Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock (2 disk)
Limping home from the near fatal encounter with Khan Singh in Wrath of Khan, Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise return to Earth only to find that they had failed to follow Vulcan tradition and bring his body back to be laid to rest on Vulcan...
Limping home from the near fatal encounter with Khan Singh in Wrath of Khan, Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise return to Earth only to find that they had failed to follow Vulcan tradition and bring his body back to be laid to rest on Vulcan. Despite refusal by Star Fleet, Kirk and the crew hijack the mothballed Enterprise and head back to the Genesis Planet. Unknown to them, the Klingons have taken an interest in Star Fleet’s new weapon, and are determined to learn the secret at any cost.
This movie has many of the ingredients of a successful blockbuster – action, some great characters, and good special effects. For the most part it’s an enjoyable addition to the Star Trek franchise, but there’s something about it that really bugs me, that it’s Star Trek on autopilot. That is, after the majesty of Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock seems kind of soulless – all the characters are there and the space battle is excellent, but it just seems like very little really happens – few twists and very little suspense. Special effects and visuals are top notch, and the action scenes are well choreographed, but the crew never seem to be in jeopardy and that “happily ever after” always seems just around the corner. It’s an entertaining popcorn movie and for fans of the series it introduced new aspects to the universe, but having not seen it for a while the film lacks imagination and smacks very much of the cash cow the studio must have seen it to be. The high point is the excellent performance from Back to the Futures Christopher Lloyd as Kang the Klingon Captain. He appears to be a genuinely good opponent for Kirk, and it’s a pity that this wasn’t played out more in the movie.
That said, Paramount have done fans proud by producing a packed DVD package for this special edition. On Disk 1 Two commentaries are presented. Firstly an audio commentary with Nimoy, producer Harve Bennett and actress Robin Curtis. Nimoy’s comments on his first movie are intriguing as he looks back on his first time in the director’s chair. He gets very excited about the movie, and provides a more animated commentary than I expected. Bennett and Curtis, whose commentaries are spliced in to Nimoy’s gaps are generally interesting, recounting their experiences in the production and the Star Trek universe. The second commentary is another text commentary from Star Trek loon Michael Okuda. What this guy doesn’t know about Star Trek probably isn’t worth knowing. I like text commentaries as they don’t detract from the movie, and Okuda’s is very interesting and funny in places, although it does include some rather unfortunate comments on the Space Shuttle Columbia (commentary was produced before the disaster).
The transfer is colourful enough but grainy at times and suffers from specks. This appears to be the same transfer used in the previous single disk release, which is a pity. Soundtrack, in dolby digital 5.1 is active and well balanced, showing off the sound effects and the orchestral score. Added to some very cool animated menu it’s a good disk.
Disk 2 is packed with extras. Captain’s log looks back at the history of the production with interviews from Nimoy, Shatner, Chrisopher Lloyd and a number of production staff. It documents production well, with some good behind the scenes footage and stills, and is funny in parts, with Shatner taking every opportunity to upstage Nimoy or criticise his movie. Space Docks and Birds of Prey examines the creation of the new models for the movie, and shows the effort that was put in to them. Costumes looks at production for the alien costumes in the movie. However after this, things start to go astray. Speaking Klingon is presented by Michael Okrand, the linguist with so much spare time he created the Klingon language (did you know you can get Shakespeare in Klingon). To be honest this guy needs to get out more with the scientists interviewed in Terraforming and the Prime Directive, which takes the loose idea of the point of the Genesis project and talks about it’s application in reality. Some may disagree but this has all the feel of padding to me and is no substitute for decent content on the movie. Storyboards and trailers redeem the second disk somewhat but you do get the feeling that Paramount, having committed to producing a set of 2 disk collector’s edition DVDs for the fans are running out of ideas. At this rate I should get interviewed for the extras disk on Generations!
So there you have it, 3 titles in to the collector’s edition Star Trek series and there’s some good points and bad points. Worth having for the commentaries and the making of documentary, but Paramount need to keep the content relevant and get some therapy for people who spend their time inventing alien languages. Qapla!
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