How did you personally react to Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan and not knowing that he was coming back, before Search for Spock was released ? LLAP :-)
I went through a serious grieving period, like losing a very close friend with whom my life had been entwined for 15 years. It was rough!
This is one time I am glad I wasn’t born then. I don’t know how I would have coped.
Word got out well in advance that Spock was going to die in the film. There was a sizable organized movement in fandom to boycott the movie as a result.
Paramount backpedaled then, and dropped hints that all was not as it seemed and maybe he wouldn’t “really” die.
That is why the line was placed at the beginning of the film, when Jim sees Spock immediately after the Kobiashi Maru: “Aren’t you dead?”
That line was written straight to the fans. So we didn’t know if that was it – if that was what was meant by maybe he wouldn’t really die.
The emotional memory is burnt like a scar, and I can remember like it was yesterday the feeling in the pit of my stomach – dared I to hope? – when Jim spoke those words. I spent the rest of the movie leaning forward in my seat, praying to the universe “Please let that be it. Please let that be Spock’s ‘death.’ Please, please, please.”
But the moment Spock got that look on the bridge, then stood up and walked down to engineering, I knew. Everyone knew. I remember people starting to cry in the theater as soon as he went into the reactor chamber.
As for me, I spent the rest of the weekend lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. I can so clearly remember how worried my husband was, and him sitting beside me asking, “Are you going to be ok?” And me: “Of course I’m not going to be ok! SPOCK IS DEAD!!” And then crying. It was just awful.