I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan earlier this year for the first time. Naturally, I had to watch Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as well. I mean, I was worried. What if they didn’t find him?

The Search for Spock is easily my least favorite of the TOS films I’ve seen. But that’s probably only because I haven’t seen any of the odd-numbered ones yet.

DISCLAIMER:

While I will (needlessly) create a Spoiler Section for those of you who are really concerned about Spock’s fate, there will be SPOILERS for The Wrath of Khan throughout this review. Cause, you know, the whole ending to that movie is sort of pivotal to the plot of this one. There’s really no getting around that.

SUMMARY:

After Spock sacrifices his life and the Genesis planet is created, a morose Kirk leads his crew back home. But after Bones starts going a little cuckoo, Kirk finds out that it might be possible to to save both him and Spock after all. If only Starfleet bureaucrats and the least Klingon Klingons ever would stop getting in the way!

NOTES:

1. The best way to watch any Star Trek movie . . . or anything at all, really . . . is with your sister’s toy phaser, recently unearthed from storage, resting by your side. This way, when anyone on screen annoys you (Science Vessel Captain, Christopher Lloyd, Any And All Screenwriters), you can just shoot them in the head. Well, not the screenwriters. That would take considerable talent. And, admittedly, even the people on screen won’t react very much to your deadly aim, but there’s a perverse sense of pleasure in the phasering, anyway.

2. As far those annoying characters go, lets first talk about the Klingons, especially this guy:

This is Kruge, the leader of the Evil Klingons. Kruge is played by Christopher Lloyd, and I really wanted to like him, but I just couldn’t. Christopher Lloyd, awesome as he is, has an exceptionally distinctive voice, and I found it distracting pretty much every time he opened his mouth. Just the very act of him speaking took me out of the character. (I did read that Nimoy’s first choice had been Edward James Olmos, and that would have been very interesting to see.)

Still. It doesn’t help that Kruge is kind of stupid and a sorry excuse for a Klingon. I couldn’t take him seriously at all, and I find that kind of problematic for a film’s main antagonist . . . although, to be fair, I usually have a problem with Star Trek villains, at least in the movies. For instance, I don’t hate Khan, but I’m not really a huge fan, either. I find him a little too over-the-top to be anything but slightly ridiculous. I love the Borg, but I have never cared for the Borg Queen. (Not the acting, just the concept. The Borg are inherently creepy because there are no individuals among them.) I love the 2009 reboot of Star Trek, but Nero is boring as shit and easily my least favorite part of the film. And then there’s this guy . . .

. . . look, I love you singing, “Edelweiss,” and all, Mr. Plummer, but if I had access to a Varon-T disruptor (toy or otherwise), I’d use it on your character in The Undiscovered Country in a heartbeat.

3. Let’s back to the Klingons who don’t act very much like Klingons.

I sometimes hesitate to criticize anything in the Star Trek franchise for continuity errors because I’m painfully aware that while I’m a geek and a half to the non-Trekkies, I’m strictly amateur hour where real Trekkies are concerned, and I might take issue with something in a movie that actually has precedent in episode seven, season 2, of TOS or something. That being said.

These Klingons execute people by stabbing them in the back. They take prisoners. They say that their name doesn’t matter. Seriously, when Kirk demands to know who he’s talking to, Kruge is all, “Who I am is not important.” And while that would fly with a lot of bad guys, Kruge is a fucking Klingon. Shouldn’t he be more like, “I am Kruge, son of Mruge, and I will fucking KILL YOU!”

He also has an interesting strategy for when and how to board enemy ships. And by interesting, I mean stupid. Immensely stupid.

4. This Klingon isn’t terribly bright, either, but he’s important to mention, if only because I no idea who was playing him. This guy . . .

. . . is also this guy.

That’s right. John Larroquette is a Klingon! That’s awesome!

5. But let’s get back to our good guys, namely Kirk.

The Search for Spock takes place soon after The Wrath of Khan, just as the Enterprise is arriving back to Earth. The ship is still wrecked to hell, and Kirk is generally being a whiny mopeypants about everything. Okay, he has cause. Still, he has some learning to do about boosting fucking morale. There’s this young ensign type who wants to know if there will be a celebration back on Earth for their heroism, and sure, he could probably be a touch more tactful about it, but this is likely his first mission out, right, and maybe he just needs something to look forward to and/or feel good about in the wake of the first officer’s death.

