Shatner Deforced, Kelly James doing George ta Kay, Walter Kinig, Michelle Nichols, Merritt Buntrick, Robin Curtis, and Christopher Lloyd as Crewe.

Yeah, this is a lover hated situation. There's nobody. There's no halfway measure on this. You either love him in this or you can't stand him.

There are detractors, Oh yeah, at the time. Certainly at the time. Certainly are there detractors now though after Doc Brown and decades of adoration.

Judge Doom certainly is probably.

People don't know him as Reverend Jimmy Kotowski anymore. If you say Christopher Lloyd, they think Doc Brown.

Yeah, I think that's fair, and I think it's a credit to him that Doc Brown is nothing like Reverend Jim. He has rained, which maybe wasn't immediately apparent to see him as Reverend Jim all those years. But yeah, I can't say whether he has detractors in modern day. But even now I have to admit watching it as a fan of Christopher Lloyd, it took me a minute or two to settle back into those familiar rhythms. By the way, it has to be noted that this is Leonard Nimoy's directorial debut.

That is true. He did direct an episode of t J.

Hooker with his old buddy, But yeah, this was a stipulation. He obviously Spock was killed in Star Trek two. Nimoy had all this leverage that he didn't have previously, and that was his condition for coming back a spot and he directed, and sure enough they did. Although I think there was a lot of medaling, studio medaling in this picture that maybe he got past and four when we talk about that.

But yeah, I'll say this, he unbeknownst to the people at Paramount Michael Eisner at all, Nimoi during the filming of Wrath of Khan began very much. He began to really regret the fact that he was going to die. He realized that this was fun and it was going to be a good movie, and they had a chance at not being Star Trek the motion picture, that this might not be the final voyage of the Starship Enterprise. They might be going on a whole lot more. If they're going to be like this, He'd be a fool

He next to Nicholas Meyer, who I think is still the gold standard for the original series Star Trek movies. He's I mean, Nimoy's track record speaks for itself beyond Star Trek. I mean, obviously he did Little, Three Men and a Baby. He did a bunch of movies in

So okay. So basically Star Trek two. The day after Star Trek two is the day after Star Trek two premieres. Harve Bennet get's a call from Paramount saying give us Star Trek three, so he begins immediately writing the script. He does this one all on his own, although he does it in conjunction with Leonard Nimoy because he already knows Nimoy wants to direct it, so it's gonna be him shaping the story. So it's as much Nimoy's screenplay as it is Harve Bennett's, even though Bennett does the

No? I think for me the story is my least favorite aspect of this movie because as we're going to get into, not a lot happens, And to be honest, there's not even a lot of searching for Spock. They find Spock pretty quickly as the movie goes on, so that's a bit of a misnomer. I just think the sort of the after effects of Genesis and the repercussions of it, that's fine. It just felt like very little

The plot is very amorphous, there's nothing really driving it. It's all story, no plot. Basically, the Genesis planet is off limits. Spock's body is there. We find out Spock's consciousness that lives on in McCoy and that it needs to go back into Spock's body. So they have to get spos body back from Genesis, but the Federation doesn't want them going, and the Klingons are on their way to Genesis because they hear it's a weapon worth having.

Just the fact that the Klingons are on the search for Genesis being this ultimate weapon. We just saw that in Star Trek two. That was part of Khan's plan is to seize the Genesis device so he would have all of this power and be this force to be reckoned with. I just didn't feel like it felt like a redo of a very similar plot line from part two.

Yeah, without the sort of half, without the backstory, like the reason the con story, as you said, like it does mirror this a lot, like the way the dynamics play out between Kirk and Kruge. But Kirk and Khan had fucking history and really deep history, and there are there were genuine beefs there. I don't know what the Klingon's motivation is here. He's just we don't know anything about the Klons. We don't know his place within the hierarchy of the Klingon Empire. So I don't know if

Yeah, there just wasn't a lot of meat behind the story. It just felt very thin to me. Having said that, though, I did find myself really enjoying it, and that's almost solely due to the cast members themselves and the interactions and the direction. I thought it was for a first time. I thought he did an excellent job.

Look, it is a feature film of a television episode. Like you said, there's not a whole lot plot wise, it's nothing to get excited about. But it is a movie and it works as a film. It's a very well made film, and an exciting one at that. And I always liked this movie. I never agreed with the odd numbers star treks are bad because I was like, I don't know, man like that. There was a trilogy there, the Genesis trilogy they call it now, which is Wrath

Yeah, I totally agree. And I was surprised because again I had seen it. I'd seen it a lot when it was on cable, but mostly piecemeal. I can't say that I aside from once maybe sitting down to watch the whole movie, so in a sense, I was revisiting it for the first time in a long time, and the reputation will always precede it. This like you said this idea that all the odd number star Trek movies are terrible, that's not really the case here. Is it

Yeah, overall, it's I don't know, it's anyway, Let's get into the fucking plot. Nolly, what's this movie about? HB Wait before we get there. Yeah, okay, here's one thing that I wish I had been not on the set for. I wish I had been in pre production meetings for anytime Leonard Nimoy suggested a television actor in a major role.

Yeah. There's a lot of interesting little bit parts that are cast here. Obviously beyond Christopher Lloyd as the Klingon commander, his second in command is played by John Laracat, which still blows my mind, even almost more so than Christopher Lloyd, because this is Dan Fielding from Nightcourt. This is not someone you would expect to be playing a and I think, actually I read somewhere that Nimoy dubbed him the thoughtful klingon. He is a good description.

Because he really is, absolutely is and you know it's funny. So he's Christopher Lloyd's first first officer, and over on the Excelsior, his first officer is Mikhail Ferrer, like also a professional prick and the just.

Another in a line of RoboCop actors who were in Star Trek movies, because we're going to see Peter Weller was in it. Obviously, what's his name? Kurtwood Smith is going to be in Star Trek six.

Right, he's the president of the Federation.

He is. One interesting piece of trivia that I found related to the casting of Krug is and I'm forgive me if you've got this queue up bottom alone. But apparently Neimoy's original choice for krug was Edward James Almost. I never knew this. I just found this out, but Harve Bennett preferred Christopher Lloyd in the role then to make it more interesting. Beyond that, Almost was also later offered role of Jean Luke Picard in the Next Generation, but he turned it down. He wanted to focus on

You know what, They would have ended up sticking to Rodenderry's initial dictum that Picard never leaves the ship. That's what the first officer is for. And almost would have stuck to that, and you would have known the bridge was a serious place. It would not have been a fun loving.

Yeah, no, not at all. I just that it's fascinating enough to consider Edward James almost as a Klingon commander. He would have been really good in it. But just the icing on the cake was the fact that he could have been Picard in the next generation. That blew my mind.

He would not have worked as Picard, he would have worked as Card. He would have worked in a lot of villain roles.

Here he would have And I wish they had cast.

Him as a Romulan, actually not a Vulcan, because the Romulans are really scary.

This is not to say that he almost should only be playing villainous roles, because obviously he played hi Ma Escalante and that that Standing Deliver movie, and he was Gaff and playe Runner, and he was great in all of these things. And he was in Miami Vice for years. Wasn't he one of the cops.

In my Oh yeah, it was the captain.

Was he the captain?

