Star
Trek III: The Search for Spock is the third feature film of the Star
Trek science fiction franchise and is the center of a three-film
story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and
concludes with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. After the death of
Spock (Leonard Nimoy) the crew of the USS Enterprise returns to
Earth. When James T. Kirk (William Shatner) learns that Spock's
spirit, or katra, is held in the mind of Dr. Leonard "Bones"
McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Kirk and company steal the Enterprise to
return Spock's body to his home planet. The crew must also contend
with hostile Klingons, led by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), bent on
stealing the secrets of a powerful terraforming device.
Paramount commissioned the
film after positive critical and commercial reaction to The Wrath of
Khan. Nimoy directed, the first Star Trek cast member to do so.
Producer Harve Bennett wrote the script starting from the end and
working back, and intended the destruction of the Enterprise to be a
shocking development. Bennett and Nimoy collaborated with effects
house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to develop storyboards and
new ship designs; ILM also handled the film's many special effects
sequences. Aside from a single day of location shooting, all of the
film's scenes were shot on Paramount and ILM soundstages. Composer
James Horner returned to expand his themes from the previous film.
The Search for Spock opened
June 1st, 1984. Nimoy went on to direct The Search for Spock's
sequel, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
William Shatner reprises
the role of Admiral James T. Kirk, Starfleet officer. Shatner
remarked that being directed by Leonard Nimoy, his longtime co-star
and friend, was initially awkward, although as the shoot went on it
became easier as Shatner realized how confident Nimoy was. To reduce
weight, Shatner dieted before the start of production, but as filming
continued, he tended to "slip"; the costume department had
to make 12 shirts for him. In his book with Chris Kreski, "Star
Trek Movie Memories: The Inside Story of the Classic Movies", he
believes that the scene where he learns of his son's death is
"Kirk's finest celluloid moment ever".
Nimoy, in addition to his
directing duties, appears towards the end of the film as Spock, but
only appears in the opening credits as the director. Nimoy found the
most difficult scene to direct was one in which Leonard McCoy talks
to the unconscious Spock in sickbay, en route to Vulcan. Nimoy
recalled that not only was he in the scene, but his eyes are closed,
making it difficult to judge the quality of the shot or the actor's
performance: "It drove DeForest Kelley crazy. He swears that I
was trying to direct him with the movement and flutter of my
eyelids." Nimoy was thankful the story required him to appear in
a minimal number of scenes. The rapidly aging Spock, at the ages of
9, 13, 17, and 25, was portrayed successively by Carl Steven, Vadia
Potenza, Stephen Manley and Joe W. Davis. Frank Welker provided
Spock's screams, and Steve Blalock doubled for Nimoy, so that a total
of seven actors contributed to the role.
DeForest
Kelley is cast again as Leonard McCoy, doctor and the carrier of
Spock's living spirit. Kelley has the majority of the film's
memorable scenes, but admitted to occasional difficulties in acting
with and being directed by his longtime co-star. However, he has
declared that he had no doubts about Nimoy's ability to direct the
film. Responding to suggestions that Star Trek copied Star Wars,
Kelley asserted that the opposite was true. Playing the other crew
members are James Doohan, as Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer;
George Takei, as Hikaru Sulu, Enterprise's helmsman; Walter Koenig,
as Pavel Chekov, navigation and acting science officer; and Nichelle
Nichols, as Uhura, the ship's communications officer. Nichols had
always insisted on wearing a skirt; although the standard female
uniform used slacks, the costume designer created a skirted version
specifically for her. Takei was dismayed to hear that his character
was called "Tiny" by a guard at McCoy's cell during the
film, and argued with the film's producer to have the line cut. When
Takei saw the first screening of the film, he changed his mind and
promptly apologized. He would later admit in his To the Stars: The
Autobiography of George Takei that "without that snipe from [the
guard], the scene [where Sulu eventually beats up that same guard]
would not have played even half as heroically for Sulu."
At the age of 87, and after
an acting break of 14 years, Dame Judith Anderson (pictured above
seated center) accepted the part of T'Lar, a Vulcan high priestess
who restores Spock's katra to his body, at her nephew's urging. Nimoy
wanted someone with "power and magic" for the ethereal
role. Anderson claimed to be 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall, but her
true height was closer to 4 feet 8 inches, which presented a problem
when the designers needed to make her look appropriately regal. The
solution was to dress her with an overlong hem and built-up shoes
which, combined with a crown, added 6 inches to her height. Kirstie
Alley, who had played Saavik in The Wrath of Khan, did not return to
reprise her role because she feared being typecast. Robin Curtis had
arrived in Los Angeles in 1982; she made friends with the head of
Paramount's casting department, who recommended her for the role.
Nimoy met with Curtis, and gave her the assignment the next day.
Nimoy
had admired Christopher Lloyd's work in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest and Taxi, and was impressed by his ability to play powerful
villains. Lloyd was given the part of Kruge, a Klingon interested in
securing the powerful secrets of Genesis for use as a weapon. Nimoy
said that Lloyd brought a welcome element of theatricality to the
role. Mark Lenard plays Sarek, Spock's father and Vulcan ambassador.
Lenard had previously played the role in the original the television
series. Merritt Butrick appears as David Marcus, Kirk's son, a
scientist who had helped develop the Genesis Device.
Other roles include Robert
Hooks as Admiral Morrow, the commander of Starfleet; James Sikking as
Captain Styles, the Commanding Officer of the Excelsior; Miguel
Ferrer as the Excelsior's First Officer; and Phillip R. Allen as
Captain J.T. Esteban, the captain of the ill-fated Grissom. John
Larroquette plays Maltz, a member of Kruge's bridge crew whom Nimoy
describes as "the thoughtful Klingon". Catherine Shirriff
plays Valkris, Kruge's doomed lover. Grace Lee Whitney, who played
Janice Rand in the Star Trek television show, made a cameo appearance
(wearing a wig) as "Woman in Cafeteria". Scott McGinnis
plays a young man whom Uhura forces into a closet at gunpoint.