Kirk, the Cheeriest Motherfucker in the Galaxy, stares the ensign down before gloomily saying that surely, there will be a celebration. “This time we paid for the party with our dearest blood.”

And you know that ensign’s like, Thanks for the feel-good sentiment, buddy! Let me just go just shoot myself out an airlock for a sec, okay? Awesome.

6. Kirk’s mood only gets worse when he realizes that Bones is going a little crazy. (Although, in one scene, Kirk seems to show a total lack of concern when talking about it with his crew. I suspect that he’s trying to downplay, but honestly, the delivery doesn’t quite sell that for me.) As far as the whole kinda-crazy Bones story goes . . . I like it. I’m not going to go into much (or any) detail above the Spoiler Section, but I think the whole storyline is interesting and relatively well handled.

Also, I can’t help fantasizing about what a similar storyline would be like in the Star Trek 2009 universe.

Hmmm . . . interesting . . .

7. I do have some problems with the basic storyline of The Search for Spock, though. The ending is a serious issue for me. There’s a weird lack of tension throughout the last fifteen minutes, like the climax of the film happens too early and after that it’s just a matter of time before we get to the ending that everybody already knows is going to happen. I’m also not crazy about how they handle some things with the Genesis planet. It’s such a big deal in The Wrath of Khan . . . and then The Search for Spock comes along and pisses all over it. It feels like a giant retcon that’s handled really, really poorly.

8. I also really hate some of the dialogue in The Search for Spock. I mean, some of it’s awesome. I love Kirk asking Bones how many fingers he’s holding up while doing the Vulcan salute. (Actually, a lot of my favorite quotes come from Kirk, I think.) But a lot of the dialogue is random as hell. For example . . . .

Saavik: “Just like your father, so human.”

I can only assume the point of this line is to remind the audience that David is Kirk’s son. Which, fine, but . . . really? So human? I would have been okay with so reckless, so wild, so fucking idiotic . . . but to have the Vulcan point out that a son is just as human as the father . . . blarg. It’s an awkward and stupid line.

Also . . .

Kirk: “This entire crew seems on the edge of obsessive behaviour concerning Mister Spock.”

Like a lot of the dialogue in this film, this line just comes out of nowhere. I suspect it’s supposed to be sort of ironic—or whatever word we use ironic as a substitute for—considering that it’s coming from Kirk, who can’t shake his grief over his friend’s death. But still, the line doesn’t play at all. Other than this supposed intruder, we’ve seen no other examples of the crew being particularly obsessive over Mister Spock, not even cases where Kirk could misinterpret their actions as obsessive in nature. Kirk could have said, “I swear, everyone on this ship is obsessed with rubber ducks,” and it would have been almost as random.

And then . . .

Morrow: “Jim, your life and your career stand for rationality, not intellectual chaos. Keep up this emotional behavior and you’ll lose everything. You’ll destroy yourself!”

Kirk’s career stands for rationality? SINCE WHEN?

Also:

Mr. Adventure: “Have you lost your sense of reality?”

Sense of reality? Who even talks like that? Uhura’s response is almost as bad.

Uhura: “This isn’t reality. This is fantasy.”

I mean, the scene’s okay. It’s kind of cool to hint at Uhura being a badass. But the dialogue is so freaking awful. No one could make that dialogue work.

Finally . . .

Kirk: “I have had . . . enough . . . of you!”

Wow. Worst “fuck you” to a bad guy, ever.

9. Despite my constant problem with dialogue, there are a lot of scenes that I really enjoy. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the one with the mind meld between Kirk and Sarek. I really liked the close-ups on both Kirk’s eyes and Sarek’s lips. It’s pretty simplistic, but it’s also very effective.

10. I also like this one pretty emotional scene with Kirk. I was impressed with that scene and William Shatner’s acting within it. It’s easily one of the best parts of the movie.

11. The fashion in the future continues to be horrible. Well, that’s not fair. Kirk does have this one jacket with an amazing collar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy wear a collar like that before. But in another scene, his outfit’s pretty horrendous. And for the love of God, Chekov. What the hell are you wearing?

It’s truly horrifying. I don’t even have words.

