“THE WORD IS NO.… I AM THEREFORE GOING ANYWAY.”
Whereas, given its cost, a sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture was questionable for some time after its release, there was no such hesitation in the aftermath of The Wrath of Khan. A critical and commercial success that was far more profitable than its predecessor due to its significantly lower budget, Paramount gave Harve Bennett the green light for a third film the day after it opened.
But somewhere around that time—and in recognition of the success and power of the Khan character—an unrealized prequel, and heretofore unknown spin-off, was briefly put into development.
EDDIE EGAN (unit publicist, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
A spin-off was being pursued and a script was written. It was called Star Trek: Prison Planet, and it was to deal with what happened after the Botany Bay crashed on Ceti Alpha V, and before the Reliant got there in The Wrath of Khan. It was completely designed as a vehicle for Ricardo Montalban, and it was supervised by Harve. But then the decision was made to focus exclusively on Star Trek III instead.
By September 16, 1982, Bennett turned in his initial story line for the film, titled Return to Genesis. Although differing quite markedly from the film that would ultimately result from it (Romulans as villains instead of Klingons, Saavik confessing her love for Kirk, Sulu masterminding the stealing of the Enterprise to save Spock while Kirk was under house arrest, Spock being discovered as a primitive Neanderthal on the Genesis Planet), there were elements that would remain until the end (Kirk scuttling his starship to take out the enemy, the stealing of the Enterprise to mount a rescue mission of Spock on Genesis, with now Kirk instead of Sulu leading the effort). The rapidly aging Spock mirroring the unstable planet (an idea originally suggested by Gene Roddenberry’s secretary, Susan Sackett), the return of Spock’s katra from McCoy’s mind to his body via a Vulcan ceremony, Saavik and David on the Genesis Planet, and the Klingon Kruge are all elements which would be introduced later.
EDDIE EGAN
There was a version of the story that had a very prominent role for Spock’s brother, who somehow ended up on the Enterprise and is part of the voyage back to Vulcan to bring Spock’s body back. That was eventually dropped, but I don’t know whether that actually led later to the character of Sybok in Star Trek V, but he was certainly a big part of the script in the earliest versions.
HARVE BENNETT (producer-writer, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
I had to make a story out of the following “givens.” One, there is a casket on a planet that has been created by the reformation of life forces, and life has been created from death. Two, “There are always possibilities.” Three, before he died, Spock said, “Remember.” Remember what? The puzzle was solved so easily that I think seventeen other people could have written the script to Star Trek III.
If you end a film with a Genesis Device that can, in one poof create life where there was lifelessness, you have created an enormous story device that cannot be ignored. Now, the fans would be justified in saying, “Well, why not just create a planet as a plot solution?” Or, “What would happen if the Klingons got hold of this? They wouldn’t use it to make a planet, they would destroy a planet.”
Therefore, the final puzzle solving was the denial of the validity of the Genesis Device. That was—as “the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away”—necessary or we would have expanded the borders of Star Trek, even subliminally, that it would have had the same impact the A-bomb had on the twentieth century, so as to make conventional things no longer viable. That’s fine, but who needs to restructure Star Trek on that basis?
WILLIAM SHATNER (actor, “James T. Kirk”)
An accident happened on Star Trek II. Maybe it wasn’t an accident if you don’t believe in accidents. But it was really very strange. We were getting ready to do the death scene of Spock. This wasn’t scripted, but Leonard put his hand on DeForest’s head and he was looking for something mysterious to do. For some reason, in this last scene, Leonard said, “Remember.” It was very mysterious. It was meaningful to somebody in Star Trek, but we didn’t know what it meant. And that was the end. Spock was dead and the question was, Will there be a Star Trek III and how could you do it without Spock? But that was a whole other question. As far as everyone was concerned at that time, Spock was dead.
HARVE BENNETT
It would have been very easy to say at the conclusion of Star Trek II that all the things we had done to modify that film’s ending to be ambiguous about the death of Spock were carefully designed and that the plot for Star Trek III was already in my mind. Not true. All of that, like most decisions I have ever made, are done in a flurry of intuition and sometimes pressure of time.
LEONARD NIMOY (actor/director, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
It was obvious that there was some kind of ticking clock going on in McCoy’s mind that might be explored later. What is McCoy carrying around in his head that he may not even know about consciously yet that may spring to life later and be a factor in the new movie? Could you imagine what would happen if Kirk had any reason whatsoever, if he were given reason to believe or hope there might be a way to get Spock back? To save him or help him? He would be obsessed, wouldn’t he?
HARVE BENNETT
Somewhere along the line I read a fan poem in one of the hundreds of fan magazines about Star Trek. It was first-person Kirk. It said, “I left you there. Why did I do that? I must come back to you, my friend.” I thought, “That’s it!” I suddenly had a thrust. It got a lot easier from that point.
Behind the scenes, there were a number of changes between films. Producer Robert Sallin, following his falling-out with Bennett, departed. Ralph Winter, a producer working for the studio in postproduction who had been enormously helpful on the previous film, joined the team as associate producer, and Harve Bennett chose to serve as both sole writer and producer of the film.
RALPH WINTER (associate producer, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock)
I was working on the second movie as an executive. I worked for Paramount in postproduction. Because I had familiarity with computer graphics and computer science from my years at Caltech, I was attracted to it and no one else cared about it. What happened was I helped Harve Bennett with some other projects, cutting trailers for him, doing some work on the side. Sallin was the producer, Harve was the executive producer on Star Trek II, and we created a relationship, and he said, “Why don’t you leave Paramount and come work for me because I’ve got Star Trek, I’ve got The Powers of Matthew Star and A Woman Called Golda.” So I went and joined Harve’s staff and I was the associate producer on Star Trek III.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN (assistant to Harve Bennett and Bob Sallin)
I really didn’t enjoy working with Ralph Winter the way I enjoyed working with Bob Sallin. I was much less invested. Sallin and Harve had a huge falling-out which was kind of painful to watch. When the movie started, there was only four of us in the office. It was like a suite of offices, and Bob and Harve were constantly going back and forth. It was great in the beginning, but somewhere toward the end those doors closed and did not reopen. It was extremely uncomfortable. It certainly wasn’t because Bob wasn’t doing a great job—he did a spectacular job. It is hard for me to imagine a friendship of that many years coming to an end like that.
SUSAN SACKETT (assistant to Gene Roddenberry)
Harve did a lot of things that annoyed Gene, so I wasn’t crazy about that because I didn’t want to see him hurting Gene, but I thought he was very good at what he did. He knew how to get things done, but I never trusted him too much. He finally gave me credit for the Genesis revival of Spock, where he begins to regenerate after he’s dead on the Genesis Planet and comes back to life as an infant, which was my idea.
The primary inducement for convincing Leonard Nimoy to reprise his role as Spock in The Wrath of Khan was the death of his character in the film. The question for the next entry was whether the actor would be willing to reprise the character yet again. His answer, naturally enough, would become the catalyst for the third film—driven home by the fact that director Nicholas Meyer would not be returning to the franchise at that juncture.
