Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

The USS Enterprise has returned home following the battle with Khan. Captain Spock is dead and the Enterprise is to be decommissioned, with some of the crew transferred to the new, cutting-edge USS Excelsior. A Federation science team is dispatched to investigate the newly-formed Genesis Planet, whilst the Klingon Empire becomes keen to get its hands on the Federation's latest "weapon." On Earth, a series of revelations inspire Admiral Kirk to take drastic action to save his two greatest friends, but he must pay a heavy cost to do so.

After the over-indulgence of Star Trek: The Motion Picture almost sank the Star Trek franchise, it was the superbly (and cheaply!)-executed directness of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that saved it. The hands-down best Star Trek movie gave the property a new lease of life and re-energised actors who were conflicted on continuing to appear in it in the future, most notably Leonard Nimoy, who had agreed to do The Wrath of Khan partially because it gave him the chance for a great death scene. Ironically, the experience of making the film was so good that Nimoy leapt at the chance to return, especially when he was also given the chance to direct.

Producer-writer Harve Bennett had a feeling during the making of The Wrath of Khan that the franchise would continue, so added a series of lines and shots setting up a sequel over director Nicholas Meyer's objections. The final cut included these against Meyer's wishes, leading to him refusing to have anything to do with the sequel; he and Bennett later reconciled, Meyer acknowledging it had been a good choice in the long run, but he was not around for this film. The script for the third film pretty much wrote itself from that point on: Spock is dead, but had transferred his katra or spirit into Dr. McCoy's mind just before the end. His dead body was then shot onto the surface of the newly-formed Genesis Planet, but since the Genesis Wave can bring life from lifelessness, the result was that Spock's body was regenerated as well. All that was required was a way to reunite the two, which was provided by Sarek (Spock's father) telling Kirk what had happened. Jeopardy was added from two directions: the Federation's refusal to allow anyone except a science team to go to Genesis, forcing Kirk to disobey direct orders from Starfleet Command and even steal the Enterprise to accomplish his mission. The second threat is from the Klingons, who aren't about to let the Federation develop a weapon that can make, remake or destroy entire planets, which could potentially threaten the Empire.

It's a great storyline which builds intelligently on things established in both the previous film and the original TV series (the finale, on Vulcan, even references the classic episode Amok Time in its set design and appearance). It has the weakness of being predictable - even in 1984 the idea of bringing a dead character back to life for popularity reasons was cliche - which bugged Harve Bennet (a writer of integrity, of the old school) so much that he decided that Kirk had to pay three unexpected prices for the restoration of Spock: the loss of his ship, his career and his son. It's surprisingly brutal: the off-hand murder of David might only be bested by the death of Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation for sheer callousness. But it also fulfils a basic tenet of storytelling: your characters can't win something big without a correspondingly massive loss, and one of the reasons why The Wrath of Khan is a classic and The Search for Spock a very good film, and why the much later Into Darkness is such an emotionally hollow and narratively inept remake of the same storyline.

The Search for Spock is also a hugely iconographic film. It introduces a whole range of ships, designs and concepts that dramatically expanded the scope of the Star Trek universe. The Earth Spacedock is a still jaw-dropping design, a massive orbital station that utterly dwarfs the Enterprise. The USS Excelsior, the B-52 to the Enterprise's B-24 bomber, is one of the very finest starship designs ever made for the franchise, so much so that the later Enterprise-B would be of that class and the design would become the Federation default standard by The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. There's also the fabulous Klingon Bird-of-Prey warship, easily the most famous non-Federation design in the franchise. Even the design of the accessibility-challenged USS Grissom would go on to become a mainstay of future TV shows.

The vfx are more numerous and more sophisticated than The Wrath of Khan's and two sequences stand tall as among the very best in the franchise: the Enterprise spacejacking, probably the most tense "reversing the car out of the garage" scene in cinematic history (with James Horner's God-tier soundtrack lifting the sequence onto another level), and the later destruction of the same ship, which brought a lump to the throat of every Star Trek fan on the planet at the time, before they decided to do it every fourth film for "shock value."

There are, however, several weaknesses the movie has to overcome. Aside from the predictability of the plot, despite attempts to off-set it with greater losses elsewhere, there's the under-servicing of the villain. Christopher Lloyd gives a superb performance as the Klingon Captain Kruge, but he's not well-served by the script. He has several great moments, such as where he orders the death of his lover when he realises she's seen sensitive information and his stoic embrace of death in his final battle with Kirk, but he spends the rest of the time barking out rote threats. You get the impression that if he'd been given the kind of material given to Montalbán in the previous movie and later (in Star Trek VI) Christopher Plummer, he'd have delivered as equally killer a performance, but the lack of good material holds him back. Another weakness is Shatner returning to a more lacklustre performance. He's good in a few scenes (his unblinking and unwavering commitment to stealing the Enterprise, his joy at Spock recognising him in the film's closing moments), but otherwise Nimoy fails to get the same kind of nuanced and vulnerable performance as Meyer did in the prior movie.

The script overall feels a little lacking. There's some good lines and humour, particularly for McCoy (DeForest Kelley relishing a greater turn in the spotlight in Nimoy's absence), but the script lacks the epic scope of The Wrath of Khan. Although Bennett wrote both movies, Nicholas Meyer gave a huge spit and polish to the second film's script which added all of its character and thematic depth. Without his influence, Bennett's more bare-bones script (punched up a bit by Nimoy to add more humour) has less going on. It's not for want of trying though, and it's nice to see the supporting actors finally given more to do: George Takei's Sulu gets a solo action sequence, Nichelle Nichols's Uhura gets arguably her best scene in the franchise despite being absent from most of the film and James Doohan's Scotty gets a gleeful scene after sabotaging an opposing vessel.

Similarly, the film's themes feel a little undersold. Kirk takes preposterous risks to get Spock back, paying a heavy price in the process. Both Sarek and Spock are aghast at what Kirk has done to save Spock, but the film never really adequately gives Kirk time to process his losses and to ask the tough question of if it was worth it. Kirk tries to answer this in the movie's finale but it feels like it could have been explored in greater detail.

The film also suffers from budget issues. This is a more ambitious film than Wrath of Khan on not a much greater budget, and very obvious corners are cut. The Excelsior bridge feels more like it came off a contemporary episode of Doctor Who than a multi-million dollar movie. All of the outdoor scenes on the Genesis Planet are filmed on a set, which is effective in some scenes and all-too-obvious in others. The finale, where Kirk and Kruge's not-very-obviously-disguised stunt doubles awkwardly punch one another whilst the polystyrene set crumbles around them, recalls some of the less-accomplished moments of the original Star Trek series. Again, James Horner's score comes to rescue even in these weaker moments of the film.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (****) holds the distinction of being probably the most underrated film in the franchise. A whole raft of iconic moments, some fantastic ship designs, an outstanding musical score and a script that understands that if you're going to pull off something huge, you need to pay a massive price (something that only Avengers: Endgame seems to have understood out of contemporary epic SF movies) are undercut by budget issues, an under-utilised villain and a less-sophisticated script that its forebear, but this is still a fine slice of enjoyable Star Trek action.