The
Wrath of Khan was a critical and commercial success, and Paramount
Pictures quickly prepared for a third Star Trek film. The Wrath of
Khan's director, Nicholas Meyer, would not return; he had disagreed
with changes made to his film's ending without his consent. Upon
seeing The Wrath of Khan, Leonard Nimoy became "excited"
about playing Spock again. When asked by Paramount Pictures if he
wanted to reprise the role for the third feature, Nimoy agreed and
told them, "You're damned right, I want to direct that
picture!" Studio chief Michael Eisner was reluctant to hire
Nimoy because he mistakenly believed that the actor hated Star Trek
and had demanded in his contract that Spock be killed. Nimoy was
given the job after he persuaded Eisner that this was not the case.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's first reaction to the news was
that producer Harve Bennett had "hired a director you can't fire".
Paramount gave Bennett the
green light to write Star Trek III the day after The Wrath of Khan
opened, the fastest go-ahead the producer had received. He began
writing the screenplay, noting that "seventeen other people
could have written" after the hints at Spock's resurrection in
the previous film. Bennett and Nimoy used the open thread of Spock
mind melding with McCoy at the end of The Wrath of Khan as a way to
explain Spock's restoration. The idea and name of the Vulcan
"katra" came from Bennett's discussions with Nimoy. The
actor referred the producer to an episode of the television series,
"Amok Time", that suggested to Bennett a high level of
"spiritual transference" among the Vulcans. Bennett
admitted that the idea of Kirk and company going back to the Genesis
planet to recover Kirk's "noble self" stemmed from a poem
he read in a Star Trek fan magazine. The film's production
acknowledged certain expectations from fans, Nimoy remarked that if
Spock had not been resurrected and,
instead, "Captain Kirk turn[ed] to the camera and [said]
'Sorry, we didn't find him,' people would throw rocks at the
screen." A major issue Bennett wrestled with was how to
introduce the story for people who had not seen The Wrath of Khan.
Bennett said that his television producer mentality "won
out"; he added a "previously in Star Trek ..." film
device, and had Kirk narrate a captain's log, describing his feelings
and sense of loss. Aware of the story's predictability, Bennett
decided to have the USS Enterprise destroyed, and intended this plot
element be kept a secret.
Nimoy wanted The Search for
Spock to be "operatic" in scope; "I wanted the
emotions to be very large, very broad, life and death themes [...]
and the [look of the film] and everything about it derives everything
from sizable characters playing out a large story on a large
canvas," he said. In addition, he wanted the characters to have
significant scenes, however small, that made them grounded and real.
Bennett started writing the script with the ending, where Spock says,
"Your name is... Jim", and worked backwards from that
point. Elements such as Kruge killing his lover were added to
establish context and add drama and intrigue. Originally, the
Romulans were the villains, but Nimoy preferred the more
"theatrical" Klingons, feeling that their pursuit of
Genesis was analogous to the Soviet race for nuclear weaponry.
Bennett took the opportunity to flesh out the alien race, whom he
felt were ill-defined in the television series. The name of the
antagonists' ship, the Bird of Prey, remained unchanged. Early script
drafts mention that Kruge stole his ship from the Romulans, but this
idea was cut.
The script was completed in
six weeks. The production's estimated budget of $16 million was
slightly larger than that of The Wrath of Khan, but still much less
than 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Since elements such as
many sets and uniforms had been established, more money was available
for special effects. Assistant producer Ralph Winter described the
extra money as a "toybox" that allowed more leeway and
"fun" in planning the scope of the film.
Untitled
AV
CLUB FEATURETTE DEPARTMENT
Untitled
After the events of Star Trek 2, Kirk and his crew go out to rescue their fallen comrade, Spock. Unfortunately the Genesis planet has become a political hot zone and only science vessels are allowed near it. This doesn't stop Kirk from stealing the Enterprise in order to go there anyways. However a group of Klingons beats him there in order to find out how the genesis device works. Add
Star Trek III The Search for Spock to your DVD collection.
Nimoy and Bennett worked
with effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to produce
special effects, models, and live-action scenes. ILM received a
two-page story treatment in November 1982, titled "Return to
Genesis". Production supervisor Warren Franklin said that the
script they received in early 1983 was "one of the best scripts
we read" out of the submissions that arrived weekly. Although
ILM had provided the effects work for The Wrath of Khan, they had
only been approached after effects storyboards had been completed.
For The Search for Spock, ILM were brought in much earlier, meaning
that visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston and his team were involved
from the planning stages. Nimoy credited this early involvement with
increasing the amount of creative input into the film's design and execution.
It became apparent to ILM
that The Search for Spock's script required more design and model
work than had been necessary for The Wrath of Khan. A merchant ship
destroyed by Kruge early in the film was a kitbash, a design made of
combined model pieces. Effects cameraman Don Dow reasoned that since
the ship was destroyed so quickly it did not make sense to spend a
large amount of time building it. The USS Grissom was named for
astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom; the same model would be
used to depict other science vessels in the spinoff television series
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The Excelsior (above) was a
new design that ILM felt was a better rendition of a United
Federation of Planets starship, sleeker and more modern than the
Enterprise. The art department created concept sketches to show to
Paramount, and at an art director's urging model maker William George
submitted another design, based on what he thought the Enterprise
would look like if designed by the Japanese. Nimoy picked George's
angular and simplified take for production. While in the film the
Excelsior is supposed to be larger than its predecessor, the physical
model was 12 inches (30 cm) smaller than the Enterprise.
The Earth Spacedock was a
design intended to expand the scope of Star Trek. After approving a
small three-dimensional maquette of the final design, the effects
team created an exterior Spacedock model measuring 6 feet tall.
Rather than painstakingly wiring thousands of small lights, ILM made
the model out of clear Plexiglass and painted it; scratching off the
finish created windows, and an inner core of neon lights illuminated
the resulting holes. The inside of the dock was simulated by an
additional model, 20 feet long, with a removable center section. The
interior illumination was generated by outside fiber optics and
2,000–5,000 watt lights.
Art directors Nilo Rodis
and Dave Carson designed the Klingon Bird of Prey, while George
constructed the model. Nimoy wanted the ship to be reminiscent of an
attacking bird, with movable wings that changed depending on whether
the ship was in a cruising or attack posture. George took design cues
from sketches of bodybuilders and football players, incorporating the
starship equivalents of down-stretched, threatening arms and muscular
shoulders, together with what looked like shoulder pads and a chin
guard on the ship's outstretched neck. Although the stolen Romulan
ship thread was cut from the film, the Bird of Prey design had
incorporated elements of Romulan design. "It has some of the
basic bird shape, but it's more ominous," Ralston said. A
graphic bird design was integrated into the ship's underside.