NICHOLAS MEYER (director, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
I didn’t know how to do resurrections. I thought Spock should be dead. And I thought it’d be unfair to the fans—like we were fucking with them.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
The notion of the third one became very real when Leonard came into the office one day and said, “I had such a good time on this, let’s do another one.” And it’s like, “But you’re dead…”
LEONARD NIMOY
When Spock died in the end of Star Trek II and the studio started talking about a resurrection—for lack of a better word—they called me and asked if there was anything I would like to do at the studio, adding, “We would like you to be involved in the making of Star Trek III.” Meaning that they wanted me to act in the picture. I said I wanted to direct. The reaction was very good. They put me through the coals later to test my commitment and sincerity. I felt that it was time I stopped fooling around with directing and really got serious about it.
DAVID GERROLD (writer, “The Trouble with Tribbles”)
Leonard had wanted off Trek. He did not want to do Star Trek II, did not want to do the first film. It wasn’t just a negotiating ploy. He truly wanted to put Spock behind him. He finally got smart and said, “I can’t put Spock behind me, so I will use Spock to elevate my career elsewhere.” Leonard Nimoy is no dummy.
LEONARD NIMOY
I had been directing for a very long time, I started directing theater in the fifties and films in the seventies. I didn’t pursue it simply because I was having too good a time as an actor. I had wanted to direct Star Trek from the time we started doing the series. Bill Shatner and I both did. We were not allowed to. It’s just as simple as that. We were refused the opportunity. But the idea of directing is something I had been dealing with for some time, although not prominently.
While Nimoy was directing plays in the early sixties, Gene Roddenberry secured him a set visit to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to audit the directing of the series. MGM executive David Victor offered prophetically in a letter at the time, “I hope someday he will be a very successful director.” In fact, had Star Trek survived to a fourth season, it’s likely Nimoy would have helmed an episode, following in the footsteps of his costar William Shatner who was going to direct a third-season episode, “The Joy Machine,” when the network order was truncated. Subsequently, Nimoy did direct several episodes of episodic television, including episodes of Night Gallery, T.J. Hooker, and The Powers of Matthew Star.
LEONARD NIMOY
For many years my concern had been to try to build a career outside of Star Trek so that it wasn’t that single straight line of only Trek-oriented work. So there was nothing for us to discuss. I said to Gary Nardino—I was being arrogant—with all due respect to Bob Wise, who directed the first picture, a top-notch filmmaker; and all due respect to Nick Meyer, an extremely talented writer-director who directed Trek II, I know more about Star Trek than either of them and I said I could direct Star Trek III successfully. When I first presented the idea of my directing to Paramount, the response was very good—but there were certain trepidations. We had to talk them through.
My position during those discussions was: “I don’t want you to perceive me as a problem. I don’t want you to think I’m an actor trying to build a directing career on the strength of my leverage. I want you to see me as the solution to your problem. You need a director, and I know this material. I will bring you a movie that will satisfy the Star Trek audience.” I didn’t want to take the posture with the studio of “You want me to act in Star Trek III? Then I’m the director, period.”
WILLIAM SHATNER
I would surmise that when Leonard was able to leverage his desire to direct against the very natural desire to grow and expand his horizons as an artist, that he wanted to direct the film. So he was able to use the leverage of them wanting him to do Spock with his desire to direct. I would think that those men who finally agreed made some kind of deal that if he wanted to direct, he had to come back at least for the fourth Star Trek.
RALPH WINTER
We selected Leonard because he was very familiar with the material, obviously, and had been in front of the camera for many years. He’d directed a T.J. Hooker and some Night Gallery episodes at Universal, and had directed on the stage. And it was bound to spark interest at the box office, getting one of the cast of the family of Star Trek to be involved creatively in putting the show together. We thought that would be an advantage. I think it was. It turned out very nicely and Leonard knows about Vulcans and mysticism and everything that is involved with that culture on film.
Leonard knew about that and wanted to bring to life a lot of the things that had been glossed over or never really developed before. For a long time he wanted to participate in creating and putting that vision on film. Plus we were seeing it through his eyes for the first time after all these years of playing that character, and working and interacting with those other characters.
DAVID GERROLD
He is a good director and a good actor. He is good at what he’s good at. He’s not Dustin Hoffman or Spencer Tracy, he’s Leonard Nimoy. Then again, John Wayne was John Wayne.
LEONARD NIMOY
We worked out what I felt was a constructive approach. Basically, I told them, “Promote from within.” Michael Eisner [then Paramount president] got very excited about it and said, “Great idea! Leonard Nimoy directs The Search for Spock!” It went downhill from there. At one point they said, “No, we’re not going to do it.” Harve and I kept operating on the assumption that it was going to work out and kept talking story ideas. In April of ’83, I started my prep on the picture, reported on the lot, and immediately went to work with Harve.
HARVE BENNETT
On Star Trek III I said, “Look, it’s got to be faster and more efficient than the writing of Star Trek II.” So I was the sole writer on Star Trek III, which was the easiest writing job I ever had. The reason for that is that since it was so direct a continuation of Star Trek II, the outline was already in place. I knew exactly what I had to do and I did it in six weeks. One of the virtues of having grown up in TV as both a producer and writer is that you’re forced to function at a rapid tempo. You don’t have time to overthink. And I recognized that it’s the greatest lesson I could have learned.
I see people in the feature business agonizing over treasured scenes and treasured words, stuff that makes no sense to shoot. It is the stuff of which colossal disasters come. No one wants to part with a vision. Well, in TV you don’t have time for those extravagances, you’re much more into committee thinking. Now, these things bear negative connotations in our society, but the good side of real collaboration between trained professionals is that no one steps on anyone else—there is a tremendous give and take of ideas in a rapidly changing situation. And when you hit something that’s working, everyone senses it, puts their differences aside, and goes on to the next problem.
For instance, I had written the Star Trek III script for Romulans. But Leonard felt that the Klingons were more exciting, more theatrical. I went back to some TV episodes and I realized he was quite right. A sampling of mail also indicated that the fans wanted to see Klingons. So I rewrote my script and “Klingonized” the characters.
The most extraordinary thing about Leonard was his functioning for me as editor. He would read my drafts. Now, you don’t get compliments from Leonard. He’s very Vulcan. Very tied in. His passion is contained. He said, “This is very promising.” I had to adjust to that, because I’m an enthusiast. But in the course of his method, he challenged me and when I couldn’t get what he was trying to say, he’d say, “Let me write a draft.” And he’s a good writer. There are pounds of stuff in the screenplay that are pure Leonard.
WILLIAM SHATNER
Leonard and I are the dearest of old friends. We had shared a mutual struggle with management in various stages, whether it was a script, a thought, a concept, or a dressing room and asked each other what we thought. We’d have a plan! Whenever we were to deal with management, we’d plan it out together. Now, suddenly, my “brother” was saying, “Well, you should do this and I think you should do that.” There was an awkward period of time for me, although I don’t think for Leonard, when I felt more alone in anything I might have objected to. From my point of view, it was more awkward in the beginning than with either of the other two directors. But that slowly erased itself.