RIP Miguel Ferrer

Hollywood actor Miguel Ferrer has passed away at the age of 61.

Ferrer was a Hollywood mainstay in the 1980s. His credit of genre note was the helm officer of the USS Excelsior in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), but his first big role was in RoboCop (1987), where he played the executive in charge of the RoboCop project whose murder provides a major impetus for Murphy's actions later in the film. He would go on to appear in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), The Stand mini-series (1994), Traffic (2000) and Iron Man 3 (2013). His TV roles included CHiPs (1983), TJ Hooker (1985), Miami Vice (1987-89) and Twin Peaks (1990-91), as well as a long-running role on Crossing Jordan (2001-07).

Ferrer had a lower profile in movies in recent years, having discovered a successful new career at the turn of the century as a voice-over artist in animation (mostly in the DC Animated Universe) and video games (such as Halo 2). However, he had kept busy with a recurring role on the TV show NCIS: Los Angeles. He had also already completed filming his return as FBI forensic pathologist Albert Rosenfield for the new series of Twin Peaks, which will start airing on 21 May 2017.

Gratuitous Lists: All 13 STAR TREK movies...ranked!

The point of Gratuitous Lists is that the things on it are not listed in order of excellence, but are just on there so people can talk about the shows/games in question rather than argue about the order, which is often arbitrary. But sometimes arguing about the order is just too much fun. After Entertainment Weekly issued a list of Star Trek movies ranked by quality that is simply objectively wrong (how high up is Nemesis?), here's my riposte:

13. Star Trek Into Darkness

Directed by J.J Abrams • Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof • Released 23 April 2013

Woah! Shots fired! Into Darkness isn't a good Star Trek movie, I think most people agree, but the worst? Worse than The Final Frontier or Nemesis? That seems harsh.

But on reflection, I think not. Each of the previous eleven Star Trek movies, even the deliberately nostalgia-evoking 2009 reboot, at least had at their heart a core idea, or something they wanted to say. Not necessarily anything that was particularly original or good, but at least something that gave them a reason to exist. Into Darkness doesn't do that. Having laid down a fresh new direction in the 2009 movie, J.J. Abrams abruptly reverses course and gives us a poor remake of The Wrath of Khan whilst completely missing everything that made that earlier movie work (like the fact that it was based on us having known the characters for fifteen years, 79 episodes and another movie previously; this cast and crew hadn't earned that story yet), whilst also dialling back on screen time for everyone bar Kirk and Spock. There's a nasty, dark undercurrent to the film, a lack of respect for innocent life that just isn't very Star Trek and a horrendous casting decision in using Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. Add to that the lacklustre final battle against a poorly-designed enemy ship and a near-total absence of plot logic, and Into Darkness becomes a sprawling, incoherent mess which aims to be gritty and morally murky and ends up just being comically inept.

12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Directed by William Shatner • Written by David Loughrey, Harve Bennett & William Shatner • Released 9 June 1989

The Final Frontier is, in many respects a badly-directed, indifferently-written movie which is saved by some absolutely killer lines ("I've always known that I'll die alone" could be a Wrath of Khan line; "What does God want with a starship?" could...not) and the emotional bond between the characters. It also acts as some kind of trans-dimensional portal, through which you can gaze into the inner workings of William Shatner's mind. If you emerge with your sanity intact, congratulations, but spend too long gazing into the abyss and The Final Frontier starts looking like something approaching a good film, an offbeat and bizarre character piece with an occasional decent action beat and an ending that was so far beyond the budget's ability to deliver that someone should really have stopped Shatner from attempting it. But of course no mere mortal could stop Shatner once he had been given this kind of power.

I can see why EW put The Final Frontier further up their list. There's something compulsively watchable about the movie, if only because you're not entirely sure what the hell Shatner is going to do next (either directing, acting or writing-wise) and you have to admire the fact that a movie starring actors in their fifties and sixties went up against the Tim Burton Batman film and the Ghostbusters sequel and somehow held its own. But it does only work once. On rewatches, the film's many flaws including its howl-inducing dialogue, weak effects, uncertain tone and poor villain become almost overwhelming.

11. Star Trek: Nemesis

Directed by Stuart Laird • Written by John Logan, Rick Berman & Brent Spiner • Released 13 December 2002

Nemesis almost killed Star Trek. The only film to bomb at the box office (although thanks to DVD it did eventually turn a modest profit), it was responsible for ending Rick Berman's stewardship of the franchise and causing Paramount to completely rethink their plans for how the property would be handled going forwards. For all of that, Nemesis is not entirely without merit: in a young Tom Hardy as a Reman general (and clone of Picard) it has a reasonably good villain, the concluding space battle is one of the better in the series and both Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart deliver killer performances, both rich in tragedy, introspection and pathos. It's also good to see some major changes to the Next Generation paradigm, with characters being promoted, getting married and moving on with their lives.

But it's also a bitty and underwritten film. The scenes focused on character development were almost entirely cut from the final movie, leaving a string of half-thought-out and underwhelming set pieces (the buggy racing scene is a bit pointless). The film also makes the mistake of killing off a major character and then bringing him back five minutes later. You can only do that once in a franchise (and Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock earned it a lot more), and doing it for the second time here (and a third time in Into Darkness) is a big mistake in terms of building suspense and tone.

Nemesis isn't the worst movie ever made or even the worst Star Trek movie. At its core it has a really strong premise, which is more than you can say about The Final Frontier, but it's certainly the most undercooked and indifferently-directed movie in the history of the series.

10. Star Trek: Insurrection

Directed by Jonathan Frakes • Written by Michael Piller • Released 11 December 1998

Insurrection is the Star Trek movie that everyone kind of forget exists. It's just kind of there. A lighthearted film, even marketed as the "Star Trek date movie" (because that is a thing that anyone ever asked for or wanted), it's completely inoffensive. The villain (played by F. Murray Abraham in fine, scenery-destroying form) is okay, the effects are okay, the story is okay and everything about it is kind of okay without ever being outstanding. It's worst sin is being boring, like a late-Season 5 episode of TNG that you completely forget ever existed until you hit it on a complete rewatch and then you've forgotten about again ten minutes after it ends. However, the film does have one outstanding moment: Data going haywire and Picard defeating him using Gilbert and Sullivan. For that gloriously demented scene, we'll forgive Insurrection its overwhelming beigeness.

9. Star Trek: Generations

Directed by David Carson • Written by Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga • Released 18 November 1994
Picard and Kirk meet and team up! To ride horses! And punch Michael McDowell! In the last twenty minutes of the film!

