When Paramount greenlit a third Star Trek film the day after the second one opened in 1982, there was really only one goal: bring back Spock, whose noble sacrifice at the end of The Wrath of Khan sent shockwaves throughout pop culture. It was an audacious and emotional demise that fit perfectly with the operatic melodrama of Nicholas Meyer’s film. In fact, it was so dramatic, it felt incomplete without Spock’s grieving friends carrying out a daring, Federation-defying, friendship-first mission to take advantage of cosmic convolutions and resurrect him.
