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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.startrek,net.movies,net.sf-lovers
Subject: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK (Heavy duty SPOILER!)
Message-ID: <984@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Jun-84 11:41:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.984
Posted: Sat Jun  2 11:41:29 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Jun-84 08:47:41 EDT
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 79


  WARNING! WARNING!  SPOILER! SPOILER!

    RED ALERT! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! AHH-OOO-GAH! AHH-OOO-GAH! AHH-OOO-GAH!


Following the  is some opinions on STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK. If
you have already seen it, or don't care about finding out plot elements in ad-
vance, you may proceed with a . Otherwise, I suggest you "N" your way out of
here.

You have been warned!

In one word: Naaahhhhhh!!!

Well, hey, I *did* enjoy the film, but like RETURN OF THE JEDI and INDIANA JONES
& THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, I felt I got much less than I hoped for or expected.

First of all, I wasn't all that impressed with the special effects. ILM's stand-
ards are higher than this. The Space Dock was magnificent, as were assorted oth-
er scenes, but most of the ship movements were awkward and ended up looking like
the models that they were. I will give kudos for the destruction of the *Enter-
prise*, though. Well done, I say, well done. I'm sorry to see her go, but she at
least went out in a (literal) blaze of glory!

Secondly, I thought Nimoy was only OK as director; he just doesn't have the ex-
perience is this job yet, though he certainly shows promise. Some of the awkward
moments, though, could also be put down to a weak script. I suspect that with
THE WRATH OF KHAN, it was Jack Sowards who contributed much of the dialogue, and
that Harve Bennett couldn't hold the fort by himself for this one. At least we
were spared one thing: I was really afraid that when Spock went through pon farr,
that Saavik was going to end up balling the kid to help him through it. She may
have actually done so (I'll be interested to see how this is handled in the nov-
elization), but at least it wasn't made criminally obvious that this was the
case. That would have been too much of an inverted Oedipal situation for me to
deal with. I'll have to give credit, though, for the characterizations of the
Klingons. They say that one can better understand a foreigner's way of looking
at things by studying his language. I felt that the clipped, direct, no-beating-
around-the-bush, to the point dialogue of the Klingons spoke volumes about their
way of thinking ("Speak!" "Success" "Opponent!")

Thirdly, though I *loved* the "character humor" (ie playful character interac-
tions --- such as Scotty's reply, "It'll take 8 weeks to refit her, but we don't
have 8 weeks, so I'll do it in 2."), there were some scenes with the Klingons,
and especially with Captain "Howard Hunter" Styles that were played too much for
laughs. I was *really* disgusted with the *Excelsior* going klunkety klunkety
klunk and stopping dead in space; it was just too silly.

And last, but not least, I was *outraged* by Spock's resurrection! Hey, I like
Spock as much as the next guy, And I must confess that the way they pulled it
off was consistent and believable (with the standard disbelief suspenders on, of
course), but dead is dead! If they haven't got the guts to keep him dead, they
shouldn't have killed him in the first place. I applauded their major step for-
ward in realism by killing off a major character, but now they've just taken a
step backward and made Spock's ultimate sacrifice in TWOK totally meaningless.
	Seriously! Isn't the lesson of Spock's sacrifice lost when -- like the
scene in AIRPLANE II where the guard shoots the little boy's dog -- all they end
up doing is saying, "Hah, hah! Only kidding. No harm done." All that is accomp-
lished is that Spock fans have been though an emotional wringer that serves no
purpose. I confess to having been all choked up during the funeral scene in TWOK
(and just about every time I've seen it, too), and because now we know he's not
really dead, I feel like I'm the victim of a sadist who's tortured me for the
fun of it. 
	In a similar vein, I feel that the point of the current film is lost,
too. Kirk and the others are in deep shit with Star Fleet, risking their careers
(not to mention their lives) to help their friend. But how much you want to bet
that as in "Amok Time", Sarek and T'Pau (or whoever is Lord High Mucky Muck of
Vulcan these days) vouches for them and gets all charges against them dropped.
Again, I feel that paying the piper doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot when you
end up getting a refund.

	Sigh. I suppose it seems strange that I could still have enjoyed the
film after blasting it so much, but hell, it *was* well done for the most part,
if one is willing to play along with the game. I just didn't like them changing
the rules. 

				  --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard, MA)

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