I'm losing all the optimism I had for this series, and I have eight more films to go. At this point, it's sort of like when a multinational company builds a new restaurant in a really small town to try out that market, but the market isn't big enough and there aren't enough people there to justify it, so they shut down the restaurant. At first they make another restaurant which is pretty successful for a few years but then they get a McDonalds and no one wants to go to the real restaurant anymore, so homeless people start living in it and eventually it becomes a halfway house and enjoys a bit of use before some dude starts selling watermelons out of it on Tuesday mornings. Eventually the multinational company demolishes it with the watermelon dude still in there and rebuilds the restaurant just so that they don't have to feel bad about giving a bunch of hill folk the technology to join modern civilization only to have them use it to sell watermelons. The restaurant becomes a big success and tourists flock to the town to take pictures of the inhabitants in black and white and make a gallery of pieces about the breadbasket of America. And Christopher Lloyd seems like a funny guy with good stage presence and all that. I bet he's a nice guy who could give good advice to young actors. I bet he gives money to charities that no one has heard of and no one donates to like "computers for political refugees" and "flags for the foreign". You know what's outside of his range, though? Playing a Klingon warlord. Yeah, that's right. Christopher Lloyd plays an alien warlord in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and he looks positively cartoonish. All too recognizable under his stapled-on prosthetics and animated eyes. Whose idea was that?
But that's just the beginning. I'll bet you want to know the plot, don't you? Spoilers ahead, weary world-travelers. At the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock dies to save the crew of the Enterprise. Kirk, as he tends to do, gets upset, probably gets pretty drunk, and steals the decommissioned Enterprise on a whim and flies to the Genesis planet, born out of ashes of the conflict with Khan. There, he encounters Klingon warlord Kruge seeking the "secret of Genesis" (what that could possibly be is never even touched on). When they get there, Kirk's blows up the Enterprise for no fucking reason.
Yeah, that's right. If you thought that Kirk was an impulsive dickhead with no regard for the lives of his crewmembers BEFORE, wait until you see this one.
Also, the fact that Spock and McCoy are out of commission through the majority of the film, I realize what a sickening rainbow of political correctness and oldness the cast is, but I'm surprised they were never sued for not including a blind cast member.
None of those are the serious crimes that the film commits, though. The serious crimes the film commits are things like making the entire plot about Kruge completely expendable. There's nothing ideological at stake and we really don't even understand why he wants the failed Genesis project. It's just time-filler. It's just an obstacle for the crew to overcome so that they don't just fly to Genesis, pick up Spock's body and be on their way, and it feels very stamped-on. There's no reason why the Federation shouldn't be pursuing them for stealing the Enterprise, because then we'd be pushing Kirk and co. to their limits, testing their loyalties. Hell, you could even throw in a few things about them trying to control Genesis and tie it into the theme of rebirth the same way Kruge's subplot was tied to the theme of rebirth.
The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't use that story is that they wanted aliens for the villains instead of humans, clearly forgetting the recent success of Wrath of Khan.
Also, Leonard Nimoy shows very little directing competence. Not his fault, really. The studio should have known better than to have put an inexperienced director behind something this large. On the other hand, he is a bit of an improvement over Nicholas Meyer. He seems keen to throw in some nice imagery, but there's a very stilted fight scene at the end. At this point, Raiders of the Lost Ark had been out for three years. People had already grasped how to shoot and edit fight scenes much better on a relative budget. Leonard Nimoy was having none of it and instead opted for no sound effects, editing it with fingernail clippers, and putting hilariously cheap stage effects in the middle of the fight. Of course, that's my frothy action-junkie alter ego talking.
There are some nice things I can say about this film, though. The filmmakers seemed to have found the "accountant" listing in the yellow pages so they didn't blow the budget on special effects and only have enough money to redress a PA's apartment as the bridge of the Enterprise, so we spend a little bit of time exploring Genesis and taking the crew out of their element.
I realize now why that's appealing. We know that these dudes can pilot ships. That's their job. They went to school for it. Watching them pilot a ship is like watching my dad hook up the VCR. Fine, but he does it with a vague disinterest because he does this sort of thing every day. It's not something you have to be there for, it's actually a good time to make an english muffin pizza. Taking them out of that element and forcing them into situations they may not have the skills to deal with over the phone is a lot more dynamic and pushing characters to their limits and putting them in difficult situations is what gives them an arc or endears them to you. You don't learn about Travis Bickle when he's applying the parking break, you learn about him when he's interacting with other people, something very painful for him.
Another nice thing I can say is that I quite enjoyed the performances. I didn't think about it, but having Leonard Nimoy direct is the best possible way to get the best work out of the cast. William Shatner in particular is actually pretty damn good. He gets some scenes that are written specifically to his strengths and plays them admirably. The guy has stage presence, but isn't much of an actor, so it's nice to see him really take a role with some meat to it now and again. The last two films haven't focused on Kirk nearly at all; in fact, aside from blowing up his own ships and fusing his first officer to antiquated scientific equipment, Kirk has been a bit of a blank slate. We didn't learn that much about him; he's still the strapping hero and all that, but he gets something to chew on, at least.
It's not a good movie or even a mediocre movie. It's actually pretty incompetent and lazy. I'm beginning to think these things are being thrown out there because the Trekkies will eat up anything with the original cast in it.
This film has a pretty bad reputation, though, so we'll see about The Voyage Home, which seems to be a very popular, accessible film for people who date women, like me.
3/10
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