For the Love of Spock,
directed by Adam Nimoy
(455 Films, 2016)


The best bits of For the Love of Spock are those in which members of the new Star Trek cast -- Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg and of course Zachary Quinto -- talk about what Leonard Nimoy meant to them, both as the original Spock and as the man who brought him to life and forever defined him.

Comments from Nimoy's original castmates -- William Shatner, George Takei, Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols -- are interesting, but aren't anything we haven't heard before. And that, really, is the overarching weakness of For the Love of Spock, a documentary that purports to be something of a love letter to Nimoy from his son, Adam, who directed the project.

The documentary, according to publicity on the project, started out as a very different film but changed focus when the elder Nimoy died. However, there's very little that's new here for anyone who's paid even the slightest bit of attention to the Star Trek phenomenon over the many years since its inception. And it becomes a little uncomfortable, truthfully, when Adam Nimoy veers into his personal issues with his father, which dominates quite a bit of the nearly two-hour run time.

Leonard Nimoy, we learn, could be a distant father. He focused on work rather than family. He wasn't around a lot, and when he was he was focused on his fans, his latest script, some overdue home improvement project or even just catching up on some sleep. He smoked too much. He drank too much.

It comes across as self-indulgent. Who knows, perhaps making this documentary was an important tool that helped Adam let go of whatever residual resentment toward his father remained. But it doesn't feel like the material was ripe for public consumption.




Rambles.NET
review by
Tom Knapp


22 April 2017


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