Star Trek III: The Search For Spock/Headscratchers


 * When Kirk tells the chief of Starfleet of his plan to put Spock's soul back into the corpse, said chief reacts with disbelief and disdain. Now, the Vulcans are arguably the most important founding members of the Federation and possibly one of the most numerous, so how exactly is the head guy of the Federation's military totally ignorant of their telepathic powers? And even if he is, two minutes of a mind meld with Sarek could wipe out any doubt.
 * Even among Vulcans, it's a rare and dangerous ritual with a strong chance of failure. It's also likely something they don't go to any lengths to advertise.
 * Also at this stage, Kirk didn't know that the Vulcans would reunite Spock's katra with his body and bring him back to life. He didn't even know Spock's body had been resurrected until he asked Saavik if Spock's body was alive. Sarek only asked Kirk to bring Spock's body to Vulcan to allow Spock to find peace. The body may have been required along with the Katra for some more ordinary death ritual that would allow Spock to truly "pass on". Sarek asked for the Fal Tor Pan after it was revealed to him that Spock's body was alive and could receive the katra again.
 * Even if the Starfleet chief brushes off the katra thing - that still leaves them in the position of the Vulcan ambassador being understandably angry that his son's body wasn't brought home in accordance with the rules of his culture. What do Starfleet do to prevent this from turning into a diplomatic incident? Absolutely nothing, even though there's already a starship in orbit around the planet.
 * That is a little unfair. The Grissom's Captain only refused to beam up Spock's coffin when Saavik found it because he wanted to be sure there was no health and safety threat to his crew (admittedly an unusual course of action for a Starfleet Captain who generally seem to want to go hand to hand fighting with a slime monster that has slaughtered a dozen Red Shirts). If they had beamed up the coffin and Spock then they would all have been on the Grissom when Kruge's "lucky shot" blew it up (Kruge was also jamming communications too). Film over.
 * The Grissom is at best tangentially related to the issue. Its fate is irrelevant to the conflict between Kirk and the admiral. The Vulcan ambassador is upset that his traditions are not being followed. Starfleet should have jumped at the chance to appease him. If they had any care for diplomatic relations, they would have pointed Kirk to the nearest Warp-capable ship and said "God speed."
 * Sarek is only an ambassador, not the leader of the Vulcan people. He has influence, but one angry ambassador is a minor issue compared to containing the intelligence and security disaster that the unplanned detonation of Genesis caused. Think of it this way: Had the son of the UK ambassador died from radiation exposure during the Manhattan Project, there's absolutely no way they'd return the body before the project was finished.
 * All kinds of explanations are possible, but the problem is, the movie doesn't really present any of them clearly. All we have is Morrow sniffing petulantly about Vulcan mysticism, like this is a reason for not allowing the mission!
 * Why didn't Sarek use his diplomatic clout to get Kirk permission to return to Genesis? Instead, Kirk has to defy orders, steal the Enterprise, and have his officers commit assault and sabotage. If not for The Probe almost destroying Earth in Star Trek IV the Voyage Home, they all could very well have ended up mining borite for the rest of their lives. And the only help Sarek gives is off-camera (in the novelization, he grants asylum to Uhura in the Vulcan embassy after she departs Spacedock). What gives?
 * That only raises more questions. Is there no extradition between Earth and Vulcan? It would be like if a US military officer helped steal a warship and then the British government gave them asylum and a trip to England. Besides, I think if Sarek started pulling those strings it would show that he's emotionally compromised (he's already clearly angry at Kirk for leaving Spock on Genesis) and would be put on some sort of administrative leave by the Vulcan government. The "logical" thing to do would be to accept his son's death and not encourage an admiral and his crew to throw away their careers.
 * The logical thing would be to just have Sarek (a high ranking politician) ask the Federation to have its science ship pick up Spock's body. Why not simply explain the situation and make it an unusual rescue mission?
 * Given the nature of Project Genesis and how it seemed to be need-to-know in TWOK it could simply be that there's not enough diplomatic cloud in the galaxy that will get Starfleet to bring anything back from Genesis as a personal favor. This was a top secret project that went awry and now everyone knows Starfleet has a device that can reformat a planet, they're going to want to limit access to the Mutara Sector as much as possible as a matter of security. That's probably why Sarek went to Kirk because he assumed the famous Admiral Kirk would be able to pull some more strings with Starfleet than he could as a civilian ambassador, Sarek never encouraged Kirk to do all those things and is rather astonished he did at the end of the movie.
 * The movie states that Spock and Genesis are again rapidly. Why is it that Genesis ended up blowing up but Spock didn't age rapidly into dust?
 * Once Spock is beamed off the surface the link between him and the planet might have been severed.
 * While on the Genesis planet Saavik reprimands David for using protomatter (apparently a very dangerous substance) for Genesis, asking him how many have died or gotten hurt by this. Ignoring the idea that Starfleet and the other scientists involved apparently had no idea of this idiocy, what is she talking about? Up to that point in the movie no one has gotten hurt because of it. People have died because others wanted to steal Genesis but the exact nature of the planet hasn't gotten anyone hurt and won't until later on. She would be justified in reprimanding him for using something so dangerous but she isn't mentioning that at all.
 * I'm guessing that the combined emotional strain of Spock's death and attempts to come to terms with it—she even shed a tear at his funeral—the realization that he's now alive but an empty shell, witnessing the bloody dead Enterprise crew members, the murdered Regula 1 staff, the suicide of Terrell, the knowledge that Grissom and her crew are all dead and the anxiety of knowing they're stranded on an alien planet with an enemy who knows they're there and little hope of rescue left her emotionally compromised. The final straw was David saying that all that was for a project that doesn't even work. David saying "it might've been years [before Genesis was developed], or never" if they hadn't used protomatter, might also have been a factor: had he not taken shortcuts, then they wouldn't have needed a ship to search for a planet to test it on, Khan might never have escaped. Had everything worked as planned, Starfleet would've been able to test the device in a clandestine and controlled way that didn't freak out the Klingons and motivate Kruge to acquire Genesis as a weapon. But really, I doubt Saavik was thinking that far ahead when she got upset.
 * Why didn't Kruge just beam Valkris up to his ship?
 * They might have had their shields up so a cloaked ship couldn't just beam the info off the ship without paying.
 * Beaming Valkris up doesn't change the fact that she knew too much. She was an information dealer after all, and having her on board his ship for a span of time wouldn't guarantee that she'd never divulge what she knew to anyone else at a later date. Also, Kruge's mission may have been covert and "off the books", meaning that utmost secrecy was essential. Even Kruge's own crew (including Maltz) knew fuck all about the mission beyond "The Feds may have built a superweapon and we are going to go and stop them", and Kruge only told Torg what the real plan was.