Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Star Trek IV The Voyage Home. The one with the whales. Considered by many fans to be one of the best movies of the entire franchise. Also, when seen with Star Treks II and III The Voyage Home's overarching story, Kirk and company returning to earth to face the music for the events of Star Trek III forms an unintentional trilogy between the three movies. In contrast to those two previous films, Star Trek IV is a fun humorous adventure romp set mostly in Star Trek's past, the present day when the movie was filmed (1986). The movie is packed with fun and funny moments, from Kirk and company trying to use "colorful metaphors", to Uhura and Chekov asking random passerbys on a San Francisco street corner for directions to the "nu-clee-are wessels", to Scotty trying to talk into a Macintosh computer mouse and giving the plant manager at the plexiglass factory the formula for transparent aluminum, to Kirk and Spock's antics at the Cetacean Institute (filmed at the real life Monterey Bay Aquarium) to Chekov being captured as a Russian spy on the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, to Doctor McCoy giving an elderly dialysis patient in a hospital a pill that made her grow a new kidney. And yet, the movie does have stakes, namely the whale probe threatening to destroy Earth in the 23rd century. Kirk and company not only have to obtain 2 humpback whales, but also nuclear energy to restore the dilithium crystals to be able to return to the future. Acting wise, all of the main actors are in rare form. Guest actors include Catherine Hicks putting on a great performance opposite Shatner as doctor Gillian Taylor the marine biologist, and Mark Lenard returns as Sarek along with Jane Wyatt as Spock's mother Amanda previously seen in TOS "Journey to Babel". Madge Sinclair plays the unnamed captain of the USS Saratoga, the first female Starfleet captain seen in the franchise. The movie starts with a dedication to the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger (the Challenger disaster having occurred earlier that year) "The cast and crew of Star Trek wish to dedicate this film to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger whose courageous spirit shall live to the twenty-third century and beyond." The overall story, the whale probe threatening Earth and only the extinct Humpback Whale species can properly respond to the probe and Kirk and co have to go back in time to get some whales from Earths past to save Earth is engaging, fun and a good allegory for environmentalism and conservation. The ending, both the whales communicating with the probe to save Earth and Kirk and crew getting pardons for their actions was fun and light-hearted. Kirk being demoted from Admiral back to Captain and given command of a ship is satisfying and strangely appropriate. The final scenes, with the crew going to their new assignment and the reveal that the new ship is not the USS Excelsior but a new Constitution-class USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A are the perfect ending to this movie. As Captain Kirk said "My friends...we've come home".
Trivia
The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-65 was unavailable for filming due to being on duty at the time, so the USS Ranger and its crew stood in for the Enterprise.
The Cetacean Institute was filmed on location at Monterey Bay Aquarium
The random passerbys on the street corner when Uhura and Chekov are asking for the location of the "nu-clee-are wessels" were not extras but actual passerbys in San Francisco. *The motorcycle cop was an actual SFPD cop, however he was made aware of the filming beforehand.
The captain of the USS Yorktown seen on a screen in Starfleet Headquarters during the crisis scene is played by Indian tennis pro Vijay Amritaj. The lien communications officer on another screen is played by Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's.
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