To save money, many sets,
particularly interiors, were redresses of existing sets. The
Enterprise bridge was reconfigured to stand in for the Grissom, with
the chairs reupholstered and the central computer consoles moved to
modify the floor plan. An Earth bar and the Klingon medical bay were
redresses of the Enterprise sickbay. The Klingon bridge was a set
that Nimoy appropriated from another production. Many blinking
consoles were rented from a props company rather than being
fabricated. The Enterprise itself remained largely unchanged from its
appearance in the previous film, though the floor was repainted from
black to grey to make it photograph better. The most drastic change
was made to Spock's quarters. Nimoy had felt the previous grey color
scheme did not express a Vulcan style, and had it brightened with
yellows and oranges.
Adding
local color to the Klingon bridge was a ragged doglike creature the
effects team derisively called "Fifi Rebozo". Ken Ralston
thought that giving the Klingon captain a pet would add atmosphere,
and sculpted a reptilian dog worked into the script as Kruge's
mascot. The animal's hair was made from cheap wig clippings; creature
supervisor David Sosalla sprayed the material with adhesive and laid
clumps of the distressed fur onto the painted puppet body to make the
animal appear "beat-up and moth-eaten". During filming,
Sosalla and crew sprinkled the creature with water to make it look
more unpleasant. The animal was a hand puppet; Ralston operated the
head and body by placing his arm into an opening on the creature's
side while hidden inside Kruge's command chair. Three helpers
operated cables that opened the animal's eyes and made it snarl; the
creature's head was large enough for Ralston to fit his hand inside
the spring-loaded jaw to operate it. Many of the animal's intended
movements were minimized; the crew did not move its ears because it
made the supposedly repulsive creature "cute". For the
animal's demise during the Klingons' fight with the Enterprise, an
additional "dead" puppet was created, but Ralston used the
"live" one for the scene instead.
Many of the props in The
Wrath of Khan had been reused from The Motion Picture, or scrounged
from other productions, but for The Search for Spock Winter wanted to
design uniquely Star Trek items. George and artist Phil Norwood
collaborated on many of the prop designs, creating updated and
sleeker versions of the original television series communicators and
phasers. Many props were created out of wood and embellished with
small pieces from model kits. While the Federation tricorder was
created using a model race car body, the Klingon props were intended
to look dirtier, with sharp surfaces that looked uncomfortable to
carry. George was insistent on using the shapes and materials, rather
than blinking lights, to suggest the props were real and manufactured.
Robert Fletcher, costume
designer for the previous Star Trek films, was responsible for The
Search for Spock's wardrobe. Fletcher's job was to sketch outfits,
choose the necessary fabrics, and complete the fittings for principal
characters. He collaborated with costumer Jim Linn, who clothed
extras and managed the logistics of cleaning, repairing, and tracking
costumes. Most of the Starfleet uniforms had already been designed
for the previous film, but Fletcher wanted to dress the main
characters in civilian clothes. Fletcher developed a mythology behind
each outfit; the stone ornaments on Sarek's robe, for instance, were
intended to be representative of a Vulcan's level of consciousness.
The costumer had the advantage of access to Paramount's store rooms,
which contained literal tons of expensive fabrics.
The designer and production
staff were satisfied with the feudal Japan-inspired Klingon costumes
Fletcher made for The Motion Picture, but they had to make new
versions; of 12 original costumes half had been destroyed during
publicity tours. The remaining six were loaned out for an episode of
Mork & Mindy and badly damaged; Fletcher spent three months
salvaging what remained. Additions to established clothing included
an officer's vest for Kruge, and jewelry.
In addition to his costume
chores, Fletcher designed the Klingon and Vulcan makeup. Makeup
artist Thomas R. Burman suggested that Fletcher was asked to help
because the studio neglected to contract the work out; Burman
received a contract only three weeks before the start of photography.
Burman's bid of $160,000 was much higher than Paramount's $50,000
budget, but he secured the job when his competitor dropped out close
to the start of production. "It didn't come down to money in the
end but to who could do it quickly. We had a [reputation] for working
fast and doing quality work," Burman explained. Fletcher and
Burman agreed that the cragged foreheads of the Klingons in The
Motion Picture were too prominent, obscuring the individuals' faces.
"It was just too cartoonish, and I didn't want a Star Wars look
in [the] movie. There had never been a good marriage between the
forehead appliance and the actor's faces. We tried to keep them in
character rather than have these obtrusive things on their
heads," Burman said. The resulting Klingon makeup took two hours
to apply.
To
guard against leaks that had prefigured Spock's death during
production of The Wrath of Khan, Paramount took precautions to secure
the sets. Set designer Cameron Birnie noted that the production's
security was highly unusual; sets were built out of sequence and the
crew given only as many pages as they needed to fabricate each
locale. Security guards checked the picture identification cards of
production staff. Any mention of the production was removed from
stationery and documents, and "Trois" (three, in French)
was written as a code word. Offices and workshops were bereft of
identifying signage, with doors double-locked for extra protection.
The Search for Spock's scripts were chemically treated so that copies
could be traced to the original. Nimoy's name never appeared on call
sheets, and Spock was referred to in the script as "Nacluv"
(Vulcan spelled backwards). Despite the precautions, word of the
Enterprise's destruction leaked out before the film's release.
Principal photography
commenced on Monday, August 15th, 1983. All but two days of
production were filmed on Paramount soundstages, by cinematographer
Charles Correll. The Search for Spock was one of the first major
feature films to use Eastman 5294, a color high speed negative film
stock. The film allowed Correll latitude in choosing a broad range of
exposure indexes. Since The Search for Spock was shot with anamorphic
lenses and many theatergoers would see widescreen 70 mm prints,
Correll needed to produce a crisp depth of field, a difficult task on
many sets. For scenes on the bridge, Correll pushed the exposure
index above the Eastman recommendation in order to keep the image
crisp at less than 50 foot-candles.
Many
of The Search for Spock's dialogue sequences feature tight close-up
shots. During Kirk and Sarek's mind meld, Nimoy chose cuts that
focused on accentuating the dialogue; "Instead of watching
people's faces, all you see is the mouth or the eyes and you have the
tendency to hear better," Correll explained. Correll was unhappy
that every scene save one was filmed on a soundstage. Feeling that
recreating everything on set resulted in a fake look, the
cinematographer suggested that Genesis be filmed on Kauai in Hawaii,
and that Red Rock Canyon stand in for Vulcan. The production did not
have the money to shoot on location, meaning that Nimoy was
preoccupied with making sure the various outdoor settings felt
believable. While the various vessel exteriors were handled by ILM,
Correll was responsible for the look of the interior sets. He
preferred to treat these as actual locations inside the ships;
although the sets' ceilings were designed to be removed so that
lights could be rigged in the rafters, Correll used other lighting
methods. In the Bird of Prey he used fluorescent tubes to pick up the
walls' metallic paints, and kept the set smoky to convey a dirty atmosphere.