In terms of marketing, Generations oversold the idea of Kirk and Picard joining forces to take down an enemy threat. The budget wouldn't allow for the entire crews of both past and present Enterprises to meet and writers Ron Moore and Brannon Braga were distracted by also having to the write the (far superior) Next Generation series finale, All Good Things, which even Patrick Stewart admitted would have made for a better film.

As it stands, Generations isn't too bad. The saucer separation and crash-landing sequence is splendidly realised, McDowell is a reasonably charismatic bad guy and director David Carson brings a dark, subdued tone to the film which doesn't make any sense (apparently it was encouraged by the studio who loved his work on the classic TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise) but is extremely atmospheric. Patrick Stewart also gets a meaty emotional storyline when confronting his own mortality and that of his family. But the plot is clunky and filleted with holes (why doesn't Soran just fly into the Nexus in a ship instead of blowing up entire star systems and killing billions of people?), Whoopi Goldberg doesn't get enough to do and the feeling is that they destroyed the wonderfully-designed Enterprise-D (its successor is a much less interesting design) just for shock value.

8. Star Trek

Directed by J.J. Abrams • Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof • Released 7 April 2009
J.J. Abrams's reboot of Star Trek is filled with problems which sound rather damning: the comedy moments are awful, there is zero respect given for science or plot logic and Chris Pine is woefully miscast and unconvincing as the young Captain Kirk. But at the same time, the film is energetic and kind of fun, the rest of the new cast (especially Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and Zoe Saldana) is excellent and the film makes a decent fist of tying in to the existing mythology and continuity whilst also doing its own thing. You also have to give massive respect to Leonard Nimoy who delivers a well-measured performance filled with gravitas. It's also surprising and welcome that Abrams gives us a whole new villain (played with deranged intensity by Eric Bana) rather than trying to bring back any of the big Star Trek monsters or aliens. There's many wince-inducing moments and a tonal mismatch with what came before, but the 2009 Star Trek reboot hits a lot more than it misses.

7. Star Trek Beyond

Directed by Justin Lin • Written by Simon Pegg & Doug Jung • Released 7 July 2016

The newest Star Trek movie is, fortunately, one of the better ones in the series. Problematic elements in the new canon (beaming between star systems, magic blood) are simply ignored, the plot is refreshingly straightforward and mostly bereft of major lapses in logic, the cast is much-better served by the script and Starbase Yorktown is the first outright stunning piece of new Star Trek design in decades. The film moves fast, Idris Elba is a good villain and overall this feels like a fresh, breezy and massively-budgeted episode of the TV show.

6. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Directed by Robert Wise • Written by Harold Livingston, Alan Dean Foster & Gene Roddenberry (uncredited) • Released 7 December 1979

In Gene Roddenberry's head, all of Star Trek would have looked like The Motion Picture and the first season of The Next Generation: slow, talky and only occasionally letting off a phaser for the fun of it. If the Roddenberry who made the original Star Trek series was a fast-working administrator who understood the beats and needs of action-adventure television, a decade of constant praise and being hailed as a visionary ("The Great Bird of the Galaxy") at Star Trek conventions had not so much gone to his head as triggered an explosion of vanity that could have sunk the franchise. The Motion Picture, in particular, is held up as an example of film-maker overindulgence at its flabbiest.

It's hard to argue with that. But it's also hard to argue against the idea that The Motion Picture is a good film. Whether it's a good Star Trek film is another matter, but The Motion Picture makes some quite bold decisions that, in an absolute million years, no director or writer on Earth would get away with today. It's a slow-paced movie with tons of expensive visual effects. There's lots of scenes where characters sit around and make philosophical scoring points. Spock doesn't get involved in the plot until almost halfway through the film. The Enterprise only fires its weapons once, to destroy an asteroid. There's more lip-service paid to science and the dangers of the everyday technology the characters use (the death-by-malfunctioning transporter scene is still grimly disturbing). There isn't even a bad guy. The Motion Picture is much more Solaris or 2001: A Space Odyssey than Star Wars, which for an effects SF movie released in 1979 was a very bold and counter intuitive decision.

But there's a sense of gravitas, of vision and of scale to this film that Star Trek never achieved before or since. V'Ger is a stunning creation, the best-realised Big Dumb Object in the history of SF cinema, and Kirk and crew's first reaction being to study and negotiate with it is welcome. The film is also a love letter to the starship Enterprise, which arguably has never been depicted with more aplomb than in this movie, and of course its design in this film is now the gold standard for all other attempts to depict the ship. And it easily has the best soundtrack of any Star Trek film (which given how good some of the others are, is saying something). It's not for everyone, and if Roddenberry had been allowed to continue with the franchise he probably would have wrecked it, but The Motion Picture is the oddest, weirdest and - arguably - most interesting Star Trek movie of them all. But, obviously, not the best.

5. Star Trek: First Contact

Directed by Jonathan Frakes • Written by Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga • Released 22 November 1996

When The Next Generation created the Borg, it always felt like they were trying to unleash an enemy they didn't quite have the money to realise fully. This, combined with the fear of over-using them and losing their implacable menace, saw them deployed on TNG in only six out of 178 episodes, and arguably only in three of those episodes were they the "proper" Borg.

Using the second TNG movie to fully realise the Borg as a horrific, invasive force of assimilation and destruction was a wise move and First Contact is full of well-directed moments showing this unstoppable enemy in full swing (all handled with aplomb by TNG actor Jonathan Frakes). It also features some rather howl-inducingly terrible moments which are best forgotten (most of the Earth subplot involving James Cromwell's spectacularly grating mad scientist), not to mention how the ridiculous ease with which the Borg cube is defeated in the opening minutes of the film reduces the threat level of the Borg quite a lot. But overlooking that, Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart deliver killer performances, as does Alice Krige, whose Borg Queen may be the most sinister and disturbing Star Trek movie villain of them all. One ends up wishing for an adult-rated version of this movie where they really go to town with the body horror and action sequences.

We never quite get that and ultimately First Contact pulls a few too many punches. But it's a watchable, enjoyable action film featuring one of Stewart's best performances in the role of Picard, and certainly is the only TNG movie which can withstand comparisons with the best films in the franchise.

4. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Directed by Leonard Nimoy • Written by Harve Bennett • Released 1 June 1984

The Search for Spock is the Star Trek movie franchise's most underrated entry, and one that seems to be gaining more in popularity as time goes by. It's the film that introduces more iconic ships and ideas into the Star Trek universe than almost any other: the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, Spacedock, the Excelsior and transwarp technology go on to star in many future Trek movies and episodes. It also uses a fairly narrow plot directive - resurrect Spock - in an enjoyable and rather smart way throughout. Like The Wrath of Khan the script is built on a series of thematic elements which resonate throughout the movie. Kirk's growing age, his frustration with his desk-bound career and his mixed feelings on family: in The Wrath of Khan he gained a son but lost his best friend. The Search for Spock's absolute masterstroke is giving Kirk back his best friend, but taking away his son and his ship and his career: his very reasons for living. For a film that gets a lot of flak (some, like Christopher Lloyd's well-played but ill-defined Klingon villain and the dodgy planet sets, justifiably) The Search for Spock delivers two of the franchise's most brilliantly-staged and tensest moments: stealing the Enterprise from Spacedock and later blowing it up over the Genesis Planet. I mean, how many movies can make reversing the car out of the garage into one of the most iconic set-pieces in the franchise's history?

The Search for Spock's best moment is when Kirk nails that being human is to be irrational and illogical: "The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many" doesn't make sense, especially when the many includes Kirk's son, his ship, his career and those of his crew. But then in the final scene Spock lives again, and more adventures are promised, and then it makes sense.

3. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Directed by Leonard Nimoy • Written by Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, Steve Meerson & Peter Krikes • Released 26 November 1986

A plot summary for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home sounds like a bad acid trip. Millions of years ago, an alien probe surveying the galaxy visited Earth and made contact with the most intelligent species on the planet at that time: whales. Figuring that the whales would eventually evolve into a more impressive lifeform, the probe leaves with a promise to swing back by. It does, only to discover that the whales have been killed off by the ape-descendants who have evolved in the meantime. The probe is a bit annoyed by this and prepares to destroy the planet and everyone on it. Kirk and co., heading home to face the music after the events of The Search for Spock, realise they have no choice but to travel back in time to rescue two humpback whales and bring them back to tell the probe to bugger off.

But it works. The Voyage Home is a barmy film which starts off as a relentless, doom-laded SF thriller before turning into an 1980s-tastic comedy in the second act, complete with "nuclear wessels" and right-on ecological messages. It's also genuinely funny, with some great culture-clash moments. It's unusual because there is also no sense of tension: because Kirk and co. can return to their own time at the exact moment they left, they could spend several years in the 20th Century if they really wanted to. This results in some breezy pacing and great character interplay. The finale, where they return home and try to see if their plan worked, is predictable but effective.

The result is the most light-hearted Star Trek movie and the most atypical. It's fun and slightly cheesy but is rooted in these characters and the easy chemistry they've developed over twenty years.

2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Directed by Nicholas Meyer • Written by Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn • Released 6 December 1991

After The Final Frontier's ghastly critical reception, both the original series actors and Paramount wanted to to send them out on a stronger note. Leonard Nimoy was brought in to produce and he decided to re-recruit Nicholas Meyer to direct and co-write, developing the idea of glasnost and the notion of the Federation and the Klingon Empire making peace whilst generals and spies on both sides desperately want to prolong the cold war.

The result is a film that takes the metaphor and pushes it forwards a little too obviously, but is really watchable and clever for that. The movie also tackles racism (Kirk invoking the death of his son by Klingons in The Search for Spock as a reason for hating them) and the notions of age and moving on, with Sulu and his Excelsior, a ship bigger, more powerful and faster than the Enterprise, making the Enterprise crew realise that their adventures are over. Thrown in some fun battle sequences and a great villainous turn from Christopher Plummer as a Shakespeare-quoting Klingon general and you have a perfect send-off to the original crew.

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Directed by Nicholas Meyer • Written by Harve Bennett, Jack B. Sowards & Nicholas Meyer (uncredited) • Released 4 June 1982

This is the film that saved Star Trek, by bringing on board a writer and director who had no knowledge about the franchise at all and letting them deliver a faster-paced and better-written movie than the ponderous Motion Picture. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer hit paydirt by bringing back the powerfully charismatic Ricardo Montalban as Khan, a villain from the TV series, and turning their limited budget into a boon. More than half the film is shot on the same set standing in for the bridge of both the Enterprise and the Reliant, and a large chunk of it is a taut, expertly-directed game of cat and mouse in a nebula. The film also has one of the cleverest doomsday weapons of all time with the Genesis Device, a terraforming aid which can be perverted into a force for destruction, and it also competes with The Motion Picture for the title of "best soundtrack in the franchise", promoting James Horner to the big leagues of Hollywood composing.

But where the film works best is its exploration of age, which sees Kirk plunged into a depression as he struggles with the demands of responsibility and his desire to command a starship once again, and it is only as the film unfolds and Kirk gains a family, defeats an enemy and loses a friend that he realises how well off he really is. The film usually sees William Shatner praised - this is by a light-year his finest moment as Kirk - as well as Leonard Nimoy, but DeForest Kelley also does sterling and under-appreciated work as McCoy acting as Kirk's conscience.

Great music, fine performances, brilliantly-developed themes and a superlative soundtrack all make The Wrath of Khan the best Star Trek movie...and we haven't even mentioned the fact that its groundbreaking CG sequence resulted in the creation of Pixar Studios. Not just the best Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan is one of the finest SF movies of all time.

Star Trek at 50: The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B)

The Excelsior (variant)-class USS Enterprise (registry number NCC-1701-B), built by the United Federation of Planets circa 2290-93. The ship was commissioned and launched in late 2293 under the command of Captain John Harrison. The Enterprise-B was lost in 2329, having served for thirty-six years, making it the second-longest-serving Enterprise after the Constitution-class version.

Class History

In the late 2260s and early 2270s Starfleet made the decision to radically overhaul its fleet of starships and outfit them with the latest technology. This led to the creation of more compact and efficient ships like the Miranda class and the refitting of the venerable Constitution class (in service since the early 2240s). The decision was also made to develop a new and very formidable heavy cruiser, a new flagship class for the fleet. This ship would be outfitted with weapons and defences that would dwarf older ships and would also be outfitted for long-term, deep-space exploration and scientific research.

There would also be another requirement for this ship: it would be the fastest ship in the fleet and the fastest in Federation history. Breakthroughs in warp science had led to the creation of the transwarp theory, which could propel a ship from a standing start to speeds surpassing Warp 9.9 in seconds and then sustain that speed safely and indefinitely. This would allow Federation starships to travel between systems in hours rather than days, between sectors in days rather than weeks and traverse known space in a couple of months rather than in two years or more. It would confer on the Federation a massive strategic advantage over potential enemies, and rapidly increase the speed of its  exploration of the galaxy.

So was born the "Great Experiment", the transwarp drive, and the need to design and build a new spaceframe capable of handling it. It was decided to draw on the highly successful primary/secondary hull arrangement of the Constitution class but in a vessel that was almost twice the size. By the late 2270s this design had been finalised and construction of the pathfinder/prototype ship of the class began in great secrecy. That ship was designated USS Excelsior, construction number NX-2000.

