Star Trek 3 “Resurrection”

This was my first time revisiting this film since I was a kid, and the first time I realized why so many have called it a bad movie. It's not bad, and especially not in BionicBob's fanedit...but it's sure a big drop from The Wrath of Khan.

I wrote general thoughts about the film here: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/star-trek-iii-the-search-for-spock/ but for this entry I'll focus on Bob's edit. In general, I'd say the little trims to the story manage to mostly improve the flow of the narrative and even enhance the emotional impact in several areas. I particularly appreciated his use of flashbacks via old footage to visualize the ending sequence. On the other hand, the flashbacks during that flight of the Enterprise over Genesis veered too much into fan service for me. It's something that I could've accepted in the actual final last Star Trek film, but not here. Most of the scenes cut out weren't really missed, though I felt David's fate was not shown clearly enough and it seemed an ambiguous and dodgy removal that lessened his character.

In terms of the other main focus of this edit, the TV-style presentation, I think Bob continued to improve in that area and it works even better here than in STI or STII. The opening recap especially felt like the old show and fit very well. However, all in all it's a bit of a mixed bag, as some of the music fits this feeling and some clearly does not. Some of the fadeouts and freezes fit and some seem to frustrate the flow of the film. The ending of the film is mercilessly left untouched by "commercial breaks"...which is both gratifying but also departs from the way the rest of the edit is cut. So I'm iffy on this main idea of the fanedit, though it's certainly a valid alternative to the main film.

All in all, this is an improvement on the theatrical version, so I can definitely recommend it. I'll be coming back for STIV.

I'm going to keep this one short. This was an excellent edit of a really bad movie. In fact, I had forgotten entirely how bad this movie was! And it looks really cheap too (not this edit, but the movie itself).
This is the perfect movie for the make-it-seem-like-the-tv-show format, because it feels like a tv movie. The captain of the ship orbiting the Genesis planet especially seemed like a guy who might have failed an audition to be on one of the Trek spinoffs. And Reverend Jim Romulan was laughable as well.
I think Bionic Bob made this terrible movie as good as it could be.

I know a lot of people have issues with the aspect ratio or screen size, but I watch these on VLC media player on the laptop, through a hdmi wire to a big flat screen tv, and set on overscan. It looks perfect to me--like a hi-def letterboxed movie. No complaints about the picture here.

Review by Neglify — August 2, 2012 @ 8:25 am

Bob doesn’t fully resurrect Star Trek 3 but it’s a heck of a lot better. Another enjoyable Bionically Enhanced Trek movie!

Review by UnkwnFactor — January 11, 2011 @ 12:04 am

A great edit making a very mediocre “phoned-in” performance movie watchable.

The original movie is #2 of my most loathed Trek movies (ST V being #1 and ST IX tying with ST V) and Bob made it watchable for me. This is another great turn in his trek series and Bob does his best to make it work.

I simply loved the re-ordering of the two story lines – the movie as a whole is now so much more exciting and comprehensible and really shows how determined Kirk and crew are to get Spock. I would have to say, in my humble newbie opinion, that there is just no other way to make some of the other characters (namely the Capts) any better. Bob does his best, but they are just too weak to really do much.

and…THANK you for removing the Bones earthbound sub-plot. I have always thought it was just too silly and poorly written to ever work for me.

Like L8wrtr, I will only watch this version of ST 3, never will I reach for the original again. I hate to echo L8wrtr, but he made a very good point about BionicBob’s series: he has run the gamut of FE for me too.

(Okay, so the video still suffers from quality issues, but as i have said in my other reviews: it didn’t bother me because the edit is so engaging.)

Review by ionvox — December 27, 2010 @ 10:30 pm

This is such an improvement on the original that I don’t have the words. Every bit of goofiness has been removed, and it didn’t suffer for it. I personally would’ve like to have seen David’s final scene, but the way it was handled made it more suspenseful.

Kudos!

10/10