14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
1. The Genesis Defect Redux
As in The 14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, in Star Trek III Genesis remains thick cut bologna all around, and, as in previous entries in this list, it does all sorts of preposterous things, but amongst its million household uses can it also provide ongoing sustenance to life forms it animates? What were those fast-evolving microbes consuming in order to allow their incredible growth?
And what about Spock? We never see him eating anything, so just what nutrients are fueling his violent growth spurts and his growing pains as he pulls An American Werewolf In London’s to go from teen to Leonard Nimoy?
And isn’t it convenient that they beam up and the Genesis Planet ‘splodes exactly when new Rapid Aging Spock just happens to look just as he would have if he had lived two more summers past his irradiation date?
The real answer is one sadly common on Star Trek, but pushed to the limit in some of the movies and especially by Genesis: the “science” part of the “science fiction” is mostly no such thing, it's pseudo scientific sounding claptrap which is essentially magic. The all-purpose Genesis effect is about as scientific as David Marcus waving a wand at Spock’s coffin and incanting, “surgam te viridi-sanguinem Vulcani filii canis” (“get up you green blooded SOB”). Or, perhaps if he wanted to get all biblical (given the whole Genesis thing), “Lazare veni foras.”
In reality such growth would require the former microbes and Spock be constantly eating and defecating. So perhaps we should be grateful the producers went for the dumb magic science instead.