The Excelsior was completed in 2285 and transferred to Earth's new Spacedock facility to begin field tests on its transwarp drive under the auspices of Captain Styles. Captain of Engineering Montgomery Scott, respected for his two decades of service on the USS Enterprise, was transferred to Excelsior to help with the trials. However, Admiral James T. Kirk stole the Enterprise to undertake an unauthorised mission. Scott joined him, sabotaging the Excelsior's transwarp control computer so it could not pursue. This resulted in an unplanned system cascade failure that immobilised the entire ship. The Excelsior had to be towed back into Spacedock for repairs (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock).

"The Great Experiment", USS Excelsior (NCC-2000). Designed in the 2270s, built circa 2280-84 and completed in 2285. The ship was finally commissioned in the late 2280s and undertook its first long-term mission under Captain Hikaru Sulu in 2290-93.

No sooner was the ship operational again then the "whalesong" crisis of 2286 took place and the Excelsior was shut down and neutralised by an alien probe entering Earth orbit, along with the entire Spacedock and the USS Yorktown (soon to be renamed the Enterprise-A). Based on the subsequent disastrous performance of the Yorktown, it could be that the Excelsior was likewise adversely affected by the alien probe's passing and took some time to return to operational status (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

The Excelsior finally began its much-delayed transwarp test missions circa 2287, but by 2289 these trials had concluded unsuccessfully: the transwarp drive was a failure, unable to sustain the transwarp field for very long and unable to deliver the promised speeds. However, although the transwarp drive itself was proclaimed a failure, the ship's spaceframe design was considered excellent and performed even better than had been expected in non-transwarp-related areas. In 2289-90 Starfleet finally formally commissioned the starship, redesignating it NCC-2000 and refitted it with a standard warp drive system. Captain Hikaru Sulu, formerly of the Enterprise, was placed in command of the Excelsior for its first three-year mission cataloguing gaseous anomalies in star systems in the more distant regions of the Beta Quadrant. The Excelsior was returning to Federation territory via the Neutral Zone when the Klingon moon Praxis exploded. A subspace shockwave damaged the Excelsior, which alerted the Federation to the situation. Sulu continued to monitor subsequent events, such as the trial of Captain Kirk for the murder of Chancellor Gorkon, and brought the Excelsior to Khitomer to support the Enterprise. The two starships bracketed and destroyed the Klingon Bird of Prey commanded by the treacherous General Chang, helping to end the crisis (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

Starfleet also began building a series of new ships using the same spaceframe and design, now confirmed as the Excelsior-class. This class of starship would soon become the mainstay of Starfleet, with at least dozens and possibly hundreds of starships of this design being built over the next century. The Excelsior-class was still serving with honour and distinction during the Dominion War (2373-75) and ships of this class helped welcome the USS Voyager home after its seven-year exodus to the Delta Quadrant (2378). The Excelsior-class even outlasted the class that had been intended to replace it, the Ambassador, and construction of the ships only began to fall off with the introduction of the more versatile Galaxy class in the 2360s.

With the Excelsior-class entering full production circa 2290, the decision was also made to revamp and revise the design with a variant class which was even more powerful. The decision what to name the first ship of this variant was made when Starfleet - controversially - decided to retire the Constitution-class in 2293.

The USS Enterprise encounters the Nexus energy ribbon on its maiden voyage in 2293.

Operational History

Starfleet had planned to build a series of Excelsior-class starships since designing the ship in the late 2270s. However, it only enacted this plan once the spaceframe for the ship had been tested in the field. Construction of the first batch of ships began circa 2289/90, with at least one of these ships being of the new variant type. The variant type was equipped with additional impulse drives to deliver greater performances at sublight and had its hull design expanded to accommodate greater cargo and living space.

When it was announced that the Constitution-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) was being retired after seven years in service, it was decided that the first ship of the variant class would be named the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B. The Enterprise-B was formally commissioned and launched in late 2293, just a few months after the Enterprise-A was retired following the Battle of Khitomer. Captain John Harriman was placed in command for its maiden voyage. However, Starfleet decided to invite Captain James T. Kirk and two of his former crewmen, Captain Scott and Commander Chekov, on the mission. During this mission the Enterprise-B received a distress call from an El-Aurian ship trapped in an energy ribbon known as the Nexus. The Enterprise-B successfully executed a rescue mission, but suffered severe damage to the secondary hull in the process. During this mission it appeared that Captain James T. Kirk had been killed. However, classified documents later confirmed that Kirk had been drawn into the Nexus (which acted as the gateway to a parallel universe) itself. He escaped in 2371 and was finally killed battling an El-Aurian terrorist named Soran (Star Trek: Generations).

Despite this inauspicious start, the Enterprise-B went on to serve with great distinction and honour. The ship became one of the more decorated to bear the name Enterprise before its destruction in 2329, after thirty-six years in service. It only narrowly missed out on the record set by the Constitution-class Enterprise (NCC-1701), which served for forty years (2245-85).

Ship Overview

The Enterprise-B was a variant Excelsior-class starship, predominantly based on the pathfinder/prototype design of the USS Excelsior but differing in several key respects. The Enterprise-B was one of the first Federation starships designed with a separable saucer section which was designed to operate autonomously and then rejoin the rest of the ship later on. This required the addition of two impulse drives to the saucer to allow it to function by itself. The engineering hull was also modified to allow for more cargo and living space. This proved helpful as the Enterprise-B's very first mission was an evacuation one, and this space allowed more people to be placed on board.

This variant of the standard Excelsior design later fell out of favour, with only a few other starships (such as the USS Lakota) using the same design. The relative infrequency with which the variants needed to engage in saucer separations and the much greater cost/benefit ratio of the standard class saw the Federation switch back to using the original Excelsior design from the early 2300s onwards.

*The Enterprise-B was 511.25 metres (1,677 feet) long, 195.64 metres (642 feet) wide and 86.76 meters (285 feet) tall. The ship had about 30 decks. It had a crew of approximately 750 and employed 10 dual emitter phaser banks and 6 photon torpedo tubes, some of them aft-facing. This contrasted dramatically with the Constitution-class's more modest 6 dual emitter phasers and 2 forward-facing photon torpedo tubes. The Enterprise-B could sustain Warp 9 for considerably longer than its predecessor, with a cruising speed of Warp 7 (compared to Warp 5 for the previous ship).

* The sizing of the Excelsior class has been problematic ever since the original ship was designed in 1983, as the ILM effects crew did not actually decide on a scale for the ship. Aside from the general idea that it was a bigger ship than the Enterprise, no final size determination was made. This was complicated by the lack of details on the model to compare to set details (i.e. the Excelsior bridge was a simple dome with no roof window or other element to compare to the size of the actual bidge set) and the fact that the ship model was deliberately built to be smaller and easier to shoot than the massive and ungainly Enterprise studio model. The matter was address by scaling shots in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country showing the two ships next to each other, with the Excelsior dwarfing the Enterprise.

