The STAR TREK III-Love & Appreciation Thread

[Mutara Nebula 1967]

Every so often someone has to start a thread lauding Trek III is their favorite of the TOS movies. Guess I'm that person today

Seriously there is so much to love about this movie it always amazes me to see it generally low on favorite lists. Let's recap what we've got.

*The final icing on the cake that the crew is more than that but a family that they are willing to lay their lives & futures on the line just to save Spock's Katra...they don't even know about the rebirth on Genesis.

*We get not one but two new starship designs and a Spacedock design that endured all the way up until the curtain came down on NEMESIS.

*Had David not died we got a look at what it could have been like having new blood (David & Saavik) mixed in with the old crew. (It was admittedly a mistep losing David like that & then Saavik the next movie)

*We get bad ass Klingons up to no good as what you would expect from Klingons before all later retconning that they are
an "honorable" people. (Besides the TNG retconning I read a Genesis Wave book that basically said that Kruge was "Rogue" and that's why he committed his evil deeds. Give me a break.)

The list could go on and on but I'll end it with writing about the destruction of the Enterprise. No matter how many times I see the movie I still get chills during the "stealing the Enterprise sequence (One of THEY best sequences of any Trek movie) when I see the Enterprise gliding away from Spacedock knowing that this is the final mission of the ship that survived the energy barrier, being shrunk down to the size of a model, Doomsday machines and giant space ameobas to name a few but this time it would not be coming back. On a side note points have to be deducted for Paramount spoiling the destruction in the trailers!

All and all...a wonderful effort on all involved and very underrated.

 

[trevanian]

I won't make a 3,000 word reply about how much I detest at least 80% of this movie if you don't say anything bad about STAR TREK V during 2013.

Really liked the the way Shat plays the Kirk/Morrow lounge scene, the Bones bar scene and Kelly standing over Spock in the BoP sickbay, will say that much for sure.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Like.

TSFS is my hands down favorite of the Trek films for many of the reasons you list. I'd love to see this in the theater again, what a great movie. Also an awesome score by James Horner, the perfect and more mature follow up to his Khan score.

Shatner gives his finest performance as Kirk when he reacts to David's death. It's a very downbeat film with a beautifully hopeful ending. Love love love!

 

[Basill]

Well, it's the one that hooked me!

 

[KarmicCurse]

I think it was the last time Star Trek in any incarnation was a real adult drama. There were a lot of wonderful movies and spin off episodes that followed. But everything after felt watered down and geared towards kids. STIII is a well paced action/drama for adults with great tension and performances. It's almost as if the destruction of the Enterprise was a metaphor for the end of the original show's atmosphere.

I remember seeing it in the theater at age 8. Up to then the biggest things we had seen in the Trek world were the various starships. When Spacedock was revealed, in contrast to the approaching Enterprise, with that rousing musical crescendo, I was jumping up and down in my seat.

I suspect that had I seen it an older age I might have had serious issues with the metaphysics of Spock's rejuvenation. But when a drama takes itself seriously and treats its audience like adults it is more easily absorbable.

I have to enthusiastically agree about the score - brilliant!

 

[22 Stars]

Count me in, I have said this often, but with a bigger budget, STIII would have been looked at in a much different way. Replace the set-bound genesis planet and cheesy ultimate battle and plunge to the death by Kruge with sweeping landscapes enhanced by CGI and you have a film with a much bigger scope and feel. It's a BIG film shot on a tiny budget.

 

[CaptPapa]

Well said - Star Trek III is also one of my favorites. Kudos to Leonard Nimoy in directing an excellant film.

 

[Dale Sams]

I was going to make a thread to praise Lloyd and Kruge, but I'll do it here. Very well done stuff in that all he had to go off was his own instinct, whereas I feel practically every post-Dorn Klingon is infected by Dorn/Worf.

And Kruge *may* be rogue, but I didn't particularly see him as 'evil'.

But, the less said about Curtis's Saavik, the better.

 

[BillJ]

Love The Search for Spock, ranks third in my Trek movie pecking order and I love Christopher Lloyd as Kruge. The only time we saw a Klingon, post-TOS, that ranked up there with Kang and Kor.

For me, it's the most emotion packed Trek movie.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I really like Star Trek III. Lots of fun and adventure!

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Of all the Trek films it's the most underrated one. It really destroyed that whole even/odd numbered nonsense.

 

[Maurice]

Of all the Trek films it's the most underrated one. It really destroyed that whole even/odd numbered nonsense.

Which is funny since it was only the second "odd" film.

It's a tepid movie shot blandly.

 

[22 Stars]

No, actually it is anything but tepid, sorry. And it is shot very well for a budget constrained film and a first time director not yet let loose with ultimate control. I think Nimoy's track record speaks for itself.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I think it was the last time Star Trek in any incarnation was a real adult drama.

Yes, I've felt the same way: with TVH bringing in the "comedy at all costs" everything got goofy and watered down, as if they had to make up for the aging cast and their expanding waistlines with Krazy Komedy Kapers. As much as people harp on TFF for its comedy, TUC has as much ridiculous humor and off character beats.