12. I guess I should bring up the whole Kirstie Alley versus Robin Curtis thing.

  

Actually, I haven’t fully decided on who plays the better Saavik. People say that Kirstie Alley is a more interesting Saavik, and in a way I agree with that. (Although it still drives me nuts that they don’t explain the fact that the character’s half-Romulan, like, ever.) But there’s something about Alley’s performance that I’m not totally in love with, either. I mean, she’s okay. But I wasn’t exactly broken up when she didn’t reappear in the third film.

Robin Curtis’s portrayal of Saavik is considerably less emotional than Kirstie Alley’s, but I don’t think she’s quite as mechanical or boring as other people seem to. I kind of wish she was a little more nuanced, but I also don’t know that she’s given a lot to work with, even though she has a decent amount of screen time. Some of her dialogue is absolute rubbish. That’s not really something you can blame on the actor.

13. Sulu gets a chance to kick some ass. That’s nice. Go Tiny!

14. One of the minor characters in The Search for Spock is the captain of this science vessel, the USS: Grissom. I kind of like him. Actually, I don’t like him—he’s very irritating—but I did admire his refusal to just beam up random shit to his starship. Oh, you say there’s some mysterious life form on the planet where there shouldn’t be any animals at all? And you’re recommending we just transport it off the planet and onto our ship when we have absolutely no idea what it is, what diseases it could have, if it’s a vicious, man-eating killer or a fuzzy wuzzy bunny rabbit? Well, fuck you buddy, that’s what I think. We aren’t beaming shit onto my ship until you go investigate.

More captains could stand to have this degree of common sense.

15. Finally, WTF is up with the Klingon doggie?

Klingons keep the strangest pets.

Now. If you want to find out whether Spock makes it or not, continue onward . . .

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS 

Yes. Of course he does.

Okay, so we begin the film with what might as well be a “Previously on Star Trek,” and I don’t like it. At all. For starters, it’s not that necessary. Were there really that many people going to see the third movie in the series when they hadn’t seen the movie before it? Seems doubtful to me. Trek’s clearly not that mainstream. More importantly, though, there are a ton of ways to deliver exposition to catch your audience up on what’s been going on. Just tossing up five minutes of straight footage is kind of on the lazy side, and seriously, what the hell is up with the little blue box and the push in at the beginning? That’s just annoying.

Anyway, after all that nonsense is over, we get a bit of Mopey Kirk before moving over to Awesome Lady Klingon and her Awesome Klingon Headdress.

Awesome Lady Klingon and Her Awesome Klingon Headdress (also known as Valkris) has acquired secret intel on the Genesis planet for her boyfriend, Kruge. Unfortunately, she also looked at the intel, so Kruge blows up her whole ship. He’s pretty matter-of-fact about it, though, and she’s very understanding. A lot more understanding than I would be, but hey, she’s a Klingon. They take death in stride, sometimes.

So, then we’re back to the Enterprise. Kirk is still morose cause, you know, Spock’s still dead. There’s a mysterious intruder in Spock’s sealed quarters, and when Kirk goes alone to investigate, he finds Bones there, pretty much acting like a crazy person.

Bones asks Kirk why he left him on Genesis. Kirk doesn’t quite understand that, so Bones tells him that he needs to go home. Kirk’s like, dude, we are home. Bones is like, cool, so, we need to climb the steps of Mt. Seleya. So Kirk’s all, uh, Bones, that’s on Vulcan. We’re orbiting Earth, okay? Earth. Bones’s only response to that is to hiss, “Remember,” and promptly collapse into his friend’s arms.

And what do the doctors think is wrong with Bones? Exhaustion. Yes. Exhaustion totally causes you to think that you are your dead friend. That happens to me all the time.

Also: more bad news. The Enterprise is going to be decommissioned. Oh noes!

Meanwhile, David and Saavik are on the USS: Grissom, which is currently orbiting Genesis. They go planetside to investigate a strange animal lifeform and discover that Spock’s body is missing. Whoops.

Meanwhile again, Kirk is hanging with his homies when Sarek (Spock’s daddy) comes by for a visit. Sarek is more than mildly irate, and there’s something about it that doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t mind that he’s upset, even if he’s a Vulcan, but I’m just not crazy about the actual performance. It comes off too . . . superior or snooty for me, maybe?Anyway, Sarek’s pissed that Kirk left Spock’s body on Genesis, as he assumes Kirk should know better if he’s possessing Spock’s katra (living essence). They have their whole mind meld thing, which confirms that Spock actually transferred his katra to Bones, not Kirk.