The matter was supposed to be settled by the publication of The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, which gave the figures above for the size of the Excelsior-class, apparently drawing on the CGI models built for Deep Space Nine's last two seasons. Although "official", these figures are not necessarily canon and contrasting figures of c. 450 metres (for length) and only 500 crewmembers are given in other sources.

The USS Excelsior confronting a Klingon K'Tinga-class battlecruiser in 2293.

Behind the Scenes
The decision to build a new, "super" Federation starship was made by producer Harve Bennett during the writing of Star Trek III: The Seach for Spock. The script called for the Excelsior, a ship larger and more powerful than the Enterprise, but coming from the same design family: a B-29 bomber compared to the original ship's B-17. David Carson and Nilo Rodis-Jamaro of Industrial Light and Magic were predominantly responsible for early designs of the ship, with Bill George finalising the design.

The idea was that the new ship would make the Enterprise feel antiquated, until Scotty turns the tables and sabotages the ship. However, many Star Trek fans liked the Excelsior - it was actually only the third Federation starship class to ever appear on screen after the Constitution and Miranda (a fourth, the Oberth, appeared only minutes later in Star Trek III) - and it went on to make brief appearances in Star Trek IV and V. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country the ship played a larger role as Sulu was promoted to Captain and placed in command of the ship. It also played a key role in Flashback, a third season episode of Star Trek: Voyager which was written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise in 1996.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation began production in 1986 it was decided that the show would be set on an Enterprise a century removed from the NCC-1701-A introduced in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This eventually became the Galaxy-class NCC-1701-D. However, to show a sense of design continuity it was decided to have a wall display showing the intervening ships to bear the name. With the USS Excelsior proving to be a fan-favourite design, it was an easy decision to make the Enterprise-B a ship of that class. In addition to this, the writers decided to use the Excelsior model to represent other Federation starships in ST:TNG, including the USS Hood, USS Repulse and USS  Farragut. The idea was that the Excelsior-class was an experimental, cutting-edge design in the late 23rd Century but by the mid-24th had become a standard, even slightly outdated starship model.

It was originally assumed that the Enterprise-B and C would never appear on screen, but this changed in the third season ST:TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise, which depicted the Enterprise-C. When Ronald D. Moore was given the task of co-writing the movie Star Trek: Generations, which would see the original series crew handing over to The Next Generation team, he decided to depict the events in the past on the Enterprise-B. The Enterprise-B was a redress of the Excelsior model, adjusted with new impulse engines on the saucer and extensions to the secondary hull. These extensions were to both sell the ship as a variant design and also so one of them could be blown off in the Nexus without damaging the original model underneath. Unfortunately, after filming it was discovered that the adhesive used to fix the new parts in place could not be easily removed, so the extensions were left in place. This is why the USS Lakota in Deep Space Nine's fourth season is also a variant Excelsior-class of the same type as the Enterprise-B. This was the last time that the model was used, so when it was eventually auctioned off the model was still labelled as the Lakota.

For the Voyager episode Flashback in 1996, a new Excelsior model was needed. This model was built at half the size of the original, and was used in several scenes. Although smaller than the original, the model was deemed good enough to appear several times on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well. However, by the time that show entered its final two seasons it had transitioned to CGI. The smaller Excelsior model was used as the study and guide for these CGI versions, explaining why the Enterprise-B variant was no longer seen in the other series.

No formally canonical explanation has ever been given for the final fate of the Enterprise-B. However, several short stories and a couple of reference guides state that the ship was lost in 2329 after the crew contracted an unknown infection. The ship was presumably scuttled to prevent this infection from passing onto others. The Ambassador-class Enterprise-C was commissioned in 2332 to replace it. Although these dates have not been confirmed by any TV series or movie, every book, reference guide and new ship model released in the last few years has used these dates, making them the most consistent to be used.

Star Trek at 50: The Genesis Trilogy

In December 1979, Paramount Pictures released Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a lavish, big-budget adaptation of the Star Trek TV series to the big screen. In public, they were confident and enthusiastic. Behind the scenes they were in a state of panic. The film's budget had tripled during production and post-production, and early reviews had not been the kindest. In the event, the movie did quite well and brought home a solid profit.

Leonard Nimoy was still not entirely comfortable with playing Spock when asked back for Star Trek II. He returned after he was told he would get a memorable death scene. His enjoyment of making the film and his involvement in creative decisions led to him committing wholeheartedly to the character for the rest of his career.

The Paramount executives quietly shuffled Gene Roddenberry into a consulting role, blaming his constant rewrites and creative meddling for causing the budget inflation on the first movie. This wasn't entirely fair, as Paramount's own prevaricating over the script, whether there were making a movie or a TV series, hiring a perfectionist director and delaying hiring an effects team until after the last possible minute all played their roles in pushing the costs upwards. But Roddenberry had certainly been the leading advocate of making a slow-paced, 2001-style cerebral film instead of an action film, which Paramount now considered a mistake.

To make the sequel, Paramount brought on board veteran TV writer and producer Harve Bennett. Bennett knew how to make projects quickly but with integrity, delivering excellent value for money and finding the cleverest ways to extract maximum bang for their buck. He was also a good judge of character and an excellent negotiator. When he called Leonard Nimoy to judge his interest in the project, Nimoy expressed concerns that the character of Spock was played out. Bennett offered him the chance for an amazing, emotional and intense death scene. Nimoy thought briefly about it and then accepted.

Bennett was an excellent producer and writer, but had a slight problem in that he'd never watched the original Star Trek series. He holed up in an office at Paramount with a screening room and all 79 episodes of the series. He made notes on each episode, searching for inspiration. Towards the end of the first season, he was intrigued by the episode Space Seed. In this episode a genetically-engineered dictator and tyrant, Khan Noonien Singh, is found on a sleeper ship in deep space. He and his followers are at first grateful to Kirk and the Enterprise crew for rescuing him, but then he tries to take over the ship with the help of a crew woman who has fallen in love with him. Khan is defeated and he and his crew are exiled on the planet Ceti Alpha V, a verdant but untamed paradise planet. Kirk promises to check up on Khan, but this never happened in later episodes. Bennett was pleased that there hadn't been a sequel as it meant he could re-use Khan as the villain for the movie. The first draft revolved around Khan manipulating Kirk's hitherto unknown son into fighting against his father. Additional drafts, plotted with the help of Jack B. Sowards, introduced a devastating Starfleet superweapon known as the Omega System that Khan is trying to steal.