Yeah, I told you there's that in that like that. He signed on to that with Michael Mann, and the idea was that no matter what, he could just do whatever he wanted.

Oh yeah, yeah. He ordered somebody to come back again.

Don Johnson breezed into his office and in character, he said, go back out and close that door and knock. And Don Johnson in character had to go do it.

He's a bad ask, no question, but he would not know. That would not have been a good pick card.

You can see that as a power move. But at the same time, I think Captain Castillo would have done that.

Sure, he's he He is one of those method actors who really likes to get into it and become the character. And I respect that. All right, So we're going to talk about what the plot of this movie is effectively, so it takes it actually picks up exactly where Star Trek two left off, where Spock is dead.

We've got a little time, we got a little time left. The ship has been repaired, people have gotten off the ship and are on different missions now. So this is a couple of months later.

Let's say that's true, but it's pretty close.

So now, what can I just and let me speak to this because I've heard a lot. I've read a lot of reviews, and I've heard a lot of reviews about this movie. And one of the gripes that people have is that the tone from the last movies ending to this movie's beginning is wildly off, because we get a hopeful Kirk at the end, and here he's desponded. And this is the first time we get a straight voice over in any of the Star Trek movies actually

Yeah, no, warning does not take place in a straight line. It's not like he's going to be hopeful and then

It's been repaired, plates welded over at the scorch marks on the side closely, like they got to some space doc and they're just like, I'll just patch it up and fucking send it on its way.

Yeah, even on the bridge there's like all these there's still scorches all around the bridge from when KHN attacked them in the second one. So they're heading back. They're going back to Earth, but there's something odd happens on the way where they get a report that there's someone in Spock's quarters. Spock's quarters were sealed after he died,

Now, I got chills when I saw this in the theater.

I can say it, oh, because it's very effective, because they.

Have When you heard voice, I was just like, yeah, it's.

N moy's voice. Because this was Look. I don't know that we ever thought that Spock would never come back, but there's something about the finality of seeing him die in part two and then to hear his voice croaking out of the shadows begging for help. It's nimoy. It's chill inducing. It's it really is effective. But we know, having watched too and know the whole remember bit where and.

How do you remember that? Because Harve Bennett, television producer upgraded to feature films, decides how do we remind the audience what happened to the last movie I know previously on Star Trek and they give us a they give us basically just a replay of the last scene between Kirk and Spock and then the remember with Macay.

Yeah, so it's fresh in your mind now as a viewer. Okay, I remember now he mind melded and that left the door open for him to come back, but they don't make much of it at this point. They want to get back to Earth. Meanwhile, there is a Klingon ship captained by this guy Krug, who is making a deal with some kind of a mercenary to get data related to the Genesis device.

Not some kind of a mercenary. He's dealing with his agent, who is also his lover, who has been out trying to find information about the She's on a mercenary ship.

That's the ship itself is a mercenary ship, but she is a Klingon also, Yeah, and his lover you're.

All Chris is her name, Sir Waal Chris.

So they get into this thing where he uncloaks. They transmit the Genesis data, but the woman makes the mistake of saying to Krug over the calm link, I've seen the data. I think you'll find it very interesting. I love this part. Krug says, Oh, you've seen it and she says yeah, and he says, that's very unfortunate. Now you know that it's curtains and she knows it too. She knows that she's He has to tie up all the loose ends. Krug Kill destroys the ship with his

Oh?

Yeah, if you starved one of those and it had mangy fur and looked like it lived in a sewer. The crew dumped that animal Fifi Riboso.

It's the slimy looking ads.

Yeah, and they creepy look. Apparently they would dump like liquid on it, like right before shooting, just to make it look extra fucking creepy. Yeah, but that's Krug's pet.

It's so disgusting. So now so Kruge has this information and he now he's setting a course for the Genesis planet because he needs to then deal with the scientists who developed it to better understand how to work weapon.

That's our starfleet. Yes, because this is a very motivated Klingon. He does not like Starfleet at all. He'd like to see them fall. He can't stand the idea of living happily under a flag with the Starfleet and logo on it.

He keeps making the point that this is all for the survival of the continued survival of the Klingon race. But it's unclear, as you said earlier, if he is acting on orders from some higher up in the chain of command, or if he's just a rogue agent just out there doing these things without the government, the Klingon government, understanding what he's doing. It's never made clear.

No, it's not. But these are great questions. And here's the thing. You can say what you want about the even and odd numbered movies. You can say whatever you want about the effectiveness of the story and the plot going on here, what you can't argue with is the fact that this movie sends the template for Klingons for the rest of the entire run of all the different

Yeah, and thank you for bringing up the bit about the language that I was surprised when I learned that while researching this this episode. It's, if nothing else, this movie doesn't get nearly enough credit for being the genesis, if you will, of the Klingons as a real race of characters with an actual language and a culture. It's it's the kind of thing where you'd assume, well, Klingons have been around since the original series, not like this.

It's probably the best Klingon. They haven't really innovated the Klingons enough as far as I'm concerned, throughout all the different Star Treks, but it's the best Klingon vessel ever created. And part of it is that what you're describing Nimoy saying it should look like a bird and its wings should fold up and down from whether it's attacking or flying. Because they said they didn't notice if people or they wondered if people noticed that it did that, and I'm like, yeah,

The culture, the ways, the way it would.

Oh.

The fact is that the designer based it on a body builder. And once you know that and you look at it, it clearly has shoulders like trapezes, like muscles back there, like flexing. When the arms go up and down, it looks like a hunched over, angry, aggressive thing.

It's responsible for one of my favorite moments in Star Trek four, which I know we'll get to We're not talking about that now, but put a pin in that. We're going to talk about it when we get to star Trek four.

Oh yeah, this is their vessel for a while. Yeah, whatever to this ship. Oh it sinks, It sinks in the San Francisco But of course you think they would pull it out of there though, Federations Starfly is just gonna leave a fucking Klingon ship that can close that at the bottom of the bay.

They need that, if nothing else, to discover the secret to cloaking technology, which somehow the Federation has never cracked. In all of their decades of dealing with the Klingons, they still have not figured out how to cloak a vessel that I would have rescued the shell of the ship just to figure out what the secret of their tech was. Nevertheless, the Klingon ship is going to the

And this, I will agree with you one hundred percent that she is much more vulcan. Yeah, we're taking Savoc as a pure Vulcan character. Then, yes, I believe this, And there is no reason to believe she is half Yes, there's no reason to believe she's half for Omulan because they don't really mention it. You have to watch the director's cut and blah blah blah. But as pure Vulcan. Yes, Robin Curs is great and she is really good. I'm not taking anything away from her.

Yeah, she's great. And so they're studying the Genesis planets.

Oh yeah, they've been transferred to the USS Grissom, which is named after, of course, Virgil Gus Grissom, the astronaut in the most ill designed starfleet craft of all time, where the saucer section is held between the n cells.

I kind of liked it. It was different.

I mean it's different. I definitely want to hook the cabin of my cruiser up to the fucking engine.

But it's a science vessel. It's it's not made for war. It's not made for.

I don't need warfare to try and get the least amount of radiation on me as possible. Nevertheless, it's a scientist, so you'd think they'd know better.

