15 More Things You Didn’t Know About Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
6. The Entire Opening Of The Film Was Rearranged
As scripted, the film opened with Spock reciting the famous “Space the final frontier” narration followed by the opening titles, and then the U.S.S. Grisson’s arrival at the Genesis Planet and the detection of Spock’s casket tube. Next, the script cuts to the Enterprise en route to Earth, followed by a scene (later cut) where Kirk runs into McCoy on the turbolift acting bizarrely and quoting Spock. Afterwards the story jumps to “Somewhere in Organian Space” where the Klingon Bird of Prey blows up the Merchantman, then cuts back to the Grissom, which now detects an animal life form at Spock’s tube, leading Saavik and David requesting permission to beam down to investigate. Etc. etc.
This isn’t at all how the finished film begins.
Ultimately, it was decided to open the film with a replay of Spock’s death before the titles, start the story proper aboard the Enterprise en route to Earth, then reveal the Klingons, have the Enterprise reach Spacedock, have the Klingons watch the Genesis tape, and finally join the Grissom on its mission. As a result, instead of seeing the Grissom and David and Saavik four minutes into the film, we meet them almost twenty minutes in.
All these changes necessitated altering Kirk’s log at the beginning of the film, dropping the lines “Perhaps it is the erratic behavior of Ship's surgeon McCoy…” and “The news of Spock's tube has shaken me.”