EDDIE EGAN
There was definitely a different dynamic on Star Trek III, because two peers were at the helm. It was very much a Shatner vehicle and it was directed by Nimoy. As a result, those two were thick as thieves. I think there’s a place where the cast might have felt a little isolated from their colleagues, because of that dynamic being so front and center on both the production side as well as the acting side.
HARVE BENNETT
When the draft of the piece was finished and Leonard and I were both very happy with it, we sent it to Bill. He called and said, “I’d like to have a meeting.” So we came over on a Sunday morning to Bill’s house. Bill said, “Are you happy with this script?” I said, “Yeah, we like it a lot.” Leonard said, “Promising. Very promising.” Bill said, “Well, I just can’t do it.” The complaint was that there wasn’t enough of him in the material. That he was standing by, that he wasn’t leading. We said, “Let’s talk about it.” There was merit in much of what he said.
STEVE MEERSON (cowriter, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
The approach we were told to take on Star Trek IV is that Kirk really had to be the one to lead everyone. Not necessarily that he had to actually have the idea to do something, but it had to appear as if he had the idea. We were told Bill had to be the leader at all times.
HARVE BENNETT
You have to understand, it’s not quite as selfish as it seems. This is their career. It’s like a quarterback saying, “Who’s going to be blocking for me?” The actor says, “How am I going to come off? Are they going to like me? Are they going to love me so that I can make the next picture?” Being a star over a long period of time is a nerve-racking affair. So that’s where his trust was, and we had neglected to protect our star.
The compromises that came out of that were funny. Bill said, “I think I should be in the scene where Bones talks to Spock.” We said no. “You see, that’s a very lovely scene and I should be there. Why am I not there?” We said, “It feels like one of those moments when two guys are joined together and Bones has not really had his moment.” On that one he said, “Why don’t we shoot it both ways?” Then he said, “Now Bones gets to go up there with the priestess, don’t you think I should be up there and do something that makes it all happen?” We said no. He said, “Well, maybe that’s too much.” I said, “Bill, I’ll tell you what you are. You are a quarterback who wants to call the play, run back, throw the pass, catch the pass, score the touchdown, and lead the cheers.” He hugged me and said, “You’re right. I can’t help it.”
Bill is a Shakespearean actor. It shows in everything. He has to wind up to draw a gun. And Bill has, in candor, a great talent and a great ego. Did you notice the last scene as the cast is surrounding Spock? Who remembers where Kirk is? By himself. He knew where his light is. This is not a fault. It’s the way he is. He’s a matinee idol in the traditional, historical sense of that word.
DENNY MARTIN FLINN (cowriter, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
In All About Eve there’s a marvelous line where Hugh Marlowe says, “It’s about time the piano realizes it has not written the concerto.” You deal with star actors in every film and every television show.
WALTER KOENIG (actor, “Pavel Chekov”)
Initially, I was apprehensive with Star Trek III. I didn’t know what to expect, Leonard’s not the most effusive guy. He is by nature a little bit on the distant side and he never established a real rapport with us. Perhaps with Bill, but not with the supporting actors. He was always present and a delight, but I didn’t know whether he would try and interpret our roles, and that’s a concern I always have when an actor is directing.
He didn’t do any of that, he primarily directed by omission. He only spoke about your performance if he didn’t think it was going well. If you did it well, he’d just say “Cut, print.” That was it. He said very little to me either through the course of III or IV, because I guess he thought I was okay. I saw him get angry once because somebody had done something that was kind of a caricature and he said, “Don’t do that.” That was the only time I ever saw him express any emotion.
LEONARD NIMOY
I must be really naïve about this. I was surprised that there was so much interest and so much concern about that. The interests and concerns are valid. I just didn’t perceive the potential problems or friction that other people perceive. My fellow actors were concerned about it before we started doing the picture. I simply took it as fact that I had their best interests at heart. That I would know their characters well, and I certainly knew their potential well and would try to explore it. That was one of the things I argued in that period of time when I was asking for the job.
HARVE BENNETT
Do you have any idea, can you project in your minds, the sibling rivalries, the little passions, the petty jealousies that no one ever talks about? I’m not talking scandal gossip. I’m talking about the day-to-day grist of living in a family. “Well, he had the close-up yesterday, I think I’ll have the close-up today.” It’s deadly if someone can’t come in and make everybody pull in the same direction.
Leonard handled the Star Trek family in the most elegant way. He never raised his voice. He got the best out of them and I will tell you: they had fun. There was more fun on Star Trek III on the stage than I had witnessed at all on II, which was much more strained. And even I thought he got things out of Bill that were vulnerable, that were Shatner letting down his operatic style.
LEONARD NIMOY
I discussed it later, after the fact, with some of the cast, and they admitted to me that they had been concerned. I think the concern grew out of a potential competitiveness. I discovered that there was more of a sense of competition between actors than I have ever been aware of. That’s a strange thing to say. I’m an actor, have been in television and films since 1950. This was the first time that I had it really enunciated to me that some of the actors in the cast were concerned that my competitiveness would be a detriment. We got over that very quickly. Generally they saw that I was well prepared, that I was well intended where they were concerned, and they were given the opportunity to develop and have some fun in their performances.
JAMES DOOHAN (actor, “Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott”)
Nicholas Meyer was so in love with Star Trek and was such a terribly good director. He’s one of the best directors we ever had, but the best we ever had was Leonard Nimoy. The beautiful thing about Leonard is that when he directed the third movie, he tended to talk an awful lot, but he was still terrific. When he directed IV, he hardly talked at all. In other words, I can picture him going home at the end of the day and saying to himself, “Oh boy, I sure talked an awful lot directing that movie, I’m going to shut up when it comes to number four!”
GENE RODDENBERRY (executive consultant, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
I’m delighted Leonard Nimoy directed. I was hesitant at first about him doing Star Trek III, because I thought he didn’t have the broad background of experience. But then I began to think, “Well, he does know the show, this way you don’t have to break a new director in.” It worked out well.
Among Roddenberry’s continuing concerns—he was still serving as executive consultant—was the film’s screenplay, which had been sent to him. In a seven-page memo, dated June 3, 1983, Roddenberry cogently addresses the many flaws he found in Bennett’s script. Among the concerns he delineates are Saavik acting out of character, an emphasis on drunkenness, the lack of viability for the massive space dock, the “twentieth-century concept” of the Enterprise being considered obsolete, the automation of the starship that does not necessitate the use of a large crew, and the idea that the Genesis Planet is off-limits, feeling it “comes off like political foolishness seen in our twentieth century now.”
But his biggest concerns were over the MacGuffin used to resurrect Spock. “Suggest that the entire ‘regrowth’ of Spock needs some careful reexamination. For one thing, it does not seem at all reasonable that young Spock’s mind would be a ‘void.’ One could get oneself easily painted into a corner by stuff like this and probably deserves more care and more careful explanation than the usual story situation … What does Spock mean to the Vulcan race? These comments and this scene are really very difficult to understand since Star Trek has always played Spock as a half-breed Vulcan, sometimes barely tolerated by pure Vulcans. The fact he may be quite famous in Starfleet for his rare ability does not make him a revered figure on his own planet. Yes, the temples and the thousands of extras and the torchlight parades make for interesting photography, but do we really want to risk this if it comes off unbelievable or even amusing to some?” He concludes with a criticism of the finale. “Is the fact that Spock now recognizes Kirk a sufficient ending to a major motion picture?”