Maybe so they're studying it. Kirk and company have gone back to a star doc on Earth effectively, and McCoy is not himself blah blah blah. But they at this point they don't know what. They just figure its exhaustion. That's what's been bothering him. Seems a little I don't know I would be able to worried, but.

Kirk would immediately there's something going on with you, McCoy. What the fuck is it?

What he mentions Mount Celia, which Kirk knows is on Vulcan. He should have that should have been his clue that, hey, maybe there's something more to this, more to this. Nevertheless, they're there. The Admiral meets them and says, you all have sure leave, but except for you, Scotty. You're going to be part of the crew of the Excelsior, which is this brand spanking new starship that has something called transwarp drive. Everybody. It's all the rage. Now it's a young upstart to the end.

That the designer of this particular ship, he took it upon himself to design the Enterprise as if a Japanese designer had done it, and that's the Excelsior And that was one of many choices given to Leonard Deemer and he was like, ooh, that one's beautiful.

Yeah. So Kirk asks the Admiral, what about what about the Enterprise? Like, I know, Scotty says, it's all the same. Admiral would like to stay in the Enterprise. The Admiral says, no, the Enterprise is not going to be refit. The Enterprise is going to be decommissioned. It's twenty years old and it's not going to hold up to any kind of beating that you can give it. It's the Enterprise's time.

No, no, it's fine. We can like it doesn't matter. Everyone knows the movie. But here's the thing. There is some debate about this because it makes zero sense that they're going to decommission the Enterprise. They just refit. It happened. It was like five years ago, right, and now after one battle and some scarring. Look, I bet it's fucked up, but they're gonna just decommission it entirely. What are they going to turn it into a revolving restaurant.

I'm not going to do anything here.

It is.

But if you think of it in terms of the Excelsior being, the tech is just so more up updated. I guess maybe in theory it couldn't stack up to the Enterprise in terms of technology. Maybe he makes more sense at that point to say, maybe it is the Enterprise's time. Nevertheless, the er or.

How about this, you know what, Jim, just take her, just take her.

The problem with that is, in this case, once Kirk mentions Jim.

Jim him, do me a favor, resign, take the fucking ship. Just get out of here. We don't want to see her again.

But he won't do that because once Kirk mentions Genesis, the Admiral says to Kirk, look in your absence, the Genesis is now this really hot button topic. Nobody wants to go near it. It's it's effectively quarantined by the Federation. Nobody goes there except for this science vessel. So the Admiral doesn't want Kirk going anywhere near Genesis, and he knows that's why he wants to go there.

Now.

He wants to go, and eventually he's going to disclose to the Admiral that he needs to go and retrieve Spock's body. Because what happens is in the meantime, Kirk is hosting a little soiree at his swanky bachelor pad where he's got the guns mounted on the wall and everybody.

He loves his pistols, he does.

The weird thing is the way they're mounted. Did you notice some of them are mounted upside down in this strange configuration. I couldn't figure out what the rationale behind that was.

James T. Kirk is an artisan, That's what it is. Hb all right.

He's wacky.

He sees things a little bit different than the rest of us. He knows how a battle is going to go.

What I like is so they're all having drinks and they're talking, and then the doorbell rings and Kirk goes, oh, that must be Scotty, Hey come in, and the door opens and it's not Scotty, it's Sarah. Maybe one of my favorite things in this whole movie is Sarak. I love Mark Leonard is Sarak. He's great in this. So he comes in. He's really upset at Kirk. He says to Kirk, we need to talk right now.

Kirk, excuse me, yes, as Ambassador Sarak displays all of his diplomatic skills by walking into the middle of the party and going, I will talk to you Kirk.

He doesn't exactly come in. He's not speaking softly at all. He's coming in there with his big stick, saying we need to put in fairness. It's his son that we're dealing with here.

So motions are high for this Vulcan.

He sits down with Kirk and he says, Kirk, why did you leave Spock on that planet? He's angry, He's like, why wouldn't you like it was his wish. You should have known that it was his wish to be taken back to Vulcan. Kirk's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Of us would It's like, what are you talking about? How would I know this? This isn't you guys aren't publicizing this, this is a secret ritual.

Yeah. So it gets to the point where I think Sarak is just frustrated, and he says, let's mind meld. I need to get to the bottom of this, which which is, yeah, I will have your thoughts. So he mind melds, and it's actually a very intense sequence. Shatner plays it beautifully because what effectively what Sarah does is have him relive the last moments of Spock's life, the farewell that he made in that engine.

Room and ambassador making again.

Thanks. But you see the sadness he has. He literally has tears in his eyes. Kirk. When all this is said and done, he mind melds. Sark realizes that he doesn't know anything.

But I just kind of asking out here that this is where I started falling in love with Leonard de moist direction, because he's making the entire movie very big. It's very operatic everything in it, except for these intimate moments that he makes even more intimate by giving us these extreme close ups of their eyes or their lips and making us focus really on what's being said.

Yeah, particularly because the lips in the eyes are everything in this scene. It's Sarah narrating this scene with Kirk and Spock, cutting between Kirk's sad expression in his eyes welling up with tears as he's reliving one of the most awful moments in his whole, entire life. So the sequence concludes, Sarah realizes that he doesn't know what's going on, but then kirksys wait a minute, let's go to the tape,

So hard would it be just to take the fucking two actors and get them on a fucking set and put a lockdown camera from a security position and refilm the scene. You could do it with stand ins.

It's They're supposed to be replaying the security footage of Spock's last last minutes as he's saving the ship, but all they can do is playback the scenes from Star Trek two, which doesn't make any sense because it's cross cutting and different angles and things. I get it. They maybe didn't have the budget to refilm it as a security cam, but it still took me out of the scene a little bit.

I don't even show the footage, just cut to them watching the footage.

You could have done that. So eventually Kirk rewinds to the point where McCoy does the mind meld, and then the penny drops. Oh my god, that's why Bones has been acting so weird. It's because he has Spock's Katra, his spiritual essence in his mind, because that's what that's I guess that's what we're meant to believe he did before he saved the ship and killed himself effectively. At this point we cut to McCoy. I believe he's half

Of It's like that movie All of Me with Yeah Martin, where Lily Tomlin is trapped in his body, except it's this hilarious performance by DeForest Kelly where half of him is acting very logical and having him is yelling at himself. I'm kidding that. No, none of that's happened.

But it's but he is, because it's scrambled between Spock and McCoy, and he's saying things that Spock would say and so forth. He tries to commandeer a ship, charter a ship to get off the planet and go back to Genesis. But he's overheard by a Federation officer.

Oh, are we not going to mention the greatest character in this movie? The fucking he tries to chart the Genesis. No, that guy with he was a makeup artist, by the way, and it's you can tell because the makeup is fucking on point. He put those little tiny feathers everywhere that are just like fluttering with everything he does. I love that character.

He talks like Yoda. Everything he says is backwards. And when he's all for getting McCoy off the planet, but then when he mentions Genesis, he makes such a big deal about it. He freaks Genesis, this is this forbidden No, And that's when the Federation's.

So worried about being caught talking about Genesis that he stands up and yells Genesis.

Which everybody in the bar knows what he's talking about. This officer, this Federation security guy, grabs McCoy and we're led to believe he's going to be put into some sort of institution because he's acting crazy.