Before
McCoy is arrested by security, he attempts to charter a spaceflight
to Genesis in a bar. The scene opens with two officers playing a
World War I-era dogfight video game. The wireframe biplanes were
created using black lines on clear paper printouts placed on an
overlay cell. "It was really just a gag shot," effects
artist Charlie Mullen explained, "the idea that people in the
future would be playing an old war game." To accommodate the
effect, Correll had to use a large amount of exposure without making
the bar appear overlit. Much of the lighting was provided by tables
rigged with fluorescent tubes to provide an effect different from
other parts of the film. Correll could not add smoke to the scene to
enhance the bar "feel", because the disturbed atmosphere
would have made ILM's game hard to insert. The scene was intended to
end in a barroom brawl when security tried to take McCoy into
custody; Nimoy decided that "it didn't feel right" and
there was not enough time or money to achieve the scene successfully.
The Genesis planet was
produced via matte paintings and soundstages on Paramount lots under
art director John Edward Chilberg II. Much of the planet occupied
Stage 15, known as the DeMille stage in honor of the director's
Parting of the Red Sea on the stage during filming of The Ten
Commandments (1956). The space measured 300 by 100 feet. The
perceived boundaries of the scenes were extended via matte paintings
created by Chris Evans, Frank Ordaz, and Michael Pangrazio. Because
parts of the set had to literally collapse during the planet's
destruction, the set was built 16 feet off the ground and featured
trapdoors and pyrotechnics in the floor. The hundreds of 10,000 watt
lights in the rafters were covered in silk for day scenes to soften
the light, and fitted with blue filters for night; dimmers eased the
transition between periods. Since the doomed planet was no longer a
paradise, the art director, Nimoy, Bennett and Correll considered
constant changes to the colors on the scenes, but decided not to get
"fancy photographically". While many of the scenes appeared
lit with minimal light sources such as flickering fires, Correll
tried to use as much light as possible. To get the fire to reflect on
the actor's faces, Correll used a variety of tricks with normal
lights; using natural fire would not have provided the required intensity.
A significant feature of
the Genesis planet are the alien worms that rapidly evolve from
microbes on Spock's coffin. The creatures start as small, slimy
crawlers, then grow to lengths of 8 feet. The small worms were
created by injecting molten "Hot-Melt" vinyl into epoxy
polymer molds that were immediately put into cold water to create a
translucent product. The resulting hundred or so creatures were
painted and coated with methacyl, a slippery, slimy coating. Each
worm was attached to an elevated platform by a piece of fishing line;
the lines were tied to rods underneath the set. Offscreen helpers
pushed the rods or pulled fishing line to create motion; the scene
required many takes because the fishing line would periodically flash
at the camera. The larger worms proved more problematic, with filming
taking place at ILM and Paramount Stage 15. Similar to The Wrath of
Khan's parasitic Ceti eels, the worms featured cobra-like cowls and a
ringed mouth of teeth. ILM built one of the worms with more
articulation than the others; Ralston operated the creature through a
hole in the set floor with his hand stuck inside the creature. The
other worms were animated using pneumatic bladders that caused air to
pass through hoses in sequence, creating an undulating motion. During
the scene the worms attack Kruge, who kills one of them. The usual
method for achieving the effect of the creature wrapping itself
around Kruge would have been to film the sequence in reverse, but
this posed problems: the slime coating Kruge would have been out of
place with reverse filming, and multiple takes would ruin the Klingon
makeup Lloyd wore. ILM's solution involved rigging the worm with
fishing lines that were pulled in a choreographed fashion by multiple
off-screen helpers to simulate the wrapping movement. When small
pieces of the Klingon uniforms caught or snapped the fishing lines,
Ralston resorted to steel cables.
The fiery breakup of the
Genesis planet involved fire, smoke, and earth upheaval. "The
main part of the floor was rigged so that rocks would shoot up out of
the ground [on catapults]. Trees were rigged to fall and start
fires," Correll explained. Producing the shots required
meticulous direction and between 20 and 30 helpers were on hand the
day of shooting. Correll shot simultaneously on nine cameras; the
hope was to get as many usable shots as possible in one take, in case
all the trapdoors and pyrotechnics had to be reset for another round
of filming. This entire sequence was completed in three weeks.
The Vulcan stairs were
filmed at Occidental College, the production's only location
shooting. To create the orange atmosphere, Correll used a large 15 by
15 feet floodlight, created for the 1983 Peter Hyams film The Star
Chamber, placed on the top of a 110-foot crane. The location's
blue-grey sky was replaced with a matte painting that covered the top
half of the stairs shot. Many ornamental touches Nimoy wanted for the
procession scene ultimately never materialized. The background of the
set was simply a painted piece of canvas; Nimoy had the background
out of focus in all the shots as a way to hide the shortcomings of
the scenery. Elements removed from the Vulcan sequence included a
procession through the "Vulcan Hall of Ancient Thought", a
space dominated by large heads atop columns and a sculpture towering
to a height of 20 feet. The scene was cut because the procession
dragged on for too long.
Production on the film was
temporarily shut down after a fire destroyed several soundstages at
Paramount Studios, one of which was adjacent to the set for the
Genesis planet. Initially, the set's pyrotechnics were suspected of
causing the fire, but the cause was ruled to be arson. Shatner was
among the cast members who grabbed fire hoses to stop the flames.
Correll hoped the place would burn down so that he would get his
chance to film in Hawaii. While most of the set was undamaged, holes
in the side of the building had to be covered with heavy black
curtains to prevent outside light from leaking in.
As
with previous Star Trek films, time and money were major constraints
for special effects. The effects artists were concerned about
producing the right look no matter the time involved. While effects
cameraman Scott Farrar and his assistants constantly traversed the
400 miles separating ILM from Paramount, teams at the effects house
organized post-production effects and photography. The constant
travel took a toll on Ralston, who began to forget which airlines he
was taking and what city he was in. As a pause in work meant wasted
time, effects editors Bill Kimberlin and Jay Ignaszewski produced
usable effects shots for the live-action editors at Paramount; these
half-finished, monochromatic composites gave the editors an idea of
scene pacing. ILM contributed 120 shots to the film. Like Correll,
Ralston used Eastman 94 for all shots that did not require bluescreen
and chroma keying.
