Among the Star Trek faithful, and even casual movie fans, it’s well known that the even-numbered Star Trek movies — II, IV, VI, and VIII (First Contact) — are the “good” ones, the one exception being X, Nemesis, which (some would say, mercifully) ended big screen Trek until JJ Abrams’ 2009 “Kelvin” timeline reboot.
But there’s another exception among the odd-numbered “bad” Trek films that’s a bit underrated, and that’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. While not as inspired as The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, or (my favorite) The Undiscovered Country, the movie still holds up pretty well in terms of story and visual effects. It also remains one of the most emotional and important Trek stories, a fan love-in for characters (and actors) who were already aging 40 years ago when the film premiered in the summer of 1984.
Star Trek III leans heavily on Wrath of Khan (that’s a good thing)
Grossing $76 million in domestic box office, Star Trek III was a solid, though not spectacular, hit for Paramount.(In contrast, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home made $110 million 2 years later.) That may have been because the movie leans a bit heavily on The Wrath of Khan (WOK) for its story, rather than spinning a fresh tale, as Wrath of Khan did following The Motion Picture.
After the mixed success of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (it made money but was not beloved by fans or critics), Paramount enlisted a new creative team of writer/producer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer for Wrath of Khan. The pair responded with no less than an instant classic, a film that fans felt hewed much closer to the essence of Star Trek.
It made sense that executives would be tentative about departing from the formula. As such, Star Trek III is a direct sequel, literally starting with footage from the previous entry of Spock (Leonard Nimoy, who also directed) dying and his body being delivered to the newly-formed Genesis planet via torpedo. Yes, it reminds viewers of plot points they need to remember, but it also serves to evoke all the feels from that film to prime the audience for a similar emotional journey — one that similarly dramatizes big themes of friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, and regret.
As in Wrath of Khan, the villains — Klingons this time — are still after the Genesis device for its potential destructive power. And there is another big showdown between the Enterprise and an enemy ship in which a disadvantaged Kirk prevails through superior gamesmanship (common in the TV show as well).
Underscoring everything — literally — is James Horner’s lush orchestral music from Wrath of Khan, minus Khan’s themes, of course. In this case, nothing new was needed. Horner’s Star Trek music remains as stirring as anything John Williams ever wrote for Lucas or Spielberg.
The plot centers on the efforts of Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) and the officers of the USS Enterprise to reunite Spock’s body — left behind on Genesis — with his “katra,” or soul, which Spock transferred to Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) before he died. Spock’s body, meanwhile, has been regenerated by the new in-flux Genesis into a Vulcan boy who is now growing in tandem with the rapidly aging and deteriorating planet.
The writers don’t even bother inventing plausible-sounding sci-fi gobbledygook for this. They know viewers won’t care if it means Spock will return. They just have Kirk’s scientist son, David Marcus (Merritt Butrick), confess to using unstable protomatter in the Genesis “matrix,” and then have him pay the price for his hubris at the business end of a gnarly-looking Klingon knife.
David’s murder leads to a touching bit of acting by Shatner, evoking yet another Wrath of Khan moment — Kirk’s reaction to Spock dying — and again, the actor skillfully evokes raw grief. Butrick died in 1989 of complications from AIDS, making his character’s death feel even more resonant in the years since.
There are a surprising number of fun moments
Nimoy does nice work directing the actors, with whom he shared so many scenes over the years. Kelley has the trickiest role. In the absence of Spock, he essentially plays both McCoy and Spock. When McCoy discovers Spock’s mind meld is the reason he’s been channelling his old shipmate, he delivers one of the movie’s best fan-service lines: “That green-blooded son of a b*tch. It’s his revenge for all those arguments he lost.”
Nimoy also gives George Takei, Walter Koenig, James Doohan, and Nichelle Nichols (as Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura, respectively) generous closeups and entertaining moments. Nichols gets to show off her comic timing, not something she got a chance to do in the ’60s series. Doohan meanwhile gets to grouse hilariously about the new starship, Excelsior, that is primed to put the Enterprise out of business.
