Odd number Trek's bomb? I think not!!!

The oft-quoted rule that has even-numbered Trek movies beating odd-number movies was never that convincing - and this flick proves it wrong.

Picking up at the moment where "Wrath of Khan" left off, "Search" has Spock's coffin soft landing on the Genesis planet. Dr. Marcus and Saavik return to their to investigate that world's development. Meanwhile, the badly damaged Enterprise returns to Earth where Captain Kirk learns the ship is to be scrapped. When Dr. McCoy begins showing signs that he was "mind-melded" with Spock - thinking he actually is Spock - he tries to get a ship back to the Genesis planet where Spock's body was left. (In a scene that sends up the cantina scene from the first Star Wars flick, McCoy tries getting a ride with an alien who bears a resemblance to the Vorvon from "Buck Rogers"). Kirk, informed by Spock's father Sarek that both McCoy and Spock's body must be returned to Vulcan, tries to get to Genesis himself, even though Starfleet has quarantined the planet. Meanwhile, Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), a rogue Klingon warlord with his own ship and crew, penetrates federation space greedy for the secrets of Genesis.

Though this flick seems a bit abbreviated - filler between "Khan" and "Voyage Home" it's not only a lot of fun, but a great example of how good Trek can be. The script has our heroes working outside Starfleet regulations and having loads of fun with each other. Prime examples: Scott explains how he saboutaged the Excelsior to McCoy, dropping that ship's isolinear chips into McCoy's palm like spare change ("From one Doctor to another, when you've learnt how to clean the pipes, you know how to stop the drain"). Kirk, when meeting up with the Spock-possessed McCoy holds his hand up in the Vulcan salute, asking the Doctor "how many fingers am I holding up"; and let's not forget that magic moment when Bones tries to give a Starfleet Security the Vulcan neck-pinch. Laughs aside, the script is tight and sticks with its central theme of pulling life from death - epitomized by the rescue of Spock and the awesome self-destruction of the Enterprise. Christopher Lloyd's Klingon was underused, but he showed some potential. The special effects beat anything I've seen on the Next-Generation movies and the script makes the characters seem a whole lot livelier. If you've put off this flick because this was an odd-numbered Trek movie, think again and give it a try.

always and forever

a Story that is the transitionary story from movie 2 to movie 4. So obviously this movie is the middle movie where we find the crew of the enterprise trying to find and re-animate the body of Spock, our long lost vulcan friend. A movie worth noting because, unlike other sequels, it is actually worth seeing more than once in a life time.

Old Vulcans never die. . .

Leonard Nemoy's Star Trek directorial debut succeeds in two vital areas: A)It's extremely well-paced and B)There's quite a bit of good humor in it. The story takes place right after Khan's wrath and involves Kirk's starship-jacking of the Enterprise to go look for Spock's body to unite with his mind which in imprinted in McCoy's cranium. The problem is Spock's body landed on the newly created and recently doomed planet of Genesis. As luck would have it, a group of ambitious Klingons, led by Christopher Lloyd, want the information to make their own Genesis and go after the research vessel, which is inhabited by Kirk's son and the newly made-over Lt. Saavik, orbiting the planet for the information.

This is just good ol' fashioned Star Trek minus great space battles of the last installment. Lloyd makes an admirable and funny adversary, surprisingly almost as good as Ricardo Montalban's Khan but not as memorable. That's probably how you could sum up all of 'The Search for Spock': almost as good as Khan, but not as memorable.