No, he's like, hey, I don't think you want to be having that conversation, at which point Bones McCay should have said, don't have any fucking conversation I have about anything I want. I was there, motherfucker. I know what genesis is. I'll tell everybody.

But then, but all he can do is try feebly to do the Vulcan neck pinch on the security guy, but because it's bones, he can't actually do it.

Now here's the thing. Does the actual neck pinch? Is that just anyone can do that? Or do you have to be a Vulcan and boarded for that to happen. Is Are they saying that he's just too clumsy to try and do it doing that or he's saying because he's not an actual Vulcan doesn't work. I'm wondering.

I think he's too clumsy. I think if you take the time to study the mystic arts of vulcan or on Vulcan, anyone can do it. I don't know that we've ever seen anybody but a Vulcan do it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they could.

But if you're being guided by the spirit of a Vulcan, particularly when it's advanced to spok, you would think he would just wou he would have knocked that fuck her out.

Could be but it doesn't work.

I think you know what, he could have worked too, and actually could have worked. He could have just knocked that guy out, walked out of the bar. Would change nothing, Well, it would have, because they have to break him out.

They have to break him out. Kirk has already sworn.

So just rewrite it. That's always the answer. I think of Harve Bennett to do it, because Harve Bennett, they didn't include Carol Marcus as a character in this, who was a big character in the last movie. It's her son is involved in this, and they're like, we just couldn't find a place for her, Like he says, we couldn't. We couldn't rectify the idea that she would not have known that David was using unstable proto matter. And I'm like, okay,

I did feel her absence because she is so prominent in part two. She's Kirk's old love interest. It just seems weird that she wouldn't still be part of the science team. That's it's weird, Genesis.

It's weird that they give him a quasi love interest in the next film. That is, like waiting for him when they get back to Earth, or standing with him when they're receiving their accolades when it should have been Carol Marcus like welcoming him home. Yeah, where have you been? Thank you for saving everything Again, I'm still grieving over the loss of our sun, any our sun.

Yeah yeah, if nothing else, that's their shared loss. She should be feeling it even more keenly than him, because.

He actually she actually raised that job.

She raised them. Anyway, as this is all happening, Savoc and David Marcus have beamed down because there's a life form. They've discovered a life form on the Genesis planet that should not be there. The captain refuses to beam it up because they don't want to risk contaminating the rism, so they beam them down to the planet. Now, the planet already seems like it's going through something. It seems to be a little bit weather stricken. They don't really

They open up that shell that is designed to house an explosive and probably dissolve easily. Somehow made it through the atmosphere of this new planet, crashed onto its rocky surface, and it's just sitting there, polished and looking wonderful.

Boy, you are just hammering this movie, father blone, you know why don't do tell? Let's hear it.

I think as much credit as Harve Bennett deserves for keeping this series going and for guiding it as well as he does, I think it was hubris for him to not hire a writer to just go I can do it. After Nicholas Meyer came in and saved his bacon and made that fucking movie what it was. And obviously nick Meyer didn' want anything to do with this

There's a lot of alighting eliting over thing like papering over things that you're not meant to think about too deeply, and I think that's probably the root of a lot of these sort of criticisms you're having with things moment to moment, and I can't argue with you. You're right, some of these things in isolation don't make sense, and it's the writing, and that's what are you gonna do?

George R. R. Martin was writing for the Twilight Zone eighty five. In fact, if they could have just called the offices at CBS of Twilight Zone eighty five and said send over anyone, and they would have turned this fucking screenplay into something great, and I wouldn't be thinking things like, wait, what the fuck is Spock exactly now? So it is corpse landed there and then it regenerated into a fetus, I guess, and then grew into a child with no sustenance whatsoever and no guidance for those

These are all good points and can't counter them. I'm accepting things more on face value, I think, than you are.

And here's the thing about the katra. Yeah, okay, so if you transfer your mind into somebody and then your body is obliterated in some warp accident, what happens to your soul, to your cotra? It can't go back into your body. Can you find another dead body and go into that one? Is Is it a free for all with the Bultans? You just pick a corpse and go.

I would assume that in that case, Let's assume for a minute that Spock is not shot onto the Genesis planet and his body is lost. He's good's gone, but the couture.

Let's say they find his body that is completely shriveled from radiation. Okay, what happens next?

I think just let's assume that the body's gone, they can't use it. I think at that point I would assume the ritual correct all of this, would merely release the spirit so that it can be free again, Like it's not bound inside, it's not warring with somebody's other for lack of like a coatra, it's not going to be stuck in someone's head while they're trying to live their life. I would assume they're going to release it.

So Akatra is basically like a destination wedding, like no matter what, you're going to Vulcan.

It's like the dating game Star Trek style. So anyway, let's progress here. They discover Spock's burial robes, but there's no body in the coffin, but they can still they still have these energy readings. So they go to investigated and by.

The way, they got life readings on the planet that's filled with life. That's surprising.

I did think that was odd because there's a raft of kin.

It makes sense they're looking for no life anywhere, and they're like, fuck, we detected a microbe. Now we got to go check it out. Like we're getting life signs from Genesis that planet with all of the fucking jungles and forests and seas.

And they know that there's increased aging on the planet because when they first get to this photon tube, there's all these little slug like creatures swarming around it, and David Marcus goes there, you go, there was some surface level microbes that aged incredibly rapidly, so there's your life form. And then later after a few scenes later, when Krug is on the planet looking for the scientists, he comes across the photon tube coffin. Also, now these slugs have

And they're using fairy dust. I don't know, you just go with that because it makes no scientific sense whatsoever.

It doesn't really. But at this point, like we're the stories operating on several different fronts. We have Savog and David looking for effectively Spock. We have Kruge on his way to the Genesis planet to deal with the scientists, and now we have Kirk and company trying to figure out how they're going to get off off of Earth and get to the Genesis planet. And by the way, Spring McCoy who's now in custody because he's acting erradically.

Wow, this sounds actually being action packed movie. If we spent any time, any appreciable time with any of the groups and learned their plans and knew what their plot was, then this could have been a great movie, and if any of the scientific stuff made sense.

In fact, this is my favorite part of the movie, getting the gang back together. Yeah, because who doesn't love a little caper where you get the gang back together and they have to work together to figure out how to accomplish a goal.

And here's something novel and something that sets the tone for all of Star Trek from here on out, thanks to Leonard Nimoy. Hey, maybe let's give everyone a moment. Let's give every cast member an actual moment in this movie instead of just saying paling frequencies open or warp factor six.

There's more of that in this We're gonna see even more, I think, probably for me. The apotheosis of that comes in Star Trek four, which we're not talking about, but we'll get to it. But you're right, every character gets a little more of a signature in this. For example, so Kirk leaves the Admiral. The admiral tells him, under no uncertain terms, you can't leave, and then he meets up with Sulu and Check, and he says, they told us we can't leave, so I guess we're gonna leave.

Man, I love a going rogue story.

It's fantastic. So he and everybody's behind him one hundred percent.

