Star Trek-Motion Picture Trilogy

"[The Wrath of Khan] ...a likable adventure...with nice touches of warmth and humor.  Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"[The Wrath of Khan] ...this multi-layered action picture works so well you don't need to be a "Trekkie" to enjoy it.  Mark Bourne, DVD Journal
"[The Search for Spock] ...goes beyond frontiers greater than space.  Nick Hilditch, BBC Online
"[The Voyage Home] A happy, heartfelt chapter that reunites the original cast with the original TV format, shying away from the cold and epic scale of the preceding movie adventures.  Rita Kempley, The Washington Post
"[The Search for Spock] If Wrath of Khan is the 'action' entry and Voyage Home is the 'comedy' installment, then Search for Spock is the 'drama' -- and it's a damn good entry overall.  Scott Weinberg, Apollo Movie Guide

Editor's Note The voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise continue in this trilogy of big-screen adaptations of the classic sci-fi series created by Gene Roddenberry. Seeking out bold new worlds often pits Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and the rest of the crew against extraterrestrial threats and the limits of human knowledge. Leaving out the underwhelming first film, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, this collection includes the three outstanding sequels that made Trekkies out of generations of moviegoers: STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK, and STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME. Please see individual titles for complete synopsis information.

	DeForest Kelley
	James Doohan
	George Takei
	Majel Barrett
	Walter Koenig
	Nichelle Nichols
	William Shatner
	Leonard Nimoy
	Gene Roddenberry - Creator

ReelViews 8 of 10
[The Search for Spock] With a title like The Search for Spock, did anyone really expect that they wouldn't find the erstwhile first officer? So, with the resolution never in doubt (especially considering that Leonard Nimoy was directing), the real question to ask is: Is the search fun? The answer, for the most part, is "yes", at least once the story kicks into high gear. Star Trek III takes nearly forty minutes, much of which is filled with silly, mystical exposition about the current state of Spock's soul, before things start moving. The last twenty minutes are equally slow, but the stuff in between is quite enjoyable...The highlight of The Search for Spock is the ten-minute sequence where Kirk steals the Enterprise. Exciting, well-paced, and perfectly-scored, this gem stands out as one of the best segments in any of the Star Trek movies. Also noteworthy are a confrontation between the Enterprise and a Klingon bird-of-prey (although the "battle", such as it is, is anticlimactic, with the Enterprise's defense systems going on the fritz), the scene in which Kirk orders the ship's self-destruction, and a hand-to-hand struggle between the Admiral and the Klingon commander (Christopher Lloyd)...Like Star Trek II, Star Trek III is about sacrifice. In The Wrath of Khan, Spock gave his life for his shipmates. Here, Kirk loses just about everything except his life so that his friend can have a chance at a future. It's this sort of thing -- placing characters and themes above battles and special effects -- that has always distinguished Star Trek. While the absence of Spock leaves a vacuum in character interaction (there is none of the witty repartee that defines the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship), expectations about his return create a palpable sense of anticipation. So, while the sluggish beginning and ending mar this Star Trek outing somewhat, there's still enough here to please fans of the series, and, to a lesser extent, movie-goers in general. - James Berardinelli

The Onion A.V. Club 9 of 10
[The Wrath of Khan] Because getting Star Trek fans to agree on any issue tends to be an elusive goal, it would take an exceptional project to unite the bunch. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan came closest for several reasons. Ironically enough, a significant one is that even without the words "Star Trek," the film would still be a space adventure of the highest order. Almost destined to look good by comparison, Khan followed 1979's handsome, ponderous Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which spent a lifetime reintroducing each of the show's characters and another lifetime letting them drift through an endless nebula of special effects. Like Superman II, another superior sequel, Khan dispenses with the formalities and gets down to the business at hand...Director Nicholas Meyer came to the project with little knowledge of the series and little concern for avoiding such topics as the graying of the Enterprise crew: He made a central issue out of William Shatner's age, and brought mortality to center stage by killing off a major character. For all that, the film still stays planted in the Star Trek universe. It digs deep into the show's archives to find its titular villain, a genetically engineered superman played by Ricardo Montalban, last seen making a new start on an uninhabited planet after trying to take over the Enterprise. Now eager for revenge on Shatner after living for decades in the aftermath of an ecological disaster that killed most of his crew, Montalban finds the means to even the score after he commandeers a passing starship. What follows works both as a confrontation between two characters and as a showdown between two happily larger-than-life actors. Shatner and Montalban never share the same space, but their face-offs highlight the film, as they both wring every drop of drama out of their lines. - Keith Phipps

Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
[The Voyage Home] When they finished writing the script for "Star Trek IV," they must have had a lot of silly grins on their faces. This is easily the most absurd of the "Star Trek" stories - and yet, oddly enough, it is also the best, the funniest and the most enjoyable in simple human terms. I'm relieved that nothing like restraint or common sense stood in their way...The movie opens with some leftover business from the previous movie, including the Klingon ambassador's protests before the Federation Council. These scenes have very little to do with the rest of the movie, and yet they provide a certain reassurance (like James Bond's ritual flirtation with Miss Moneypenny) that the series remembers it has a history...The plots of the previous "Star Trek" movies have centered around dramatic villains, such as Khan, the dreaded genius played by Ricardo Montalban in "Star Trek II." This time, the villains are faceless: the international hunters who continue to pursue and massacre whales...Instead of providing a single human villain as counterpoint, "Star Trek IV" provides a heroine, in Hicks. She obviously is moved by the plight of the whales, and although at first she understandably doubts Kirk's story that he comes from the 23rd century, eventually she enlists in the cause and even insists on returning to the future with them, because of course, without humpback whales, the 23rd century also lacks humpback whale experts...There are some major action sequences in the movie, but they aren't the high points; the "Star Trek" saga has always depended more on human interaction and thoughtful, cause-oriented plots. What happens in San Francisco is much more interesting than what happens in outer space, and this movie, which might seem to have an unlikely and ungainly plot, is actually the most elegant and satisfying "Star Trek" film so far. - Roger Ebert