Trek III 35th

[grandmoffjon]

It has great moments, but Genesis is not well looked after, it has a very low budget tv look, and given how essential as a 'character' it is, it hurts the movie. What could've been with a better budget?

Also, recastings distract me. And Carol Marcus' omission doesn't help.

 

[Armus]

It has great moments, but Genesis is not well looked after, it has a very low budget tv look, and given how essential as a 'character' it is, it hurts the movie. What could've been with a better budget?

Also, recastings distract me. And Carol Marcus' omission doesn't help.

Paramount was still pinching pennies after ST:TMP. Unfortunately. I wish they filmed more on location. I heard Nimoy wanted to do it on studio while some of the crew were hoping to film Genesis scenes in Hawaii.

 

[grandmoffjon]

Paramount was still pinching pennies after ST:TMP. Unfortunately. I wish they filmed more on location. I heard Nimoy wanted to do it on studio while some of the crew were hoping to film Genesis scenes in Hawaii.

They should've. The location was really essential to TSFS.

 

[Vger23]

It has great moments, but Genesis is not well looked after, it has a very low budget tv look, and given how essential as a 'character' it is, it hurts the movie. What could've been with a better budget?

Also, recastings distract me. And Carol Marcus' omission doesn't help.

I actually don't agree. It takes nothing away from my enjoyment of the story. And the remainder of the visuals and effects are top rate. But then again, I grew up with the TOS planet sets, so it's all relative.

 

[Tosk]

Star Trek III was my first real Trek experience that I can remember, my father took me to see it at the movies. I've gone back and forth on it over the years but have definitely settled into the "love it...mostly" camp these days.

A few fan-made modern trailers for it, why not?

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[grandmoffjon]

I actually don't agree. It takes nothing away from my enjoyment of the story. And the remainder of the visuals and effects are top rate. But then again, I grew up with the TOS planet sets, so it's all relative.

Oh, I still enjoy it, and in a way it does remind a lot of TOS but feels quite the comedown from previous movies.

 

[Vger23]

Oh, I still enjoy it, and in a way it does remind a lot of TOS but feels quite the comedown from previous movies.

I still put it head-and-shoulders above the "popular vote getters" of TVH and TUC. But yes, it is behind TWOK and TMP for me.

 

[grandmoffjon]

I still put it head-and-shoulders above the "popular vote getters" of TVH and TUC. But yes, it is behind TWOK and TMP for me.

I totally agree with you on TVH, not quite TUC, though the humor on that one is sketchy... but it's better crafted and more it's own thing and a good "farewell" (should've been) to the crew.

 

[DonIago]

I feel like TSFS is exactly the kind of movie where, when I rewatch it, I want to fast forward to the "good parts" and skip over most of the rest...which I guess means as a whole film I want to like it more than I do.

The production values for Genesis are...unfortunate. The lack of Carol is weird and having Kirk essentially redo her narration kind of hangs a lantern on it (I understand the need for the exposition, but...). To me, Robin Curtis feels like a step down from Kirstie Alley, and from what I've heard I feel Nimoy misdirected her.

The Arrival at Spacedock and Stealing the Enterprise (music and visuals) are great. I actually really love the way the film opens right onto one of the most painful sequences of Trek filmed to that point and then segues into the 'present'. The destruction of the Enterprise is visceral and painful and McCoy's words to Kirk are perfect. The Klingons are perhaps not what TOS led us to expect, but nevertheless fun villains, and I wish we'd gotten more of Maltz (an appearance in TUC would have been great). Then there's the reveal of Spock at the end, though I have to admit when I was younger I found the whole Vulcan sequence a slog.

ETA: Kirk's reaction to David's death, intentionally or otherwise, may be one of Shatner's finest moments. Him missing the chair is just perfect.

I like that stuff happens during the opening credits instead of them just being against a generic space backdrop the whole time. I mean, it's just the background changing, but still, it's a lot more dynamic than usual.

Lastly, the way this film inverts some of the themes of TWOK (a thread that will be addressed in TVH as well)...as a writer, I deeply appreciate that.

 

[grandmoffjon]

...though I have to admit when I was younger I found the whole Vulcan sequence a slog.

And a lot more was shot on Vulcan than what we saw...

 

[DonIago]

If it was stuff actually happening, I'm intrigued.

If it was more standing around while the ritual occurred, thank God they cut it.

 

[grandmoffjon]

If it was stuff actually happening, I'm intrigued.

If it was more standing around while the ritual occurred, thank God they cut it.

Before the ritual, more of the Vulcan society it seems... Scroll down to TSFS part: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Deleted_scene

 

[DonIago]

I honestly can't tell from that description whether losing the scene was a gain or loss.

 

[USS Firefly]

The scène that gets me more now that I have childeren is when Kirk hears that his son is dead and he fell before his chair.
I probably would send the others away in shuttles and ram the BOP.

 

[Damian]

Star Trek III was my first real Trek experience that I can remember, my father took me to see it at the movies.