They're gonna go fucking common dear the Enterprise. Goddamn right, Except here's the thing, HB when you really think about it, right, So he goes to the Admiral Morrow, who's the head of Starfleet, and Morrow says, no, I'm telling you you cannot take the Enterprise and go back to Genesis. It's no way. And Kirk doesn't James T. Kirk, fucking renowned captain of the Enterprise, doesn't know anyone with a fucking starship.

Not only that, I agree with you that, but the bigger oversight, in my opinion is, look like, if we're gonna cut to the chase, they do eventually common to you the Enterprise, Scotty has automated it so they can operate with the skeleton crew, and they escape and they set course for Genesis. My problem is Starfleet's not going to try to chase them. They know where they're headed. But it's as if they just say, look, they're too far,

They can get And that's the problem with all of the Harve Bennett movies. That's always his excuse. It's the Enterprise is the only ship in the area. What are they not a star fleet?

That's the thing.

I've seen them.

Fighting the Borg.

There seem to be a whole bunch of fucking starfleet ships. At any point they can call them all back, like if it's actually a dire situation. But in Wrath of Khan it was you're the only one out there. They do it again in part five. You guys are the only ship available. It's like they're on Earth at the beginning of fucking Star Trek five. They're the only ship available on Earth? Who's defending Earth?

That to me just made no sense as I'm watching this, like, why wouldn't they they go in pursuit. They know. It's not as if they're just setting core they don't know where they're headed. They know exactly where they're headed and why they're headed there. Because he told the admiral that's what he needs to do.

Nevertheless, check off. Do you have that old run about? Oh yeah, of course we can all that it has warp capabilities. Right, yeah, we can be there by fucking six o'clock. Let's go.

Let's do it. But they have to get this. They have to get the enterprise. That's inexplicable to me, but anyway.

They need a big surprise at the end of this movie is what they need. They need a show stopper. And of course, oh it's my poor enterprise.

It is, and it's an incredible moment. We'll get to it. But you're right, that's the only reason they need it. So for right or wrong, they steal the enterprise. They the gang does their thing. They each have a little part to play. They're basically like, they're beating up other officers. They're commandeering the transporter pad. Everything works, everybody's on the ship except for Ahura, who is going to meet them

Okay, yeah. Unfortunately, she does have a good moment where she blocks that guy up in the closet that she does she's wonderful.

Yeah, she's working in this transporter room and with this young, fresh faced officer, and the officer is basically like saying, you were I need action. It's okay, piece and quiet. It's okay for people like you on the downside of your career, but not me. So you already get the sense that she's gonna put this guy in his place. And then when Kirk and company come chomping in and this guy's freaked out, holy shit, it's Captain Kirk, and she's that's all well and good, but you're gonna be

I agree, she's not sitting in the background every once in a while saying channel open.

I'm kidding nothing but static captain.

Yeah, so I'd rather her not appear and actually do something than just be a prop.

Fair that's fair, but again, Scotty has automated the enterprise. This will become important later so that they can operate it with just Kirk, McCoy, Chekhov and Sulu.

And he's shoveling the coal into the fucking.

So off the Enterprise goes. Meanwhile, Krug has made it to the Genesis planet and I sort of misspoke. He and David are still on the planet dealing with Spock, and Krug has told his gunner shoot at the grism, but just target the engines and they switch and.

To be honest, are right next to the fucking bridge.

Because of the design. The whole thing blows up and he goes like, what the hell did you just do? And the guy says it was a lucky shot, and Krug, being the pragmatist that he is, pulls out a like a phaser boop just kills the guy. He's like, okay, you want to make that mistake again? Fine?

What are you making jokes? What do you think? This is the f iteration exactly?

This is I gave you an order. I mean, here on the bridge.

Of a fucking klingon bird of prey, we don't even know what our affiliation is. You're gonna make jokes.

So we can see how ruthless Krug is from this. He's willing to kill his.

Own say the wrong thing card, and it.

Has to be said. Like again, people I think, mostly at the time, could not reconcile Reverend Jim with Krug. It was very hard for people.

And now I don't think it's on anyone's mind, honestly, and I don't know how it could be. And I loved his performance then and I fucking love it now, and it's one of my favorite Klingon performances. It in fact sets the precedent for what Clingons should be for the rest of the shoeries.

Yeah, but we've also, like you said earlier, we've seen him as Judge Doom. We've seen him in all these parts. We know that he has range, so naturally I were willing to accept him in a different part and I thought he I thought he was fine. There are I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few moments that reminded me of Reverend Jim.

But that's on you.

What are you gonna do? That's on me exactly. That's my personal bias, and I'm okay with that.

I put that aside, you know, because here's the thing after this next generation really leans into the first of all, they kept filling all of their Klingons mouths with too much teeth, so all of their actors had to form sentences around these stupid dental appliances, and they really leaned hard into the honor and the anger of them. But the honor as like a as a word like this guy, as ruthless and as crazy as he is, Christopher Lloyd gives him an honorable quality. There's a weird nobility to him.

Wait five, meaning the are you talking about the Undiscovered Country?

No, I'm talking about the Final Frontier, the trio of Klingon idiots in that the Mad Magazine version of Klingons.

That's true. He has basically has. So Savig and David find Spock, they realize who it.

Is he it's a little boy.

He starts as a little boy, but you see him grow over the course. And what they also discover is that the planet is become very unstable. And Savag questions David on this and what you'd said earlier. He confesses that they used He used proto matter in the Genesis matrix, which she expositions, isn't that this highly unstable material that scientists have denounced is unethical to use? Blah blah blah, and he, I guess it's not unlike his father, as

Okay? The Genesis planet itself, like you mentioned earlier, like as soon as they get there, they realized that something odd is going on in that the deserts have snow in them, snows and yeah, like it's basically all these different ecosystems are crashing into each other and they shouldn't be happening than they are. This entire movie was shot on sound stages at the Paramountain Lot. It was a huge, huge, fucking mistake for the cinematographer kept saying, I really wanted

Yeah, the cacti looked really fake. There's parts of the planet that don't hold up effects wise.

I think I'm not saying it it's a failure. Overall, a lot of it looks really good. It's just that when I think to the like the one shot at the end of Star Trek two of the planet where it's clearly where outdoors and it looks like a jungle environment. Wanted some of that. They you can't send a fucking camera crew with one actor just to have some like pickup shots of running through the jungle. Like I understand, money was tight and everything, but it's.

Purely a budgetary thing, because if we've learned nothing else, it's that every movie they tightened those purse strings even more, which doesn't make any sense to me, because these movies were very part profitable. I don't know that they were ever maybe Star Trek five was maybe not as well received, but I think they all made money. So I don't really get the notion that they're going to try to

Look of it. Well, what's crazy is so that they got this The budget is four million more than the previous film, and they can actually stretch it a lot more because so much of the sets are already built, and the costumes are already created, and a lot of the effects are like the models have already been built, so they actually spent a lot more on the effects this time, so they had a little bit more money to play around with, but still, in comparison to what

What's interesting is we've talked about the fact that these movies and in fact the original TV show were all to a certain degree remastered, right Obviously the motion picture was the biggest recipient of that where they added effects, and why didn't they consider doing that for this They could have actually had a real rendering of the Genesis planet in all of its horrific glory, blowing itself apart. That would have been pretty cool to see that with

I bet there's a fan who's done it, but I don't think we're going to get an official anything from Paramount. They can justify it with motion picture because it hadn't been finished at the time, and nobody's really minding the store when it comes to the original series, so they couldn't get away from They've gone away with it when they got away with it. But I don't think anyone's petitioning them to go in this movie and make it look more real.