The movie is still visually impressive
Not every visual effect stands up — that was true at the time — but Star Trek III still features plenty of dazzling shots. Part of that has to do with the producers bringing back ILM, George Lucas’ special effects house, which had done such great VFX work on Wrath of Khan. The space battles and chases, especially the destruction of the Enterprise, are still exciting and convincing today as they were back then.
Adding an actual Starfleet Command station orbiting Earth (rather than just the big space garage from the first two movies) was an inspired choice as well. There’s an impressive moment when the Enterprise arrives from its traumatic encounter with Khan, and some restaurant patrons gasp in shock at the battle damage through bay windows. Not only is this a great trick of scale — achieved with optical effects and models before the widespread use of CGI — but it’s a great idea for a shot, making the Trek world feel more connected and lived-in.
Nimoy shows off his gift for mise-en-scène elsewhere in the film as well. Another of the movie’s best shots has the crew staring in shock at the exploding Enterprise as it hurtles into the Genesis atmosphere like a shooting star. And he stages scenes on the bridge like stark theater, the faces of the characters thrust into harsh spotlight or fading into smoky darkness.
The Search for Spock introduced lasting Star Trek lore
Though Star Trek III isn’t considered by fans as one of the more influential entries, the movie did introduce a number of canonical franchise elements. First and foremost, it debuted the Klingon Bird of Prey ship, with its ability to “cloak,” or render itself invisible, to enemies. The sleek Bird of Prey ship found its way into a lot more Star Trek over the years, and here Nimoy and company get full use out of by making it able to fly in-atmosphere. This leads to some gorgeous shots late in the movie as it swoops through Vulcan canyons at dusk.
The Klingons themselves evolved here into the style of character they have more or less resembled for the last four decades (save for their radical redesign in Discovery). They wear costumes familiar from the first film, but in that movie they appear like Wolfmen from an old Universal picture. Their faces hardly movie under all the hair and latex.
But after the impact of Ricardo Montalban as the bloodthirsty Khan, the producers needed someone that could at least approach that level of diabolical charisma. Enter Christopher Lloyd — who had recently won Emmy awards for his role of “Reverend” Jim on Taxi — to play Klingon Commander Kruge with the requisite savagery but also a wry irony. It’s an effective performance, though watching the film in the wake of Back to the Future, which came out a year later, it’s impossible not to hear Lloyd’s famous Doc Brown character whenever Kruge speaks.
The film showed audiences more Vulcan mythology
Possibly to make up for the absence of Spock himself, The Search for Spock also goes all in on the Vulcan lore and design. It introduces the concepts of fal-tor-pan, that allows for Spock’s mind and body to be refused; and returns the Vulcan mating ritual pon farr, first presented in TOS. In Star Trek III, Saavik engages in pon farr with a teenage Spock to help cool “the burning of his Vulcan blood.”
The scene feels out of place in the sexless sci-fi of the 1980s, but it does echo the original show, which became famous for its libidinous characters and suggestive situations. Though Trek writers confirmed that Saavik became pregnant after the encounter, that story never made it on screen, and the only mating in Star Trek IV is between humpback whales.
The movie also builds out the design of the planet Vulcan with its grand ceremonies and elaborate costumes, all of which would continue to appear throughout Trek. This is seen most recently in Strange New Worlds, which, among other things, makes Spock’s betrothed, T’Pring, a more central (and sympathetic) character than she was on the show.
Finally, Mark Lenard, who had briefly played Sarek in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (and a Romulan commander in the ’60s show), centers the film with a sense of gravity and makes the spiritual stakes of saving Spock’s eternal soul feel urgent and necessary.
The Search for Spock holds a place in the “good” Trek pantheon primarily because it understands its beloved characters inside out. It earns affection by having them pledge their devotion to one another, then make good on it through action and sacrifice.
The Enterprise crew is one of pop culture’s original “found families,” and this movie leans into that dynamic with sincerity, even sentimentality. It suggests you can find a warm center to the galaxy if you keep searching, which Trekkers have been more than happy to keep doing ever since.
You can watch all the Star Trek movies and shows on Paramount+.