HARVE BENNETT
A great motion picture has a very similar last scene. It was almost, beat for beat, the last scene in The Miracle Worker by William Gibson. It is the moment in which, after the entire play, little Helen Keller is at the well with her teacher and she begins to get some understanding, and finally with her hand on his face she says, “Water.” And the teacher says, “Yes!”
The studio notes at the same time, dated June 8, 1983, reflect a desire to give Uhura a greater piece of the action, noting, “Film could use a few active femme characters, and Uhura is a beloved regular” as well as asking that there be some mention of Carol Marcus. “Need to reveal what she’s doing now. Wouldn’t there be some mention of her by David or Kirk upon their son’s death?” Harve Bennett’s terse response: “No.” The studio also suggests that Kirk’s infamous “I have had enough of you” to Kruge as he pushes him into the lava pit be changed to “This is for David,” and evoke the tone of Indiana Jones versus the “sword-wielding attacker” in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This note was ignored as well.
In Gene Roddenberry’s last memo on the final draft script, dated August 1, 1983, he doesn’t mince words. “If shot without revisions, this draft would create some fairly serious problems for me and, in my opinion, also for Paramount as regards the continuing viability of the Star Trek property. The problems I see have mainly to do with script items contrary to what has been established and proven successful in the Trek format.” He dismisses as hokey Scotty’s foiling of the Excelsior’s pursuit by removing a chip from their transwarp drive. “This could come across as unbelievable, even laughable. When are we going to stop portraying Kirk’s beloved Starfleet as a ‘Pirates of Penzance’ admiralty? It flies directly into the face of an optimistic future, one of the format’s most powerful elements according to every study and poll made of Star Trek.”
Roddenberry was also particularly concerned with what he refers to as “Vulcan immortality” and the notion that Kirk, Spock’s “blood brother,” would not be aware of the situation; as well as the idea of Spock’s mindless body being brought to Vulcan to have his katra restored to him. “I can’t imagine,” Roddenberry muses, “there have been many planet Genesis effects around before, certainly even fewer of them involving a Vulcan, and this can hardly avoid being a very special thing. But the feeling one gets from the script now is ‘Hey, here’s another Genesis effect victim and his mindless body, so let’s climb to the temple on old Mount Whassit again.”
He takes Leonard Nimoy’s potential staging of the final scene to task as well. “A principal concern with the scenes as presently written lies in what the audience and critics may make of Leonard Nimoy directing Leonard Nimoy’s cocreation in scenes that read, at least, like a DeMille creation.”
RALPH WINTER
Gene was very involved in consulting with Harve on the story and during the production. But Harve Bennett is the one who was developing the story and producing it. He certainly developed this whole idea from its very inception, and it didn’t hurt to keep it on track, getting his blessing and all that.
GENE RODDENBERRY
Being an executive consultant is really what I want to be. Basically, my contract gives me about the same no matter what I do now. I guess after so many years you get certain privileges. I’d say the main difference is that they listened to me a little more carefully than on the last movie. I think Paramount came around to decide that, well, maybe it wasn’t just a big mistake—maybe there was some thought behind it all.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
Gene and Harve were a lot alike except for the fact that Gene had created something that Harve never created that’s his and it will always be his. Harve produced Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman and participated in one of the largest lawsuits known to ABC over royalties. Harve was not an easy man. He’s not a simple man. He’s very complex, but in terms of why II worked and III didn’t, you have to go to the script first and foremost. Everybody that’s got a half of a brain cell knows that there’s a huge difference between the scripts in Star Trek II and Star Trek III.
WILLIAM SHATNER
They did TMP and it was not successful. It was only because of Paramount’s belief that there must be some box office somewhere that they hired Harve Bennett who again set the tone of the way the subsequent movies were going to go. Gene was again in the background, offering advice, but not interested in the creative process.
DAVID GERROLD
Harve Bennett knew what he was doing. He did these nice, crisp little movies that are doing like a hundred million dollars each, which is something that Gene Roddenberry has never been able to do. We get into meetings for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in the first six weeks, Gene is saying, “I don’t want anyone telling Harve Bennett anything.” We ran into Harve Bennett at the ceremony for George [Takei’s] star and, of course, we’re all being polite, but I’m watching Gene, and Gene is shining Harve on. “Yes, we’re having great fun, we’re going to make it work.” Harve gets up and leaves and Gene looks at me and says, “See how I handled him?” And I’m thinking, “Jesus, what a scumbag.” At that time, it’s like watching these two guys dancing around each other like they’re in competition, which is so stupid. Harve Bennett didn’t want to be an enemy. Gene turned him into an enemy.
WALTER KOENIG
Harve wanted to remold the show in his own image. He’s obviously a bright man and has a good sense of which stories work. I don’t think he liked working in Roddenberry’s shadow. He resented him. Harve had a tendency to talk about us to other people. George [Takei] came back and would recount what Harve had said about me. And he [Bennett] spoke to me about other actors on the show.
EDDIE EGAN
There was some friction between Harve and Leonard on III, which I never really understood. I believe it was Harve feeling a little sensitive to not getting enough attention for being the person who was the architect of the rebirth of Star Trek. In the second movie, people were just glad that it was back and the crew was acting like they expected them to act. Then the news on the third one was that Leonard Nimoy is directing, it’s in good hands. So I think Harve just felt a little left out of being the focus of attention. He was also the hammer that had to lay down the law about how long they could go on shooting days and whether they could ever go outside anywhere; all of the budgetary things fell to him to impart to Leonard.
I think he also told Leonard a few times that certain scenes were not staged well and they had some disagreements about that. By the way, the advice was good and once Leonard got over the interference part of it, he was okay. Overall, though, there did seem to be some element of a different dynamic between them.
Although the regular cast was present for Star Trek III, Kirstie Alley, who had played and made quite the impression as the half-Vulcan, half-Romulan Lt. Saavik, decided not to reprise the role for a variety of reasons, resulting in her being replaced by Robin Curtis. Alley explained to Starlog magazine at the time, “I thought [Robin Curtis] was at a real disadvantage playing a role someone else established, especially with Star Trek, which has an enormous following. I think she did a fine job. I have no problem with what she was doing except that, when I saw the film, I said, “She isn’t Saavik, I am!’”
Also MIA was Bibi Besch as Carol Marcus, who was simply written out. Merritt Butrick was back as David, but in Bennett’s tale the Genesis Device was not quite as nobly created as first perceived (using highly unstable protomatter in its matrix), and in Bennett’s view David needs to be punished for his hubris, the character ultimately perishing at the hands of the Klingons on the Genesis Planet, after he and Saavik have discovered the rapidly aging Spock.
