Star Trek movie retrospective Part 3: Star Trek the Search for Spock
OK, Spock is dead, and fan boys across the planet (like me) are crying about it and demanding something be done. Nimoy has said he want’s to put Spock behind him and move on with his life. How, then, do you get him back in the saddle? (Search for Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T shirts category).
Simple. You offer him a chance to direct the movie. That’s pretty much what Paramount did. They gave Nimoy his first chance to direct, and to be honest, he did a pretty damned good job. I mean, this wasn’t the best Star Trek movie, but I see that as more of a limitation placed on him by the script than anything else (yes, I am that film critic. The one who craps all over every movie he sees until he is confronted by one done by someone he likes and has to find every excuse for them).
Actually, that’s not exactly true. Nimoy got kind of excited about Spock after seeing the TWOK and was gung ho to do the next movie. He himself suggested directing it. Kind of risky on Paramount’s part, in that now you have a director you literally cannot fire.
So what was going on in 1984? I was just out of my first horrible year of hell (I mean, high school). I remember one thing and that is we went to this movie in the back of a pickup truck (on the freeway. God I don’t miss the 80’s). With us on that trip were no less than three girls who were all kind of cute, at least one of which I think in retrospect kind of liked me. My natural awkwardness and inability to talk to women was able to prevent me from gaining some joy in my teenage life. Movie tickets cost at most $3. Ethiopia faced massed starvation and spawned any number of the least sensitive jokes of all time (“What’s the fastest animal in the world? An Ethiopian chicken.”). The Ethiopian tragedy also gifted us with Band Aid and the massive Do they Know it’s Christmas, a chance for every lame pop singer to stroke their egos and look good. AT&T is forcibly broken up (and yet, I am still paying them). We had the first ever (and very cool) untethered space walk. The first ever MTV Video Music Awards starts off, ringing like the death knell over music culture. It was kind of a banner year for movies. In addition to the Search for Spock, Ghostbusters (Sigorney Weaver!, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, The Terminator, and the highly underrated Romancing the Stone all came out. Magnum PI and the A Team were hot. With the exception of music (“Wake me up, before you go go!”) things seemed pretty cool and upbeat. The world wanted new beginnings, and the Search for Spock fit right in.
So Spock placed his soul (his katra) in McCoy just before dying in the last movie. McCoy is haunted by his spirit and they have to get to Vulcan after learning they made a major blunder dropping Spocks body off on the planet rather than returning him home. I guess checking on crewmembers religious beliefs wasn’t high up on Kirks priority list, although you would think he would have done a little more for his best friend. They go back to the Genesis planet where they discover the planet is more or less breaking apart. Spock’s body has mysteriously disappeared out of the coffin, although his Vulcan e coli or whatever have evolved into giant banana slugs. Other stuff happens. The Klingons kill Kirk’s son David. A teenage Spock Pon Fars the hell out of Saavik (played by a young, thin, and super hot Kirstie Allie. What is it about women who are willing to dress up as Vulcans that drives me crazy? I still think about this one girl I met at the Star Trek convention last year. It doesn’t help that, in addition to being super hot, she was also super cool). After years of blue balling himself and coming within a hairs breath of it Kirk finally gets to complete his self destruct sequence for the Enterprise. The crew escapes in a stolen Klingon ship (it’s hard to beat the Enterprise for coolness, but the Klingons have always given them a run for their money).
What the movie had:
The original crew. The return of Spock (although he doesn’t actually appear until the end and only has a couple speaking lines). Modern Klingons. Enterprise blowing up. Planet blowing up. The death of Kirks son, so he wouldn’t be around to clutter up the next few movies. Implied hot Vulcan sex. Effects on par with TWOK. Giant banana slugs with teeth. A clever ploy.
What it didn’t have:
Nicholas Meyer, the writer of TWOK. He stormed off in a huff over the changes the studio forced upon him in TWOK, including the coffin on the planet scene. A rational explanation as to how Spock’s body reconstituted itself (more on that later). Spock playing Spock.
This is the first Star Trek movie that generated some serious questions in my mind with regards to continuity (and probably paved my path to becoming an amateur movie reviewer). First of all, Kirk is really broken up about the death of his son (and in later movies is even more upset about it) but as far as I can tell he only knew the guy for two weeks or so. In the TV show Kirk had crewmembers he had known for years die horrible, horrible deaths (remember the Devil in the Dark?) and didn’t even blink an eye. Secondly, if the cold germs or whatever in the pod with Spocks body were super evolved into giant banana slugs by the Genesis effect, why would it just regenerate Spock in his original form? Shouldn’t he have been a super evolved Vulcan? Or, for that matter, if they sent down his body shouldn’t each cell have evolved into something, possibly resulting in billions of super evolved Spocks? Also, what did young Spock eat? To grow that fast he must have eaten about 10x his weight every day. For that matter, if he speed grew up from a baby who kept him from running off a cliff or what have you? Even with my parents protection I managed to injure myself pretty much every day as a kid. Sure Spock is half Vulcan, but he’s also half human, which in broader terms is half stupid. Also, assuming the planet had evolved an abundance of fruit trees, how did he feed himself as a baby? Also, according the scientist involved in the project there would be only plant life on the planet. So what did young Spock do for protein? Seems the only sources of protein would be giant banana slugs and his own corpse. Shouldn’t he have been suffering from serious malnutrition? Also, if he had never seen another creature in his life when the crew showed up why did he hide from them? Wouldn’t he just see them as some kind of moving plant? Is there any chance Saavik got pregnant and there is a son of Spock running around?
The list can go on, but I will spare you. Overall I would say this was a decent film, and a nice bridge from the end of the series in the last film and the rest of them. The only problem is that this is the last film where you see Kirk as a moderately believable action hero. Last movie saw the end of Spock as we knew him, and this one we see the end of Kirk. From this movie forth he would still do stuff in an action way, but it would take on a Mork from Ork comedy element. If you don’t believe me go back and watch the fight scene from Star Trek Generations. Like I said, decent film. Just not the best.