Star Trek III was the last time the original cast movies were taken seriously.

I have to enthusiastically agree about the score - brilliant!

It's fricking amazing and I nearly soiled myself when the complete score was released a few years ago.

 

[BillJ]

Star Trek III was the last time the original cast movies were taken seriously.

I love the movie, but I laugh everytime I see the costume Chekov is wearing.

 

[22 Stars]

Star Trek III was the last time the original cast movies were taken seriously.

I love the movie, but I laugh everytime I see the costume Chekov is wearing.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pilgrim fashion is NEVER out of style for long!

 

[jimbotron]

I'm happy to see a thread like this. Star Trek III is my favorite Trek film.

Great score, very good effects and new models (Excelsior, Grissom, Spacedock, BOP), two amazing sequences (stealing and destroying the Enterprise), and most important of all, a very personal story.

My only gripes are the "protomatter" stuff, and changing the Saavik character.

 

[A beaker full of death]

It was cool to see everyone on the bridge in their civvies, and you have to love Sulu man-handling the guards. But it was hurt by a short running time, horrible studio sets, and the piss-poor substitution of the creaming-in-her-pants Curtis for the cool Alley.

Worst of all, there's barely any Spock in the picture, so it simply felt unbalanced. There was no one against whom to contrast Kirk.

 

[trevanian]

No, actually it is anything but tepid, sorry. And it is shot very well for a budget constrained film and a first time director not yet let loose with ultimate control. I think Nimoy's track record speaks for itself.

I guess I gotta go back on what I said above.

"Nimoy's track record" includes a film so bad it nearly went unreleased (it underwent such extreme editing that one of the movie's stars, the late Farrah Fawcett, was cut entirely), a very successful yet for me unwatchable remake of a French film, a well-intended family drama that probably should have debuted on Lifetime instead of being shown in theaters, and the two least watchable -- well, I'll be fair here, least REwatchable -- TOS films.

Oh yeah, and a TJ Hooker episode. Meyer's career includes a lot of crap too, but with TWOK he delivered a genuine VISION (like it or not) instead of just miring his film in Vulcan-centric lore. SFS has heart, I'll grant you that. It just squanders so much goodwill that it becomes infuriating as it goes on & on, especially when the show relies on nuttiness like beaming down to an unstable planet as an escape measure, which has to rank below how Matt Decker tried to save his crew.

The budget-constrained thing doesn't hold water either. It cost more than TWOK, yet has many VERY similar sequences, all of which play out in a much inferior fashion, due in large part to the lack of variety in camera angles and editing (you can't improve a picture with fancy cutting if there isn't anything fresh to cut TO.) Run the sneak attack scene from TWOK with the sound off ... it still works, very snappy. Run the BoP sneaking up on Ent scene from SFS silent ... you'll probably be asleep before the thing starts to decloak. SFS relies on the music like a crutch to make up for a lack of cinematic appeal, whereas the TWOK music just EMBELLISHES on what they had shot, which is as it should be.

Designwise, the film pretty much sabotages the whole Starfleet design ethic with that idiot mushroom dock and ultra-modern cafeteria. The Excelsior bridge looks like it could have been done with castoffs from the 2nd season of BUCK ROGERS on the back wall.

 

[Maurice]

No, actually it is anything but tepid, sorry. And it is shot very well for a budget constrained film and a first time director not yet let loose with ultimate control. I think Nimoy's track record speaks for itself.

I guess I gotta go back on what I said above.

"Nimoy's track record" includes a film so bad it nearly went unreleased (it underwent such extreme editing that one of the movie's stars, the late Farrah Fawcett, was cut entirely), a very successful yet for me unwatchable remake of a French film, a well-intended family drama that probably should have debuted on Lifetime instead of being shown in theaters, and the two least watchable -- well, I'll be fair here, least REwatchable -- TOS films.

Oh yeah, and a TJ Hooker episode. Meyer's career includes a lot of crap too, but with TWOK he delivered a genuine VISION (like it or not) instead of just miring his film in Vulcan-centric lore. SFS has heart, I'll grant you that. It just squanders so much goodwill that it becomes infuriating as it goes on & on, especially when the show relies on nuttiness like beaming down to an unstable planet as an escape measure, which has to rank below how Matt Decker tried to save his crew.

The budget-constrained thing doesn't hold water either. It cost more than TWOK, yet has many VERY similar sequences, all of which play out in a much inferior fashion, due in large part to the lack of variety in camera angles and editing (you can't improve a picture with fancy cutting if there isn't anything fresh to cut TO.) Run the sneak attack scene from TWOK with the sound off ... it still works, very snappy. Run the BoP sneaking up on Ent scene from SFS silent ... you'll probably be asleep before the thing starts to decloak. SFS relies on the music like a crutch to make up for a lack of cinematic appeal, whereas the TWOK music just EMBELLISHES on what they had shot, which is as it should be.

Designwise, the film pretty much sabotages the whole Starfleet design ethic with that idiot mushroom dock and ultra-modern cafeteria. The Excelsior bridge looks like it could have been done with castoffs from the 2nd season of BUCK ROGERS on the back wall.

I rarely do this, but...

THIS.