ILM filmed starships using
motion control for timed and computer-assisted model movement. The
ship models required multiple camera passes because different parts
of the ship and its lights were filmed at different exposure levels.
The Excelsior required eight passes to supplement the main
"beauty pass", the Enterprise six. ILM could have combined
passes with multiple exposures, but not without risk; "If
anything got out of synch, or somehow we dropped a frame, we would
have to reshoot, and then you're stuck. You've ruined two pieces, two
elements," Farrar said.
The Klingon Bird of Prey's
cloaking device required a new effect. The original concept featured
the layers of the ship forming up from the inside out, requiring a
series of overlaid elements filmed with an Oxberry animation camera.
ILM decided the effect appeared too "animated-looking", and
defied common sense: "if there was a fanfare to decloaking,
everyone would know the Klingons were coming and blow them out of the
sky before they could even finish materializing," Ralston said.
The supervisor decided on subtlety, throwing color separations out of
sync to create a blurry ripple effect. While simple, the sequence was
more effective than the elaborate planned scene. Effects such as the
destruction of the merchant ship were created using projected
explosions, a technique perfected during the production of Star Wars
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Simulated zero-gravity explosions
were filmed and reflected onto a card using the same motion control
program used for the models. The result was an explosion that moved
with the model.
The most laborious effects
sequences took place inside Spacedock; months were spent completing
the station's interior shots. The effects crew tested different looks
in order to make sure the dock interior seemed appropriately vast.
"We found the interior demanded some degree of atmospheric haze,
even though there probably wouldn't be any in space," Farrar
said. To create a slightly degraded look, the crew used blue color
gels for lights and shot through smoke for fill shots. They switched
to diffusion filters for light passes, as using smoke for longer
shots would have required time-consuming smoke level monitoring. Due
to difference in the scales of the dock and ship models, it was
impossible to film the Excelsior and Enterprise inside the set.
Opening the dock's space doors was problematic because the lights
illuminating the inside of the dock from the exterior had to be
hidden from the camera to prevent lens flares (an effect J.J. Abrams
would embrace in the 2009 Star Trek reboot). Massive fans were used
to keep equipment cool and prevent the lights from melting or warping
the dock's interior artwork. The realism of the dock scenes was
heightened by live action footage of a cafeteria, with windows
overlooking the dock interior. The cafeteria was a set built at ILM
and filled with 40 extras in front of a bluescreen so that the dock
and Enterprise could be composited in later; matte paintings extended
the ceiling of the set.
Ralston, who considered the
Enterprise ugly and the model hard to shoot, delighted in destroying
the ship. Several shots were combined together for the complete
destruction sequence; while Ralston would have preferred to take a
mallet to the original $150,000 model, a variety of cheaper models
were used. The first part of the ship to be destroyed was the bridge,
a separate miniature with stars added to the background. The shot
switches to the Bird of Prey moving away as the top of the saucer
burns, where explosions (filmed upside down to simulate the absence
of gravity) were superimposed over a motion control pass of the ship.
The camera cuts to a closeup of the ship's registration number being
eaten away by inner explosions. George created a light Styrofoam
model that was dissolved by acetone dripped on the saucer from above.
By shooting at less than one frame per second and keeping light off
the model, the drips were not visible in the print. Burning steel
wool on the inside of the saucer created a glowing ember effect from
the ship's inner decks being destroyed. The saucer explosion was
simulated by blowing up a talcum powder-covered plaster dish. Two and
four ounce bombs and gasoline were used as pyrotechnics in live
action scenes of the bridge being destroyed. Stuntmen used
spring-loaded platforms to launch themselves in the air.
For the final destruction
of the Genesis planet, footage from the Paramount set had to be
carefully matched with ILM effects footage. ILM built scale
miniatures cut into sections to portray parts of Genesis' upheaval
(rock slides, fissures opening in the ground) that live-action scenes
could not easily replicate. One of the largest miniatures, measuring
20 by 16 feet, had trick trees and trapdoors that could be reset,
propane jets for gusts of fire, and solenoid-triggered rockfalls. For
scenes where Kirk and Kruge battle at a precipice over a pit of lava,
the shot combined animated lava, clouds (really cotton daubs on
black), lightning, and a matte painting. Overhead shots of the lava
were created by lighting a piece of clear Plexiglass with colored
gels and covering the plate with methacyl, vermiculite and charcoal;
the mixture dripped off the surface and coated the crew underneath.
ILM simulated Kruge's demise, a long plunge into the pool of lava,
with the help of a stop-motion puppet. Lloyd fell a few feet onto a
black mattress; during a lighting flash the actor was replaced by the
puppet that fell the rest of the distance. Because the shot was
filmed on black instead of the traditional bluescreen, the animators
had to remove or rotoscope the black background around Lloyd one
frame at a time. The transition between the footage of Lloyd and the
puppet was hidden by a single-frame flash as a bolt of lightning
struck Kruge. The scene of Kirk and Spock beaming away as the ground
collapses was another created at ILM, as the level of destruction was
simply not possible for the live action crew.
Among the other effects ILM
had to produce were the transporter beam and the warp speed effect.
Mullen noted that the effects' look changed depending on who was
directing the film; "everyone wants something distinctive, but
nobody wants to get far enough away from the TV series to startle the
Trekkies." The effect was produced by cutting out or rotomatting
the individual to be transported, then making a vertical slot through
which a high-intensity light was positioned. A computer-controlled
move would cause the light to spread from the center and fade away,
then reset its position and repeat the movement on the opposite side.
Handmade acetate filters and gels were applied to give the
transporter beam color and patterns, followed by small flickering
animated highlights called "bugs" which appeared after the
character had dematerialized. The Klingons' transporters were given a
harsh red look to differentiate them from the smooth blue Federation
effect. Whereas many of the multicolored rainbow warp trail shots
from The Wrath of Khan were stock footage taken from the first film,
the producers of the third film wanted something new. A streak
effect, in which a beauty pass of the ship was combined with blurred
passes for each light intensity, was tried first. The result was
disappointing; as the Enterprise grew larger the streaks became
distorted and out of place. Mullen rejected a straight animation of
the warp drive as too bouncy, but the footage was cut in for editing
while ILM went through six more approaches to the problem. The final
effect, a "vaporous, colorful trail", came together only
weeks before the film's release.
