Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Screenplay by: Steve Meerson & Peter Krikes and
Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer
Story by: Leonard Nimoy & Harve Bennett
Produced by: Harve Bennett
Directed by: Leonard Nimoy
Release date: November 26, 1986
Stardate: 8390.0 (aka 1986)
Mission Summary
The crew of the Enterprise has been court-martialed by Klingon request for the ship stolen and the lives lost in Star Trek III. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, a mysterious probe that disables just about everything is headed straight for Earth. The probe sends a signal no one can understand, and when it doesn’t get a response it begins to vaporize the Earth’s oceans and ionize its atmosphere: a recipe for disaster. Spock, newly born again, discovers that the signal is the song of the humpback whale: extinct since the 21st century. In classic Star Trek fashion, the crew go back in time to 1986 San Francisco to nab themselves some humpback whales.
Once there, Kirk and Spock seek out whales; Scotty, Sulu, and McCoy look for materials to build a whale tank; and Chekov and Uhura look for replacement energy for their spent dilithium crystals. Scotty, Sulu, and McCoy trade a formula for transparent aluminum to get the tank materials, while Uhura and Chekov find a nuclear wessel for fuel. Kirk and Spock meet a Dr. Taylor, a whale biologist whose two whales are set to be released into the wild, endangering them both. Though she initially refuses to let Kirk and Spock have their tracking codes. when the whales are released early without her knowledge she agrees, hopping aboard the starship and ultimately deciding to return with her whales and the crew to the future.
Safely home, the whales shake off the probe, all charges against Kirk’s crew are dropped, and Kirk accepts a demotion to captain.
Analysis
The Voyage Home is the first Star Trek I can remember, and though it’s not my absolute favorite of the films (or the series) it remains the closest to my heart. The “Cetacean Institute” (the Monterey Bay Aquarium) was about half hour from where I grew up and a frequent destination for my younger self. There were no whales, but there was plenty of giant kelp and many playful sea otters, a lovely touch pool, and more information about the salty deep than you could shake a phaser at. At the time I desperately wanted to be a marine biologist, so you can imagine my fondness for Dr. Gillian Taylor, the environmental message, and the bittersweet ending of George and Gracie getting a whole ocean to themselves. It wasn’t until much later that I came to appreciate the Star Trek aspect and since then I’ve seen it many, many times.
It’s easy to point out what makes this movie so different from all other Star Trek movies: comedy. I can’t help but admire the brilliance of applying the usual fish-out-of-water* shtick that our heroes usually go through any time they visit a planet and have it be our planet in our time. Some fans believed the tone shift decision to be a crass (if savvy) attempt to attract a larger audience, but I think it remains as true to Star Trek as any other film. The Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan, and The Search for Spock are dark, dark films. Death is everywhere. The first has a doomsday machine, a transporter accident, and the deaths of two bridge officers. The second kills Spock, and the third kills Kirk’s son. Good comedy can highlight all the same tensions and fears as drama, and yet be a release from them. They say laughter heals all wounds; the moment for something life-affirming had definitely come.
A great example of this happens very early on in the film. When McCoy approaches Spock on their way back to Earth, and they have this exchange:
McCOY: Umm. Well, I just wanted to say it sure is nice to have your katra back in your head, not mine. What I mean is I may have carried your soul, but I sure couldn’t fill your shoes.
SPOCK: My shoes.
McCOY: Forget it! Perhaps we could cover a little philosophical ground? Life, death, life. Things of that nature?
SPOCK: I did not have time on Vulcan to review the philosophical disciplines.
McCOY: Come on Spock, it’s me, McCoy! You really have gone where no man has gone before. Can’t you tell me what it felt like?
SPOCK: It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference.
McCOY: You’re joking!
SPOCK: A joke is a story with a humorous climax.
McCOY: You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?
SPOCK: Forgive me, doctor, I am receiving a number of distress calls.
McCOY: I don’t doubt it!
