STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986) • Film Review ✭✭✭✭✩
While not as well-received as Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock was successful enough for Paramount to plough ahead with a fourth movie, again securing Leonard Nimoy and Harve Bennett as director and writer, respectively. William Shatner threatened to leave the franchise shortly before shooting (prompting studio conversations about a prequel without him), but later agreed to return following a pay increase of $2 million and a deal to direct Star Trek V…
During a pre-production period on Voyage Home that saw Eddie Murphy circle the project, Khan director Nicholas Meyer returned to help Bennet craft a story based on a popular ingredient of many of the television episodes: time travel. Nimoy also insisted that Star Trek IV have “no dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, [and] no stereotypical bad guy.” His somewhat diluted vision resulted in one of the Trek franchise’s biggest money-spinners, and even today it remains the most accessible movie in the Trek oeuvre for non-fans. The reason is very simple: Trek IV is, at heart, a lighthearted fish-out-of-water movie, tethered to a laudable ecological message.
Set three months after the events of Star Trek III, the crew of the USS Enterprise are returning to Earth from Vulcan (with the recently-resurrected Spock) in a commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey. Their return coincides with the arrival of a mysterious, cigar-shaped alien probe that’s unintentionally causing global destruction in an attempt to communicate with humpbacked whales. Said mammals are sadly extinct in the 23rd-century, meaning Kirk and his crew decide to attempt a dangerous faster-than-light “sling-shot” manoeuvre around the Sun, to jump back in time and retrieve a whale from the 20th-century to transport back to the present to satisfy this alien caller.
Temporal displacement achieved, the Trekkers find themselves in San Francisco, circa 1986, where Kirk quickly locates two humpback whales at the city’s Cetacean Institute (named “George” and “Gracie”.) To facilitate access to them, he strikes up a friendship with sassy marine biologist Dr. Gillian Taylor (a weak Catherine Hicks) — intending to steal the whales once their Bird of Prey (parked and ‘cloaked’ in a local park) is recharged using nuclear power, and Scotty (James Doohan) has built a tank strong enough to store the mammals in their cargo hold.
It’s easy to see why Voyage Home struck a chord with mainstream audiences, whose attendance catapulted Trek IV to a level of box-office success far above its niche predecessors. Indeed, this was the first Trek movie I, myself, was taken to see in the cinema by my dad. It’s primarily a comedy with scant sci-fi, devoid of many Trek tropes that might alienate newcomers.
That it works is down to the dependable chemistry of this cast, which hasn’t dated, unlike some elements of the film. Nimoy’s direction is a little bland and uninteresting, mostly content to steer a course through to the various gags (Spock incapacitating a noisy punk commuter with a Vulcan neck-pinch, Russian Chekov’s search for “noocler wessels” during the Cold War, Scotty communicating with a computer by speaking into the mouse, etc.) They even manage to throw in an element of farce, with a mad rush around a hospital towards the end.
Overall, I can quite understand why The Voyage Home remains a popular movie, despite the fact it essentially reduces Star Trek into little more than a silly romp. After the navel-gazing Trek I, dark Trek II, and meandering Trek III, a bit of levity was just what the franchise needed at this point. Some jokes and situations feel dated 30 years later, but Voyage Home is certainly an entertaining way to bring the issue of whaling to wide audiences, and the cast definitely seem to enjoy the change of pace and temperament…
Cast & Crew
director: Leonard Nimoy.
writers: Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Nicholas Meyer & Harve Bennett (story by Leonard Nimoy & Harve Bennett).
starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Catherine Hicks, Majel Barrett, Mark Lenard, Robin Curtis, Grace Lee Whitney, John Schuck, Robert Ellenstein & Brock Peters.
Originally published at danowen.blogspot.co.uk on May 6, 2009, given a spit and polish to celebrate Star Trek’s 50th anniversary in 2016.
