Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
A dying planet. A fight for life. The search for Spock.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Production
Budget
$18 000 000
Revenue
$87 000 000
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Actors
William Shatner
Admiral James T. Kirk
DeForest Kelley
Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy
James Doohan
Captain Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott
George Takei
Cmdr. Hikaru Sulu
Walter Koenig
Cmdr. Pavel Chekov
Nichelle Nichols
Cmdr. Uhura
Christopher Lloyd
Cmdr. Kruge
Robin Curtis
Lt. Saavik
Short description
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock continues the story begun in the previous film. After Spock's death, Kirk and his crew are grieving, and Dr. McCoy begins behaving strangely, as though he were someone else entirely. A visit from Spock's father, Sarek, reveals that Spock placed his spirit in McCoy's mind before dying, and that Spock's body may not be beyond recovery. Kirk resolves to help his friends even if it means stealing the Enterprise, now marked for decommissioning, and violating a quarantine on the Genesis Planet, where a science expedition led by Kirk's son David is at work. A Klingon commander named Kruge also learns of Genesis and sets course for the planet, hoping to claim its power.
Leonard Nimoy directed the film, the first of four features he made, followed by Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 3 Men and a Baby and Holy Matrimony. Harve Bennett wrote and produced. William Shatner leads a cast that includes DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols, with thirty credited cast members and fifty credited crew.
Produced by Paramount on a reported budget of eighteen million dollars, the film earned about eighty-seven million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6.4 rating from 51 critics' reviews, while on TMDB its audience score is 6.6 from 1,587 votes, a narrow gap between the two.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, it was supposed that “a href="/film/6583/" class="all">Star
- Each evening after filming, Robin Curtis treated her ears with antibiotics to prevent skin problems caused by the adhesive used to attach the ear appliances that made her ears pointed.
- When the crew of the Enterprise is standing on the cliff and supposedly watching the burning hull of the starship, they were actually looking at a tennis ball attached to a microphone on a boom. The shot had to be reshot repeatedly because not all the actors were looking at the ball at the same time; one would look, then another would get distracted.
- The bridge set of the Klingon battlecruiser was originally built for another science fiction film that was started but never completed. For reasons of economy – both time and finances – it was decided to borrow the set.
- The Klingon warships owe their appearance to director Leonard Nimoy. During a meeting with specialists from Industrial Light & Magic (a company that creates visual effects for cinema, founded by George Lucas in 1975), Nimoy depicted the wings of the starships with his hands, and that’s how they were ultimately made.
- The film features many phrases in Klingon, so it was decided to turn to Marc Okrand (a linguist known for creating languages for alien civilizations in American cinema). He based the words and sounds on some slightly modified Klingon phrases from Robert Wise's (1914-2005) science fiction film “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979), which had originally been created by James Doohan (1920-2005). He used grammatical rules that are rarely found in human languages, to make Klingon sound as alien as possible. During filming, Okrand had to change the grammatical rules and vocabulary of Klingon several times when actors mispronounced their lines, because changing the rules was – or seemed – easier than reshooting the scene, or because the mispronounced line sounded better to the ear.
- The creator of the "Star Trek" franchise, Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), was not allowed on the set by Paramount Studios because he continued to attempt to interfere with the filming process during the previous two films.
- Leonard Nimoy wanted to cast Christopher Lloyd in the role of the villain, but Paramount Studios objected, stating that Lloyd was simply a television actor who the public would not accept on the big screen. Nimoy himself disliked when actors were cast based on type, and he was determined to cast Lloyd, which he eventually succeeded in doing. Up to that point, Lloyd's most famous role was in the sitcom "Taxi" (1978-1983), where his character was, incidentally, a big fan of the "Star Trek" franchise.
- During filming, Judith Anderson (1897-1992), who played the High Priestess of Vulcan, was 87 years old. She hadn't appeared in a film for 14 years. This film marked her last on-screen appearance (two years later, she participated in the voice acting of one project, but did not appear on screen).
- A fire broke out at Paramount Studios during the filming. William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk, provided active assistance in extinguishing it, even saving one of the film's crew members before the firefighters arrived. According to Shatner himself, he performed all these heroic deeds only to prevent the filming schedule from being severely disrupted, as he himself needed to hurry to avoid being late for filming the next season of the series “T.J. Hooker” (1982-1986).
- In early script drafts, the starship’s destruction concluded with the destruction of its engines, resulting in a massive explosion of matter and antimatter visible even from the planet’s surface. Producer Harvey Bennett (1930-2015) preferred to show an explosion of the ship’s primary hull, with the secondary hull disintegrating in the planet’s atmosphere, reasoning that an antimatter explosion would have destroyed the Klingon ship as well. However, during work on these shots, due to an oversight by Industrial Light & Magic, they created the scene as it was written in the script, not as Bennett had intended. Bennett considered leaving it as is, but ultimately requested the scene be redone according to his wishes, stating that otherwise the subsequent scene would too closely resemble the finale of Lucas’s science fiction film “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi” (1983). They saved money by using footage already shot up to the explosion of the primary hull, and only reshot the remainder.
- Leonard Nimoy requested that his name not be listed in the credits for his role as Spock. He is credited only as the director.
- Initially, the Romulans were supposed to be the main villains, but the studio management decided to replace them with the Klingons, believing that Klingons were better known to the franchise’s fans as the Federation’s eternal enemies. By the time this decision was made, a mock-up of a Romulan warship had already been created, and management naturally did not want to spend money on creating another model. A solution was found. In the original “Star Trek” series (1966-1969), it was stated that Romulans and Klingons had the same technologies and spacecraft in the past (for the same economic and financial reasons that hold true even outside the "Star Trek" universe), which explained the presence of identical spacecraft for both civilizations.
- During the contract negotiations with Kirstie Alley for filming in Nicholas Meyer's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982), Paramount Studios did not discuss with the actress, nor include in the contract, any details or clauses regarding potential sequels. According to director Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015), this gave the actress the opportunity to negotiate a new contract – already for filming this movie – and to make exorbitant financial demands, which ultimately led to her replacement in the role of Saavik with Robin Curtis.
- The model of the Starfleet Federation space dock was approximately two meters long. To show light through the numerous portholes, the model was made of acrylic, and several neon lights were placed inside. The model was then painted on the outside, and tiny holes were scratched into the paint, allowing the light to pass through. A larger model, over 3.5 meters wide, with opening and closing airlock doors controlled remotely, was also built for close-up shots.
- To avoid leaks, the name “Spock” was not used in the script; instead, the name “Nakluv” was used, which is “Vulcan” spelled backwards.
- When Admiral Kirk drinks with the officers, he raises a toast “To absent friends.” In the Royal Navy, toasts were made by the duty officers, and the toasts themselves were scheduled by day of the week. “To absent friends” was toasted on Sundays. The daily toast was usually given by the junior officer present, not the senior, and sometimes the officer to give the toast was simply chosen at random, as long as they knew which toast to make on that particular day.
- Leonard Nimoy voiced the elevator. And producer Harvey Bennett – one of the computers.
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