This is one of my all-time favorite little character moments. It’s funny, yes, but it reveals so much about where these characters have come from and how much they’ve changed. McCoy feels closer to Spock having not just carried his soul but fully appreciated his absence. He missed the guy. His line about never filling his shoes is such a sweet thing to say, and yet there’s a hint of tragedy in that Spock can’t (yet) appreciate the emotion or sincerity of it.
Spock is back from the edge of the abyss, in many ways like a child learning how to walk and talk and think all over again. Uncertain steps mark his curiosity toward humans, and yet by the end, Spock is laughing it up and having a great time as they all splash around in the water. The strength of the film is evident by how natural that scene seems, and how well the movie gets us from Point A to Point B without the transition feeling forced or insincere. I’ve always really liked the frame story of Amanda encouraging him to be in touch with his human side because it makes his efforts to fit in on Earth that much more endearing. He really means every ill-fated attempt to be one of the guys, and I especially respect and admire that Spock’s absolute commitment to the truth is never really the butt of the joke. Rather, Kirk’s attempts to “cover” for Spock, to reframe, rephrase, and reinterpret his speech and behavior, are where the humor finds fertile ground. Shatner soaks up the attention, playing the smooth, canny, and yet utterly overwhelmed funny man to Nimoy’s pitch-perfect straight man. The two make a golden comedy duo, and bless Catherine Hicks for holding her own in all those scenes.
They’re not the only ones, of course. I’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times, but the jokes never seem to get old and I laughed just as loudly this time around as I did the first time. Finally everyone gets to have a little fun with their characters. The banter here is perfectly on point and you get such a fantastic sense of the actors bringing to the surface a lot of what had always been alluded to, yet never shown, in the original series. Chekov finally get to take the clash of cultures jokes to the next level; Scotty relishes the chance to play an active role. Sulu is completely in love with his city no matter the time period, and McCoy, for once, gets to play the straight man (with a dash of crankiness). The one who gets short shrift is Uhura, who just seems along for the ride. (A waste of talent, if you ask me. She makes a great comedienne in Star Trek VI, trying to learn Klingon.)
For a time travel story, The Voyage Home makes the most sense of any similar stories I’ve seen. (The exception is how they actually get there. I still laugh every time Kirk suggests going back in time as the obvious solution, as if it were as simple as reversing the polarity, but what can you do.) The way that information unfolds and the characters make discoveries is eminently plausible and intuitive. Kirk makes money the first order of business. The aquarium would advertise on a bus. The yellow pages ad is a stroke of genius. Most of the characters walk to get where they’re going, and they do their best based on a hodgepodge of historical trivia to fit in. Sure they conflate a few centuries, but they’re actually pretty good at it. I love the sense that these characters have done this all before, and even with all their gaffes they’re pretty systematic and professional about it. All those “just like Earth!” planets have come in handy.
It should be obvious that I adore this film. I use it as a gateway drug to get others into the franchise because of its accessibility. It’s a great introduction to each of the characters, unabashedly silly and entertaining, and yet quintessentially Star Trek. The now-dated world of 1986 just adds to the charm.
One note, though: even on my billionth re-watch there’s something I don’t quite get. Is the implication that the whales have been actively communicating with aliens (or their probes, whatever) for millions of years? Or just that the aliens/their probes pick up the phone once or twice every geologic age and check in?
*How could I resist?
Torie’s Rating: Warp 6
Eugene Myers: This movie is kind of awesome.
I’m tempted to leave it at that. I wrote that comment in my notes (I do take notes while re-watching these, the better to analyze the material) pretty early in the film, sometime during the first scene at Starfleet headquarters—incidentally, the first scene ever at Starfleet headquarters, as we know it, which may have accounted for some of my enthusiasm.
It wasn’t a surprise that Star Trek IV is good—it’s always been one of my favorites—but I was surprised at how much fun it is, and excited at all the rest of the film to come. “Awesome” was, in fact, the running commentary at the back of my mind through the entire film. Either I’ve seen this movie many more times than I thought, or it’s simply incredibly memorable, because I remembered most of the dialogue just before it was spoken and reveled in hearing it again. I commented to Torie later that this film is like two hours of “best lines,” but that isn’t only a testament to the script, but to the actors. Their relationships and dialogue completely fit the characters we’ve known and loved, spring-boarding from what came before in the television show.