Composer James Horner
returned to score The Search for Spock, fulfilling a promise he had
made to Bennett on The Wrath of Khan. While Nimoy considered hiring
his friend Leonard Rosenman for the score, he was persuaded that
Horner's return would grant continuity between The Wrath of Khan and
the new film. Much like the content of the film, Horner's music was a
direct continuation of the score he wrote for the previous film. When
writing music for The Wrath of Khan, Horner was aware he would reuse
certain cues for an impending sequel; two major themes he reworked
were for Genesis and Spock. While the Genesis theme supplants the
title music Horner wrote for The Wrath of Khan, the end credits were
quoted "almost verbatim".
In hours-long discussions
with Bennett and Nimoy, Horner agreed with the director that the
"romantic and more sensitive" cues were more important than
the "bombastic" ones. Horner had written Spock's theme to
give the character more dimension: "By putting a theme over
Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a
collection of schticks," he said. The theme was expanded in The
Search for Spock to represent the ancient alien mysticism and culture
of Spock and Vulcan.
Among the new cues Horner
wrote was a "percussive and atonal" theme for the Klingons
which is represented heavily in the film. Jeff Bond described the cue
as a compromise between music from Horner's earlier film Wolfen,
Khan's motif from The Wrath of Khan, and Jerry Goldsmith's Klingon
music from The Motion Picture. Horner also adapted music from Sergei
Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet for part of the Enterprise theft
sequence and its destruction, while the scoring to Spock's
resurrection on Vulcan was lifted from Horner's Brainstorm ending.
Nimoy
wrote that The Search for Spock's major theme is that of friendship.
"What should a person do to help a friend? How deeply should a
friendship commitment go? And what sacrifices, what obstacles, will
these people endure? That's the emotion line of the film [and] its
reason for existence," he recalled. While Spock's bodily
resurrection was complete, his mind was a blank slate - The Search
for Spock, Michele and Duncan Barrett argue, says that the important
question is whether an individual's mind functions, as this is the
key to a meaningful existence.
Brown University professor
Ross S. Kraemer argues that The Search for Spock "became Star
Trek's first and most obvious exploration of Christian themes of
sacrificial, salvific death and resurrection". According to
Larry J. Kreitzer, The Wrath of Khan provided "its own versions
of Good Friday and a hint of the Easter Sunday to come", with
the hints fulfilled by Spock's bodily restoration in The Search for
Spock. David and Saavik's discovery of Spock's empty coffin and
burial robes parallels the evidence the Apostles found that pointed
to Jesus' resurrection in the Gospel of Luke, asserts Kraemer.
Spock's resurrection not only proves the Vulcan's belief in the
existence of the katra, but also affirms these are not just a belief
system but a certainty. Barrett points to the Star Trek feature films
in general and The Search for Spock in particular as a turn away from
the irreligious television series. In more practical terms, Jeffery
A. Smith pointed to The Search for Spock as one of many Hollywood
films culminating in a 1990s trend where death has little permanence
(Ghost, Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come, Meet Joe Black).
How does this fit with
Roddenberry's famous vision of the future? Religion was largely
absent from the futuristic and secular world of the Federation and in
particular from human society. Star Trek's takes on religious topics
are often critical, and they almost routinely close with a victory of
science over faith. This is anything but a surprise, knowing that
Gene Roddenberry was an active atheist who struggled against any form
of religion:
"I condemn false
prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational
decision, to drain people of their free will -- and a hell of a lot
of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy,
but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than
a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."
- Gene Roddenberry
Producer Brannon Braga
later noted:
“[Roddenberry],
himself, was a secular humanist and made it well-known to writers of
Star Trek and The Next Generation that religion and superstition and
mystical thinking were not to be part of his universe. On
Roddenberry's future Earth, everyone is an atheist. And that world is
the better for it."
Earth religions still
appear here and there in Trek, but generally only in passing, as when
Picard celebrates Christmas with his family in Generations, or the
occasional biblical quote used to make a point; priests are said to
still officiate weddings, and Chakotay’s (Star Trek Voyager)
ambiguous mysticism indicates that at least some humans cling to a
belief in something more than science.
One
of the ways Roddenberry broached the topic of religion in the
1960’s was through the use of the “false god” plot.
This plot actually recurs throughout all of the various incarnations
of Trek, but it’s particularly common in The Original Series. A
backwards society is kept in thrall to a more advanced species or
imposter, who blind them to the truth of the universe with
technological shadows and mirrors. The false gods plot is also used
in The Next Generation episode, “The Devil’s Due,”
where a con artist impersonating a culture’s most feared devil
attempts to wrest control of an entire planet by making them think
that their world is coming to an end, or Voyager’s “False
Profits,” (right) where two Ferengi imitate mythical gods to cow
the local population of a planet after crash-landing there. Perhaps
the most famous example of this is the TNG episode “Who Watches
The Watchers?,” wherein Picard angrily refuses a doctor’s
suggestion that he attempt to enact positive change on a primitive
culture by pretending to be a god.
Paramount had removed
Roddenberry as a producer after the first film and he now occupied
the ceremonial position of executive consultant. New producers and
new writers would be putting their "spin" on the Star Trek
brand egnighting debate among fans to how true they were being to
Roddenberry's original vision. Based on the amount of creative
control Roddenberry exerted over the first seasons of Star Trek, some
could argue that only Roddenberry-approved material should be
considered canon. Such an approach would eliminate from canon
anything anyone may imagine Roddenberry didn't like, as well as
everything made after his death, including six movies and three TV
series. Problematic, since these opinions are as varied as the
franchise's fan base. However, Roddenberry himself pre-emptively
rebuked such an attitude. He had hoped that Star Trek would go on
after his death. As Star Trek was constantly improved by each
following generation, he expected people to look back upon its humble
beginnings as just that, the simple beginnings of something much
bigger and better. Roddenberry clearly never intended Star Trek to be
limited to his work, but to include all the work of future generations.
The Search for Spock was
not heavily marketed. Among the promotional merchandise created for
the film's release were Search for Spock-branded calendars and
glasses sold at Taco Bell. A novelization (ISBN 0-671-49500-3) was
also released, and reached second place on The New York Times
paperback bestsellers list. President Ronald Reagan screened the film
for friends during a weekend away from the White House in 1984, spent
with White House staff chief Mike Deaver and the president's own
close friend Senator Paul Laxalt. Reagan wrote of the film: "It
wasn't too good."
