Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Revealing mistake: When Kirk enters Spock's quarters at the beginning of the movie, he hears Spock's voice calling out to him from a darkened area. As he walks into Spock's quarters, pay attention to the top right area of the screen. You'll notice the top of the walls and no ceiling. That lets you know that they were filming on a sound stage in a set with no ceiling. (00:14:50)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the Enterprise explodes, some of the debris briefly turns transparent. (01:12:15)

Revealing mistake: When Kirk and Kruge are fighting, a piece of the cliff breaks away and wiggles down the side of the cliff rather than falling like a rock. (01:22:55)

Revealing mistake: On the genesis planet, after Kirk kicks Kruge into the lava, he approaches Spock lying on the ground and kneels beside him. It is obvious that William Shatner is wearing knee pads under his uniform trousers. In fact, they're visible for most of Kirk's time on the planet. (01:24:13)

Revealing mistake: As the Enterprise nears the space dock doors there is an outline around the ends of the nacelles that precedes them as it moves. This shows that the ship was superimposed over the shot of the inside of the space dock.

Movie Nut

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Suggested correction: This isn't wrong, per se, but matte outlines are so inherent to this type of optical effect that it I think it would be like counting "makeup looks fake" or "unconvincing acting" as mistakes. There probably is a line where a special effect is so bad it can indeed be counted as a mistake, but this doesn't cross it, in my opinion.

TonyPH

Visible crew/equipment: When the Enterprise is exploding, a Klingon is shown flying over the helm. When he lands, a person's arm can be seen on the right side of the screen, trying to grab his foot. (01:14:50)

More mistakes in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Kirk: You're suffering from a Vulcan mind-meld.
McCoy: That green blooded son-of-a-bitch! It's his revenge for all those arguments he lost!

More quotes from 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.)

More trivia for 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

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