Review: For the Love of Spock

Adam Nimoy was shown on TV’s “The Big Bang Theory” to be making a film about his father Leonard and the character of Mr. Spock, and indeed he actually did make this 2016 documentary about both his father and his most famous character. I’d love to tell you that it’s a wonderful, heartfelt success. Sadly, whilst Adam Nimoy may indeed be the right guy to talk about his dad, he’s definitely not the right person to be directing a documentary.

All of the stuff about Leonard Nimoy the man, is fascinating stuff. However, every time Nimoy Jr. focusses on the character of Spock, we get corny Trekkie convention geeks, and unnecessary celebrity talking heads offering up a whole lot of piffle you can get in plenty of other documentaries about the show, the films, and the subculture. Combining the two might’ve seemed like a good idea at the time, but it really isn’t. The Spock stuff just gets in the way of the more interesting and for me, less oft-told stuff about Leonard Nimoy the man, actor, photographer (the film neglects to mention he was especially fond of taking pics of nude fat chicks for ‘artistic purposes’), director, and father. I couldn’t care less what J.J. Abrams and the gushing new breed of “Star Trek” actors thought about Mr. Spock, with the possible exception of the man who would take over the role (more or less) in the newer films, Zachary Quinto. The talking heads bullshit, amusing as some of it is, belongs as a frivolous DVD extra at best.

What I really loved were the pics and footage of Adam and his dad, visiting him on the set of the show. It’s really cute stuff, that shows the man behind the pointed ears. I found it rather amusing/sad that answering fan mail became a Nimoy family activity, as it was coming in by truckloads. It’s interesting to hear that Nimoy and William Shatner were somewhat set apart from the other cast members of “Star Trek” (with the possible exception of DeForest Kelley, whom George Takei rightly points out was a key member of the cast of characters), because unlike Shatner you never heard the other cast members bitch about Nimoy, did you? From what I can tell, Nimoy’s the only one who really didn’t have too many problems with Shatner when working together. Best man at Shatner’s third wedding, it was only in his last few years that there was an apparent rift between the two (By the way, I imagine Nimoy Jr. found it eye-rolling to hear Shatner say he was ‘fine’ with Nimoy’s popularity. Bullshit, Bill Shatner never even realised anyone else was on the show other than himself). I also loved some of the hilarious early takes on the “Star Trek” TV series, including one review calling Shatner ‘wooden’. That’s the last thing you could accuse Shatner of being. There’s a great discussion about the deliberate minimalist acting approach Nimoy took to playing Spock. I personally think his descendant Zachary Quinto leans into Spock’s human side a little too much and is a bit too emotional, but it’s not like Spock is supposed to be entirely without emotion. It’s more that the character has been raised to contain his emotions as much as possible. Meanwhile, as much as I could do without the dorky fan convention and talking celebrity heads nonsense, there’s two exceptions. If you want to know why I enjoyed “The Big Bang Theory” look to the clip shown here where Sheldon talks about what Spock means to him. A lot of people can likely relate, especially people on the autism spectrum I’d imagine. The other exception is a nice bit where Nimoy Jr. attends his first fan convention. I think the fan convention/ComicCon phenomenon has been done to death on TV and in films, but it’s a nice moment nonetheless. One rare bit of Shatner humility comes when he claims that Nimoy was actually the better singer of the two. The funny thing is I think I’d rather listen to Shatner’s dreadfully tortured spoken word rendition of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ than Nimoy’s bizarro hippie ‘Ballad of Bilbo Baggins’, which gets a go in the documentary. I was glad that the film touched on other acting endeavours that Nimoy took on before and after “Star Trek”. I knew he’d been on “Mission: Impossible”, but wasn’t aware of his stage work including playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” and Fagin in “Oliver!”.

The biggest surprise for me was the revelation that Leonard Nimoy had a drinking problem, especially during the 80s. It would appear that a divorce and a couple of directorial flops (1988’s “The Good Mother”, 1990’s dreadful “Funny About Love”) seemed to exacerbate the problem during that time. Of all the ‘talking heads’ participants here, I didn’t mind Simon Pegg’s offerings so much because like Nimoy, he’s been in both “Star Trek” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises. However, the gushing from J.J. Abrams is entirely hollow for me because he made it clear when he fucked around with the timeline his first “Star Trek” movie that he’s much more of a “Star Wars” guy than a “Star Trek” guy. I couldn’t care less what he has to offer on the subject here. Ditto Karl Urban, ‘coz he’s #NotMyMcCoy. On the other hand, it’s nearly worth seeing the film for the bizarro discussion between Nimoy Jr. and George Takei about Kirk & Spock slash fiction. Dude, that’s your dad, why are you talking about that?

I said earlier than Nimoy Jr. isn’t the right guy to be making a documentary, and it’s not just because of what he does and does not focus on. It’s actually a very sloppily made film, with Leonard Nimoy’s own contributions rather sloppily and awkwardly coming from various different points in time. Worse, at one point Nimoy the Younger seems to get the timeline all wrong. He talks about the 2009 “Star Trek” being a high point for his dad but a low point for their own relationship, yet he then states that they started communicating again years before that. What in the hell? Also, there’s multiple narrators for no discernible reason. Adam narrates some of it, Leonard narrates some of it. Add to that the wide variety of topics, timelines, and various talking heads, it’s actually a mess of a film that comes off like a film that got changed somewhere along the line, probably after Leonard Nimoy’s death (I have indeed read such a suggestion). Unavoidable or not, it comes off lesser as a result and poorly done.

Sometimes fascinating, sometimes frivolous, sometimes sloppy documentary about two of the sides to Leonard Nimoy. The less interesting part stops this film from being more moving and interesting than it could’ve been had it mostly focussed on the man as a man, not the man as his most recognisable character.

Rating: C+