Before beginning this re-watch, I couldn’t recall the theme music at all. But as soon as the opening titles began, it all came back to me. (This is my favorite opening, by the way, simply because the title of the film beams in. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to please me.) The music may not be as sophisticated as Goldsmith’s and Horner’s symphonic scores–which were integrated as motifs through TMP, TWoK, and TSFS–but the score from (to me, unknown) Leonard Rosenman is very good. And it’s entirely appropriate to the more lighthearted tone and adventurous spirit of this film. The music seems more classical to my untrained ears than those that came before, and oddly evokes more of the high-seas capers than the Hornblower-inspired TWoK—though even this seems fitting for a film that features a ship named the H.M.S. Bounty, which actually visits the open sea. This is the most nautical Star Trek gets, until Star Trek Generations brings us aboard a 19th century Enterprise on the holodeck, or Data sings from H.M.S. Pinafore (Insurrection).
Awesome and fun as this movie is, I struggled to find something deeper to say about it. It isn’t as weighty as those that preceded it, by design, but it does serve an important function to the characters and films. I talked earlier about how TMP is a return to the status quo, getting the principals back where they belong so they could continue the voyages we remember them for. In some sense, TVH does the same thing, but I look at it more as the antithesis of TMP.
Both TMP and TVH concern an alien probe that approaches Earth, wreaking havoc in its wake and posing a seemingly impossible problem for humans to solve. In fact, both films feature rather similar dialogue assessing the situation.
In TMP:
DECKER: Jim, V’Ger expects an answer.
KIRK: An answer? I don’t know the question.
And in TVH:
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: There seems to be no way we can answer this Probe.
SAREK: It is difficult to answer when one does not understand the question.
Now, Sarek could have lifted that from Kirk’s mind during their mind-meld in the previous film, but it does set up an interesting contrast between the two films, which is broadened by the difference in the ultimate solution.
Spock says, “There are other forms of intelligence on Earth, Doctor. Only human arrogance would assume the message must be meant for man.” Not only is this an incredibly insightful and time-saving leap of logic from the only resident non-human onboard, but it could be a criticism of TMP, in which the message was meant for man. Sometimes it’s better not to know everything, and I’ve always loved that the Probe is never really explained (at least, not in canon). It just is.
I was especially struck at the difference in Kirk’s responses to the threats to Earth. In TMP, Kirk acts as though he is the only person who can save the planet, and uses the threat as an opportunity to get back his command. (He’s also indecisive and incompetent.) In TVH, Kirk is only concerned with finding a way to save lives; he leaps into action, trying to solve the problem and try anything to make contact with the probe. When he decides to attempt to destroy it, it is reluctantly, only after it seems there is no other way. He is completely assured and back at the top of his game, and he basically wins everything based on his cleverness and charm. This is the Kirk we want to see.
Nearly all of TMP is devoted to answering the question, but in TVH they know the answer at the beginning and have to find a way of delivering it. Star Trek IV is about communication, learning how to connect with the probe—and especially with each other. Like his father, Spock faces a question he does not understand: “How do you feel?”
When TMP begins, Spock has devoted his studies to purging his mind of all emotion and abandoning his human heritage. Spock is in a similar place at the start of TVH: he has lost his connection to his human half, nor does he particularly want it back, except because his mother wishes it. (And mother knows best.) Spock essentially resets to the person he was in the original series, struggling with his human half and trying to understand his alien crewmates, which leads to some of the same kind of humor that was so successful on Star Trek, particularly between him and Dr. McCoy. He has lost the comfortable balance and maturity that he had achieved when we see him in TWoK, and regaining it forms his character arc.
At first I didn’t entirely understand why this film is considered part of a “trilogy” with II and III, other than the fact that it picks up where the events of the previous films left off, since it has such a distinct storyline. But as with the Probe, the plot is merely incidental since this film continues Spock’s story and brings him full circle back to where he was.