One final “character” to get the axe was the Enterprise itself. In a shocking and moving moment, Kirk orders the self-destruction of the starship to save his crew (who have beamed down to the surface of the Genesis Planet) to stop a large contingent of marauding Klingons.
An addition to the cast was actor Christopher Lloyd (Taxi, Back to the Future) as the Klingon Kruge, who wants to retrieve the Genesis Device to bring back to the Empire.
SUSAN SACKETT
Kirstie Alley was caught between a rock and a hard place. I think her agent and Paramount screwed up in trying to close the deal for her and they didn’t come to terms. I don’t think it was her fault. That’s showbiz.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
There is that amazing thing where Kirstie’s breast size seems to change radically in the movie. I don’t know if you have noticed that. Take a very close look at the elevator scene and then look at the rest of the movie. She’s wearing a tunic. It is impossible to miss. Poor Agnes Henry had to remake the uniform. If it is not a weight thing, what could it possibly be? I didn’t feel them, but all I know is that those puppies grew tremendously from the elevator scene to the rest of the movie. She left for a period of time ostensibly because there had been a death in the family. And they redid the production schedule to accommodate her absence from the set. When she came back, let’s just say a lot of reconstruction work had to be done on her uniform.
HARVE BENNETT
Our big problem came with the lady who played Saavik. She wanted as much as Bill Shatner. We thought it was funny at first. There was no movement in negotiation. We thought that Saavik’s part in this was wonderful. We didn’t want to cut it out. We decided to recast the character and keep the part. How did we fare in putting Robin Curtis in where Kirstie Alley had gone before? About even.
ROBIN CURTIS (actress, “Saavik”)
There was not a word mentioned to me of her. I don’t think it had anything to do with bad feelings or being an outcast or anything like that. I think that it was the most professional and healthy approach to the whole situation. This was Leonard Nimoy’s baby. Being a beginner, given that this was my first film, I just left myself totally in Leonard’s hands. I never got a sense I was following in someone else’s footsteps, which was lovely. I’m so different physically from her that I think that in itself is kind of riveting. They didn’t try to copy. They didn’t try to mimic.
HARVE BENNETT
Curiously enough, no one said a thing. Part of it is probably that Alley had a different quality. The character’s latent sexuality was very appealing and indicated that there was something under that that might be Romulan. Robin is almost pure Vulcan. And Leonard directing was much more inclined to Vulcanize her rather than try to dig for the Romulan, which wasn’t really applicable here.
ROBIN CURTIS
I did want to keep things fairly separate between myself and Kirstie Alley, and as it turned out, each and every one of the people involved in Star Trek III were wonderful. Leonard set an example that everyone followed, and that is to say I was never made to feel like I had to fill someone else’s shoes. Never for a moment was I made to feel like that, and I think that was really Leonard’s healthy approach to the whole thing.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
Robin Curtis was just a really delightful person. Very sweet in a really miserable situation of having to reprise that role so quickly after somebody else had created it. It was a nasty position to be in.
HARVE BENNETT
Carol Marcus was the fifth member of a four-man relay team. She was the extraneous character. She was in the story outline. I thought it might be fun to have her relating to David and have something going with Saavik.
But then protomatter came up. Then something happened: Did Carol know? If Carol knows about protomatter, everything about David making a mistake doesn’t wash. Then it’s not David’s ambition, it’s mother and son in some kind of Oedipal whim to cheat the world together. And they don’t tell Kirk, which is very out of character. Also, then I would have had to kill them both. Writer’s problem. Answer: Don’t get Carol involved. Get her out of this issue. David doing it without his mother’s knowledge enriches it for me. And his father certainly doesn’t know.
If you think it’s tough answering that, think of how it was when I tried to explain it to Bibi Besch. She was deeply upset. She cried. She thought it was a rejection of her talent. She thought she must have done something wrong. But I got a lovely letter from Bibi after the picture opened. It said, “I’ve seen the picture. Now I understand. You were right. I hope you can find a place for me in one of the other films.”
WILLIAM SHATNER
I thought the loss of David Marcus and the Enterprise were very clever devices used to create drama in a situation. The problem is that, in a continuing series of movies where the characters appear through all the films, we have to raise some jeopardy. But everybody knows the characters are not going to die.
HARVE BENNETT
I confess to being old-fashioned. There is in my vision such a thing as ultimate retribution. The reason David dies, structurally, is because he’s messed with Mother Nature. He allowed himself to bend the rules at the wrong time, in the wrong place. He’s there on that planet for only that reason. The whole story dates back to David putting protomatter in the matrix. The death of Spock—everything—rests on his shoulders if you want to blame him for it.
Also, we did not feel that the character of David was a viable character upon which to build further stories. We didn’t set out to kill him. We didn’t even set out to use him, but when I got to the crisis and came up with the idea, “I’m going to kill one of them,” it became obvious which one I would have to kill, because it was the one I didn’t need. I had no idea what the future of Saavik might be.
Clearly, I couldn’t kill Spock a second time or the picture would be over and David was extraneous then. It was like the [Decker] character in the first movie: it was a good try and it is very interesting to see the number of tries to bring “new blood” into “the family.” Kirk changed the computer on the Kobayashi Maru scenario before Star Trek II. His son says to him, “You’ve cheated.” His father says, “I changed the rules.” Well, it turns out that the kettle was calling the pot black. David says it at a time when he knows he’s changed the rules.
LEONARD NIMOY
As a director, I’m probably somewhere in between Bob Wise and Nicholas Meyer. Not as precise as Bob, not as imaginative or rough-edged as Nick. I think the major difference, and for me the most important difference, is my attitude toward the story and the actors. Wise and Meyer are looking for a different kind of final product than I am.
HARVE BENNETT
I’ll tell you, what was a great directorial achievement by Leonard was getting emotion over David’s death out of Shatner, because he wanted to play it more stylistically. It’s the only scene I remember where Leonard said, “Clear the bridge.” Literally, he said, “Will everybody please leave? I want to talk to Bill.” I never asked him what he said to Bill. It was very personal. It was director talk to actor.
LEONARD NIMOY
On the day of shooting that scene, he and I got ourselves off into a corner and discussed it slowly in a relaxed atmosphere and privately. What I said to him was this: “You have to decide how far you want to go with this. How far you want to take this reaction. My opinion is that you can go pretty far and get away with it, maybe strip off some of the veneer of the admiral, the hero, always in charge, always on top of the situation, and show us a vulnerable person.” He took it further, frankly, than I expected him to. And it was scary.
I mean, how many space epics do you see where your hero, on receiving news, stumbles back and falls on the person’s own ship? You don’t see that a lot. It was a scary thing for all of us hoping that it would be perceived as a very touching moment. Some little kid breaks into laughter in the audience and you’re dead. We did several takes and used the one where we really thought Bill lost control and stumbled and fell. It looked accidental, not a performance. I’m very moved by it. In my opinion, it is some of the best work he has ever done. It looked as though he had received a physical jolt, as if somebody had hit him with the information. He looks deeply hurt. Some of the most personal and vulnerable work I’ve ever seen done in the role of Kirk.
