Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Directed by Leonard Nimoy

Film Review

With three successful Star Trek films under their belt, the executives at Paramount had the option of delivering more of the same, sticking to a tried and tested formula which seemed to work quite well, or trying something a little different.  Wisely, they opted for the latter course.  It was a brave decision, but one that paid off, as the next film in the series was to one of the most inspired and most enjoyable - an all-out comedy which remains true to the spirit of Gene Roddenberry's concept whilst offering something radically different.  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is one of the most popular of the Star Trek movies, and also one of the best made, a well-paced, irresistibly funny romp that appeals equally to fans and non-fans of the series.

What makes the success of this particular Star Trek film so surprising is that, until you have seen it, you would not believe that the idea of a Star Trek comedy could possibly work.  Surely any attempt to crank the humour up would cause the whole concept to collapse in a pile of self-indulgent, self-referential gags, the result being a very silly parody of the original?  We have the great Leonard Nimoy to thank for this not being the outcome.  Not only did he direct the film - his second attempt after a promising debut with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - he oversaw every aspect of the script development and was able to steer it through a minefield of potential silliness.  It was Nimoy's idea that the film should embrace an important contemporary theme, and what could be more topical than growing concerns over man's destruction of his eco-system?  The film could so easily have been a disaster, an unedifying collation of pompous eco-grandstanding and silly in-jokes.  Instead, thanks to some sterling work in the script department and some impressive direction by Nimoy, the disaster was averted and the end result is a quirky bundle of fun that is virtually impossible not to like.

The comedy works because almost all of the humour stems naturally from the clash of cultures between the crew of the Enterprise and the inhabitants of 20th century Earth.  As Spock struggles to incorporate swearwords into his speech patterns (because Kirk has told him that no one listens to you unless you swear every other word), Chekov tries frantically to get directions from a San Francisco street cop to the nearest nuclear warship (it doesn't help that he cannot pronounce the word 'vessel').  Meanwhile, Scotty is learning that you don't interact with a desktop computer by speaking into the mouse, and McCoy is fast running out of words to express his horror at the state of American healthcare in the 1980s (it's lucky he didn't turn up when Bush Junior was running the country).  Luckily, Kirk and his friends are not completely lost in translation and, by teaming up with a cute 20th century marine ecologist, the crew of the Enterprise save the day and end up having (to coin a phrase) a whale of a time.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was the first of the Star Trek films to make extensive use of real locations, here mostly in and around San Francisco city.  Not only does this add to the film's realism (the previous films were occasionally marred by some unconvincing studio sets), it also allowed savings to be made which could be redirected into other departments, notably the special effects.  The effects on this fourth Star Trek film are the most impressive so far, and include a full-size animatronic mock-up of parts of a humpbacked whale and radio-controlled models, which are indistinguishable from the real animal.  For once, the ambitions of the writers and director were not visibly compromised by the constraints of time and money.  The film was not only a massive critical and commercial success (taking 133 million dollars at the box office worldwide), it garnered several awards and was even nominated for four Oscars, in categories that included Best Cinematography and Best Effects.  The Star Trek franchise was on a roll.  Where could it go from here?  Back to the future, of course...

Film Synopsis

In the 23rd century, Earth is threatened by a mysterious space probe which has begun to ionise the atmosphere, causing devastating storms whilst disabling all power and communications systems.  On their way back to Earth in a stolen Klingon spaceship, Admiral Kirk and his faithful crewmembers are able to match the signal of the space probe to the song of the now-extinct humpback whale.  There is only one way that Kirk and his team can save the Earth.  They must travel back to a time when the Earth's oceans were still populated by the whales, capture a whale and transport it to the 23rd century so that it can communicate with the space probe.  Spock calculates that by performing a slingshot manoeuvre around the sun it is possible to generate sufficient acceleration to transport their ship back two hundred years in time.  Sure enough, the crew of the Enterprise manage a successful landing in San Francisco in the latter part of the 20th century.  The bad news is that the dilithium crystals which power the Klingon vessel are depleted and need to be refuelled by high energy photons.  Whilst Kirk and Spock go humpback whale hunting in downtown San Francisco, Scotty and McCoy try to find the material to build a tank to hold the whale.  This leaves Uhura and Chekov with the comparatively easy task of sneaking aboard a nuclear-powered ship belonging to the U.S. Navy so that they can purloin a few photons....