Star Trek: Start to Finish

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

I watched Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (Memory Alpha) nearly a month ago. Some of the lag time is due to life taking more time than I had, but a lot of it is due to my not having much of anything to say about this movie. I will now spend a few hundred words telling you all about it.

The Good

This movie marks the directorial debut of Leonard Nimoy, who is also the titular character of the film. Oh, and he starts out dead. That’s a promising back-story, and you can see how profoundly Nimoy makes his mark on the rest of the Trek universe in this film: his shots are beautiful, with great framing and a keen ability to draw your eye to what’s important.

The cinematography serves the universe well by showcasing the world of Star Trek, which has until now been a motley collection of ideas. Search begins where Khan left off and tries to weave the various parts together, bringing the science into the warfare and the politics into the technology. This extends especially to the Spacedock, whose very size frames the already-massive Enterprise and lets us know that we’ve seen only a sliver of what’s on offer in this little universe.

The emphasis on the Vulcan culture is well-done and well-timed; Nimoy got a lot of control over something that was very dear to him, and he uses it to make the race he exemplified fascinating and alien.

The minor characters all get to stretch their legs a bit here, too. Sulu and Uhura both get great vignettes (not, quite, whole scenes), and Rands makes an appearance for those in the know. Sarek returns and steals a few scenes from Kirk. Christopher Lloyd does a good job of being the baddie.

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The best scene in the whole of the movie is the loss of the Enterprise. She’s a member of the cast, and seeing her die is a moving sequence. Like Spock she sacrifices herself for her friends, and she gets as much effects on her as he did for his death scene. The shot of all of them standing on the mountaintop watching her burn up in the atmosphere is perfect, and the dialog is just right:

Kirk: My God, Bones. What have I done?
Bones: What you had to do. What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live.

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The Bad

The plot feels contrived from beginning to end. Spock is dead, but the title tells you there’s a search for him. So he’s coming back. Then there’s a whole movie where they kind of stumble around while you don’t get to see Kirk and Spock interact, except in weird sequences where Bones is doing a (well-acted!) Spock impression off-camera. And since Bones is busy being Spock, he doesn’t get a chance to be Bones as much as he should (the above-mentioned scene being a notable exception).

Meanwhile, you have a split camera movie where David and a recast Saavik are wandering around searching for “Spock” and finding other actors who don’t play the roll well because it’s written in a way that all the Spock-like things about Spock aren’t present. So two characters you don’t really care about find a character you want to care about but he’s not actually the guy you care about. Great!

But don’t worry; Kirk and the crew are stealing the Enterprise (you can run that thing with four guys, you know) and flying back to the Genesis Planet because… why, exactly? They need Spock’s body or something? It turns out they do, but it’s not clear why they know that beforehand.

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And then when the big turning point of everything comes and the Klingons go ahead and kill David, you get a brief moment where the two stories collide and Kirk does all the acting work (with, I must say, more subtlety than I thought he could manage). This is a big plot point, but David’s newness still made him feel expendible to me: it wasn’t an unexpected loss or an uncoverable blow. The impact could have been bigger had the character gotten to play onscreen for a while longer.

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And the whole atomic-bomb überweapon thing seemed avante-guard then, but it just seems tired now. This debate has played out in better movies and didn’t need to be the plot of a Trek movie, since it’s already been covered a few times in episodes.

And where the hell did Carol go?

Best Dialog

Bones: That green blooded son of a butch. It’s his revenge for all those arguments he lost.

Kruge: No.
Kirk: Why?
Kurge: Because you wish it!

Bones: I choose the danger.

Grade

C; I’d watch it again just because it was such a pretty movie to watch, but there’s nothing to make me recommend it to anyone who doesn’t already like Trek.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is too many things at once.

It is, first and foremost, a return. It brings back the Star Trek universe after a decade off the air, and the requisite pomp and circumstance for the occasion is all over the film. It drips with the excitement of the people who got to make this thing and celebrate together their love of the material. It is, through and through, a victory lap for the show and the cast.

It is also, sadly, not enough of a film. It is so tied to the series that its 132 minutes feels padded by long, silent special effects scenes where you can’t help but think that the writers were so used to pacing a one-hour show that they simply spliced in long pans to make up the difference.