WALTER KOENIG
I went to school with Chris Lloyd. We used to be best buddies, it could have been a trip. It wasn’t. He was very much into his character, which was good, but he was not very approachable as a consequence, and the rapport we had had as kids in a playhouse was not there for me. I always want to go home again and I guess you can’t.
EDDIE EGAN
I think he just felt very out of place. There were whole parts in the movie where he didn’t interact with any of them until the end except with Robin Curtis and Merritt Butrick. No one likes wearing that kind of makeup in that kind of heat for that many hours a day. It was a very quick job. He didn’t work that long. The movie was also shot at an extremely quick pace.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
Chris Lloyd stayed to himself. He would sit there in full makeup with his little wire glasses on reading the trades. I wish I had a picture of it, it was pretty funny to look at. He had almost no interaction with anyone. Came in and did his job, such a professional. I used to go to the Taxi stage and watch him work and he was so amazingly funny. Probably my second favorite show to watch film next to Mork & Mindy. You never saw the good stuff. They couldn’t air that stuff. They would shoot way into the mornings.
HARVE BENNETT
The death of the Enterprise caused serious ripples. The death of David did not. That’s backward for me. “How could you destroy the Enterprise?” is a burden I take full responsibility for. I will justify it to the end and once again I think I have been playing fair.
RICHARD ARNOLD (Star Trek archivist)
Harve showed no respect for Gene and what he had created. When it came to destroying the Enterprise, Gene felt that it was like killing off one of the characters. As a pilot during WWII, Gene felt that “she” deserved better. Harve said that he felt more like a helicopter pilot during the Korean War … if you crashed your helicopter, you could always get another one. This very different approach to “equipment” was only one aspect of their difficult relationship, one that had a history that went back to 1965, when Gene had Harve thrown off of the set of his pilot The Long Hunt of April Savage.
KEN RALSTON (visual effects supervisor, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
It was something I always wanted to do. I hate that ship. I’ve said that a hundred times, but it’s true. I think it’s ugly—the most silly-looking thing. The model itself is murder to work with. I would hope that the idea actually originated with me on Trek II. I talked to Harve Bennett about doing that to the ship—blowing it up. I’d like to take some credit, at least, for blowing it up—for physically doing it. Watching that thing go was one of my favorite parts.
RALPH WINTER
I remember that the conventional wisdom is you can’t kill Spock and the answer is you can, if you do it well. And the same thing is you can’t kill the Enterprise when you can—if you do it well. It was that zigzag storytelling structural thing that both of them understood very well. The way Star Trek is opera in space
HARVE BENNETT
My choice was a humanistic choice. It began as a writer’s problem. Usually it happens when you reach a sticky point. I had a whole justification for it. Oliver Hazard Perry of the U.S. Navy scuttled the Niagara at the Battle of Lake Erie and won the battle as a result. He was rowed on a rowboat to another ship and took command. Perry happens to be one of James T. Kirk’s great heroes. Actually, there is a model of the Niagara in Kirk’s quarters for those who love Star Trek trivia. So the scuttling of the ship to achieve the greater good is a tactic. Also, with the death of his son and the hopelessness of the situation, it seemed like the right solution.
GENE RODDENBERRY
I felt it wasn’t really that necessary. I would have rather seen the saucer blow up, at the end of the picture we could have had a new saucer come down and reunite the two. Symbolic of the end of the story. They preferred to do it the other way.
SCOTT MANTZ (film critic, Access Hollywood)
I remember being almost as upset watching the Enterprise blow up as when Spock died. The destruct sequence, which goes back to “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” was a nice touch of continuity. But when the bridge blows up and you see the words “U.S.S. Enterprise and NCC-1701” disintegrate, it was heartbreaking. It doesn’t just blow up like a big burst of sun. It blows up in pieces and the Enterprise disintegrates, which is really spectacular.
KEN RALSTON
It was a full miniature blown up. Then we had to pull a matte off that and put some stars in because it was just shot against black. We weren’t about to destroy the $150,000 model. I was tempted though—tempted many times to take a mallet to it. Next we cut to the famous number being eaten away and the explosions going off. Bill George devised a light Styrofoam that he laid over this incredible grid work—something he came up with in twenty minutes or so. It looked great. There is also a stock explosion from The Empire Strikes Back in there, too. It comes out from underneath the dish to make the explosion seem a little more cohesive and not so much of an effect.
WILLIAM SHATNER
Two elements that were expendable, David and the Enterprise, were killed off because nothing else could be killed off. In fact, the real problem is, what else can we kill? We’re looking around for people to die!
DeFOREST KELLEY (actor, “Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy”)
When I read that in the script, I couldn’t believe it. You know, I thought, “My God, the Enterprise is a bigger star than any of us. If they’re shooting this guy out of the script, they can shoot anybody out.”
HARVE BENNETT
There are two elements in the making of a story, whether it’s on film or not. Suspense and surprise. You’re either hoping a character will do something or he does something that you didn’t expect. The sure knowledge of the audience saying, “Oh, no, they’re not going to do that,” and the sheer surprise of saying, “Oh, yes we are!” There are many other moments in the film which were intended to be one or the other. The death of David is one clear example of surprise, because you’re playing off the clichés of the expected. One of the joys of motion-picture writing as opposed to television is that you have full use of those two ranges. In television the surprise is limited and suspense is limited to the fact that the episode must end with the hero surviving.
WALTER KOENIG
I felt it was too similar to Star Trek II in terms of the major conflict. The bad guys wanted the bomb and we are trying to keep them away from it. It lacked a soul and a real emotional center, and it was not as good a story as Star Trek II. The one thing that was the saving grace of the picture was the destruction of the Enterprise.
As with every film, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock encompassed a wide range of production challenges, many of which were met and others that were … attempted. Like its predecessors, the film was shot on soundstages rather than on location.
LEONARD NIMOY
The shooting began on August 15, 1983. It was forty-nine days of shooting during which the biggest problem I had was lack of sleep. I went to bed at nine o’clock or nine-thirty, set the alarm for five o’clock or five-thirty, and would be up at three o’clock, the head going with ideas. I was just so supercharged and wired. It was a constant tiredness of the best kind.
HARVE BENNETT
Nimoy is three yards and a cloud of dust. Fundamental. Here’s the camera—shoot a movie. Willy Wyler shot like that. It works when the actors are working well, and the Trek family adored Leonard.
CHARLES CORRELL (director of photography, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
Originally, when we were in preproduction on this picture, I was opposed to doing all the interiors inside on stages. Unless you really work hard and are able to control everything, things can take on a kind of phony look. I thought that we should go to the island of Kauai to do the Genesis Planet. The other shots that concerned me were of Vulcan. My original feelings were that I wanted to take those scenes out to Red Rock Canyon just above the Mojave and really shoot at sunrise. In the early days of Star Trek everything they did was inside on stages.