At the beginning of TVH, Spock tells his mother that he has decided to accompany Kirk and the others back to Earth not out of friendship but because, as he says, “I was there.” By the end of the film, Spock finally understands the question and has discovered the answer. He tells the President: “I stand with my shipmates.”
I initially criticized the shots of Spock laughing and smiling in the water at the end of the film, before deciding that this is the only moment he truly demonstrates and acknowledges his human half, without the influence of spores or alien intervention. His human friends provide a “safe space” in which Spock can show emotion—and this is such a joyful moment, one of the purest in the entire franchise. How often are they allowed to celebrate the fact that they’ve just beaten incredible odds and saved the world?
The plot on the whole succeeds, largely because a) the goals are clearly established and b) it all moves too quickly for us to think about it much. But objectively speaking, it’s kind of silly. It also works because it draws, once again, on a standard plot element from the original series, time travel, even using the same “slingshot” technique that was employed in “The Naked Time,” “Assignment: Earth,” and “Tomorrow is Yesterday.”
In fact, it’s rather remarkable that there isn’t any attempt to catch up viewers at all. It’s as if they have decided only to cater to those who have already seen the original series and the previous films (aside from another montage of video clips from TSFS)—“look, we can travel in time by flying around the sun, just deal with it.” It’s a kind of “damn the consequences” approach that the characters seem to share in the film, and somehow it works.
I think this film has more in common with road trip/buddy movies than with a traditional Star Trek story, with an emphasis on Kirk’s and Spock’s wacky antics together. If the events of this film hadn’t happened, and the crew had been able to proceed to Earth without interruption, Spock would not end where he does, with the understanding that he needs in order to embrace his human half and strengthen the bonds with his friends. Time travel gives them a few more days to get to know each other that they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Despite my love for TVH, it is not perfect. It may not hold under too much scrutiny, and I am not partial to the bizarre animation that runs during the trip back in time, though it’s better than a shot of the chronometer running backwards. (And it’s interesting in itself, as it foreshadows later events in the film.) The movie contains not one, but two wild chase scenes involving Chekov, which is at least one too many. And it also evokes Moby Dick, more literally in this case than usual.
How is it that in three months on Vulcan, Saavik hasn’t yet told Kirk how his son died? (If you really want to be nitpicky, she did tell him… in the previous movie.) And what is up with the Vulcan Smurf hats?
But there were also several nuances that I had never noticed before. I was delighted when I realized that the Probe was mimicking the position of the whales as they communicated. I also had forgotten this was the first time we saw a woman captain commanding a starship.
Most startling of all was the early plot point about the Klingon-Starfleet peace negotiations, which are briefly referenced in Star Trek III and lay the groundwork for Star Trek VI. I noticed a script credit to Nicholas Meyer in TVH, which I didn’t remember, and I wondered if this was some of his influence, since he picks the Klingon thread up again in his script for the last movie. These tiny nuggets in the background enhance and enrich the overall Star Trek universe, implying an ongoing story beyond the events of the films that improve upon the loose continuity and more standalone nature of the original series.
As at the end of television episodes, this film resets everything to the beginning: Spock is back to being comic relief; Kirk is a Captain again, in rank and practice; and there’s even the Enterprise-A (whose bridge oddly reminded me of the bridge from the Abrams movie—it’s brighter than the refit 1701 anyway). But unlike in the series, the characters have learned something. Because of the events of II, III, and IV, they have grown up and grown closer.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 6
Background Information
Even before the release of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Paramount asked Leonard Nimoy to direct this installment. He and producer Harve Bennett wanted to take a break from the moody, dark themes of the three previous films and do a comedy with no villain and a clear environmental message. However, Shatner held out for more money (and a directing gig) so Nimoy and Bennett began pre-planning with the assumption Shatner would not be appearing in the film. For at least eight months Bennett and Nimoy contemplated a Starflett Academy prequel. Eventually Shatner got his ransom and signed on for the film. (He and Nimoy each earned over $2 million, which was part of the reason that TNG was cast with unknowns.) Many ideas were tossed around: oil drilling, a disease whose cure was only available pre-rainforest depletion, etc. but all that material seemed too depressing for a comedy. Eventually humpback whales were chosen because of their unique songs and their enormous (and as such, hijinks-inducing) size.
