OK so I've left a bit of a gap in between my review of Star Trek III and IV, so I thought I would IV now before I leave it too long, so let's give it a looksee..
Starting with my usual of looking at the film's plot, it begins in deep space where an giant orbiting probe sends out powerful signals, which ends up disabling starships that it passes by. The probe then arrives over the Earth where it signals end up doing serious damage to the Earth's atmosphere and creating heavy storms. The president of Earth is advised by visiting Vulcan ambassador, Sarek (also Spock's father, played by Mark Lenard) to send out a planetary distress signal. Meanwhile the USS Enterprise crew (or rather the late Enterprise as it was destroyed in ST III) have been living in exile on Vulcan, where Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has been ressurected and is still recovering. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew at this time are ready to travel back to Earth to face the consequences of their theft and destruction of the Enterprise. Enroute, travelling in their captured Klingon vessel, the crew receive the president's distress call, and on hearing the probe's signal, Spock soon deduces the signal is that of whale song, sung by humpback whales. Spock then proposes to Kirk that they attempt time travel to go back in time to the 20th century where they can hope to find and take a humpback whale back into the future. Kirk briefly and successfully manages to communicate with Starfleet command long enough to tell them his theory, and after this Kirk and crew successfully make a timewarp leap back in time via a slingshot round the sun.
The crew soon find that they have arrived back in 1986, however the chief engineer, Scotty (James Doohan) tells Kirk that the time travel has drained the ship's power crystals, and after 24 hours they will be out of power and visible. On arriving on the surface of the planet, the crew find that they are San Francisco, and Kirk has his crew split up into two teams, with Dr McCoy (DeForrest Kelley), Sulu (James Takei) and Scotty being given the task to create a whale tank, whereas Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) are to find nucelar naval vessels in order to recharge the ship's power. Meanwhile Kirk and Spock find out the location of two humpback whales, which are kept at a Cetacean institute, which are nicknamed George and Gracie. The tour director, Dr Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks) gives a tour to a group, along with Kirk and Spock, who discreetly slips away and enters the tank to perform a mind meld with one of the whales. Taylor is outraged by Spock's actions, but Kirk insist they mean no harm, and later on Taylor meets up with Kirk, where he tells them half the truth he needs the whales to be brought back into the future. Meanwhile Chekov and Uhura, who locate a naval ship, manage to drain enough of the vessel's energy to refuel the klingon ship. Chekov however is captured, and on attempting to flee he falls and is severley injured. This leaves Kirk with limited time to find the whales, save Chekov, create the tank and try and get back to his own time to save the planet's future....
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is generally considered to be one of the most popular entries in the Star Trek movie franchise, and its pretty easy to see why as it remains a very entertaining and also quite light hearted film. And the interesting thing in this film is that for once there is no actual villain, as the main problem: the probe, which does all the damage to Earth is merely trying to find out what has happened to the whale species, and as Spock suggests it maybe unaware of the damage it is causing. The film is also that bit more humorous than most of the entries in the Star Trek world, and there are plenty of amusing moments especially when Krik and his crew travel back in time to San Francisco and they are taken by surprise at the people's customs and behaviour at the time, especially Spock. The re-training of Spock's mind in a strict Vulcan fashion, also makes for quite a few funny moments in the film as Spock clearly struggles to understand human behaviour and is almost bemused the profanity of the 20th century.
Which brings me onto saying a bit about the performances, which sees the regular cast all give good accounts of themselves. William Shatner is great again as Kirk, and he has quite a few highlights in the film, with one of my favourites being when they walk the streets of San Francisco in 1986 and he is nearly hit by a taxi driver who yells "watch where you are going ya dumb ass!" and he replies "well a double dumb ass on you!". I also liked the moment where he goes into a pawn shop and sells his glasses to the owner, who says he will give him 100 dollars for them, and Kirk who has no concept of the value of money asks "is that alot?". Another great line comes from Kirk after they land the cloaked Klingon ship in Golden gate park, and two bewildered garbage men look and drive away their track in panic, and we see Kirk and the others come down the ramp and he says "every one remember where we parked!". Shatner also has a good scene where he goes out to dinner with Gillian, and he is interrupted on communicator by Scotty where he quietly says "what is it?? I thought I told you never to call me!" and Scotty replies, and Kirk quietly says "OK tell them to put phasers on stun and good luck, Kirk out!".