Most of Trek I and II were also done on stages. The producer, Harve Bennett, and the director, Leonard Nimoy, decided to stay with that format. Most every film shot today is done on locations. It isn’t often that you get to do a whole show where they use massive stages and huge sets. The Genesis Planet was on Stage 15 at Paramount—probably one of the largest stages in Hollywood. Because it had to literally collapse in places during the earthquake, it was built sixteen feet off the floor. The main part of the floor was rigged so that rocks would shoot up out of the ground. They were on catapults. Trees were rigged to fall and start fires. The ground would belch. It was massive, and Bob Dawson, our special-effects supervisor, did a great job. He must have had twenty or thirty people on the set the days we shot the planet destruction.
KEN RALSTON
One thing that is tough about Trek movies—some of the shots are so long, almost endless. Not at all like Star Wars where everything is ten frames long and you can get away with murder on some shots. Trek shots hang on for a long time and the mistakes show up a lot more. You have to take a little more care with the effects aspect of it.
CHARLES CORRELL
I took a look at a lot of the old shows that were shot by Gerald Finnerman, and I noticed that they created a science-fiction feeling in those days by incorporating a great deal of color. Sometimes there was a purple feeling in places or they would use a red gel or blue or orange. They utilized the color and that gave the shows a real sci-fi touch. Then I looked at the two features that preceded this one. They both had their own flavors, but I thought that there was something about the original show that wasn’t in either of these features. That touch of color or the overuse of color is what is missing.
LEONARD NIMOY
There is no question in directing yourself that you need help. [Harve Bennett, William Shatner, director of photography Charles Correll, and others] are people off camera I’ve come to trust. I cannot emphasize enough that you don’t make these pictures alone. You sure need an awful lot of talented support. In some cases, there is simply the fact that there are things going on behind you that you cannot see as an actor.
The biggest problem I had, and this is really silly, but it happens that it was the scene in the sick bay of the Bird of Prey. Spock is unconscious and McCoy is talking to him. Now, not only am I in the scene but I have to play the scene with my eyes closed. So I can’t even look to see if the actor I am playing the scene with is looking anything like I think he should look. It drove De Kelley crazy. He swears that I was trying to direct him with the movement and flutter of my eyelids. It was very difficult. In a sense, I was very pleased and relieved that the design of the story allowed me to do a minimal amount of performing.
HARVE BENNETT
Next time you see the film, there is a scene during the stealing [of] the Enterprise sequence when civilian clothes are seen for the first time. The first time you see Chekov, well, we didn’t see his costume objectively next to Kirk’s macho jacket and Bones’s marvelous pants. But all of a sudden we see Chekov onstage and he has this great Little Lord Fauntleroy white collar. We got by it without reshooting the day with a series of clever cheats. We got a new collar, picked up close-ups on the black turtleneck for the rest of the picture. But he still has it in the master shot. Bob Fletcher, our costume designer, did Bones from his Georgia background, Kirk from his admiration of naval flyers and stuff like that. This was supposed to be Chekov’s admiration—get this—of the poet Pushkin. Now that’s a fine hobby for a Russian space person to have, but Pushkin is always drawn in his great Byronic collar from that period and it looks darn silly. So that one shot with the collar still exists.
WALTER KOENIG
That little pink suit [I was wearing] was interesting because I thought it was kind of ridiculous looking. Robert Fletcher patterned it after some Russian artist who dressed that way. We had shot some footage with it and Michael Eisner looked at the dailies and said he didn’t like it and Leonard came up to me and said, “We’re going to take you out of the costume.” I said, “Thank God,” and he said, “Why didn’t you say something?” I was a little bit irritated, thinking, “Why the hell didn’t I say anything?” It was because I was so into this mind-set that I was just the hired help and had no input. It never occurred to me that I might say, “I don’t like this” and that’s probably my fault.
JAMES HORNER (composer, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
I was involved with Harve just about every day, as I was with Leonard. He had a lot of input into the score. Leonard and I met on several occasions and had multiple conversations. The things he said he liked best about Star Trek was the romantic, beautiful music; the sensitive stuff in Star Trek II, not the big, bombastic stuff, and this is exactly the stuff in Star Trek II that I liked the best. So the whole score for Star Trek III is exactly that. It was much more romantic and much more wistful and sweeping than Star Trek II was.
Star Trek III is a sensitivity epic. It was much more of a character film. There are a lot of action sequences in it that are wonderful. My score for Star Trek III is so much better than Star Trek II. It’s just so much more elegant. It’s a completely different type of film and the whole mood the score portrays is one of searching and emotionalism as opposed to the rather heroic, bombastic Star Trek II.
Obviously the film is called The Search for Spock, so I used Spock’s theme somewhat. I used the theme of the Enterprise and Kirk’s theme. That’s the thing, when you have a film that’s an ongoing series and you have the same characters. You are basically committed. That was something I was aware of when I was writing Star Trek II. I was writing in the view that I will have to reuse themes in Star Trek III.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
The best thing about III was Dame Judith Anderson as a Vulcan priestess. Everybody loved Dame Judy and that was the second time I met her. I first met her when I was a college student and she was doing Hamlet. It was a very obscure thing and she toured the college circuit and was magnificent. Years later they cast her in this and what a damn treat. There’s actually a photograph of me sitting in her chair on the set because the back of the chair said, “High Priestess.” It was the perfect place for me to park my keister.
LEONARD NIMOY
In the editing process, specifically, the most interesting challenge was how to tell the story and in what sequence. Having seen it on the screen in its rough-cut form, we all came to the conclusion that there was something about the juxtaposition, scene to scene, idea to idea, character to character; it wasn’t quite in its proper order. The jigsaw puzzle hadn’t quite fallen into place. Gradually we worked our way toward it and discovered what the picture turned out to be. The flow just didn’t want to come to life until we repositioned certain of the opening scenes. For example, what we came to call the caper, which was the gathering of the samurai to steal the Enterprise. In its original form, it was scattered in pieces through the first third of the film and they were all wonderful, fun pieces. But somehow, when you cut away from each of the happenings, it was always as though the fun was being interrupted. When you get back to it, you have to get geared up to have fun again. And suddenly that little piece would be over and you were being interrupted and taken away from the story again.
The one major reconstruction that took place in editing was to put much, if not all, that caper together as a piece so that once we start with the idea of Bill Shatner walking up and saying, “The answer is no, I am therefore going anyway,” it starts.
Production was temporarily halted when a fire swept through several soundstages on the Paramount lot, damaging part of the Genesis cave soundstage, but it was quickly extinguished. The press latched onto a story in which William Shatner, brandishing a hose, helped douse the fire. Director of photography Charles Correll mused at the time that he wished the stage had burnt down so they could have shot the scenes on location in Hawaii instead, as he had lobbied for, rather than a soundstage.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
It wasn’t a joy to shoot. Right down to the fire on the set. There were a couple of fires at Paramount that seemed convenient. At Paramount, it’s old timber. Very flammable. There was a Western Street at one point and then there was a fire and then there was no Western Street. There was a point in time when there were two or three fires back to back. And the one that was threatening our stage was the second or third fire. The Angie stage went up right after the wrap party. One fire threatened one of the Star Trek sets, which was pretty frightening. The firemen were great because Paramount is such a tinderbox they were there in a heartbeat. If that fire had taken out that stage, that would have been a very expensive blow to Star Trek III. There were news cameras around and at one point I’m watching TV and there’s Shatner in the midst of the firemen. I think he actually was holding a water hose.
