19. McCoy's Vulcan Nerve Pinch - Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Paramount PicturesFor the most part, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is every bit as innocuous (read: boring) as the first movie, but it does contain a few moments that simply don't work. It's particularly galling when a scene is played for comedy when the underlying significance of it is serious. Such is the case of the scene in which McCoy, suffering from his mind meld with Spock, goes to a bar to hire an illegal shuttle flight back to the Genesis planet, it's particularly problematic. The scene begins with McCoy stating that ordering "poison" (as in "What's your poison?") in a bar is "illogical" (hilarious!), followed by his being joined by an alien who's just come from a Ministry concert. After having a
rib-tickling conversation with this syntactically-challenged alien about getting back to the Genesis planet, McCoy is challenged by a member of Starfleet Security, who has been watching him. The agent tries to take McCoy into custody...only to have McCoy try to take him down with a Vulcan nerve pinch, which instead makes it look like he's trying to give the man a shoulder massage. Har! Or not. There's actually some significance to this scene in that it is the first sign that McCoy is being adversely affected by his mind meld with Spock, which he doesn't even know about yet. It culminates with his humiliating arrest by the security officers of the very organization he works for before being shipped to a facility for treating mental illness. Naturally, they play all this for laughs, because it's a Star Trek movie.