I do like how DeForest Kelley gets to play a strange mixture of Bones and Spock. There’s this one scene where Bones says a few things that Spock would say (like pointing out that drinking poison isn’t logical) but he says them the way Bones would say them, that is, irritably. Very irritably. Considering how opposite the two characters are, it’s a lot of fun to see them sort of sharing the same brainspace. My only quibble is that I wish there was a little more emphasis on how dangerous this is for Bones, like whether he’ll go totally insane or not if he carries the katra for too long. It’s kind of hinted at, but I wouldn’t mind it being a bigger part of the story, especially considering the film suffers from a lack of tension, anyway.

So, Kirk wants to hop on the Enterprise and pick up Spock’s body, naturally. He promises Sarek that he’ll deliver it back to Vulcan. One problem: there’s a whole bunch of political BS about Genesis, and not only is Kirk denied the request to go back, it’s pretty much illegal to even talk about Genesis. So Kirk decides to steal the Enterprise. There’s a great moment where Kirk tells the main cast that they don’t have to go with him, and Chekov’s like, “Admiral, we’re losing precious time.” That’s actually what he says, word for word. Good for you, Chekov.

Back on the Genesis planet: David and Saavik locate the strange, animal life form, only it turns out to be none other than Child Spock! The Genesis planet has somehow regenerated him, which . . . okay, this seems a little silly to me, but you know what, I’m just going to go with it. Child Spock is silent and shaky, and only Saavik is able to form a connection with him. (Although, to be fair, I’m not sure David really tries.) Before they can beam back up to the Grissom, though, Kruge’s ship decloaks and blows it all to Hell. Seriously, one shot blows up the entire ship. And it’s an accidental shot—Kruge wanted prisoners, apparently. I know the Grissom’s shields are probably down and all, but I think that if one lucky shot can blow up an entire starship in an instant . . . the Federation might want to reconsider how they’re designing these things.

Anyway, Saavik, David, and Child Spock run around Genesis, trying to avoid the Klingons. Child Spock is aging rapidly, and the planet seems mildly unstable, apparently changing season with every new scene. Saavik wants to know what’s going on. David tells her that, while working on the Genesis project, he used some experimental material called protomatter that’s been banned by, like, everybody. It was the only way to get it working at the time, but now the planet is aging too fast and will die in a matter of days or even hours. I have many, many problems with this, which I will attempt to summarize here:

Writer Susan: Okay, so we’ve got this whole katra thing, and that’s pretty cool. But how can we use it to bring Spock back to life? We can’t just infuse his dead body with his katra, can we?

Writer Joe: No, Writer Susan, I don’t think so. But maybe we can regenerate Spock’s body entirely!

Writer Susan: Well, that sounds convenient, Writer Joe! How would we do that?

Writer Joe: Well, Spock’s body is on Genesis, right? Maybe Genesis—being a magical planet, more or less—somehow just restarts everything. You know, he’ll be recreated, only as a little kid or something. Yeah! His old body will go poof and he’ll be transformed into this rapidly aging kid! So the katra Bones is carrying will be put into new Spock, and then we’ll basically have old Spock again!

Writer Susan: That’s amazing, Writer Joe!

Writer Joe: I know!

Writer Susan: But wait . . . we can’t just have some magical planet that brings people back from the dead! Everyone would constantly be swinging by to drop off their dear, dead Uncle Lee’s and their sweet, corpsified Auntie Ruth’s for a weekend regeneration! We would have single-handedly defeated Death in the Star Trek universe.

Writer Joe: Well . . . shit. We can’t have that, can we, Writer Susan? No, so . . . okay. Okay, new plan: we blow the shit out of the Genesis planet. We only really need it to bring back Spock, anyway. Once that’s done, we’ll just promptly kill the planet cause . . . uh . . . 

Writer Susan: Er . . . 

Writer Joe: Oh, fuck it, it doesn’t matter. We’ll just throw in a line of exposition about a flaw in the original experiment or an unethical decision or two, and everything will be all hunky-dory. Problem solved. 

I can maybe, maybe get over destroying Genesis—you know, the big miracle of The Wrath of Khan—if only they’d spent more than three minutes discussing what had gone wrong with the planet in the first place. But it’s like the writers put no effort in at all, so the actual dialogue goes something like this:

Saavik: Dude, what’s up with the planet?
David: Yeah, I sort of fucked up by being a science rebel. I used protomatter.
Saavik: That’s super, super bad. How long do we have?
David: Not very long.
Saavik: You should sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done!