RALPH WINTER
Stage 15 burned on that movie. Shatner was there on the news and helped put it out. It wasn’t staged, but Bill was not helping with the garden hose. It was a very hot fire and it burned right to the ground. Years of lead paint, which was toxic.
SUSAN SACKETT
It had no effect at all upon the filming of Star Trek III. It turned into a nice [piece of] publicity for William Shatner, who was shown, fire hose in hand, saving Paramount single-handedly.
EDDIE EGAN
I don’t think a fire department would let an actor wearing a polyester uniform man a hose during a major fire.
While not the critical darling that Wrath of Khan had been, The Search for Spock had a comparable box-office gross, much to the delight of the studio. Outside of the destruction of the Enterprise, the fans were certainly pleased—though perhaps not as pleased as most of the participants.
WALTER KOENIG
After III, I was looking forward to working with Leonard Nimoy on IV and that turned out to be a very nice experience as well.
LEONARD NIMOY
I wasn’t making a personal statement. The major theme in this film is about friendship. What should a person do to help a friend? How deeply should a friendship commitment go? What price should people be willing to pay? And what sacrifice, what obstacles, will these people endure? That’s the emotion line of the film. For me, that’s its reason for existence.
HARVE BENNETT
For me, this movie is about honor and friendship and decency and values higher than the complex value system we have inherited since the atomic age. It’s a return to innocence.
DeFOREST KELLEY
I enjoyed watching Star Trek III more than I did Star Trek II. This one comes closer to the TV series than the others. I have had full confidence that Leonard could direct Star Trek, or for that matter, anything he wanted to had he been given the opportunity. Leonard is the kind of director who will accept input from you because he knows that we know and feel certain things about our characters.
DAVID GERROLD
Star Trek III is a dreadful movie. There’s no story there. It’s still a wonderful picture because the characters are so wonderful, the scenes are so wonderful, and it’s crisply directed. You don’t care how bad the story is. You go and look at the first three films, and the stories are all silly, and the pictures are all wonderful because the characters are good.
DAVID A. GOODMAN (consulting producer, Star Trek: Enterprise)
Nimoy’s direction is very amateur and TV-ish and he doesn’t really create a world. But on the flipside of it, you have three ships in that movie that have been in all the incarnations of Star Trek. It’s a testimony to Industrial Light and Magic that the work they did on that is so amazing: the Bird of Prey, the Excelsior, and the science vessel. The work that was done on a low budget was so good that lesser people have relied on that work for years—which says something about the level of work that was going on. I thought Christopher Lloyd didn’t feel like a Klingon to me and I loved that his dog is terrible, but I’ve still watched it dozens of times.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
Leonard’s a good director. I think he did a better job outside of Star Trek than in. He did a really good job directing Three Men and A Baby.
EDDIE EGAN
It looks more like a TV movie than the first film did, which was just a result of Paramount trying to squeeze as much as they could out of this thing that was printing money for them. It certainly suffers from budget restrictions, whereas Nicholas Meyer found ways to work around that.
If you look at Star Trek II, they were very smart about how they did things, minus a few places like the Genesis Cave and that horrendous effect when you finally see it. That was redone at the last moment when the head of Paramount saw it and refused to let the picture be released that way.
FRED DEKKER (consulting producer, Star Trek: Enterprise)
The plotting, the mission, the character work, it felt very much like a continuation of The Wrath of Khan, which is a movie where I feel like every decision was the right one. Search for Spock was emotionally and tonally and storywise just a continuation of it, so I ate it up with a spoon. I’ve also come to the conclusion that Star Trek II doesn’t work as well if you haven’t spent hundreds of man-hours with these characters like I have. Eventually, I want to show it to my wife, to my kids, to my grandson. But unless you’ve spent a lot of time with Spock being Spock, his death is probably not going to have a huge impact on you. If you have, it’s devastating as much as it is with any human.
LEONARD NIMOY
On Star Trek III, I felt that film was really about camaraderie. It was about commitment to friendship and loyalty amongst a band of people. During the course of the designing and framing of it, I kept saying to Charlie Correll, who filmed it, that I wanted it operatic. I wanted fire, storms, great passions. This is not just about life, it’s about commitment, personal need, and demands. Richard Schickel in Time magazine said, among other things, that was the first space opera really worthy of the name. I was so happy to see that, because I had really been talking Wagner—Sturm und Drang.
SCOTT MANTZ
The best moment for me in Wrath of Khan outside of the action and Spock’s death is when David goes into Kirk’s quarters and Kirk says, “I poured myself a drink, would you like one?” And David’s voice is shaking and he goes, “I’m proud to be your son.” He hugs him. It’s a great moment. Or the scene when they’re on Regula and Kirk goes, “How am I feeling? Old.” What happened? The problem with Star Trek II to Star Trek III is at the end of Star Trek II, Kirk is rejuvenated. He feels young. The beginning of Star Trek III, he’s depressed again. It’s so somber for the first twenty or thirty minutes until they steal the Enterprise, which was fun. It’s the best scene in the movie.
DAVID A. GOODMAN
Stealing the Enterprise is one of my favorite sequences in any of the movies. I wish it actually was longer. That’s a movie in and of itself.
RONALD D. MOORE (writer, Star Trek: First Contact)
I liked that they were advancing the story and characters in what became a trilogy, which is really unique in a movie franchise property. They had really taken the characters on a journey and moved them forward and changed them. It broke my heart that they destroyed the Enterprise … that was almost as hard as Spock’s death. Because I was still connected to the idea that it was the original ship, which had been overhauled and it was still the five-year-mission ship. That meant a lot to me, so when it was destroyed, it was a great loss. Part of my childhood went with it. They get it back, but it was never the same. That ship was gone. There were other ships called Enterprise, but the emotional connection that it was the original ship was missing after that.
RALPH WINTER
We tried to make sure there was actually meaning and value in what the story and journey was about. That was important, particularly to Harve, who was our caretaker and anchor in all things Star Trek. We also did this in III with the creation of the Klingon language. It was actually a friend of Harve’s, Marc Okrand, who was doing subtitles for ABC. He was doing the live closed-caption stuff. We instructed him on how to develop that Klingon language and he went on to do The Klingon Dictionary. They quote all that made-up language now on The Big Bang Theory. It all started with Marc Okrand and Harve Bennett.
LEONARD NIMOY
I have been around a long time. I have been on soundstages since 1950. But I never dreamed I would find myself directing a twenty-two- or twenty-four-million-dollar big physical picture … and feeling totally comfortable, not awed by it at all. None of it scares me, I’ve seen it all done before or I know a way can be found to do it if you get the right people.
DEBORAH ARAKELIAN
Star Trek III was not fun. It left a really bad taste in your mouth. You can feel when things are going well. When you’re on the set and there’s an electricity in the air. There wasn’t that. The only time that people perked up was when Dame Judy was around—and she only worked like two days. I was not glad when Star Trek II wrapped. I felt a sense of loss. I was glad after Star Trek III wrapped. I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of there.