Star Trek 3. The Search for Spock.

The third Star Trek movie is a true sequel to the second one so you really should have seen the second one to understand the story. The first Star Trek movie on the other hand is an independent story which you can watch on its own. With the dramatic ending of the second movie and the loss of one of the main characters in this movie the story is picked up again with the crew returning home still trying to recover emotionally from the events in The Wrath of Kahn. This is of course impossible and Kirk and his crew are given another option because Spock’s body was sent to the Genesis planet where he is reborn. Kirk discovers that Spock’s Katra was transferred to Dr McCoy so his mind is not really lost. Because Genesis has become off limits Kirk and his crew set out on an illegal mission to recover Spock’s body. Although the Federation tries to keep the Genesis project secret some Klingons have discovered what it is and are also on their way to the planet in an attempt to seize it and weaponise it. The ‘rest’ is traditional Star Trek fare with Kirk pitting his (strategic) wits against his enemies, some drama and loss of lives and the crew pulling through because they are a team. Theme in Star Trek 2 was the unselfish sacrifice of Spock with motto ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one’. In Star Trek 3 plays with the opposite motive, ‘the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the few, or the many’. Personally I find Star Trek 2 the better movie of the 2 but both are way better than Star Trek 1. And because the story continuous from Star Trek 2 to 4 you could see this as a story arc spanning 3 consecutive episodes of TOS. Very long episodes that is. I guess that for the fans an episode can never be too long.