Seriously, that’s about the time and effort the writers put into the explanation of the super-aging Genesis planet. I’m also not crazy about Saavik’s reaction to David’s use of protomatter. Sure, I’d be pissed too, if I was stuck on a dying world, but the dialogue itself bothers me a lot: “How many have paid the price for your impatience? How many have died? How much damage have you done? And what is yet to come?”

If you’re talking about the people on the U.S.S. Grissom, Saavik, I’m not entirely sure it’s fair to put the burden of their deaths on David. After all, if he had waited, and his project had been successful without the protomatter, wouldn’t the Klingons have come and killed everyone anyway? Can he really be blamed for their actions? It’s not like he asked them to be a bunch of giant assholes. And if you aren’t talking about the people who died on the Grissom . . . well, then who are you bitching about, exactly? No one else has actually died yet. At this point, the only thing David’s controversial protomatter has done is allowed Spock another chance at life. Shame on you, David. Fucking shame.

Eventually, David, Saavik, and Child Spock are all captured by a Klingon away team. The Enterprise finally arrives, and Kruge tries to attack them, but Kirk is too crafty to be fooled by cloaking devices. Unfortunately, they can’t exactly blow the Klingon bird of prey out of the water because the Enterprise is still heavily damaged from the last movie. So, Kruge tells Kirk about the hostages and says he’ll kill them if he doesn’t get what he wants. Then, just to prove how serious he is (about being a dick), he tells his away team to go ahead and kill one of the hostages now. It doesn’t even matter which one.

The Klingons fucking circle behind David, Saavik, and Child Spock, preparing to stab one of them in the back. Creepiness aside . . . WHAT THE FUCK? What kind of Klingons are you? Your ancestors in the afterlife are WEEPING right now. The Klingons are about to kill Saavik, but David interferes and gets killed instead. Congratulations, David. You have earned yourself a Redemptive, Noble Sacrifice for the crime of letting Spock come back to life.

When Kirk finds out that his son is dead . . . well, it’s probably the best scene in the whole movie. Once again, William Shatner surprises me with his ability to act. This will promptly be destroyed later in the film during the big, climactic fight scene, but still. When Kirk stumbles backwards into his chair, I just wanted someone to leap up from his post and give him a hug. Literally, I was like, “Sulu! Chekov! Get off your ass and give that man a HUG! NOW!”

Kirk’s devastation leads to a radical plan. He tells the Klingons that they can board the Enterprise, but they’re going to have to wait just a few more minutes. Kruge, being a moron, is perfectly okay with that, even though he believes that the Enterprise is staffed with a full crew of people, not just a few dudes on the Bridge. Even one of Kruge’s men is like, Dude! If we board the ship, they could slaughter us! And Kruge is like, We’re KLINGONS, you wimpy piece of shit! Strategy is for the weak!

So while Kruge is patiently waiting, Kirk, Chekov, and Scotty enter the ship’s self-destruct codes. Note: self-destruct codes? Worrisomely simple. When Kruge’s men board the Enterprise (at the designated time and place, freaking losers) nobody else is on the ship. They don’t understand the countdown because they don’t speak Standard. Kruge tries to warn them, but it’s too late. The ship blows up, taking most of the Klingons with it. Kruge seems surprisingly broken up about this. Like, is he crying? He didn’t show this much emotion about his dead girlfriend. Of course, to be fair, he actually intended to kill her.

Anyway, the Enterprise crew is now chilling on the rapidly aging planet. They meet up with Saavik and Child Spock (well, Young Man Spock by now, I guess) and realize that they need to get him off the planet, or he will continue rapidly aging right along into the decomposition process. (Although I don’t think that’s such an immediate concern, as the whole planet is still, you know, trying to blow up beneath them. He probably won’t even get to middle age before they all go BOOM.)

Kirk decides that the best way to get off the planet is to cruelly taunt Kruge. “Sorry about your crew, but as we say on Earth, c’est la vie.” It’s a little colder than I would normally expect Kirk to be, but you know, his son was murdered about fifteen minutes ago. He’s not exactly in his happy place.

