It’s been a pretty busy few weeks here at the old blog factory, and by that I mean that I haven’t been able to put down Breath of the Wild. Anyway, life isn’t promising to slow down anytime soon so we’re going to finish out something that’s been slowly unfolding before our eyes, perhaps without us even knowing it! Over the last year plus, I’ve looked at Wrath of Khan as we took a long, honest look at what’s gone wrong with Star Trek, and we recently examined The Search for Spock during our foray into the year 1984, and all of its cinematic gems. Can’t promise we won’t end up there again, by the way. As any self-respecting Trekkie knows, those two films comprise the first two thirds of a trilogy of interconnected movies that start with Wrath of Khan, and end with The Voyage Home. It’s hard to say if this was the original intention going into Wrath of Khan, but the end result is nothing short of spectacular! So let’s look at the capstone of the trilogy, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home!
In the previous two installments of the Trek Movie Trilogy,Kirk learned that his former nemesis, Khan had escaped prison on a backwater planet through the use of mind control slugs. The Enterprise was ravaged in every way imaginable short of outright destruction, Scotty’s nephew, whom we only know is his nephew if we watch the Director’s Cut, dies, and Spock dies. That’s kind of important. Struggling with feelings of loss and grief, the crew of the good ship Enterprise return home to find out their beloved ship is going to be mothballed. Bones is going totally insane, Kirk learns from Spock’s dad that he (Kirk) is an idiot and there’s a deus ex machina ritual for returning Spock from the great beyond! Kirk steals the Enterprise, blows it up, his son dies because the blood flows like Niagara falls whenever Kirk is around, and Spock is rescued. Spock gets his soul back, and McCoy is not insane anymore. Did you get all that? It’s a lot to take in. Why don’t you watch those ones again? They’re really good. Go ahead, I can wait. Good? Good.
So much like Search for Spock, The Voyage Home picks up basically where the previous installment left off. If you just removed all of the credits and ran these movies together, they could make one giant super movie! And it would make sense! Someone do that for me. PLEASE SOMEONE MAKE THIS FOR ME! Sorry, got a little excited there. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so in keeping with that trend, we find the crew of Enterprise stranded on Vulcan looking for asylum from extradition via Spock’s pop, who kind of owes them one anyway. Spock is trying to reboot his broken Vulcan mind, and has forgotten how to laugh. The rest of the crew have decided to accept their fates, whatever those fates may be, and return to Earth to stand trial. In the meantime, a mysterious probe has come to Earth and is busting the whole planet back to the stone age. Ships and stations have no power, the atmosphere is vaporizing. It’s just a hot mess. This crisis leads the president to issue a planetary distress call, and warn off any approaching vessels, which Kirk and company receive.
Kirk is kind of fond of Earth so he decides, after some sleuthing from Spock reveals that transmissions from the probe sound vaguely like humpback whale calls, to time travel back to Earth’s past and steal some whales and bring them back to the present! ...err… the future depending on your frame of reference. Did you ever see the TOS episode Assignment: Earth? I’m not saying that it’s required viewing for this film, but it does use a plot device that the well versed will recognize immediately. The crew are going to slingshot around the sun, intentionally this time, and go back to the past, using a vehicle that was previously owned by Doc Brown. Trippy… So they do, and the sequence it pretty cool. It’s disorienting, but awesome. There’s dialog from later in the film, and vague imagery, and it’s really fun to watch.
Once the time breaking is done, our crew land their ship in Golden Gate park circa 1985, because that’s the year that the film was made. To say that the ensuing shenanigans are wacky would be a gross understatement. Where do I even begin?! Kirk needs money so he sells the 400 year old glasses that Bones gave him two movies ago! Of course, they’re only one hundred years old now, but details. Kirk and Spock take on the responsibility of finding whales. Scotty, Bones and Sulu have to find a way to make a whale tank, and Uhura and Chekov have to find a way to reenergize the ship’s dilithium crystals because apparently chemistry is different for the Klingons. I love this aspect of the movie because it reminds me of playing tabletop RPGs. Everyone in the party has a task that they need to accomplish, and combat isn’t the go to answer! That’s the best part! There is no violence in this film. In fact, a disruptor is fired once to lock a door.
Anyway, it’s pretty much a laugh a minute as our heroes out of time try to do the things. Spock gets caught swimming in a professional, and pH balanced whale tank, Kirk has to cover for him by throwing him under the bus as a junkie, of sorts. Scotty and McCoy have to bluff their way into a polymer factory, and barter for windows using technology that hasn’t been invented yet. Sulu somehow talks a guy into letting him borrow a helicopter, although the movie is kind of vague as to how he does that. Chekov gets arrested by the Navy. It’s all laughs all the time here in Time Travel Town. In the middle of everything, a hapless bystander gets sucked into the action. Her name is Gillian Taylor, and she loves whales.
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| She has a bumper sticker so it must be true. |
Taylor literally lives for these whales that Kirk wants to abduct. I seriously get a vibe that she could do irreversible things confronted with the loss of her whales. The movie doesn’t exactly go out of its way to show her having a life outside of her work, primarily because Kirk is going to transplant her to the future at the end, but think of the implications of her staying behind. Heavy. At any rate, Kirk gains her trust and gets a tracking frequency so that he can go grab some whales, but Chekov needs to be rescued from the hospital first so Kirk, McCoy, and Taylor go do that. It’s hilarious! Then they have to go get them some whales before said whales get shot, almost immediately after being released, which in itself happened quite unexpectedly. Of course they succeed and head home because, you know, it was a voyage home. Obviously, they had to get there eventually. My only question is, what would they have called it if anyone else but Spock had been from anywhere else but Earth? Asking the deep questions.
They return home, save Earth, and then stand trial. All of the charges get dropped, except one, Kirk defied the orders of a superior, and therefore, must be punished. He gets demoted to captain, and given a new Enterprise to hop galaxies with! YAY! Taylor goes off to places unknown, and never shows up again. Everyone his saved, and happy, and that’s basically it.
This movie is a huge departure from the established formula of Star Trek films. Where previous installments, especially in this trilogy, had been about seriousness, and action, except The Motion Picture, this film was lighthearted, and character driven. It eschewed violence for humor. Kirk has no Kirk-fu scenes. None. Sorry to disappoint. Also, Kirk isn’t as much of the focus as he was in the previous films. This film really went out of its way to add at least one new thing to each character and to really show each one of them in their respective elements. The movie paces well. It moves at a good clip for a film with a lot of setup, but knows when to pause for effect. The dialog is witty, funny, but intelligent enough when it needs to be. The acting is actually top tier. You get the impression that by this point, playing these characters was like slipping into a well worn pair of trousers for these actors, and it shows. The chemistry between them is fantastic. Gillian Taylor, played by Catherine Hicks, fits right in with the rest of the cast. Her skeptical sarcasm just adds an extra layer of fun that’s like the cherry on top of an already stellar ice cream sundae. The one thing that sometimes gets mild, and joking criticism is the theme. The save the whales message can be a little heavy handed at times, but I don’t think it’s terribly distracting from everything else. Besides, Star Trek has always been about tackling the issues, and this is just the first in a long line of Trek pieces to go green.
In all, it’s a great romp! It’s a fine end to a fantastic trilogy of films that start strong and stay strong throughout. I’d call it Trek movies at their finest. Give it a watch, stay tuned for more, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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