The
Search for Spock opened June 1st in a record-breaking 1,996 theaters
across North America; with competing films Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Ghostbusters and Top Secret! released at
the same time, more than half of the nation's screens were filled by
summer blockbusters. The Search for Spock grossed over $16 million in
its opening weekend. In its second weekend the film's gross dropped
42 percent. The box office strength of The Search for Spock and
Indiana Jones led Paramount to dominate early summer film business.
The film made $76.5 million in North America, for a total of $87
million worldwide.
The soundtrack to the film
was released on a 43-minute LP record. Film Score Monthly released an
expanded two-compact disc score June 1st, 2010.
The Search for Spock
received generally positive reviews from critics (Ronald Reagan
excluded). Richard Schickel of Time praised the film as "perhaps
the first space opera to deserve that term in its grandest
sense". Janet Maslin of The New York Times and Newsweek wrote
that while the film felt weighed down by the increasingly aged actors
and television tropes, it was leavened by its dedication. Roger Ebert
called the film "good, but not great" and a compromise
between the special effects-dependent The Motion Picture and the
character-driven The Wrath of Khan. Conversely, USA Today praised the
film as the best of the three and the closest to the original spirit
of the television series. An overwhelmingly negative view of the film
was offered by The Globe and Mail's Susan Ferrier Mackay, who summed
the film up as "ba-a-a-d". In a 2010 retrospective of the
film franchise, author Jill Sherwin suggests the aging Enterprise
served as a metaphor for the aging Star Trek franchise.
Critics praised Nimoy's
direction, to which USA Today attributed the film's success in
capturing the essence of the television show. Newsweek wrote that due
to Nimoy the film was the best-paced Trek film, and that his
familiarity with these actors enabled him to bring out the best from
them. The Washington Post's Rita Kempley wrote that Nimoy's direction
was competent, but his background in television showed, "the
film feels made-for-TV", she summarized.
The Search for Spock's plot
solicited comment; Schickel called the film "overplotted"
and filled with "heavy expository burdens", comparing it to
real opera. Sterritt said that the script occasionally veered in
"arbitrary" directions and contained missteps, such as how
the Grissom and its crew are suddenly lost, but the plot disregards
their fate. Arnold wrote that Shatner missed an opportunity to act on
par with The Wrath of Khan's revelation that Kirk was David's father.
The critic considered David's death an attempt at a similar shock,
but felt it was not a success. Harry M. Geduld, writing for The
Humanist, criticized the film for what he called "contradictions
and implausibilities", such as Scott's sabotage of the Excelsior
and Spock's regeneration.
The film's sense of
self-seriousness and the camaraderie amongst the characters were
generally cited as positive aspects. Maslin wrote that certain tacky
elements of the film's television roots were outweighed by the
closeness of the Enterprise crew. That's what longtime Trekkies love
about the series, and it's still here, a little the worse for wear,
but mostly untarnished." The Los Angeles Times wrote that
despite its spectacle, the film's "humanity once again outweighs
the hardware, and its innocence is downright endearing". Lloyd's
portrayal of Kruge received praise from New York's David Denby and
The Daily News's Hunter Reigler.
DeForest
Kelley is cast again as Leonard McCoy, doctor and the carrier of
Spock's living spirit. Kelley has the majority of the film's
memorable scenes, but admitted to occasional difficulties in acting
with and being directed by his longtime co-star. However, he has
declared that he had no doubts about Nimoy's ability to direct the
film. Responding to suggestions that Star Trek copied Star Wars,
Kelley asserted that the opposite was true. Playing the other crew
members are James Doohan, as Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer;
George Takei, as Hikaru Sulu, Enterprise's helmsman; Walter Koenig,
as Pavel Chekov, navigation and acting science officer; and Nichelle
Nichols, as Uhura, the ship's communications officer. Nichols had
always insisted on wearing a skirt; although the standard female
uniform used slacks, the costume designer created a skirted version
specifically for her. Takei was dismayed to hear that his character
was called "Tiny" by a guard at McCoy's cell during the
film, and argued with the film's producer to have the line cut. When
Takei saw the first screening of the film, he changed his mind and
promptly apologized. He would later admit in his To the Stars: The
Autobiography of George Takei that "without that snipe from [the
guard], the scene [where Sulu eventually beats up that same guard]
would not have played even half as heroically for Sulu."
Nimoy
had admired Christopher Lloyd's work in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest and Taxi, and was impressed by his ability to play powerful
villains. Lloyd was given the part of Kruge, a Klingon interested in
securing the powerful secrets of Genesis for use as a weapon. Nimoy
said that Lloyd brought a welcome element of theatricality to the
role. Mark Lenard plays Sarek, Spock's father and Vulcan ambassador.
Lenard had previously played the role in the original the television
series. Merritt Butrick appears as David Marcus, Kirk's son, a
scientist who had helped develop the Genesis Device.
The
Wrath of Khan was a critical and commercial success, and Paramount
Pictures quickly prepared for a third Star Trek film. The Wrath of
Khan's director, Nicholas Meyer, would not return; he had disagreed
with changes made to his film's ending without his consent. Upon
seeing The Wrath of Khan, Leonard Nimoy became "excited"
about playing Spock again. When asked by Paramount Pictures if he
wanted to reprise the role for the third feature, Nimoy agreed and
told them, "You're damned right, I want to direct that
picture!" Studio chief Michael Eisner was reluctant to hire
Nimoy because he mistakenly believed that the actor hated Star Trek
and had demanded in his contract that Spock be killed. Nimoy was
given the job after he persuaded Eisner that this was not the case.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's first reaction to the news was
that producer Harve Bennett had "hired a director you can't fire".
and,
instead, "Captain Kirk turn[ed] to the camera and [said]
'Sorry, we didn't find him,' people would throw rocks at the
screen." A major issue Bennett wrestled with was how to
introduce the story for people who had not seen The Wrath of Khan.
Bennett said that his television producer mentality "won
out"; he added a "previously in Star Trek ..." film
device, and had Kirk narrate a captain's log, describing his feelings
and sense of loss. Aware of the story's predictability, Bennett
decided to have the USS Enterprise destroyed, and intended this plot
element be kept a secret.
