Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Trivia: At the beginning of the movie Kirk rescues McCoy from a jail of some sort. Before leaving Kirk asks McCoy how many fingers he's holding up and does the Vulcan hand thing. However, Shatner had severe difficulties putting his fingers into place, they just wouldn't hold into position. So the crew wound up wrapping fishing line around Shatner's fingers, he would put them into position out of the camera and the shot quickly jumped while his fingers where still in place. If you look closely you see the line around his fingers. (Note that this problem occurred several times during Star Trek, actually, Nimoy and Leonard seem to be the only people doing this without a problem.)

Trivia: During the bar sequence where McCoy tries to hire a ship, there is a cameo appearance by Tribbles, who appeared in the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" from the original Star Trek TV series.

Trivia: On the backside of the DVD near the bottom is a series of six images purportedly from the movie. The second image shows the crew in uniform, including Mr. Spock, standing in the Federation Council chamber. This image comes from the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (after the crew has returned to Earth and is waiting to hear the Council's judgment).

Trivia: Robin Curtis replaced Kirstie Alley as Lt. Saavik in this film as Alley, who had starred as Saavik in "The Wrath of Khan", was offered less money to reprise her role so turned it down.

Trivia: The voice on the flight recorder is that of the film's producer, Harve Bennett.

Trivia: The first time we hear of "transwarp drive" technology is in The Search for Spock; presumably, using Transwarp Drive, the Excelsior should be able to easily overtake the Enterprise, even at maximum warp. Montgomery Scott easily sabotages the Excelsior, however, and we never see the transwarp drive in action. For some reason not explained in Star Trek canon, the Great Transwarp Experiment was abandoned as a failure at this point, so we never learn of the actual maximum speed of a starship with Transwarp Drive.

Charles Miller

Trivia: Leonard Nimoy does the turbolift voice in the scene when Scotty says "Up your shaft", whilst exiting the Starship Execelsior. The end credits lists the voice under the alias Frank Force.

Trivia: Spock's coffin is a photon torpedo capsule with "Mark VI" written on the top. Mark VI is the chapter in the Bible which relates the raising of John the Baptist from the dead.

Trivia: In the film, Cathie Shirriff plays a Klingon named Valkrys who appears to have had some sort of relationship with Commander Kruge (Christopher Lloyd). In an episode of "Taxi," Shirriff played an old flame of Lloyd, Jim Ignatowski.

Factual error: According to "The Doomsday Machine", full impulse drive is one-quarter the speed of light. In the first two movies, Enterprise used thrusters as opposed to impulse drive to leave Spacedock, confirming the notion that impulse drive is far too fast to leave such a (comparatively) small structure. Styles, however, orders Excelsior to one-quarter impulse, which is 18,750 km/s. In one second, she will travel half again Earth's diameter. From the time he gives the order to the time we see Excelsior clear spacedock's doors is approximately 40 seconds. Even allowing 30 seconds to go from rest to one quarter impulse, spacedock must be 13-15 times bigger than Earth! That's some serious engineering. (00:23:45)

Grumpy Scot

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I reckon the writers always refer to levels of "impulse power" precisely so they don't have to worry too much about particular speeds (personally I always thought of it as roughly analogous to gears on a vehicle, but your mileage may vary). They use impulse to leave dock in both Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (it's implied to be unusual in both cases, for what it's worth). If all of that contradicts an earlier episode, I think we're looking at more of a retcon situation than a mistake.

TonyPH

Suggested correction: The warp scale has been adjusted several times, so it is impossible to say precisely how fast this fictional technology is, and by extension, how fast impulse is.

Impulse drive speed on starships have been consistent. Although sometimes quarter impulse on a shuttle refers to quarter power and not speed. Even if the speed of quarter impulse is 10 times slower than suggested (and used in the series), spacedock would still be 1.3-1.5 times bigger than Earth, which it wasn't. "It's fictional technology" is usually only a valid correction if the technology isn't explained in-universe. However, when certain parameters regarding fictional technology are established (even if they set wide parameters such as warp speed velocities) violations or contradictions (through bad script writing or whatnot) are valid mistakes.

Bishop73

More mistakes in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Captain Spock: My father says that you have been my friend. You came back for me.
Kirk: You would have done the same for me.
Captain Spock: Why would you do this?
Kirk: Because the needs of the one... Outweigh the needs of the many.
Captain Spock: [begins to remember] I have been and ever shall be your friend.
Kirk: Yes. Yes, Spock.
Captain Spock: The ship... Out of danger?
Kirk: You saved the ship. You saved us all. Don't you remember?
Captain Spock: Jim... Your name is Jim.
Kirk: Yes.

More quotes from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Question: When Commander Morrow responds to Kirk's protests he says "Jim, the Enterprise is twenty years old. We feel her day's over." In ST: TMP, Decker said "This is an almost totally new Enterprise." If the Enterprise was, for all intents and purposes, totally rebuilt from the original, with more space, better engines, etc., how could it be twenty years old?

Movie Nut

Chosen answer: The Enterprise may have been extensively refurbished, but that does not mean it is entirely new. The ship is still 20 years old. Also, that was Decker's comment, and it may have been an over-exaggeration. Newer ships were being designed and built in the meantime, so even if the Enterprise was still mechanically sound, the technology may have advanced so much that it was not possible or it wasn't economically feasible to continually retrofit older vessels.

raywest

More questions & answers from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

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