Trivia for
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

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• The villains of the film were originally intended to be Romulans, but upper studio management wanted Klingons to be used since they were better-known enemies. By the time the decision was made, the Romulan ship was already built and they did not want the expense of replacing it. However, since the TV show had already established that the Klingons and Romulans had shared technologies and ships in the past (for exactly the same real-world cost-cutting reasons), the idea of Klingons using a Romulan-style vessel was not a problem.
  
  
• Although not mentioned on-screen, the novelization establishes that Saavik was half Vulcan and half Romulan. A scene cut from the previous film, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982), also established this but can not be considered canon. Leonard Nimoy seemed to have directed Robin Curtis to portray Saavik as a full Vulcan.
  
  
• Leonard Nimoy does the turbolift voice in the scene when Scotty says "Up your shaft", while exiting the Starship Execelsior. The end credits lists the voice under the alias Frank Force.
  
  

• Production was endangered by the great fire at Paramount. William Shatner helped fight the fire and rescue a crewmember before firefighter reinforcements arrived. Shatner said that his motivation for doing so was purely to save a day on the shooting schedule, as he had a make a deadline to be available for shooting on a new season of "T.J. Hooker" (1982).
  
  
• When the Enterprise enters space dock at the beginning of the movie, just before Uhura comments on the Excelsior's appearance ("Would you look at that!"), another docked ship can be seen, in shadow, at the upper left corner of the screen. This ship is one of the alternative models that was considered for use as the Excelsior. This alternate model also makes several appearances in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987), usually as a wrecked ship or piece of space junk.
  
  
• The shot of the Enterprise approaching Spacedock is later re-used in various episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987) with the Enterprise-D overlapping the original Enterprise (Another cost-saving method often used with Star Trek).
  
  
• Grace Lee Whitney, who played Janice Rand, Kirk's yeoman in season one of "Star Trek" (1966) and returned as transporter chief in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), makes a cameo appearance during the Enterprise's docking sequence. She is the red haired officer in the spacedock lounge who shakes her head in disapproval as she sees the ship's damage.
  
  
• Tribbles, a popular creature from the "Star Trek" (1966) episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles', make a cameo appearance during the bar sequence where McCoy tries to hire a ship.
  
  
• Gary Faga plays the security guard who Kirk knocks out; he also played the airlock technician that Spock gave the Vulcan nerve pinch to in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).
  
  
• This is the first Star Trek 'episode' to be directed by a member of the Star Trek cast. Leonard Nimoy also directed Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and William Shatner directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). This would later become commonplace on the various Trek TV series: Jonathan Frakes directed Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) as well as fourteen television episodes over three Star Trek series. LeVar Burton directed twenty-nine episodes over four Star Trek series. Other Star Trek actors who went on to direct their castmates were Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig, Andrew Robinson, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxann Dawson, Robert Picardo and Tim Russ.
  
  
• The self-destruct codes for the U.S.S. Enterprise apparently haven't been changed in decades, as they are identical to those in the original series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield".
  
  
• Nicholas Meyer, director of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) was originally asked to direct, but refused because he thought that Spock's death should have remained final. He later directed the final film of the original series, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
  
  
• The Excelsior was supposed to debut in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and be identified as newly-promoted Captain Sulu's first command. This plot line was dropped and Excelsior saved for this film. Sulu would finally take command of her in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). The ship design would be reused for the USS Enterprise-B in the Star Trek: Generations (1994).
  
  
• The USS Grissom bridge was the USS Enterprise bridge redressed with pink chairs, and the bar where Dr. McCoy tries to charter spaceflight is the redressed Enterprise sickbay.
  
  
• As in the previous Star Trek film, the movie includes the famous "Space, the final frontier" monologue, spoken by Spock. As in the previous film, the words have been changed slightly, referring to seeking out "new life forms" instead of just "new life". This was the final use of this modified version of the monologue.
  
  
• The few Klingon phrases that James Doohan introduced in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) was used by Marc Okrand as the basis for the Klingon language in this film. Okrand's Klingon language became a fully realized fictional language, and would be the basis for all future Klingon dialogue in future movies and television shows (as well as an obsession to become fluent in for hardcore Star Trek fans.)
  
