14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
5. Tractor Beam, Nay
Soooo…just how did the Enterprise get away? Does the Space Garage not have a tractor beam? Or does it rely entirely on the tug shuttles (Bill George at ILM confirmed that’s what they are) seen cruising around inside its cavernous guts?
Okay, maybe it does have a tractor beam, and maybe Scotty disabled it as he was monkeying around trying to get the space doors open, but nothing in the script or the finished film suggests this. So we’re left assuming it doesn’t have one at all.
Even accepting this, what about the Excelsior? The Enterprise is still backing towards the space doors — which are closed — as Captain Styles enters the Excelsior bridge, so instead of ordering one quarter impulse power, why didn’t he just order the tractor beam right then and there instead of waiting until the Enterprise was outside the garage doors? And why would Excelsior have “orders to pursue” if Starfleet didn’t think the Enterprise could get through the space doors in the first place?
None of it makes a lick of sense.