The script went through many iterations. At first, the Dr. Taylor character was a man–a kooky UFO-obsessed nutty professor type, with Eddie Murphy in mind for the role. Though an enormous fan of Star Trek, he turned it down and chose to make The Golden Child instead. (Conflicting stories say either that he wanted to play a Starfleet officer or an alien, or that the studio nixed the idea, not wanting to mix their two biggest franchises, the other being Beverly Hills Cop.) Paramount hated this script and hired Nicholas Meyer to fix it.
Meyer and Bennett wrote a new one (not even reading the first one) in 12 days, with Bennett writing the beginning and end, and Meyer writing the San Francisco portions. Meyer got the idea for Taylor’s character from a profile in National Geographic about another whale biologist. The studio loved it, though some scenes ended up nixed. One such scene involved Takei running into a distant ancestor of his, a young boy. They went so far as to hire an actor and try to film it, but the boy was not a professional actor and they had to scrap the scene (though it survives in the novelization). Chapel had many scenes (some of which were significant), and all were cut aside from a single line of dialogue and a reaction shot, a sad showing for her final appearance ever as Christine Chapel. Saavik had originally remained on Vulcan, pregnant with Spock’s child (thank you, pon farr), and Dr. Taylor remained on earth to renew her commitment to humpback whale preservation, or something.
With a final script in hand, filming began in February 1986. Unlike any other Star Trek film before or since, it was filmed mostly on location in San Francisco. The aircraft carrier scenes were filmed about the USS Ranger, not, alas, the USS Enterprise, which was out to sea and filled to the gills with classified, unfilmable things. Most notably to my own history, Dr. Taylor’s “Cetacean Institute” is actually the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which had opened just two years earlier in my neck of the woods. (Fun fact! It was funded largely by David Packard, of Hewlett-Packard. More interestingly, his daughter Julie Packard, a real life marine biologist, is the current executive director). Monterey is nowhere near San Francisco, so they digitally added a skyline in the background.
The film was released on November 26, 1986. Until AbramsTrek, it was the highest grossing Trek film ever made, earning $109.1 million dollars in the U.S. alone. Its astounding success prompted the studio to greenlight The Next Generation. Internationally, the movie’s association with the Star Trek brand was de-emphasized because ST III had fared so poorly overseas. It didn’t really work, though: the film only made $24 million abroad.
Best Line: KIRK: Well a double dumbass on you!
Other Favorite Quotes: MCCOY (on Spock): I don’t know if you’ve got the whole picture, but he isn’t exactly working on all thrusters.
McCOY (to Spock): Well, I just wanted to say it sure is nice to have your katra back in your head, not mine. What I mean is I may have carried your soul, but I sure couldn’t fill your shoes.
McCOY: Come on Spock, it’s me, McCoy! You really have gone where no man has gone before!
McCOY: You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?
SPOCK: Forgive me, Doctor, I am receiving a number of distress calls.
McCOY: I don’t doubt it!
KIRK: The rest of you, break up! You look like a cadet review.
SPOCK: What does it mean, “exact change”?
SPOCK: Are you sure it isn’t time for a colorful metaphor?
SCOTTY: Hello, computer?
SPOCK: They like you very much, but they are not the hell your whales.
TAYLOR: I … I suppose they told you that, huh?
SPOCK: The hell they did.
KIRK: Pavel, talk to me! Name! Rank!
CHEKOV: Chekov, Pavel. Rank, admiral.
SAREK: Do you have a message for your mother?
SPOCK: Yes. Tell her I feel fine.
Trivia: On January 28, 1986, Challenger broke apart shortly after liftoff killing everyone aboard. The film is dedicated “to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond. . . .”
The Voyage Home marks the first involvement of Michael Okuda, who went on to two more decades of design work in the franchise. Here, he created the touchscreen panels (that became de rigeur for all Trek that followed) and the various computer displays.
