Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Yes, I like Star Trek stuff. No, I do not go to conventions or dress up or know what stardate a specific episode was... But I do know what a Jefferies tube is! I grew up on Star Trek. Mostly the films, as I didn't watch any of the TV shows until I was around six or so. I didn't watch The Next Generation as it came on, but I did watch some Voyager and watched re-runs of the original series. My family didn't get satellite TV until I was about eleven or twelve, and we lived in a rural county that didn't get great network TV reception from the nearest city, which was about 40 miles away. This was the early 90s, after all. Still, I loved to watch the Star Trek films, which we had taped from when they came on as movies of the week on TV, or we'd borrow the VHS tapes from family friends.
Growing up, my favorite was always Star Trek IV, or as most non-trekkers think of it, "the one with the whales." The Enterprise crew, in a stolen Klingon Bird of Prey, have to go back in time and bring back some Humpback Whales to the 23rd century in order to save Earth from a probe that's destroying the planet while it asks it's questions in whale-speak. What follows is a great, funny fish out of water story. There's very little stuff set in space in this movie. There's very little that a non-trekker would need to understand this film, which is why it was so popular when it came out. It makes fun of Trek while at the same time having the same characters and not changing them too much, and doesn't really have any of the outer space politics that Star Trek is known for. If you've seen the Nicholas Meyer film Time After Time, starring Mary Steenburgen (also in Back To The Future III, oddly enough) and Malcolm McDowell, you know somewhat what to expect in this film. It's the same writer for both time-travel films. (Nicholas Meyer also directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, along with writing them both as well. He only wrote this one.) In Time After Time, Malcolm McDowell plays H.G. Wells as he goes forward in time to stop Jack The Ripper, who has stolen his time machine. Lots of fish out of water situations occur. Oddly enough, David Warner is in that film as well, and he would play three different characters in two different Star Trek films and a two-part TNG episode as well. Also oddly, Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen were married from 1980 to 1990, but that's beside the point. What I'm saying is that The Voyage Home isn't exactly a new idea. It's basically the writer's older movie with Star Trek characters added, and without the homicide.... and it's got the mom from Child's Play.
The movie has a great amount of laughs to be had, both intentionally and because of the 80sness of it all. It came out in 1986, which was probably the worst year stylistically of the 1980s. The big hair had come in, the leg warmers and spandex had taken over... Everyone wore thick sweaters... You know what I mean. Still, the outfits are much better than the ones in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The styles in that one are the least of it's problems. People, skip the first Trek film. It's an exercise in futility, and in this case, resistance is not futile, it's recommended. Most of the laughs in Star Trek IV come from the interactions of Spock and Kirk. See, Spock had died two movies ago and was brought back without his previous human-ness from before, so he's not quite right anymore. He takes things very literal and no longer "exaggerates" (lies without lying). For example, here's one of my favorite scenes...
The Star Trek spirit is still there too, however. It's got an ecological theme, which goes along with the utopian vision of Roddenberry, and it's got time travel of course. As I said, there's not much of the film set in space. I mean, the Enterprise itself isn't seen until the very end of the movie, as the original one got destroyed in Search For Spock. This is not to it's detriment, as you don't need space for science fiction, not even if it's Star Trek. Now, Trek fans don't usually really like this movie, as they hate the general public, and the general public tends to really like this one. Hell, it's not even my favorite anymore. I prefer II and III more than this one now, but I still find it hilarious, pretty well written, and a good family film.
Star Trek has always been a big part of my life. This movie made it so. It may not be the greatest anymore, but I have fond memories of it, and the nostalgia brings me back at least once a year to watch it again. Almost all my friends know that I love the franchise, and I even get in arguments with Star Wars people due to my devotion to Trek over Wars. Even if you don't like Star Trek, you can still like this one. Try to watch it if you haven't. You'll probably enjoy it as a comedy if nothing else. Leonard Nimoy actually has great comic timing. If you like this one, work up to Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, as those films and this one form a sort of trilogy. Watch them, or I'll have Spock do the Vulcan nerve-pinch on you!
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