Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
The Voyage Home is, in many ways, the end of a Star Trek Trilogy. Khan, Search and Voyage are directly tied together, unlike any other Star Trek film.
In Voyage, the crew returns to Earth after successfully resurrecting Spock. He's still a little off; not quite in touch with his human side. They fly to face their fate as mutinous dogs. On the way to Earth they receive a distress signal. A foreign probe from deep space inadvertently terrorizes the planet with extraordinary energy pulses. Spock deduces that the probe's signal is actually whale song, which brings us to plot point one: there are no whales currently in existence.
What's one to do when whales are extinct? Go back in time and get some! It's simple really, just fly at the sun really fast and "slingshot" back in time. They don't go into the physics of this concept, with good reason.
They also don't go into the troubles with bringing an extinct animal into a new environment. Does the current Earth have food for them? There could even be an abundance of food. With the absence of whales, maybe plankton have overrun the oceans. Things that should be considered.
Back to the plot. The crew successfully travels back in time, though the actual scene is inexplicable. I won't try to describe it. They land in 1986 San Francisco and find a couple of humpback whales at some aquarium or something. Then the movie gets goofy. It becomes a "whale" out of water movie. Damn I'm funny.
Voyage stands out as a Trek film because it's more about comedy than villainy. It's a fun Trek film. There are no Klingons, no Romulans, no Borg, no psychotic scientists, no super humans bent on revenge. The enemy is Man, who ruthlessly exterminated whales!
While Voyage is very well made, it's message is heavy-handed. Lots of talk about human's being illogical for the genocide of whales, evil whalers, save the planet, blah blah blah. We get it. I thought it quite intelligent as an 8 year old. It doesn't make the movie bad, it's just on-the-nose. Never a good trait. Also, the crew trying to deal with life in 1986 doesn't make much sense. Maybe I'm underestimating the awesomeness of the 23rd century, but I'm not buying the unfriendliness of SF in 1986, nor the crew being utterly confused by unfriendly behavior. They've dealt with evil races before. Also, no chance in hell you could park a giant space ship in Golden Gate park and go unnoticed, I don't care what kind of cloaking device you use.
Why do only the Klingons have a cloaking device? How has the federation not developed that technology? Or is the use of a cloaking device an indictment on the Klingon race being a bunch of sneaky, underhanded bastards?
Voyage also makes the common Hollywood mistake of time-travelling in their timeline. Lucky for the crew, nothing they do seems to affect the future. How convenient. But then, maybe that's the way it had always been? Since they didn't travel within their lifetimes, I'll give it a pass.
I first saw Voyage in my formative years, so I can't rationally judge it. It's cheesy, preachy, and very silly, but still an enjoyable watch for me.
Review: 3+1+2+2+3 = 11
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The Drake
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