The punk rocker on the bus who gets nerve-pinched is actually an associate producer, and he wrote the “I Hate You” song playing on the radio himself. The scene was inspired by an an actual experience Nimoy had in New York City. As a New Yorker, I can’t say I’m surprised.
The woman who answers Chekov and Uhura’s question about where to find the nuclear vessels has an interesting story. She had refused to move her car for filming, and so her car was impounded. Angry and somewhat desperate, she approached the producers about being an extra to earn back enough money to get her car out of impound. They agreed but instructed her not to answer any of the actors’ questions–an instruction she obviously ignored. In the end they thought her line was funny enough to include in the final cut, but they wound up having to get her a Screen Actors Guild card in order for her to have a speaking role.
The movie earned four Academy Award nominations, mostly in technical categories: Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Original Score.
The whale scenes were filmed with four-foot-long animatronic puppets. The puppets were so lifelike that U.S. fishing authorities reportedly criticized the film for getting too close to whales in the wild.
Madge Sinclair cameos here as the captain of the Saratoga.
The whale hunters are speaking Finnish–which is a little odd since Finland, unlike its sisters Norway and Sweden, has had no real whale industry basically ever.
This is where the reference of Kirk being “from” Iowa originates.
Previous post: Re-watching Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Next post: Re-watching Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. God help us all.
In some ways, I’m rather conflicted about this film. For a long time it was my favorite, but over time I’ve soured on a little. I would still rank it second of the original crew movies, maybe even overall. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more it starts to feel almost like a self-parody. I can sort of live with the McGuffin making absolutely no sense, but with the unrelenting humor it’s like the series jumped the shark (whale, whatever) here.
That said, it is an awful lot of fun. Thank God, they didn’t go with Eddie Murphy, though! Even though he was at his peak, he just wouldn’t have fit. Not to mention, they definitely wouldn’t have been able to afford Shatner then.
(Also, in the trivia section, that should read Cetacean Institute, not Crustacean.)
No, sorry, you have to change the best line, because it is this:
Dr. Gillian Taylor: Don’t tell me, you’re from outer space.
Kirk: No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space.
This is, quite possibly, the single most memorable quote from any of the films. It’s right up there with:
Lt Col Fellini: What is that you’re wearing, some kind of uniform?
Kirk: This little thing? Just something I threw on.
and
Kirk: All right, Colonel. The truth is, I’m a little green man from Alpha Centauri, a beautiful place. You ought to see it.
Lt Col Fellini: I am going to lock you up for 200 years.
Kirk: That ought to be just about right.
which are utterly brilliant.
Of course, I’m not sure how he can be from both Alpha Centauri and Iowa, but I won’t split hairs.
So … yes, a bit of fun, really, on par with ‘I, Mudd’ or ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’. Nothing deep, good humour throughout, but plot holes one could drive a stolen starship through. The acting is fine, the characters well drawn, and, really, almost anything is better than STTMP (though with the next entry in the series this proposition becomes debatable).
Is there any point in hashing through the silliness of Scotty, the mouse, and the transparent aluminium; or the need to find a nuclear wessel; or the handy-dandy-time-travel-trick; or the whale probe (just how do alien intelligences communicate over interstellar distances with creatures who have no technology?); or the fact that Kirk knows Shakespeare, Milton, and D H Lawrence, but thinks Jacqueline Susan and Harold Robbins are neglected giants?
No, there’s not much point. Just let it all wash over you, and enjoy it for what it is, which isn’t much, but it’s fun.
Unless I’m seriously misreading what you wrote near the end, Madge Sinclair was most definitely NOT Janice Lester. That would be Sandra Smith in the Lester role. Sinclair appeared later on as Geordi LaForge’s mother in TNG.
This film was a lot of fun to watch. Sure, there were a few holes but it was a hell of a ride nonetheless, so you don’t really care about them. For the most part the comedy served the characters rather than the other way around (again, a few nits here and there but no big deal), so it generally felt genuine.
I was in my early 20s when this one came out, so I have to admit that I genuinely enjoyed the fact that Catherine Hicks was not wearing a bra for most of the film. So, two more creatures of hers that were in danger of being released into the wild.
ccradio@3: I had forgotten about those additional creatures, but now that you mention them — yes, indeed.
