Star Trek III: The Search for Spock | 
| Director: Leonard Nimoy
Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei
Studio: Paramount
Buy New: $2.99
Rating:  178 reviews
Sales Rank: 8497
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 106 Minutes
ASIN: B000I3W1XS
Theatrical Release Date: May 31, 1984
Release Date: October 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Synopsis:
With most of the Enterprise's battle damage repaired after defeating Khan, the ship's crew returns home to bad news from Starfleet Commander Morrow: the Enterprise is to be decommissioned. Even worse, Dr. McCoy begins acting bizarrely. A visit to Kirk from Sarek, Spock's father & the Vulcan ambassador, reveals that McCoy is carrying Spock's Kattra, or living spirit. Immediately, Kirk meets with Admiral Morrow to plead for permission to return to Genesis and rescue Spock. When permission is denied, Kirk & his crew steal the Enterprise and head for Genesis by now a quarantined planet. Unknown to them, the Klingons, led by the psychopathic Commander Kruge, are planning to steal the secrets of Genesis for their own twisted purpose. The Enterprise is crippled in a fight with the Klingon ship, and worse, the Klingons murder Kirk's son, who was among the science team that rescued Spock. Kirk eliminates the remaining Klingons by tricking them aboard the Enterprise and then blowing it up with the auto-destruct, then steals the Klingon Bird of Prey and heads for Vulcan for a ceremony to fuse Spock's body and Kattra. |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 173 more reviews...
 A great continuation September 3, 2002
K. Wyatt (St. Louis, MO United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Star Trek III The Search for Spock is a wonderful, middle movie to the more or less trilogy of II, III and IV. I was a little disappointed that Kirstie Allie couldn't pick up where she left off in the role of Saavik. Robin Curtis does do a very good job though. Christopher Lloyds Klingon Commander is absolutely Klingon through and through. All of the original cast members are true to their characters. Overall, Star Trek III is not the best of the original six, but it's most certainly not the worst either. A wonderful story that, like all the rest, I've watched more times than I can remember.
underrated meditation on the nature of friendship April 3, 2000
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Don't be fooled by some of the negative reviews here. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a thoughtful meditation on the nature of friendship. I admire its careful attention to developing a classical story arc in which Kirk is driven by concern for his friends (Spock and McCoy) and by outer events (a feckless Federation bureaucracy) to steal the Enterprise and outwit and outrun enemies on all sides. Indeed, the film's first act is a gem: a model of balanced writing in its build-up to Kirk's inexorable conclusion that he must steal the Enterprise to save his friends. Among the priceless scenes in that first half-hour: A visit by Spock's father to Kirk's San Francisco pad in which, during a "mind meld" between them, successive shots end with a quiet, touching close-up of Kirk's eye as he relives Spock's "death" in the previous film; Scottie's hilarious asides toward a pompous captain played deftly by character actor James Sikking; and Kirk being told by a superior officer that under no conditions can he undertake a mission to save his friends as the camera tracks in on him, staring off in the middle distance, his inevitable insubordination written on his face. Good stuff. Even better is the focus (singularly among the Star Trek movies, which usually concern the Enterprise crew saving the Earth or the universe) on Kirk's mission to save his friends and the sacrifices he makes in the process. I can tell you (if you haven't seen the film) that these sacrifices are significant, in once case touchingly sad and in another spectacular. Other reasons to see Star Trek III: It contains a terrific, humorous, self-consciously strapping but still tough villain played by Christopher Lloyd; a really good, early James Horner (of Titanic fame) score; elegant special effects (including the real-time destruction of a planet tearing itself apart that holds up well); William Shatner's best performance ever (be honest -- he does a nice, even subtle job in this film as a soulful, resourceful, and self-sacrificing Kirk -- indeed, the Kirk character has never been more appealing); an apropos climax that, unique to the science fiction genre, is understated and gentle and moving; a swift pace; deft direction from Leonard Nimoy; genuine surprises that, when I first saw the film, I could not believe were happening (including a clever and powerful one involving the Enterprise itself); and a mythic elementalism in which the battle-scarred Enterprise crew seems straight out of Homer and Kirk makes a forceful stand-in for Odysseus. This film deserves a reappraisal from Trekkers, but more importantly, from the general public. Nicely done.
A difficult film to make, and Nimoy and Shatner did it. April 1, 2006
Mr. Eddie (New York, NY)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Star trek III is widely considered to be an infinitely inferior sequel to The Wrath of Khan, yet is in fact a more complex film and has a much more difficult task set in front of it. Although not perfect, it is an engaging story filled with a number of excellent reversals and has some of Shatner's best acting.