Leonard Nimoy also provides quite a few of the film's highlights as Spock, with his character being so logical that he fails to understand human behaviour. One of Nimoy's most memorable scenes in the film of course comes when he performs his Vulcan neck pinch on a ill mannered punk rocker on the bus, who refuses to turn down his music, and he renders him unconscious where the passengers all applaud Spock loudly. Nimoy also get's some funny lines of dialogue where he struggles to come to grips with how to use human profanity such as when Gillian Taylor asks him after he performs his mind meld with the whales "what the hell are you doing here??" and he replies "attempting the hell to communicate!". And this one is followed up by Gillian angrily saying "you were messing up my tank and my whales!" and Spock replies "they like you very much but they are not the hell your whales" Gillian says "Oh and they told you that did they??" and Spock says "the hell they did!". Also the moment where Gillian asks Kirk and Spock if they both like Italian food, and Spock replies no with Kirk interrupting saying "yes, I love Italian and so do you" to Spock, who flatly replies "yes". Spock rather amusingly get's the hang of the profanity towards the end of the film when Kirk asks him "Spock, where the hell is that power you promised??" and Spock replies "one damn minute, Admiral!". Gillian in another scene feeds an amusing line to Spock when she says "are you sure you won't change your mind" re: dinner, and Spock replies "is there something wrong with the one I have???". Spock also refers to the profanity as "colourful metaphors" and when Gillian says to Kirk about Spock's words and referring to the whales extinction in the past tense, Spock replies "are you sure this isn't time for a colourful metaphor???".
The rest of the regular also fine, starting with James Doohan, who get's a chance to shine as Scotty in the scene where he approaches a plastics manufacturer, and gives him the formula for transparent aluminium. But as Scotty tries to process the formula he tries to speak to the owner's computer, like he would an advanced computer in the 23rd century, and McCoy gives him the mouse to speak into like a mic and Scotty says "Hello computer!", after this the manufacturer manager says "just use the keyboard" and Scotty replies "a keyboard, how quaint!". DeForrest Kelley also get's some funny moments, especially in the scene where they go to the hospital to rescue Chekov, and he rushes Gillian in an emergency room on a stretcher (who feigns illness) where he gives some medical jargon to bluff his way into the operating theatre. After he is let in Kirk asks "what did you say she had??" and McCoy says "cramps!", also McCoy dispairs in the moment they are in the hospital elevator listening to two young doctors talk about chaemotherapy, which obviously must be outmoded in the future, and he says "it sounds like some sort of goddamn Spanish inquisition!". And finally I will mention Catherine Hicks as Gillian Taylor, who does a good job as the caring doctor, who tries to protect the whales in her care at the institute. Hicks has a good scene where she picks up Kirk and Spock in her truck and she asks Kirk "I hope you guys aren't here to teach whales retrieve torpedos or some dipshit stuff like that!" and Kirk replies "no ma'am no dipshit". I also quite liked the way in the scene where she slaps her boss at the institute for releasing the whales during the night before they are due to be released, that she times her slap in time for saying "bitch" from "you son of a bitch!".
Leonard Nimoy also who plays a threefold part in the making of this film, as he co-wrote, starred and directed it, also in his role as director, does another fine job, and he gives the film a nice leisurely pace, and provides just the right mix of drama and humour. Also lastly I will mention the film's score by Leonard Rosenman (who was a close friend of Leonard Nimoy) which is not bad at all, although for me its not quite as strong as James Horner's previous two scores for films II and III.
So as to the film's flaws well its hard to nitpick too much with IV, although you could argue the lack of a villain in the film, does take away some of the excitment factor of the story, and there is where it probably has to rely more on humour to make it work so well. Also the whole idea of time travel via a slingshot around the sun seems in intself to be a daft one. The concept of going into timewarp and building up enough energy to do so in itself would have been more sufficient here than bringing the sun into it in my opinion, as I think they just used it as a dangerous obstacle they had to pass just for the sake of needing one! Also at the end of the film the charges against the crew are submarily dismissed and Kirk is reduced in rank to Captain and given the command of a starship, but that in itself isn't really a punishment its more what he would have wanted, surely they should have put him in the brig or something for a few months! ;-)
And that is it for my look at Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home which remains one of the most entertaining and more unique movies in the franchise and it is well worth a look. Next up after this though was the rather underwhelming Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, directed by William Shatner, but I can leave that for some other time (if I can be bothered! ;-)).
So I will leave it there and be beamed up....
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