This turns out to be a remarkably correct assumption. The script for STTMP was originally the pilot for Star Trek: Phase II, a planned reboot of the series with a few new characters. The pilot got slurped into this movie, and a lot of the leftover ideas (and even some of the used ones) got slurped into Star Trek: The Next Generation. Late delivery of the effects shots meant that they were edited in at the last moment, and the director was never quite happy with it (he released a Director’s Edition in 2001).

But enough behind-the-scenes; lets jump in front of the camera.

Design

This film had a ridiculously high budget, and it used it to great effect. Gone are the days of shaking walls, reused props, terrible wigs, and repeated effects shots. The model work in this film is great, and really makes the ships look great. The more cinematic lighting gives the inside of the Enterprise a darker, moodier feel that plays well with the feel of the plot, and the greater number of extras makes the ship seem more alive.

It’s also very obvious that this movie is where TNG got a lot of its design ideas. It’s a little odd that they aped this design instead of the original series design, but the classic look was likely too dated-feeling, and they needed to show a future that looked different than the one the audience had been seeing on reruns for thirteen years. That Paramount obtained design patents to protect these designs (and the Original Series would be out of a similar protective window) was likely a contributing factor as well.

But let’s note a few missteps, here. The costuming is odd in the way you expect late-seventies costuming to be odd. The sleeves are too short, the lines are all angled wrong, and there is just a little too much pad in those shoulders. Scotty inexplicably wears a stormtrooper bodysuit for most of the movie. The hairstyles look odd simply because I’ve grown accustomed to the ones these characters wore throughout the 60s. I should say something about McCoy’s ridiculous beard but instead I’ll focus on his ridiculous necklace and medallion. I will skip over the rainbows that fly out when the Enterprise warps because I’m pretending they never happened.

Lastly, it’s a shock to see what a decade did to some of these actors. I’m coming at this with a few weeks between the last TOS episode and the movie, so the effect is more pronounced, but Nimoy and Kelley look plain old in this film.

Plot

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There is a giant cloud coming at Earth that kills three Klingon birds of prey, mostly so that we can see the new design for the Klingons. Kirk gets the band back together and goes to stop it. It turns out to be a probe Earth sent out long ago that has reached sentience and returned home. That sounds familiar.

Joking aside, this is a fine plot that gives us an excuse for the old crew to jump back together and save the world. It puts huge stakes up to make this a bigger, more epic adventure than any episode could contain.

The best trick this setup gives, though, is that it presents a conflict that can be resolved in a very classic-Trek way. V’ger is too huge to fight, so no one even talks about fighting it. Instead, Kirk guides the crew closer and closer and they attempt to reason out what the heck V’ger is and what it wants, and then they solve the problem at hand by applying understanding and humanity. Written out like that it seems fluffy and silly and incredibly lame, but in the context of the movie it works. Also, I’m happy that Kirk doesn’t talk the computer into a logical loop.

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The plot I have just described is the main plot. There are several fragments of other plots that at one time or another tried to rule some version of the script and were jettisoned. Kirk is trying to get back into the action, but we’re never given any reason why he was taken out of it or left to wonder if he should stay out. Spock is given a destiny and Kirk wonders if he can trust his old friend, but we never see anything that would cause us to doubt. McCoy is brought back from retirement because Kirk “needs” him, and then he is entirely unused throughout the movie, neglecting to even fulfill his role as Cynic in Chief or Head Snark. Decker and Ilia have a love plot going, which would be interesting if it involved any character we cared about.

And let’s wonder aloud for a moment why no one has had a promotion. Kirk got an Admiralty he didn’t want but Chekov is still at the conn? Sulu is still next to him? To show that they’re getting with the times, the women seem to have gotten ahead: Rand is back with a new, more technical but still non-commissioned job, and Nurse Chapel is Doctor Chapel now. Uhura gets passed over, though.

Even within the main plot’s arc we see the old weaknesses and tropes peek through: the Pretty Young Thing™ is taken by the alien force (in a scene far too long for it’s own good, which in an episode would be a two second “boing!”); the ship computer (voiced by some guy who is not Majel Barret!) speaks at random times to signal exposition; a wormhole appears, isn’t explained, is dealt with quickly, and is never mentioned again; the consistency of what Spock can do telepathically is once again stretched past the breaking point.

But the main problem is that the core plot is too small, and the leftover remains of old plots makes poor filling, unable to bring the movie together into a coherent whole.