Paramount and the team were pleased with the rapid progress that was being made, but they hit on a snag that it was unlikely that the Federation would create a planet-destroying weapon of mass destruction (fears of similarities with the Death Star of Star Wars may have played a part). Bennett and Soward struggled with this until the art director, Michael Minor, suggested that it could be a terraforming device instead: an object of profoundly peaceful intent that is perverted into a weapon. Bennett literally hugged Minor, declaring that he had "saved Star Trek." The Omega System was retitled the Genesis Device.

A new draft was produced which featured Spock dying very early in the script, a shocking move inspired by Psycho. Negative fan reaction after the script leak led to the studio backing away on the idea of Spock dying. Bennett hit upon a sneaky idea, however, by showing Spock dying in the opening minutes of the film only for it to turn out to be a training simulation. This would trick viewers into thinking that the story had been changed so Spock wouldn't die at all. Instead, his death was moved to the back end of the film and turned into a heroic, "blaze of glory" ending that Leonard Nimoy felt was quite moving. Although the script was becoming more familiar, it was still a bit flabby and Bennett felt a fresh pair of eyes would be useful. Nicholas Meyer, the director of Time After Time, was recommended to him. Meyer had no experience of Trek so viewed the script as a stand-alone move. He made a list of everything he liked from the previous drafts and delivered a streamlined, focused version in just two weeks. This new script had more action, space battles and explosions but also developed a strong thematic link of ageing, the next generation coming up and taking over and the old generation passing away. Meyer linked this in with the Genesis Device to create a theme of death, life and rebirth that underlines the space battles and impassioned speeches between Kirk and Khan. This impressed Paramount and Bennett so much that they offered him the job of directing the movie.

Ricardo Montalban was 61 years old and suffering from back problems when the film was shot, but still practised a formidable daily exercise regime and was in better shape than some of his younger co-stars.

Everything was in place...except for the villain. Bennett had assumed that someone in casting had checked with Ricardo Montalban's availability and his willingness to reprise the role. Casting had assumed he'd done it. In a bit of a panic, Bennett contacted Montalban. The veteran actor was uncertain if he could reprise the role, and was concerned if playing a cold-blooded villain would upset fans of his character Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island. However, he was impressed by the script and quickly got back into character. The producers were especially impressed with Montalban's formidable physical condition: despite being in his sixties and having a back condition, Montalban still vigorously worked out every day. After the movie came out some viewers complained about Khan's "prosthetic chest", which both the producers and Montalban found deeply amusing. Initial script drafts had depicted a lengthy confrontation between Kirk and Khan, including one suggestion that fight using swords, but Meyer had disregarded these. Unable to come up with a plausible way Kirk would survive a direct confrontation (given Khan's genetically-engineered superior strength, speed and stamina), he simply didn't have them meet at all, instead exchanging threats and glowers through viewscreens.

The rest of the Star Trek cast reunited for the film with Meyer keen to give each character their moment in the sun: McCoy and Spock have a series of witty exchanges in the spirit of the TV series, whilst Scotty's nephew joins the crew. Scotty is incredibly proud, but then distraught when he dies in the opening engagement with the Reliant. Sulu is promoted to Captain of the USS Excelsior, but agrees to do "one last training mission" for Kirk. This scene was cut and in the event George Takei had to wait ten years until Star Trek VI showed him commanding the Excelsior. Bennett and Meyer liked the ship name and held onto it for the next movie. Uhura also had more dialogue and scenes, acting as a conduit of information to the bridge in a more naval command-and-control role than in the series. Finally, Chekov was promoted to first officer of the USS Reliant and forced to betray his shipmates with the use of mind-controlling eels. Meyer was worried about this plot element, feeling it was corny, but felt that casting the respected actor Paul Winfield as Captain Terrell helped sell the scene. He also cast an up-and-coming young actress, Kirstie Alley, as Spock's Vulcan protege, Lt. Saavik.

Leonard Nimoy was excited to film Spock's death scene, but when the day of filming arrived he surprised Meyer and Bennett by telling them that he had thoroughly enjoyed making the film and the more collaborative atmosphere of production. He asked them if there was a way he could return in the future if necessary, especially since Paramount had already begun talking about a third film. The death scene was rewritten to include a sequence where Spock mind melds with Dr. McCoy, and a new shot showing his funeral casket lying on the surface of the newly-created Genesis Planet was added in post production.

Star Trek II's visual effects, although fewer in number and simpler than The Motion Picture's, received praise for their clarity and quality.

Shooting began on 9 November 1981 and concluded on 29 January 1982. To reduce costs, a very large chunk of the film took place on just one set: the bridge of the Enterprise, which then doubled as the simulator room at Starfleet Academy and then as the bridge of the USS Reliant, the ship Khan steals and turns against the Federation. Initially the producers were going to depict the Reliant as a ship of the same class as the Enterprise so they could use the same model, but the special effects crew threw a fit. They hated the big, bulky and elaborate Enterprise model and said it'd be cheaper to design and build a whole new model. Bennett and Meyer agreed and the Reliant became a Miranda-class starship, smaller but more manoeuvrable than the Enterprise. The Reliant in fact became the first non-Constitution-class Federation starship to appear in the Star Trek franchise. Compared to the laborious post-production process for The Motion Picture, Star Trek II's visual effects process was more streamlined and even had time to allow for experimental shots, such as using cloud and water tanks to generate the concluding battle in the Mutara Nebula. Production of the effects also proceeded alongside shooting rather than afterwards, allowing closer integration of the effects into live-action scenes.

One area were there were problems was depicting the rapid terraforming of a planet in the Genesis Project demonstration video. Effects supervisor Jim Veilleux was frustrated and turned to Lucasfilm, who had an embryonic studio dabbling in the earliest computer-generated visual effects. They agreed to provide a wholly computer-generated 60-second animation showing the Genesis Device terraforming a planet from a ball of rock into an Earthlike world. This was the first scene in a live-action movie to be generated completely through CGI. The Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group used the scene as a demonstration of what they could do: a few years later they spun off as a new company called Pixar.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was released on 4 June 1982, barely four months after shooting finished. It was a lean, tight and focused movie. It had been made for $11.2 million (which was considered pretty cheap even then), came in at an audience-friendly 112 minutes and was immediately showered with praise by both fans and critics alike. The film opened to a $14.3 million weekend, at that time an all-time record, and took home $80 million in the United States and $97 million in total. Although this was down on The Motion Picture, it was vastly more profitable compared to the film's production costs. There was tremendous approval of the film's action scenes and visual effects sequences, but a lot of praise was lavished on Montalban and Shatner's palpable mutual hatred, the themes of death and rebirth, on the extraordinary musical score by newcomer James Horner and on the film's focus. Even Gene Roddenberry, who had had little to do with the movie, grudgingly accepted it was "exciting".

Star Trek III introduced several of the franchise's most iconic spacecraft designs, including (pictured here) the USS Excelsior and the Spacedock station orbiting above Earth. The movie also introduced the Oberth-class science vessel and the Klingon Bird of Prey.

