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

You just have to break the universe in order to do it.

I'll admit I teared up after both events.

Which goes to what I've seen as the feminization and creeping political correctness in Star Trek.

But women being more upset about Spock's death is quite understandable given that Spock's fan base tended to be female.

feminization of Star trek?

I suppose you're right. It was best when the dames were there for the captain to smooch or smack every few episodes or they weren't prettying up the place.

Actually, I preferred Star Trek to be all male but that is a different thread entirely.

That's just an absurd thing to say. Spock didn't contribute significantly to the proceedings in Voyage Home, Final Frontier or Undiscovered Country?

I do not think The Voyage Home should've been made. At the time, many fans thought it was too light hearted and lacked seriousness. Not many really cared for the idea of "Star Trek movie as comedy". At least that was my take on it

Final Frontier was terrible by most standards.

The Undiscovered Country was pretty good (despite staggering plot holes too numerous to mention here).

But having Spock around for one worthwhile movie out of three was simply not worth it in my opinion.

And I will not even go into Leonard Nimoy's "paycheck" appearances in TNG....

I barely know where to start.

First of all, the Enterprise, while certainly iconic, is NOT the main "character" in Star Trek. The ship itself would have been a very boring place without the cast to populate it.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that fandom in general held this opinion of what made Trek, "Trek," up until Search for Spock.

Second, your ideas about how Trek (and I assume other TV shows) are hampered by an over-reliance on human characters is just about the most bizarre thing I've ever read here. Even shows that were based around a central "concept" like the Twilight Zone, an anthology series whose cast changed with every episode, had to depend on the human actors to present the stories. The quality of the writing varied, but a good actor can often elevate mediocre dialogue.

The original Law & Order, one of the longest running television series of all time made a point of NOT being about the characters.

Going so far as attempting to avoid having the characters spend much time talking about their families or backgrounds.

Yes, Law & Order always made a point to be about the plot and not the personal lives of the characters, it wanted to be a police procedural, not a soap opera. However, the popularity of the show was directly related to the likability of the actors, Chris Noth, Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston.....

So did Richard Arnold.

What mission might that be?

I don't want to hijack the thread.

So would Andy Dick.

Not sure I can agree with that. But then, I'd need to see Yeoman Rand in her underwear to properly evaluate.

It makes no sense, because Saavik was supposedly half Romulan.

Can you clarify this Garamet? All I remember about Richard Arnold was that he basically worshipped Gene Roddenberry and considered himself the "guardian" of "Gene's vision" and he pissed off a lot of people by "vetoing" ideas that he thought went against that vision (supposedly acting on Roddenberry's behalf but no one believed that).

Director's prerogative. Who knows? I don't know if Nimoy's ever asked about it, but Robin's been very clear when asked. She's a very bubbly person IRL, so it was a bit of a challenge to contain all that in the character. Which is what Nimoy did with Spock for decades - in I Am Not Spock he talks about breaking down in tears in Roddenberry's office once - but what the fans accepted in his performance was apparently not okay with them when it came to hers.

I think the fans would have been fine with Robin Curtis if that was the original Saavik. But not only did they change actors, they changed the personality of the character. That's the big problem I have had.

Granted, but it was a bit of a dilemma. You replace the first actress because, so the story goes, her agent's demanding she be paid as much as the two leads, but then the second actress arrives with one strike already against her.

Then, does the second actress try to dovetail her performance with her predecessor's or start fresh? And how much is her performance affected by the script (a very different setting in STIII than in TWOK), her fellow actors and, finally, the director's instruction?

Just as an aside, I've got a weakness for British cop shows and, thanks to Netflix, I've been watching a slew of them, and I've noticed they have no compunction about replacing actors from one season to the next, even the leads. Sometimes they'll explain it in a line of dialogue ("What happened to So-and-So?" "Oh, requested a transfer to Manchester." "Ah."), sometimes there'll simply be a new actor playing the same character, and no questions asked.

Can't do that in the States, and especially not in Trek.

Yeah, the way Saavik was written in the first movie, she was a lot more...expressive, for a character that supposedly represses emotion.

There's probably the whole Hot!Kirstie Alley thing that was working against Robin Curtis that garamet mentioned earlier as well.

In STIII:TSFS Captain Styles could've been Stiles from "Balance of Terror", now a captain, & played again by Paul Comi. Though that would've sucked for James B. Sikking.

Interestingly, it could easily have been the other way around. Both Comi and Sikking were 60s character actor journeymen.

You know, I never figured out why Styles in "The Search for Spock" was so reviled.

It wasn't like he was out to get Kirk and company or had any particular grudge against them. He was ordered to take the Excelsior in pursuit of them. And his off hand communication to Kirk right before the Enterprise goes into warp:

"Kirk. You do this and you'll never sit in the captains chair again."

seems to me to be an attempt to prevent Kirk and company from ruining their careers before things go to far.

I want Carol Marcus to investigate my prototype torpedo.

It's clear that he's also a cocky bastard. He carries a swagger stick. It's a symbol of authority, one to tell you exactly who is in charge thankyouverymuch. For someone like Styles, it's a telltale of his massive, possibly unearned, ego.

In reference to the "Kirstie vs. Robin" battle, I think more than a few fans beyond the personality differences simply liked Kirstie Alley's clearly more unusual and somewhat exotic Saavik than Robin Curtis's much more "1980s looking" Saavik.

Also, Alley had the huge advantage of having most of her scenes with Shatner and Nimoy while Curtis was stuck with Buttrick for most of The Search for Spock.

I like them both, and I began liking Kirstie Alley's "Saavik" once I found out she was also part Romulan, explaining her emotional scenes, which confused me before.

I actually have a theory about why Leonard Nimoy told Robin Curtis to play Saavik as a "Vulcan".

I recall now that there were rumors floating around fandom that Saavik was going to turn out to be Spock's daughter.

I have a feeling that Nimoy himself heard the idea and thought it might be worth exploring in the future.

Although they then would've been stuck with the whole "implied incest" thing if you assume that Saavik had to "help" Spock through Pon Farr (presumably by mating with him though there are other ways they could explain it) about every 10 minutes or so.

The big difference for me between Alley and Curtis is that Curtis' acting was wooden. Even taking into account the "vulcanization" process, the woman was so stiff she was painful to watch.

And I don't think she blinked once during the Ponn Farr scene with youngSpock.