Review

This film makes up for many of the failings of its predecessor by swiftly stepping over its faulty premise: "The Search for Spock" was over largely within the opening moments of the film. They found his mind and his "soul" in short order. Instead, the film is a quest to reunite them, not find anything. Indeed, this film does not insult its audience by pretending the events of the last film were anything else but obvious setup for this one and we're well on our way to rescuing Spock in short order, guns blazing. In addition to that, I quite enjoyed the beginnings of the story arc that this film establishes. Never before on Star Trek has one story led into the next, except of course for the anomalous two part episode The Menagerie. Perhaps inspired by the Star Wars trilogy, indeed this film would seem to be the equivalent of "The Empire Strikes Back" and Wrath of Khan the equivalent of "A New Hope." In keeping with this analogy, there is quite a bit more darkness in this film. Instead of Kirk unrealistically trivializing and dodging death like in Star Trek II, he's forced to confront it head on. Not only must he face the death of his ship, but his son as well. He sacrifices two very important things in his life to get back another in a truly selfless act. Beyond this, there are a few little aesthetic details which enhance this film immensely. The Federation regards Genesis as a failure for its inability to create stable planets. The Klingons, however, regard Genesis as an incredible success for its viability as a weapon and covet its power. The resulting political fallout is fascinating and helps alleviate some of my concerns in the previous film of the device's contrivance. In addition, despite my hatred of retconning actors with new ones, the new Saavik is better acted. Overall, I feel that Star Trek III is highly underrated and easily the best film of the entire original series lineup.