Star Trek III.

And so on….

I actually don’t mind this film that much. Granted, the science and logic in most of it is absolute toffee, but seeing as I laughed at both at the jokes and the special effects, that makes it a winner to me. The film, and both the experience I had watching it, definitely felt like a transitioning stage for my journey. As important as it was that the movie surrounds the eventual resurrection of fan favourite character Spock through contrived death/rebirth imagery, alongside that we moved my laptop closer to us halfway through. You may think I’m straining to get this point across, but I saw it as both poetic and beautiful. Anyways, Kirk and crew are still hung up because Spock died fixing the warp drive. They steal the Enterprise from Earth because of a sudden chance to bring him back, and encounter a group of rogue Klingons who want the Genesis science-thing from the last film. That’s pretty much the film.

There are similar themes to the last one: dealing with loss, old age, proper performance and Shatner’s undying love towards a man who in the past displayed no outward signs of emotion toward him. The Klingon villains in the movie are indeed a stepdown from Khan, because everything in life is, but Christopher Lloyd’s performance as their leader is admittedly over the top and pretty entertaining. His obsession with the Genesis device goes beyond logic really as the movie proves it to be a hoax, courtesy of a grand mistake by Kirk’s son Dr Marcus. Through science tampering, the planet that the device forms quickly becomes unstable and begins to fall apart, enabling quite an amazing fight scene between the actor who played Doc Brown and a young man far too athletic to be Kirk. I was immediately floored by the choreography displayed: choking, grabbing the other one’s foot etc.

Even though the planet material is eye-rolling at best, there’s still a good sense of camaraderie between the cast, which probably comes courtesy of Spock actor Leonard Nimoy directing the film. Bones’ sudden realisation that Spock transferred his consciousness to his head without his permission is pretty damn funny, and his erratic behaviour preceding this turns out to be enough to land him in prison for the night. Those bureau agents in the future just don’t take chances with wayward senior personnel hanging out in seedy bars while on shore leave. It’s like Space Saigon or something. Granted, as much as I probably would be backing Kirk on finding Spock’s body again or whatever, I think I would still look at further consultation with my superiors or something before stealing a guarded star ship, or at the very least considering other perfectly legal alternatives. Remember in Star Wars when you could hire a ship and a pilot to go places? Fuck, wrong franchise. End.

CHEKOV HUMILIATION 3: Tricks Kirk into believing a resurrected Spock is in his cabin early on in the film.