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#39 - Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Leonard Nimoy, 1986
After deducing that the only creature capable of communicating with a destructive alien being is the now-extinct humpback whale, the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to 1980s San Francisco in order to find a whale and save the world.
Reading that brief plot synopsis should be enough to make you double-guess watching this film. Time travel? Whales? What? It doesn't help that I'm generally weary of films where characters travel through time and they have to spend a good chunk of the film's running time getting used to the strange society of the past or future. Even though the film seems to be tongue-in-cheek about its far-fetched premise, that's not a guarantee that it'll be endearing as a result. Also, there's the fact that I watched this back-to-back with The Motion Picture and thus the whole "destructive entity is heading for Earth" premise does seem to indicate a lack of originality. Despite my misgivings, The Voyage Home manages to prove a surprisingly solid (if not particularly amazing) piece of work.
Having the franchise jump into comedy after the one-two punch of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock does make some sense, even if some of the more illogical developments don't always gel with the light-hearted vibe of the film. The core cast frequently breaks the Prime Directive (Scotty divulges futuristic technology to a glass manufacturer, Bones sees a woman on dialysis and grows her kidney back, etc.) and there are some instances where it's clear the film might be trying to pad out the action (such as Chekov getting himself captured aboard a nuclear "wessel") but it's still entertaining enough for the most part as Kirk and co. struggle with concepts like money, punk rockers and, of course, whales. The Voyage Home is a harmless piece of fluff that isn't a peak for the series but certainly doesn't plumb the depths either.
Leonard Nimoy, 1986
After deducing that the only creature capable of communicating with a destructive alien being is the now-extinct humpback whale, the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to 1980s San Francisco in order to find a whale and save the world.
Reading that brief plot synopsis should be enough to make you double-guess watching this film. Time travel? Whales? What? It doesn't help that I'm generally weary of films where characters travel through time and they have to spend a good chunk of the film's running time getting used to the strange society of the past or future. Even though the film seems to be tongue-in-cheek about its far-fetched premise, that's not a guarantee that it'll be endearing as a result. Also, there's the fact that I watched this back-to-back with The Motion Picture and thus the whole "destructive entity is heading for Earth" premise does seem to indicate a lack of originality. Despite my misgivings, The Voyage Home manages to prove a surprisingly solid (if not particularly amazing) piece of work.
Having the franchise jump into comedy after the one-two punch of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock does make some sense, even if some of the more illogical developments don't always gel with the light-hearted vibe of the film. The core cast frequently breaks the Prime Directive (Scotty divulges futuristic technology to a glass manufacturer, Bones sees a woman on dialysis and grows her kidney back, etc.) and there are some instances where it's clear the film might be trying to pad out the action (such as Chekov getting himself captured aboard a nuclear "wessel") but it's still entertaining enough for the most part as Kirk and co. struggle with concepts like money, punk rockers and, of course, whales. The Voyage Home is a harmless piece of fluff that isn't a peak for the series but certainly doesn't plumb the depths either.