But it's a shame because I think a little bit of a spit polish and I think this movie would go up in people's estimation.

We put it to you fans and fan editors.

Someone somewhere must have thought about this already. But anyhow, so Krug sends basically takes Savoc Spock in David Prisoner. He sends. He beams down to the ship to the planet from the ship, which is cloaked, and he's threatening them with torture if they don't tell him about the secret of the Genesis device. At this moment, the Enterprise makes its way into the sector. They radio down and

The Enterprise fucking decimates them like it shuts them down immediately. And then and then Krug very wisely says, why haven't they finished us?

And that's is that when Kirk says he radios for their surrender, he's bluffing yeah, And the Klingon ship fires back at them. Unfortunately it hits the automation that Scotty worked up, so they're completely dead in the water. So Krug informs him that there's hostages on the surface of the planet and if you don't hand over the Genesis materials, I'm going to execute them one at a time. And sure enough, the guy they're going to execute savag actually, but David, being the heroic son.

Of Yeah, he has to make up for the fact that he caused this whole thing.

He's atoning for the fact he knows that the Genesis failure is his fault and how many lives have.

The horrible randomness of this murder must be justified.

Right, pretty much, he gets but unfortunately he fights back against the Klingon but he's killed.

Oh come on, man, like that was every a Klingon warrior versus this kid from the valley.

He puts up a fight, but he's killed. In this complete the Rex.

It's really horrible too, because Leonard Nimoy frames it in such a way that David falls just out of frame, but he kind of alerts his just a little bit up when the knife comes down.

It's horrifying you hear him like, because it's it's a blade that he's stabbed with and some of the there's a shot with Kirk that I think is one of Nimoy's best in this where it's first of all, he does the whole thing where he several times he says, you cling on, bestards, you've killed my son, and he stumbles around a little bit and does that. But then at one point they cut back and it's from behind. Kirk is sitting in the captain's chair. You don't see him.

And I learned that Vulcans are exactly the best and worst people to deliver news of someone dying.

Yeah, she gives it.

To There's no fucking around, And that's the best and worst thing about it. It's there's no prevaricating, there's no have a seat, there's no are you okay? It's David is dead.

She says David is dead, and she again, she's vulcan. But what I love about Robin Curtis is that you can see the emotion behind the eyes, behind that effort to stay logical and unemotional. I think she plays that really well.

Oh she got hired for those eyes because you can see everything she's thinking when she's doing it, and you can see nothing. You can see that she's thinking, but you have no idea what she's thinking.

It's remarkable. So Crue, who gives Actually this is the line I think maybe that you're thinking of. Krug says, Look, I'm going to give you a minute to.

He says, please give us a minute so I can inform my crew. And he says, I give you two minutes for your gallant crew.

For your gallant crew.

And which is a line I've been misquoting to you for years as a line that came from Tom.

That's because he just gives him like thirty seconds.

Or something sixty seconds.

So Kirk, again a little bit of an aside, Krug doesn't know what's happening. Kirk, unbeknownst to Krug, has started the self destruct sequence on the Enterprise, which at the time was like, oh my god, Kirk is going to blow up his beloved enterprise. What is this coming to? Oh my god?

So he does this I don't know. Didn't you feel like it was totally appropriate at that point, the fact that they had surrendered to the fucking Klingons and the Klingons were going to come aboard their ship. I was like, yeah, fucking blow them up.

I wasn't. I'm not suggesting that it wasn't appropriate given the circumstances. I'm just saying the fact that it got to that point. This is almost like the Kobayashi Maru all over again, where he's got he has no choice. He can't the ship is defenseless, he can't bluff his way out of this. All he can do is try and formulate this plan to take some of them with them and give himself a fighting chance to survive this situation.

My favorite moment in the entire movie coming up there.

It's great Kirk transports down to the planet. Krug doesn't know this. The boarding party lands on to the Enterprise and the guy one of them is He's like, there's no one here. He says, they must be hiding. He says, I don't I'm on the bridge. All that I hear is the computer talking, and Krug says, what's it saying? You can already tell that. He's like, something is not right here, and he's like you. Then you hear the computer say five four, continuing, and Krug just goes, get

Yeah, awesome. How could anyone seek fucking reverende Jimmy the task here? It's like, this is Commander Krug freaking out over his men.

Yeah. So the Enterprise blows up except for part of the hull and the nay cell.

The saucer explodes.

What you're saying, the saucer explodes and the rest of the ship. This effect, actually, I thought was really good too. Is you cut to the planet's surface where Kirk and McCoy and everybody they're there looking up. They can see the remains of the Enterprise burning up in the atmosphere as it crashes into the planet, and it's just this awesome trail of smoke and fire and debris. And Kirk looks up at that and he says, my god, what

Don't It was never about the Enterprise. It was always about these peoples, which I say, fuck you guys, how dare you blow up the Enterprise?

That's good.

And by the way, that was the big secret that they kept under wraps, that they've strained mightily to keep from getting out there. And then the paramount publicity department puts it in the fucking trailer that.

The Enterprise was blown up.

The tagline was witnessed the final voyage of the starship Enterprise, and then they showed the scene of the hull hurtling towards us and the saucer completely decimated.

Yeah, that's marketing for you, Jesus Christ. That sucks's I.

Would have said, oh you're going to do that, We're going to begin in the movie with the Enterprise exploding. Then fuck that.

That's right, it's right. Let's just get out of the way, Kirk.

You cannot take the Enterprise okay, self destruct the enterprise.

It was like with part two. Everyone had a suspicion that Spock was going to die, so they have this fake Kobyashi Maru thing where that kind of Oh, of course he died, but it was only because of the stupid simulation. He's not really dead. Of course that's not the way it went. But anyhow, Kirk makes his way to where the hostages are being held, and I think

Hell yeah. And Kirk his first action I thought was a bit unusual, where he took David's corpse and he buried it in the planet and said, bring him back, bring him back.

That's right, where's the Genesis wave? Now they dispatch the rest of the the Klingons, but Krug beams down dum. I. Actually, he actually has another line that I really like, which is they're gonna be he He's going to transport the prisoners up to the Klingon ship, but actually would not. Spock and Kirk says why don't you have them to take the vulcan also, And he says no, And he says why, and Krug says, because you wish it. Krug's you know what, there's something about you wanting me to

He is a way more vicious and mean character than what we had in the previous film, which is a very operation performance by Ricardo Maltibon, And I think everyone loves that sort of level of theatrics. But here's a real villain, and a really formidable one at that. Like, ultimately, Cohn was a big fucking blowhard. He didn't know what he had one ship and he didn't know what to do with it. Here I will.

Only point to the crew of the space Station Regular one that had their throats slit.

Yeah, he had a bunch of murderous thugs, so fucking so did krug Man.

The thing. The difference I think is that Krug has a sense of honor. I think the fact that he's willing to kill one of his own crewmen because they screwed up, they didn't follow orders and they destroyed the ship. I think that's Noble's the thing.