They also completely forgot to bring the funny. Between the long 2001-esque space scenes and the nearly complete lack of McCoy being McCoy, this movie fails to bring the charm and humor that makes Star Trek so easy to like, that makes the future seem like a place full of people you’d want to hang out with and have adventures with. The fractured storyline would be a lot easier to ignore if the ride was more entertaining.

Grade

C; there’s nothing amazing going on here aside from the fact that the movie got made at all. It falls all over itself trying to do too much while not managing to fill the time it’s given. But it’s the bridge that connects TOS with the rest of the canon; it proved there was still life left in this idea, and for that it deserves some thanks.

The Cloud Minders

The Cloud Minders (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) brings us to Ardana, the only known source of zenite, needed to stop an agricultural plague. But when they get there, the crew is attacked by the miners!

The local government (played very well) is hush-hush about why the miners are upset, and try to play it off as a simple uprising. But it soon becomes evident (in multiple ways, including a terrible voice over by Spock) that Ardana is a bifurcated society with the workers oppressed by an upper class who literally lives in the clouds.

There’s a lot of great stuff in this episode. There’s prejudice and class, torture and diplomacy, intrigue and technobabble. There’s even a teleporter that uses a new special effect for no apparent reason.

But in the end it’s weak tea. The problem isn’t prejudice; it’s this magic gas that McCoy finds easily but has gone undiscovered forever. The ruling class really is smarter and really is right to rule; the working class really is dumber and are doomed to just go on working the mines, but now with gas masks. And neither side learns a lesson about anything; they aren’t even sure they believe in the gas, let alone their mistaken assumptions about each other. In short, this episode tries to say lots of big important things and gets in its own way while making it a sci-fi.

Grade

C

That Which Survives

That Which Survives (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) is the episode where Mr. Spock is as annoying as he actually would be if you knew him, and you want to punch him in the face. Sadly, no one in this episode does so.

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There is, though, a holographic woman who kills by touch, an artificial planet, a black second-in-command in sickbay and a woman helmsman. There’s the continued confusion over how fast the Enterprise can go before it blows up, and a not-terrible plot. But mostly this episode is completely forgettable.

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Best Dialog

Spock: “Can you give me Warp 8?”
Scotty: “Aye, sir. And maybe a wee bit more. I’ll sit on top of the warp cores meself and nurse them.”
Spock: “That position would not only be unavailing; it would also be undignified.”

Grade

C

The Gamesters of Triskelion

The Gamesters of Triskelion (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is another episode where the crew gets kidnapped and must escape their cage.

It all starts with the familiar BOING of alien transporters in action.

Then Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are surrounded by four warriors.

Naturally, Kirk and Chekov take one guy each, leaving Uhura to take the two pike-weilding women.

Once subdued, the crew learns their fate: they are to stay here and fight for the amusement of the Providers, who will bet quatloos on the outcomes.

Yes, quatloos!

Kirk does his normal people-want-to-be-free schtick, kisses a girl, and ends up in a fight against three warriors with the fate of the whole crew hanging in the balance.

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Kirk wins.

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There are a few things interesting about this episode. The relationship between Kirk and Shahna is the primary one. Kirk, pulling his freedom-is-great move, tries to convince her to help foment rebellion, or at least give him enough information that he can do so. She just doesn’t understand. She knows the fighting culture and nothing else; in a very real way, she’s like a child who has no understanding of the world outside the screwed up game she lives in. So what does Kirk do? He convinces her that she should love him.

That’s pretty close to abuse, I think. Here’s an innocent with no understanding of the consequences of her actions (because she has no agency; they aren’t really her actions), and no understanding that actions have consequences. And Kirk plays with her trust.

Can we talk about slavery?

The other interesting bit is the very obvious parallel with slavery here, and the complete lack of engagement this episode has with the topic. In a lot of episodes the crew is enslaved in some way, but there has yet to be a case where narrative is more than just “let’s get free because we like freedom.” Slavery in Star Trek is a short-term annoyance overcome by clever talk, and the only impact it has is to mess up those other people who’ve been denied the sweet nectar of freedom. The slavers are never dealt with. The corruption of that power structure is assumed but never examined. The long-term after effects are never even thought about. For an issue that we return to so often, how do we avoid talking about it so much?

Grade

C; mostly for the saccharine sweet ending, and the treacly lead up to it