Kruge is still jonesing for prisoners, I guess, so after beaming down to the planet, he has John Larroquette beam everyone but Kirk and Young Man Spock up to his Klingon bird of prey. Maybe Kruge wants to torture them? I really don’t know why he’s doing this. Kruge and Kirk then start fighting. Eventually, Kruge is hanging off the edge of a cliff (lava is beneath him because of course it is) and Kirk tries to help him back up (because your good guys can apparently only be cold and ruthless for so long). Kruge, who’s still dangling off the cliff, immediately tries to bring Kirk down with him. I think we’ve already established the fact that Kruge clearly doesn’t have much in the way of strategy. Kirk then tries to kick Kruge off the cliff. “I have had . . .” (KICK) ” . . . enough . . .” (KICK) ” . . .of YOU!” (KICK). And as I groan at this poorly written and acted scene, Kruge goes flying off the cliff into the lava. Exit Villain.

Kirk picks up Young Man Spock (who’s unconscious at this point . . . cause . . . um . . . yeah, I don’t know) and tells John Larroquette to beam them up. Larroquette does so because apparently Kirk is so awesome in every way that he manages to not only sound like a native Klingon, but a native Klingon who also sounds like Christopher Lloyd. That takes talent.

Kirk easily takes over the ship. Larroquette thinks he deserves to be killed. (It’s true.) Kirk tells him that he’ll kill him later, which is one of the funnier lines in the film. (It’s also blatantly untrue. This is Trek, not BSG. We don’t outright murder our enemies, even if they deserve it.) The crew speeds away from Genesis, which blows up behind them, and head straight on to Vulcan, where Sarek and Uhura wait.

Sadly, the scene where they bring Spock back to life is one of the more disappointing scenes in the whole movie, I think. Once Kruge is dead, there’s no tension left in this film at all. There’s no chance that the process won’t work. I mean, we all know that Spock is coming back. And they aren’t exactly going to kill off Bones, either. The Vulcan Priestess Lady does warn Bones that the transfer will be particularly dangerous for him, but it’s just a line. Nobody buys it.

If the ritual itself were more interesting to watch, or hell, if you even got to really see it . . . but no, you don’t get much more than the Vulcan Priestess Lady putting one hand on Spock’s head and one hand on Bones’s head. Shit, I don’t think you even get close ups on their faces. It’s just such a wasted scene. Maybe Nimoy was going for simple but effective, like the mind mind earlier in the film? If so, it doesn’t work. This is supposed to be the scene the whole movie’s leading up to. You expect to see something . . . Spock’s katra, Bones writhing around, some kind of glowy, white light . . . anything but the couple of seconds of utter blah that you get.

And it’s not just a lack of special effects, either. There’s a serious lack of emotion in this scene. Spock’s still unconscious, for some reason, so he doesn’t need to have much expression, but you don’t feel any kind of fear or pain from Bones. And the crew standing by, they seem almost as bored as the audience, like even they know that Spock and Bones are both going to be okay. Nimoy doesn’t bother to capture any real tension or concern between the characters, not in this scene, at least, and that’s a serious problem for me.

Well, it turns out that Bones is fine, shockingly, and that Spock’s alive . . . but wait, oh noes! Spock appears to have amnesia. He doesn’t understand why Kirk has sacrificed so much for him. (And I know this is another nitpick, but they’re talking about David here, and I find that incredibly annoying because Kirk didn’t sacrifice David. David would almost certainly have died whether Kirk had come back for Spock or not.)

Kirk, in a wonderful reversal from the second movie, tells Spock that he did this “because the needs of the one . . . outweigh the needs of the many.” This triggers Spock to remember their last words and Kirk’s name. It’s pretty clear that Spock will be getting the rest of his memories back too . . . and that’s where we leave off. End film.

It’s not a bad last scene, not bad at all. But the scene before it is a serious letdown.

CONCLUSIONS:

Some cheesy and very convenient plot stuff that I could get over, but I really hate the fact that they, one, blew up the Genesis planet, and two, didn’t bother spending more than two minutes on exposition about it. Shatner does some nice acting in a few scenes, but some not-so-great acting in others. Some neat ideas and fun moments, but a pretty weak ending, overall.

MVP:

DeForest Kelley

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B-

MORAL:

Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. Duh.

Also, don’t use banned material in your science experiments. God frowns on that, and then you get killed off. Scientists with good intentions always get killed off, usually right after acknowledging their bad choices and saying something like, “My God, what have I done.”