This guy thinks Star Trek III is the greatest Star Trek film of all time.

http://whatculture.com/film/star-tr...ck-7-reasons-why-its-the-best-trek-film.php/8

Star Trek III is the most undeservedly maligned of the odd-numbered (cursed!) Trek films. The story of Kirk and his crew trying to save the soul of their departed comrade Spock is engaging and moves along quickly. There are some great moments of humor ("How can you be deaf with ears like that?", "How many fingers am I holding up?", "How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock?", "Helluva time to ask."). Uhura finally gets to contribute to the action: pulling a phaser on "Mr. Adventure." Christopher Lloyd is terrifically hammy as the Klingon commander, with whom Kirk engages in an honest-to-God fistfight. Mark Lenard returns as Sarek. And the sequence where Kirk and company steal the Enterprise is one of the best in franchise history.

But the best of the Trek films? No. Middle of the pack.

It is my favorite. If for no other reason than the message of responsibility for your people.

"Kirk, I thank you."
"I was only doing what I had to do."
"But at what cost? Your ship. Your son."
"If I hadn't gone, the cost would have been my soul."

Something I try to remember when the right thing is the hard thing.

All of the Trek movies have their own unique charms, and I can enjoy all of them for what they are. The escape from spacedock sequence is still exciting to watch even after all these years.

I would say that the thing that bugs me the most about the film is the absence of Carol Marcus, and the clumsy re-editing of the CGI Genesis torpedo concept presentation only this time with Kirk doing the talking.

I suppose the story of why that actress didn't return to the role is available somewhere on the internets, but I've never bothered to look it up. It is strange how the character gets completely dropped after TWOK. We continue to see the effect that David's death has on Kirk all the way thru Undiscovered Country, yet never once is his mother or how she reacted to his death mentioned.

The problem with Star Trek III is the overall concept. Returning Spock to life to me was a massive mistake given that the character played by Leonard Nimoy really did not contribute all that much to any subsequent Star Trek production.

But the bad idea was well executed. Star Trek III had more to see visually than most Star Trek movies.

Are you crazy, Dayton? Spock and Kirk pretty much are Star Trek.

I do not know how old you are Soma, but back during the early 1980s and before that the 70s there was a saying about Star Trek.

The Enterprise is the real character of Star Trek.

Until Star Trek III that was widely considered to be true. But with the ridiculous revival of Spock and the almost casual destruction of the Enterprise (something that became more typical in subsequent Treks), Star Trek went from being about the

"voyages of the starship Enterprise" to the "Kirk & Spock show".

This overall hurt Star Trek in the long run because when you have a series based on human characters and thus human actors, you are forever a slave to how well those characters work out.

But when your series is based around a general idea location (the ship) and a general idea (the voyage, or quest) then the chance of disappointing variances is minimized.

That's a crock of shit

Meh, not entirely. In TOS the Enterprise was very much treated as a character. Dayton is overstating the matter, though.

Harve Bennett and several of the actors held a seminar at UCLA film school shortly after the film aired, and Bennett gave some explanation for Carol's absence. He didn't name names, but "the Studio" had let him know as he was working on the script that they did not want any further expansion of the "Star Trek family," meaning relatives of the crew.

Bennett indicated that he was tasked with breaking the news to Bibi Besch because they were old friends and, "she cried" when he told her. Sic transit Hollywood.

So Carol was jettisoned as not essential to the plot, with David taking on the "explaining the science" stuff, including implicating himself for using protomatter and - very Greek tragedy - paying the price with his death.

David's subsequent "presence" in STVI was possibly more of an homage to Merritt than to the character.

Saavik, of course, was ditched following a throwaway scene in STIV, yet the Shatner Ego got away with giving us Sybok in STV. Later there was Sulu's daughter, and so on. So we can safely assume that different voices were speaking for "the Studio" by that time.

As for the film itself, it stands now as the middle of a triptych, but it was shot as a sequel, with no sense that there'd be a third film. So if it has weaknesses, it may be because the primary goal was to answer all of the questions raised in TWOK.

