For the Love of Spock (2016)

*Spoiler/plot- For the Love of Spock, 2016. The film's focus began as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: the Original Series, but after Leonard NImoy passed away in February 2015, his director son, Adam was ready to tell an additional private story: his personal experience growing up with Leonard Nimoy and "Mr. Spock". This documentary details the universal impact of Mr. Spock in our culture and the bumpy road of being the son of a 60's TV icon.*Special Stars- Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, JJ Abrams, George Takei and many more of the Trek crew.*Theme- Family must go on and family is important.*Trivia/location/goofs- Adam Nimoy is a TV director, entertainment lawyer, and a documentarian. He soon is becoming a Trek TV show writer. I saw this fine film when Adam Nimoy showed it a a local Hebrew temple and stayed around for questions afterwards.*Emotion- Don't look for some fannish shallow canonization of either Nimoy or Spock in this film. This is a more professional and well balanced film. A wonderful and even handed exploration of the Trek icon Mr. Spock and well themed positive film about family, forgiveness, and over coming adversity.*Based On- Adam Nimoy's tribute to his creative and talented father and his father's Trek contributions.

This documentary about the life of Leonard Nimoy was entertaining and informative. I thought I knew a lot about the man and his career, but had many "I didn't know that" moments, as I imagine will most Trekkies and other fans. The film focuses on the man and his many diverse achievements, but avoided the false light of perfection, showing Leonard's ability to experience setbacks and grow throughout his life, both professionally and personally. Putting celebrities on pedestals isn't good for us or them and this film avoids doing that. The film is honest in ways that will undoubtedly surprise many. Leonard Nimoy is not synonymous with Spock, but even hardcore Trekkies should enjoy depth of the film and learning more about the man, rather than just the character. A big "bravo!" to Director Adam Nimoy, aka Son of Spock, and his team.

I just left a screening that featured a Q&A with its director Adam Nimoy. I appreciate that Adam was amazingly candid and honest about his relationship with his father and their history together in the Q&A and in the film. There are issues that I'm having with MY father NOW that I would feel extremely uncomfortable about revealing to anyone, let alone a huge audience. I also love that the film included frank and candid remarks from Leonard Nimoy about his life and his fellow cast members. I really wanted MORE recent interviews with Leonard. As Adam stated during the Q&A, his father was alive for only the first few months of the filming for this documentary. I'm sorry to state that it suffered as a result. There was also far too much "Big Bang Theory" material. No offense to anyone who is on that show, but I didn't really care about their opinions. So the ten(?) minutes that is devoted to them is rather painful.But aside from these flaws, it was a great way to spend the Star Trek fiftieth anniversary today. Thanks, Adam.

Star Trek's been in my life for a week shy of 50 years at this point. I was saddened by Leonard Nimoy's death in early 2015 both because of my affinity for Mr. Spock and because I was able to work on a TV show for one day with Nimoy. So when I got a chance to contribute to the making of this movie through Kickstarter, I jumped at it. This documentary, made with a heap of love by Nimoy's son Adam, chronicles the life of the actor starting with his move to California in the 1940s, follows him through his salad days in the 1950s working as an actor for no more than two weeks at a time, and then describes his big break, diving off the cliff into Star Trek. As the movie will tell you, Roddenberry wrote the role of Mr. Spock specifically with Nimoy in mind. What happened after that resulted in one of the most durable characters on both the big and small screens, alien or no. If you followed the saga of Star Trek for all or even part of the last half century, then you will definitely want to see this film.