Montalban is the absolute driving force in Star Trek II and much of that film relies on this fact. Christopher Lloyd does a fine job as a merciless Klingon, yet it is up to Shatner to carry this film. And he does an great job. His stealing of the Enterprise gives Kirk back the initiative in the entire series, and is one of the all-time great moments for the original cast. Why this sequence, and so many others, is not given more credit is beyond me. One gripe: As usual, Kirk gets a LOT of screen time, cut-aways shots etc. at the expense of the other cast members.
Mired in some necessary exposition, The Search for Spock effectively navigates its way through Klingons, Vulcans, the tragic genesis project, Starfleet regulations... no easy task. The finale is lovingly presented, and tests the depths of not only the crews's emotions but that of the audience and fans. Nimoy did a fine job with this film, and it led the way to the unprecedented Star Trek IV.
 Why not some extras Paramount? March 31, 2000
N. Stock (Australia)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have around 60 DVD's and I am a Star Trek fan but I will NOT buy any Star Trek DVD's until Paramount starts providing extras as other studios do.What about some 20 minute documentaries(you do have them as I have seen them),some interviews,directors comentary,20 minute special effects documentaries(Paramount has them too)?Not good enough Paramount.You make a lot of money out of ST fans but you give very little in return.
Spock Returns in Third Trek Film June 12, 2003
Alex Diaz-Granados (Miami, FL United States)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
After the success of Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it soon became apparent that the Trek franchise could continue, with or without Spock. Despite rumors to the contrary, Leonard Nimoy had never stipulated in his contract for Star Trek II that Spock be killed off. According to Nimoy (as revealed in a "the making of" featurette), the actor really did think that the second film would be the finale of the Star Trek movies, so why not have Spock go out in a blaze of glory?However, even before production ended on The Wrath of Khan, Nimoy and producer Harve Bennett decided that "there were always possibilities" for the future, both for the franchise and Spock. Thus it came to pass that Star Trek III: The Search for Spock had its, pun intended, genesis. With a subtle scene here and a more upbeat ending there, several plot strands were left unresolved....what did Spock mean when he gave Dr. McCoy a mind meld with the word "Remember?" Why was he left on the Genesis Planet? Those two scenes, coupled with Nimoy reciting "Space: The Final Frontier" at the end of the second movie practically screamed "Sequel Ahead!" As it happened, Star Trek III would also mark Nimoy's feature-film directorial debut. Although he was given a modest budget - which does, unfortunately, become obvious in many scenes - Nimoy fared fairly well his first time out as a director. As in the movie that follows (The Voyage Home), Bennett and Nimoy give us a mix of adventure, suspense and even moments of comedy in the continuation of a three-movie story arc. The setup is simple. After the events depicted in Star Trek II, the USS Enterprise has been ordered back to Earth. Spock is dead, the Enterprise's trainee crew has been reassigned, and Starfleet has quarantined the Genesis planet. Only a science vessel, USS Grissom, has been assigned to survey the forbidden world. Little does the Federation know, however, that the Klingons have found out about the Genesis device. Fearing that the Federation has plans to destroy the Klingon Empire, Commander Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) is determined to obtain its secrets. At the same time, upon his return to Earth Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) discovers that Spock has somehow placed his "katra" in Dr. McCoy's (the late DeForest Kelley) body. Kirk is urged by Sarek, Spock's father (the late Mark Lenard) to retrieve Spock's remains from the Genesis planet. After that, Kirk is to go to Vulcan with McCoy and Spock's body, where both of his friends will "find peace." When Kirk requests permission to take the soon-to-be retired Enterprise back to Genesis to retrieve Spock's body, Starfleet Command refuses, saying that the science ship (where Lt. Saavik and Kirk's son David Marcus are now serving) is the only ship allowed by the Federation to investigate. As usual, Kirk takes matters into his own hands and, assembling most of his bridge crew, steals the Enterprise and warps off to Genesis, setting up a sequence of events that Kirk will find to be more costly than he bargained for. The Collector's Edition DVD set, unlike the previous two Director's Editions, has no added scenes or director's cut version. The theatrical version of the film (with a running time shy of two hours) is featured here with director's audio commentary by Nimoy and text commentary by Michael Okuda. The movie will delight some Trek fans, satisfy most fans, and disappoint others. (This being an odd-numbered film, it seems to prove the theory that even numbered Treks are great, while odd-numbered ones are either just okay or just plain bad!) The extra features disc includes the usual mix of "making of" documentaries, interviews, and the theatrical trailer (which, unfortunately, gave away a crucial plot device).
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