I'm just saying that it's easy to get behind Kahn and have fun with that character. There's fun to be had. There is no fun with Krug.

No, no, I would agree with you. There's no there's no operatic performance to get behind like you have with Ricardo Montalban.

Like you said, it's that will be in Star Trek six with Christopher Plumber. That's what people were hoping for, a continuation of the villains of Star Trek when they got what was an actual threat.

Sure, and I can tell you that's one of my least favorite parts of Star Trek six.

Just a little bit of a giant slice of Dixie Ham that Christopher Plumber decided he could get away with because it's a space movie.

We'll get there. So effectively becomes a mono a mono battle between Kirk and Krug at this point, as the planet is destroying itself, all around them, and there's no surprise,

HP quick autobiographical pause. Before I had seen this movie, it had been out, but I hadn't yet gone to the theater. I had the nerdiest friend you could ever imagine in grade school if you looked nerd up in

It's bad. No officer with the pedigree and the experience of Kirk is going to waste his breath on some stock.

I have had enough of you. How about you killed my son? You motherfucker, burn in hell or whatever passes for it on Klingon.

You bastard. There's any number of things he could have said, just to dispatch him and make it meaningful. But either way, he kicks Krug off of the off the cliff. He falls into a lava sea that's erupted.

Model of Christopher Lloyd falls into a lava.

Yeah, so he's gone.

Then, by way, that's the biggest crime of the movie is killing Krug because he should have kept coming back. It should have been him in part six. Oh my god, imagine if the Klingon Empire promoted that guy and he shows up on the bridge of the fucking enterprise. What's going on, Kirk?

That would have been great. Instead of Chang, you have Krug. Wow, that would have been that never occurred. To me, blahlah, blahlah. That would have been stupendous.

Imagine Nicholas my writing that movie.

Holy Moly, because you wouldn't have had any of that flowery speech bullshit. It would have just been, look, we know what this guy's capable of, and we're getting ahead of ourselves. But that would have given Kirk real reason not to trust any of these guys, because this is the guy that killed my son and you want me to invite him on the ship for drinks.

He got promoted based on his experience on Genesis in which he killed my son. These are the people we're dealing with.

Let's put a pin in that. We'll get back to that when we get to Star Trek six. But in this case, he Kirk makes his way back to Spock, who's still there, and this was actually very creative on Kirk's party. He picks up the calmlink to the Bird of Prey and he speaks Klingon back to Heates, basically Krug saying maltz one to beam out, two to beam up, and he goes up and I think they've already taken like they've already taken prisoner. The other Klingons on the vessel.

I'd like to point out that moment in the movie when Kirk calls up to the Klingon craft and says Jory two was the moment the linguist realized this is going to work. Because when Krug says it, it's subtitled. And then they chose not the subtitle at the second time, but the audience made the leap and when oh, we've heard that, we know what that means in Klingon, and he thought this can work as a language from now on.

That's interesting. I didn't realize that. I think for me this the subtitle is just the way it works. Are always on, so I would not have noticed that. But that's pretty cool. I still can't get over that. The language of the Klingons, which is something that is seeped into pop culture to the point where it's a joke on sitcoms now, like the Big Bang Theory or something, but it all started here. It's crazy to me. Anyway.

Oh, with the spotlights hitting the fucking the wings of the bird of prey.

When it comes down, when it lands, when it comes in for a landing and lands on Vulcan. It's vulcan Is in all of its sort of red sand glory, and you have this bird of Prey come in for a landing. It all looks really the matlines aren't as thick as we've seen on some of these miniatures. It looked, really, it looked glorious, was the right.

This was the first stard Trek movie that ILM was involved from the beginning to the end. Like they kept coming in and helping in places, but this was they got to work from the design to the final product here and yeah, this in particular, I think it's spectacular. And if you watch any of the behind the scenes thing,

But it's also a completely lost art And I think not to soapbox, but obviously CG makes a lot of stuff possible that wasn't before. But for similitude of having a physical model with real light playing off of the hull and matted in against a real landscape or at least a matted landscape, you can't get that with CG. You just can't. There's still something that to me res fake. With CG it may look get the job done more or less, but I just I love this stuff. It looks so compelling to me.

The beauty is in the imperfections, and you can't never get an imperfection with the computer generated thing.

The biggest example of that it will always be Blade Runner, which is it was such not to get sidetracked, but I mean, if you ever watch any of the making of stuff on that, it's like, it's incredible what they were able to achieve with the physical models. Nevertheless, they land they take Spock's body and McCoy. He accepts that. The priestess says to McCoy, this is a dangerous thing. You're in as much danger, maybe more danger than Spock, and he says, I accept the danger. McCoy is committed

Mark Lenard was the first Star Trek actor I saw at a convention live? Was he really when I was Jesus, wasn't too long after this, Actually it might have been before. No, it's around this time. It was eighty five. I think was my first Star Trek convention and Mark Leonard was.

He's so noble. That's really the key to the character. And that's maybe that's why I think he did such a great job.

He was.

Actually, wasn't he one of the first Klingons in the original series. Didn't you play one of the original Klingons? He showed the episode that it was introduced.

I think he's the Klingon. Yeah, he's the very.

First so the guy is Pedigree. Eventually they all McCoy and Spock come down from Mount Celia. McCoy I like this too, where McCoy walks by Kirk and he but he takes a moment to say, I'm all right, Jim, I'm all right. Just love the fact that he knows how concerned that Kirk is for him, and he's like, you don't worry about me. I'm okay, Jim, I'm curing.

I don't care. I would have sacrificed you too, and you're you're cool and all. But me and Spock besties.

Screw you. Where the hell, Spock? What's up a Spock?

Is he?

Okay?

Yeah?

So Spock walks by.

He was never worried about your bouce.

I wasn't worried about you. You're an old man. Your time is done you.

How long Spock's going to be taking care of me until I'm long in the tooth?

See you later, Bounce, Sarah says to Kirk. Only time will tell if Spock is going to get back to the way he was. And this is really the payoff through this whole movie. This is what people have been waiting for. We finally get to see Leonard Nimoy again

He's the only character that we would have based an entire movie about just getting him back. He does at all in the movie.

Yeah, this isn't the search for Sulu or the search for Chekhov. I'm not sure they would have gone through these hoops to rescue them, I'm sorry to say. But anyhow, eventually the crew all gather around Spock and they're all happy because they can see that he's getting his memories back. And Nimoy even gives a little eyebrow raise, one of his patented Spock eyebrow raises, so you as the audience feels like, Okay, we're getting Spock back, Like he's getting

Is, and the adventure continues. It tells us this is true bigger than it is. A cheese head. He started this movie. He started writing the movie by writing that last line, first the Jim, your name is Jim, and then he wrote it back where it's like a like a locked door mystery.

That explains a lot about the story and the lack of logic in spots highly but look, the thing of it is, ultimately, look, I think you and I remember this movie or appreciate this movie more than maybe others do. But at the end of the day. This is really a means to an end, right, they knew that Spock would have to come back. This is a necessary adjunct to future Star Trek movies. I mean, I don't mean to discount it and put it in those terms, but

I think they should have done one completely without Meimoi.

Yeah, it wouldn't have been the same. I don't think you could agree.