In my case it was my grandmother. I was 10 at the time. It's an interesting memory because I saw it 2 years prior to becoming a Trekkie. Obviously being 10, and not having seen TWOK yet, I didn't get all of the film. Obviously being 35 years ago now my memory is a bit hazy but at the time I remember thinking it was an ok film.

Then there's the reveal of Spock at the end, though I have to admit when I was younger I found the whole Vulcan sequence a slog.

Yeah. I have to agree. I can watch TSFS pretty closely until they leave the Genesis planet, but then my attention starts to wan a bit. I know it's supposed to be a powerful moment, but it's just sort of meh until Spock greets his former shipmates for the last 2 or 3 minutes.

I wish we'd gotten more of Maltz

He does make a reappearance in "The Genesis Wave" novels by John Vornholt. Needless to say he's not to happy to see the Genesis technology make a comeback . And Christopher Lloyd is a great actor, in some ways I feel a bit underrated. To be able to play Doc Brown in Back to the Future, and Kruge in TSFS, two very different types of characters as well as he did, and as convincing as he did is a testament to his acting ability, I mean, among his other various roles of course.

TSFS is what I would call a good film. And obviously the perfect middle film of TWOK-TSFS-TVH trilogy. But it doesn't quite rise to the heights of some of the other Star Trek films like TWOK, TUC, First Contact or Star Trek (2009). It can bog down at a few points. That keeps it from being an 'excellent' Star Trek film IMHO. But that being said it's still a worthy Star Trek film.

 

[Tosk]

In my case it was my grandmother. I was 10 at the time.

I was nine, and remember almost nothing. But I do remember telling my friends all about it, because I used a tennis racquet as the Enterprise when describing how she went down.

I was definitely more attentive and taken by Trek by the time he took me to see Voyage Home. Then TNG started. I was 12 and it all lined up perfectly to suck me for life.

 

[Damian]

I was nine, and remember almost nothing. But I do remember telling my friends all about it, because I used a tennis racquet as the Enterprise when describing how she went down.

I was definitely more attentive and taken by Trek by the time he took me to see Voyage Home. Then TNG started. I was 12 and it all lined up perfectly to suck me for life.

The only reason I probably remember I became a Trekkie in 1986 is because I remember it was just prior to when TVH came out.

It's funny, I was just starting to watch the original series at the time and I was reading my first original Star Trek novel "Battlestations!". I remember thinking I can't wait to see that episode, as I thought the novels were actual episodes. Of course I soon found out the novels were not based on actual episodes.

 

[XCV330]

And Christopher Lloyd is a great actor, in some ways I feel a bit underrated. To be able to play Doc Brown in Back to the Future, and Kruge in TSFS, two very different types of characters as well as he did, and as convincing as he did is a testament to his acting ability, I mean, among his other various roles of course.

There's a bit of Kruge in Judge Doom, a few years later, too. Hes like a mix of Doc Brown and Kruge.

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[sbk1234]

A good film, and worthy successor to TWOK. I remember before the movie came out seeing clips of the Enterprise’s bridge blowing up and the primary hull in flames, and being in denial, thinking they could never destroy the Enterprise.

When I finally saw the film and saw that the ship was indeed destroyed I was devastated. But even then, I felt it was fitting that in the end, the only one who was truly able to destroy the Enterprise was its commanding officer, James T. Kirk.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Maybe Harve Bennett's original outline would have been the best route. The following is from memory-alpha:

According to an article on io9.com, [2] Harve Bennett's original outline for Star Trek III would have involved Romulans coming to Genesis instead of Klingons and them finding the world very rich in dilithium. The Romulans then begin to mine the planet until the miners begin being killed by a feral Spock, whose aging was still tied to the aging of the planet. At the same time, Vulcan, upon hearing of the Genesis Device, is so horrified to discover that the Federation created such a potential weapon they want to secede from the Federation. This would have sent Kirk to Vulcan, with the crew of the Enterprise, to face the angry Vulcans. The article states that Robert Meyer Burnett, CEO of the Ludovico Technique and producer of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Blu-ray DVDs, felt like this would have been a more serious, "perilous" and above all epic story than the actual produced and released film – and it would have featured a Romulan commander along the lines of the thoughtful antagonist from the original Romulan story, "Balance of Terror".

In an early draft of the script, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey was originally to be a stolen Romulan vessel (the red "feather design" of the wings' underside was designed with the original Romulan Bird-of-Prey in mind), but that detail was dropped from the final draft.

A copy of Bennett's original storyline was leaked to fans in February 1983, forcing him to rewrite the script, changing many of the film's original details and events.

I wish Bennett didn't rewrite the script because I think that was a great idea and a natural follow up to Star Trek II. I wonder how much of Kirstie Alley's character would've been involved in that script? She was such an impactful character and I was gravely disappointed by Robin Curtis's portrayal--she was a completely different character and I was glad her brief appearance in IV was just that. Expanding the Romulan characters would've been a direct connection to Kirstie Alley's Saavik and may have explored her origins a bit. This outline was a great idea; far more promising than what I saw in Star Trek III... for me, a very, very VERY disappointing follow up to the magnificent Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.