But if you wanted to introduce someone to Trek for the first time, the three films together capture the essence of everything that's good about TOS, IMO.

I liked Besch's character and it would've been interesting to see her stick around. Kirk was either totally lacking female companionship in the films or he had it with women who were sorta age-inappropriate (Gillian in TVH, Martia in TUC).

I thought it was pretty criminal how Saavik was discarded in TVH.

What did you mean about the "Shatner ego" and Sybok? Was this character originally intended to be Saavik? If so, that would've been very cool.

Course, now in JJverse, Carol Marcus replaces Janice Rand.

I think he means that Shatner (who had a role in the story for ST Five IIRC) insisted that the "renegade Vulcan" be Spock's never even mentioned brother because he liked the idea of Spock choosing Kirk over his own brother.

IIRC, Robin Curtis's Saavik was jettisoned in part because of extremely negative fan reaction to her in The Search For Spock who did not like her compared to Kirstie Alley.

They have a point. Curtis almost criminally underacted the part of Saavik in TSFS.

And Alice Eve is waaaaay fucking hotter than Grace Lee Whitney.

Media Central. Play nice.

I don't have any firsthand knowledge about scripts for STV (unlike III, where lax security on the Paramount lot resulted in an awful lot of "Top Secret" material being smuggled out, photocopied, and distributed to fans ), but AFAIK Saavik was not under consideration (though she did appear in early drafts of STVI, but was later replaced by Valeris).

What I meant by the Shatner Ego is that once Nimoy was given the director's chair for STIII, Our Captain lobbied long and hard to direct the next one and at that point he was considered the 800-pound gorilla, as in "Give him what he wants so he'll STFU, because otherwise he'll walk, and we can't have a Trek movie without Kirk."

I'm told that following STV, Shatner was paid a substantial sum if he promised not to put in for director for any subsequent film. And of course we've since learned that not only can you make a Trek film or several without Kirk, but you can also make Trek films with a Kirk who's not Shatner.

I'll take Grace over Alice any day of the week.

And Geordi plowed her on the holodeck.

In Starlog, Nic Meyer basically said that the issue of Saavik (it would've been Kirstie Alley) in The Undiscovered Country caused a huge blowup between him and Gene Roddenberry.

According to Meyer, Roddenberry did not want the Saavik to be a traitor because he thought she had become a "beloved character" in Star Trek lore.

To which Meyer reportedly blew up and said basically "Wait a F*&^^%4 minute! I created the character of Saavik in the first place. Not Roddenberry".

In the end Meyer changed the name to Valeris and recast it but vowed thereafter not to listen to Roddenberry again.

Anything I've seen divides fandom into two fairly even camps. The majority of those who "hate" Robin's portrayal seem to be horny males lusting after Kirstie - that Kirstie, not the larger version. Nothing about acting technique at all.

Then blame her director, who specifically told her to "play it Vulcan."

Some of us actually prefer Robin's portrayal. But then we're not horny males fantasizing about how "Kirstie would totally want me!"

Whoops, I meant Christine Chapel.

Well...both, really...

Why did Leonard Nimoy tell her to "play it Vulcan"?

No idea.

Grace Lee Whitney looks like she's still got one foot in the trailer park. No thanks.

Also:

[?=I rest my case][/?]

I like Kirstie's portrayal--there's a little fire smoldering underneath--but I certainly didn't hate Curtis.

I saw an interview with Robin Curtis from about 10 years ago and I have to say...she was looking VERY good. Way better than the contemporary Kirstie Alley.

Perhaps, but I think saying he is overstating the matter as fact is an understatement.

There's another big divide I've noticed in fandom. Women were far more upset about Spock's death than men, even though the assumption was that he'd be brought back somehow (I was really, really hoping it wouldn't turn out to be a "Use the Force, Jim" sort of thing). Men, on the other hand, were devastated by the destruction of Enterprise, whereas women were almost universally "It's just a ship. They'll build another one."

I think you overstate the understatement.