I think it would have been a whole different animal. I think we could have given us one Star Trek without Spock, so we could miss him and then make a movie about getting him back, and it's interest him show up inexplicably at the end of That's what I was gonna say.

You could have had maybe it's not about the search for Spock, but maybe they maye like, all of a sudden, like they're in this dire circumstance and then out of nowhere, Spock comes in and you're like, WHOA, what the heck happened here? And then he's got to we got to figure out where that's at but that and that may be one of my biggest issues. We've talked about this already, but the fact that it's called The Search for Spock,

The race to Spock.

The race to Spock. Yeah kind of.

Yeah, yeah, there's no searching at all. It's like there's no searching and oh, here's okay, I'm gonna say one thing I liked and one thing I did.

Sure.

One thing I liked I loved actually is when the Enterprise returns to Space Stock and there's the gigantic lounge windows that everyone is watching through and former Yeoman Rand is surveying the damage and shaking her head like Jesus Christ, what have they done this time?

Yeah? What have they done? Yeah?

I love that scene. Here's something I fucking hate. Robert Fletcher, who is usually really reliable, he did the costumes for all three of these movies, and I don't like the costumes in the first movie, but that wasn't really his fault. That was more Robert Wise. He comes back hard with the admiralty uniforms in the second movie and then gives us their civilian clothes in this What the fuck is everyone wearing?

Kirk is wearing When Sarah goes to visit Kirk while he's entertaining the rest of the crew, Kirk has this it's like a jogging suit chop. It's like this red or it's blue, white and gray, but it kind of comes down like an arrow down towards his crotch and with like red piping on the sides. It's very weird. It's it's like sharkleet leisure.

Yeah, that is okay. The fact that the terry cloth material is just unusual on everybody. It makes everyone seem like they're in an episode of The Sopranos, But more specifically the fucking Chekhov's little Dutch boy outfit with the giant pink collar. What is happening? I know that Robert fless You was saying like he's trying to individualize each of their outfits, so they have some sort of meaning for them to clearly su lose is like kimono inspired,

And it's a very it's an odd color too, It's like this faded maroon color. It almost looks like it had been washed too many times and the colors have faded. It's a very peculiar outfit his in particular there.

And that's my last word on Star Trek three.

No, but I think my last word on it is that it's if we're going to talk about the curse of the odd numbered Star Trek movies, I think it's a little unfair to characterize this as a bad movie. It's not really a bad movie. It's not maybe not as good as some of the even numbered movies, but this is no way of failure. I think this is a decent movie.

Better than five, much.

Better than five. Five is the nadir. I think we can all agree before we even get there to talk about it.

I think it's better than Generations. I think it's better than Insurrection.

Wait, wait, five or three you're talking about.

I'm talking about Star Trek Three is better than Star Trek Part five. It's better than Star Trek Generations. It's better than Star Trek Insurrection.

I would agree with you there certainly Insurrection Generations. There's parts of that I really like. It's hard for me to compare those two for some reason, but.

There are parts of that movie that I like. I will watch this movie beginning to end.

Tough Call, tough Call, but it's certainly better than the other ones you mentioned. It's way better, without question. It's better than five, without question. It's better than Insurrection.

So here's the rule for Star Trek movies. Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad, which is.

Like any franchise. We just got done talking about all the Predator movies. Some are good, some are really bad, some are terrific. That's what we have here. It's people like to reduce things down to these little rules, or these little clever rules of thumb. Don't believe it. Three is a decent movie.

Yeah, I really enjoyed the movie. I had a great time. I think it's one of my favorite villains of all time. It's set up the entire fucking Kling on Empire really, and the fucking Sulu flips that fucking giant guy over and tells him not to call him tiny?

What could be wrong with the tiny anymore? And it's you had said this. It's the beginning of giving those supposed ancillary characters the other members of the crew more to do, and it we see that open up even

And I think only Nimoy could have done that, because every other filmmaker coming into this is going to fall into line with the same thing. People are here to see Kirk and Spock and McCoy and that's who we're going to focus on and focus on exclusively, and in fact, we'll make up new characters just to support those three characters and fuck the rest of these characters. And it's Nemoy saying, let's give something to do for all of my friends here who have active characters in this story.

To me, it indicates it, and this is borne out by every interview I've seen of Nemoy. This to me indicates a lack of vanity on his part because he's serving the story completely. I'm not necessarily going to suggest that Shatner. We know that Shatner took lines away from some of the other actors. He's the reason why Sulu didn't become a captain for as long as he did,

That scene between Krug and Maltz where he's describing his planet's all close ups. Oh man, so good. Maltz, by the way, that's John Lecat's character. What happened to Maltz, I actually don't know, and I'd like to know, because I know they kept him. They brought him back with them.

So what we know is he they brought him back up on the ship and he says something to Kirk and Kirk says, no, I'll kill you later, and then they take off and he tells them take Malts down to the to the prison or whatever, and malt says, wait, you said you would kill me, and Kirk says, I lied. So we know that he didn't kill Malts. We just don't know. He must have remanded him back into Klingon custody at some point.

HPN. That's what I'm saying. They took Malts with them to fucking Vulcan, and then from Vulcan they came back to Earth and went back in time. That is malt still on a Vulcan or was he in the hold of that Klingon craft the entire time in the brig? Could they could we have a sequence where we cut to John Larakett now and make up like in the brig while I hear whales, I think someone want to let me he's in.

The brig as they're bringing this transparent aluminum that's surrounding him.

What is he like?

What is Scott? He's like, don't you worry, It's fine, You'll be fine. And then they fill it up with water and he's just.

Whale food at that point, Guys, I don't think that's made for this. That's not gonna hold.

Oh my god, Oh I cannot wait now, I can't wait to talk about Part four. We get some topics here, good stuff.

Long live months. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here for our latest Star trek fyt Star trek Fay. Of course, what's going to happen next? Star Trek four The Voyage Home Voyd. Yeah, the part of the part three of the Genesis trilogy. We're all going to forget about number one, tend it started with two until that hpre Where can be to find you? If they're looking for you?

I co host The Night mister Walters, a taxi podcast with you, fatherm Alone.

Oh yeah, that's right, that's right. For light is involved, So come on over Trekkers. Trekkers and not the derisive trekkies.

Actually, be ause I pushed my glasses up on my forehead here, So yeah, I host that with bottom alone here. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast. At some point I'll get to it and then I also have a band camp site Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com.

As for me, you're listening to it here. That's Midnight doing Falling Malone's weekly round Up every Monday or Sunday, and regular show the anthology podcast every Friday. In fact, by the time this comes out, we've had a change. It's just me and Mike White now doing the anthology podcast. We're looking at the hammer House of Horrors, the British horrorse anthology series from the early nineteen eighties. Check us out over there on Fridays or one of the fests

Speak great power to all dominate.

Speak impressive. They can make a planet. Oh yes, new cities, homes and the country.

Your woman at your.

Side, children play at your feet and overhead, fluttering in the breeze, the flag of the Federation, charming station.

Yes, my mod, share this with no one under start, my lord, we are going to this planet.

Even as I am a serious negotiate for peace with the Federation. We will act with the preservation of our race. We will seize the secret of this weapon, the secret of wilcom and power success.

My Lord