Paramount quickly moved forwards with a third Star Trek movie. Harve Bennett agreed to return as producer and it was decided to make the movie a direct sequel to The Wrath of Khan. They decided that the plot would focus on the return of Spock, but Bennett was keen that the resurrection could only come at a profound personal cost to Kirk. Working backwards through the script, he decided that Kirk was lose his son, David (introduced in the previous movie), he would be forced out of Starfleet and that the Enterprise would be destroyed. Nicholas Meyer was asked to return, but Meyer was unhappy with the way the final edit of the film was handled by Paramount (including much more blatant foreshadowing of Spock's survival than Meyer had intended) and decided to sit the movie out. Bennett hit on the idea of Nimoy himself directing: the actor had been directing TV episodes, plays and smaller TV films for over a decade and had familiarity with the franchise, the cast and the crew (many of them returning from The Wrath of Khan). Nimoy relished the challenge, especially since he didn't have to appear in front of the camera apart from right at the very end of the movie.

As with The Wrath of Khan it was decided to have a memorable villain, and the first draft focused on the Romulans, including a return for their Bird-of-Prey class warship from the episode Balance of Terror, now updated to a new design. However, it was later decided to change the villains to the Klingons, who a more general audience would be more familiar with. Nimoy decided to cast Christopher Lloyd as the Klingon Captain Kruge, citing his dramatic work rather than his comedy role on Taxi which viewers were more familiar with. Nimoy was particularly praised for his direction of his friend and co-star Shatner, reigning in his tendency to chew the scenery. George Takei was also impressed by how Nimoy and Bennett handled him complaining about a massive security guard calling him "Tiny," which Takei found unnecessary. However, watching the complete sequence back (including the "Don't call me Tiny," rejoinder after Sulu kicks the guard's butt) impressed Takei, who immediately apologised.

Spock's return was well-received by fans, especially given it was achieved with difficulty and only at cost.

The visual effects team had more work to do on this film, including designing no less than four iconic new designs: the Federation Spacedock, the Oberth-class USS Grissom, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and of course the colossal USS Excelsior. All of these designs would go on to feature heavily in future Trek films and TV series. In particular, Nimoy and Bennett were able to increase the visual effects budget by reusing numerous sets, props and costumes from The Wrath of Khan, and by using an interior set for the Genesis Planet rather than most costly exterior shooting. As a result, the film's budget of $16 million (almost 50% higher than The Wrath of Khan's) went a lot further, allowing for the elaborate planet set to break apart as the Genesis Planet disintegrates and for a lengthy sequence showing the destruction of the Enterprise. Bennett was annoyed when Gene Roddenberry, who loathed the idea of destroying the ship, leaked word of the ship's destruction to fans, resulting in derogatory letters being sent in. The visual effects crew, who hated the badly-wired and unwieldy Enterprise model with a passion, were keen to take a hammer to the model to destroy it completely, but were stopped by Bennett and Nimoy, in case it was needed in the future.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was released on 1 June 1984. The film took $87 million worldwide and was considered a success, but the critical reception was more muted. Some reviews were critical of the obvious sets used to depict the Genesis Planet (although some said they enjoyed this was a throwback to the original series) but for the most part Nimoy's direction was praised, along with the visual effects. The film was the first in the series to be criticised for relying on continuity from the previous movie and not doing enough to work as a stand-alone film.

Paramount were keen to continue the franchise, but wanted a change of direction: this coincided with both Nimoy and Bennett's feelings as well, that the fourth movie should be a break away from the past. Nimoy in particular was to change gears and make a film that was lighter, more comedic and less reliant on staples such as warp drive, phasers and menacing villains. However, Bennett was also keen that lingering continuity issues from the previous films - such as the knowledge of the Genesis Device being made public, the Klingon outrage after the death of Kruge and Kirk and his crew being fired from Starfleet and facing criminal charges - should be addressed. However, the whole plan was nearly derailed when Shatner refused to sign up for the movie unless he got a bit pay rise. Paramount, possibly as a negotiating ploy, asked Bennet and Nimoy to consider a new film set in Starfleet Academy with the characters played by younger actors. It seems that this threat, combined with a more modest pay increase and production approval, convinced Shatner to sign on. New ideas came on board, such as time travel and the idea of something on contemporary Earth that doesn't exist in the future being key to saving the day. The idea of using humpback whales appealed to Nimoy, who wanted to include a message about conservation but not to the detriment of the drama. Wrath of Khan writer-director Nicholas Meyer returned to polish the script and help integrate the best ideas from the development process.

Star Trek IV's contemporary setting led to a well-received change of pace, but also introduced production headaches for director Leonard Nimoy.

The new film invoked time travel so that he bulk of the film was set in contemporary San Francisco. Real locations were used wherever possible to help keep costs down, along with props and models being reused from the previous movies. The Reliant model, for example, was re-employed to depict the USS Saratoga and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, Earth Spacedock and the Excelsior models were broken out of storage. The only major new model constructed for the film was the alien probe which menaces Earth in the opening and closing sections.

Nimoy found that directing the film was a more daunting task than The Search for Spock, since he had to appear on-screen as well as direct. There were also logistical difficulties with filming scenes involving traffic (which required set-ups taking 30 minutes each) and extras recruited off the street. There were also some positive nods to long-term fans of the series, such as using the US Navy's Enterprise aircraft carrier (although the ship was actually at sea, so the USS Ranger was substituted). The film also nearly cast long-term Star Trek fan Eddie Murphy in a role as a professor, but Murphy wanted to play an alien or Starfleet officer instead. The issue was resolved when he went to film The Golden Child instead, a decision he later regretted.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released on 26 November 1986. The film was marketed differently from its predecessors, with emphasis placed on the contemporary setting, the more comedic tone and the fact there was no need to be familiar with the franchise to enjoy the film. Traditional fans were dismayed by some of these elements, such as the whales, but found that the movie handled them far better than was expected and were happy with the ending, in which Kirk is demoted from Admiral to Captain and placed in command of a new USS Enterprise. The movie attracted both critical and commercial praise and took home over $133 million, just $6 million shy of The Motion Picture's take but on less than half the cost (The Voyage Home came in on a $21 million budget).

Star Trek IV ended with the crew given a new Enterprise...but Paramount had a slightly different direction in mind for the future of the franchise.

Paramount was extremely happy with the film's profitability and critical acclaim. It was also astonished by the franchise's longevity, and the fact that the original series was still generating significant revenue in syndication twenty years after it debuted. However, the wage increases for the original actors had become significant and Paramount wanted to approach the franchise from a different angle.

On 10 October 1986, one month before The Voyage Home debuted, Paramount announced that Star Trek was coming home to television with a new, weekly TV series featuring a new ship and a new crew: Star Trek: The Next Generation.