Spock is dead. Well just his body, his mind is in McCoy’s head. No wait his body is available too? Let’s go get him!
Our heroes come back in a third movie, the middle episode of the three part story arc started with Wrath of Khan.
A notable change, Leonard Nimoy is now director.
The story picks up after the tragic demise of Spock, and
Starfleet in turmoil after people learn of the Genesis device.
Thank god they can spell Genisys right. No wait….
Though the weakest of the “trilogy”, this movie offers some great moments:
- The crew comes together for their friend and steal the Enterprise
- The Enterprise gets blown up, a clever trick from Kirk to defeat the Klingons
- The death of David, before Kirk has a chance to know his son, suffering a new tragedy in his attempt to do right by his friend
As usual, the models are still a delight to look at, now adding the Klingon Bird of Prey and the USS Excelsior.
Beautiful scenery on the Genesis planet, and on Vulcan too.
Good performance by Christopher Lloyd as Kruge. William Shatner does great as usual.
Did you say cling-ons?
Now for the things that I didn’t quite enjoy.
- The awfully static puppet Klingon “dog”
- The fact that the Enterprise can be piloted by two people, what is the point of having hundreds of crew members?
- The Klingons are not very bright, and their motivations are too quickly explained and passed on
- Their makeup isn’t great either
- The relative shortcomings of the story:
- You don’t feel a lot happens in the movie
- McCoy’s troubles with hosting Spock’s life essence are made to be very dangerous, are then totally forgotten
- Kirk not knowing any near-death Vulcan tradition
- the almost lack of surprise at Spock being resurrected by the Genesis planet
- The death of David is too quick, he never had a strong relationship with Kirk
- The Genesis device was a formidable idea from the Wrath of Khan, now they quickly get rid of it by adding a design flaw
Search and Destroy
Overall it looks like it has more bad than good, but it’s probably suffering from the comparison with Wrath of Khan.
But it would be a shame to skip it, especially with its ties to the (great) next episode!
ame 