  
• The spacedock orbiting Earth is supposed to be five miles tall - making it easily observable from the surface. The actual model itself was 6 feet tall.
  
  
• Chekov makes a remark in Russian to Scotty about the security breach in Spock's quarters. Translated, he is saying, 'I'm not crazy! There it is.'.
  
  
• The uniforms worn by the security guards are the same uniforms from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), but they're worn with the new red Starfleet uniforms, and a dark green turtleneck, which represents the security division.
  
  
• This film marks the first appearances of the Excelsior class vessel, the Oberth class vessel (namely the USS Grissom), and the Klingon bird-of-prey. The models were reused as other, similar ships in numerous episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987) and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993).
  
  
• James Goldstone was considered to direct the movie before Leonard Nimoy asked to direct.
  
  
• The USS Grissom is evidently named after real life astronaut Gus Grissom, who was killed after the Apollo 1 spacecraft itself was destroyed on 27 January 1967.
  
  
• Edward James Olmos was Leonard Nimoy's original choice for the role of Kruge. However, executive producer Harve Bennett preferred Christopher Lloyd. Nimoy finally cast Lloyd because he came off more operatic and physically intimidating.
  
  
• One of the boys who plays young Spock, had to wear brown colored contact lenses to match the color of Leonard Nimoy's eyes as the boy's natural eye color was blue.
  
  
• In the scene where Kirk meets Admiral Morrow for a drink to discuss taking the Enterprise back to the Genesis Planet, an abstract hanging sculpture can be seen on the wall behind Morrow. The sculpture is in fact one of the miniatures of the Epsilon IX station from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), which was made of acid-etched brass.
  
  
• When Dr. McCoy declares his full name, the "H" stands for Horatio. Horatio Hornblower was Gene Roddenberry's model for Captain Kirk. David Andrew McCoy is his father's full name, according to the novelization of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).
  
  
• As explained by William Shatner in Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special (1991) (TV), there was tight security on the set to minimize theft, as incurred on Star Trek II. Picture ID badges, codes and the works were used so much that Shatner quipped it was like Paramount's real-life "Mission: Impossible" (1966).
  
  

• SPOILER: Leonard Nimoy's character, Spock, died at the end of the previous movie. He agreed to reincarnate the character in exchange for directing the new movie.
  
  
• SPOILER: Scenes of Spock's final moments and his death from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) were reused as the engine room's flight recorder. The opening death sequence, funeral sequence, Spock's casket's landing spot, Spock's opening dialogue and opening were all reused from Star Trek II where they were all used at the end of that film.
  
  
• SPOILER: In the earlier drafts of the screenplay, the Enterprise's auto destruct finished with the ship's engine core exploding, resulting in a massive matter/antimatter explosion, visible from the planet's surface. Harve Bennett later changed this to the primary hull exploding, and the secondary being destroyed in the planet's atmosphere, reasoning that an antimatter explosion would probably destroy the Klingon ship as well. However, a mix-up resulted in the ILM crew doing the sequence according to the earlier version. Bennett considered using this version in the final film, but asked ILM to redo it, this time saying it would make the scene afterward look too much like the ending of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). They saved money by re-using the footage from the initial sequence up to the point where the primary hull exploded, then started the new sequence just after.
  
  
• SPOILER: The scene in which Kirk stumbles into his chair after hearing of the death of his son was an improvisation by William Shatner, who was told by Leonard Nimoy to do whatever reaction Shatner wanted to do. Shatner has never told whether he meant to miss the chair and slip to the ground, or if he had meant to simply hit the seat hard but missed going backwards.
  
  
• SPOILER: Michael Eisner initially refused to let Leonard Nimoy direct the film, as he was under the mistaken impression that Spock's death was part of Nimoy's contract from the previous film and that therefore, Nimoy didn't like the series or the part. He changed his mind when Nimoy assured him that this was not true.
  
  
• SPOILER: To keep the secrecy, the name "Spock" was never used in the movie script, but instead the alias "Nacluv" (reverse of "Vulcan") was used.
  
  
• SPOILER: There was a debate during the writing of the script as to who should be killed by the Klingons - Saavik (Robin Curtis) or David Marcus (Merritt Butrick). It was eventually decided that Marcus should die as punishment for experimenting with protomatter in the Genesis matrix.
  
  

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