Adding
local color to the Klingon bridge was a ragged doglike creature the
effects team derisively called "Fifi Rebozo". Ken Ralston
thought that giving the Klingon captain a pet would add atmosphere,
and sculpted a reptilian dog worked into the script as Kruge's
mascot. The animal's hair was made from cheap wig clippings; creature
supervisor David Sosalla sprayed the material with adhesive and laid
clumps of the distressed fur onto the painted puppet body to make the
animal appear "beat-up and moth-eaten". During filming,
Sosalla and crew sprinkled the creature with water to make it look
more unpleasant. The animal was a hand puppet; Ralston operated the
head and body by placing his arm into an opening on the creature's
side while hidden inside Kruge's command chair. Three helpers
operated cables that opened the animal's eyes and made it snarl; the
creature's head was large enough for Ralston to fit his hand inside
the spring-loaded jaw to operate it. Many of the animal's intended
movements were minimized; the crew did not move its ears because it
made the supposedly repulsive creature "cute". For the
animal's demise during the Klingons' fight with the Enterprise, an
additional "dead" puppet was created, but Ralston used the
"live" one for the scene instead.
To
guard against leaks that had prefigured Spock's death during
production of The Wrath of Khan, Paramount took precautions to secure
the sets. Set designer Cameron Birnie noted that the production's
security was highly unusual; sets were built out of sequence and the
crew given only as many pages as they needed to fabricate each
locale. Security guards checked the picture identification cards of
production staff. Any mention of the production was removed from
stationery and documents, and "Trois" (three, in French)
was written as a code word. Offices and workshops were bereft of
identifying signage, with doors double-locked for extra protection.
The Search for Spock's scripts were chemically treated so that copies
could be traced to the original. Nimoy's name never appeared on call
sheets, and Spock was referred to in the script as "Nacluv"
(Vulcan spelled backwards). Despite the precautions, word of the
Enterprise's destruction leaked out before the film's release.
Many
of The Search for Spock's dialogue sequences feature tight close-up
shots. During Kirk and Sarek's mind meld, Nimoy chose cuts that
focused on accentuating the dialogue; "Instead of watching
people's faces, all you see is the mouth or the eyes and you have the
tendency to hear better," Correll explained. Correll was unhappy
that every scene save one was filmed on a soundstage. Feeling that
recreating everything on set resulted in a fake look, the
cinematographer suggested that Genesis be filmed on Kauai in Hawaii,
and that Red Rock Canyon stand in for Vulcan. The production did not
have the money to shoot on location, meaning that Nimoy was
preoccupied with making sure the various outdoor settings felt
believable. While the various vessel exteriors were handled by ILM,
Correll was responsible for the look of the interior sets. He
preferred to treat these as actual locations inside the ships;
although the sets' ceilings were designed to be removed so that
lights could be rigged in the rafters, Correll used other lighting
methods. In the Bird of Prey he used fluorescent tubes to pick up the
walls' metallic paints, and kept the set smoky to convey a dirty atmosphere.
Before
McCoy is arrested by security, he attempts to charter a spaceflight
to Genesis in a bar. The scene opens with two officers playing a
World War I-era dogfight video game. The wireframe biplanes were
created using black lines on clear paper printouts placed on an
overlay cell. "It was really just a gag shot," effects
artist Charlie Mullen explained, "the idea that people in the
future would be playing an old war game." To accommodate the
effect, Correll had to use a large amount of exposure without making
the bar appear overlit. Much of the lighting was provided by tables
rigged with fluorescent tubes to provide an effect different from
other parts of the film. Correll could not add smoke to the scene to
enhance the bar "feel", because the disturbed atmosphere
would have made ILM's game hard to insert. The scene was intended to
end in a barroom brawl when security tried to take McCoy into
custody; Nimoy decided that "it didn't feel right" and
there was not enough time or money to achieve the scene successfully.
As
with previous Star Trek films, time and money were major constraints
for special effects. The effects artists were concerned about
producing the right look no matter the time involved. While effects
cameraman Scott Farrar and his assistants constantly traversed the
400 miles separating ILM from Paramount, teams at the effects house
organized post-production effects and photography. The constant
travel took a toll on Ralston, who began to forget which airlines he
was taking and what city he was in. As a pause in work meant wasted
time, effects editors Bill Kimberlin and Jay Ignaszewski produced
usable effects shots for the live-action editors at Paramount; these
half-finished, monochromatic composites gave the editors an idea of
scene pacing. ILM contributed 120 shots to the film. Like Correll,
Ralston used Eastman 94 for all shots that did not require bluescreen
and chroma keying.
Nimoy
wrote that The Search for Spock's major theme is that of friendship.
"What should a person do to help a friend? How deeply should a
friendship commitment go? And what sacrifices, what obstacles, will
these people endure? That's the emotion line of the film [and] its
reason for existence," he recalled. While Spock's bodily
resurrection was complete, his mind was a blank slate - The Search
for Spock, Michele and Duncan Barrett argue, says that the important
question is whether an individual's mind functions, as this is the
key to a meaningful existence.
One
of the ways Roddenberry broached the topic of religion in the
1960’s was through the use of the “false god” plot.
This plot actually recurs throughout all of the various incarnations
of Trek, but it’s particularly common in The Original Series. A
backwards society is kept in thrall to a more advanced species or
imposter, who blind them to the truth of the universe with
technological shadows and mirrors. The false gods plot is also used
in The Next Generation episode, “The Devil’s Due,”
where a con artist impersonating a culture’s most feared devil
attempts to wrest control of an entire planet by making them think
that their world is coming to an end, or Voyager’s “False
Profits,” (right) where two Ferengi imitate mythical gods to cow
the local population of a planet after crash-landing there. Perhaps
the most famous example of this is the TNG episode “Who Watches
The Watchers?,” wherein Picard angrily refuses a doctor’s
suggestion that he attempt to enact positive change on a primitive
culture by pretending to be a god.
The
Search for Spock opened June 1st in a record-breaking 1,996 theaters
across North America; with competing films Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Ghostbusters and Top Secret! released at
the same time, more than half of the nation's screens were filled by
summer blockbusters. The Search for Spock grossed over $16 million in
its opening weekend. In its second weekend the film's gross dropped
42 percent. The box office strength of The Search for Spock and
Indiana Jones led Paramount to dominate early summer film business.
The film made $76.5 million in North America, for a total of $87
million worldwide.