@ 1 DemetriosX and @ 3 ccradio
I’ve clearly lost my mind on both counts. Fixed.
@ 1 DemetriosX
Yeah, I love me some Eddie Murphy, but that would’ve been a disaster.
Maybe it’s self-parody, but I don’t mind because none of them behave stupidly. They may not fit in, but they aren’t idiots, and I appreciate that.
@ 2 NomadUK and @ 3 ccradio
I think it has worth and that it’s more than a bit of fun. It completes the story of Spock, first of all, and while the environmental message may seem cheesy, it’s as relevant as ever. But mostly I like that the characters got to get out and play around a bit. Makes them feel more human.
Every scathing rebuttal I was going to make against this film was disarmed by a single line of the review: “The Journey Home is the first Star Trek I can remember.”
Now I just feel old. Thanks loads.
Torie @5: You totally could have blamed autocorrect, you know. Crustacean, cetacean, flub a couple letters and there you are.
It’s true that nobody acts stupid or really goes out of character for a joke, but there’s a few things that just don’t work right and occasionally push it over the line. Kirk’s little rundown of late 20th century great authors is one. There must have been others they could have gone for that would have achieved a similar effect with more probability. Stephen King would have been a decent choice. I can really see him still being read in 200 years. Far more so than Jacqueline Suzanne or Harold Robbins certainly.
The other, even though it’s a great line, is Chekov’s “nuclear wessels”. Umm, Pavel? You have a starship there with sensors and stuff. Ya think it might be easier to just run a scan? That’s probably the closest anybody comes to doing something really stupid just for a joke.
Also, the guy in the shot of Scotty trying to communicate with a Mac? He’s a total “that guy” and I can’t find his name, but he’s like John Hodgman’s dad or something.
This is a loved Trek film for me. I don;t take it too seriously, always considering it more of a big screen Tribbles episode more than a serious SF film.
In the bonus materials on the blu-ray Nimoy says that he had to fight to keep subtitles off the screen for the communication between the probe and whales. Good thing he did. Nothing that appeared int e subtitles would have made that work. Especially with aliens not knowing works much better than knowing. (I always maintained that if JMS ever explained the Vorlans in Babylon 5 he’d wreck them and he did. Same for Hannibal Lector, there is power in mystery and the unknown.)
Of course this is the second time Nicholas Meyer has done the fish-out-water time traveler story in modern San Francisco, the first being his film ‘Time After Time” which if you have not seen you really should, like right now.
A breakaway film that really opened the franchise up to a broader viewership.
This film had the power and confidence to laugh at its tropes without diminishing its tropes, and in doing so enriched those tropes. Compare the intimacy between characters in this film to almost any cringeworthy fawning “comedy” out of ST V, for instance.
I actually like the fact that the alien presence was inscrutable and incomprehensible throughout, its motives and purpose undetermined. Probably the first (and nearly last) truly alien presence in the entire ST franchise.
@7 DemetriosX
I considered Kirk’s rundown of “great 20th Century authors” to be a mockery that, in order to broadly succeed, had to include only widely recognized, household-name types of schlocky writers, known hacks, essentially a list of subgenius non-Shakespeares.
Including Stephen King on a list of crap writers would probably have broken theaters into a quarrel.
I love this movie, despite some of it’s plot holes and goofs. It feels much more like a theatrical film than it’s predeccesor ( and it’s follower…urrgh ), and it has a much more polished script.
The few plot holes that do kind of bother me:
– Scotty’s cavalier attitude about changing the future. In the novelization, there is some explanation that they did research and found out that the Dr. Nichols they meet at the plant is the same one that did invent transparent aluminum, but of course, this would have deflated the humor of the scene, had it been included in the film. Still, considering that it was Scotty, in “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” who noted that once the ship’s engines were reparied, they would have nowhere to go in that time, his willingness to change history seems a bit out of character ( although he is older and probably a bit less patient ).
– Gillian being taken to the future. Again, violating all the warnings against contaminating the timeline given in episodes like “City On The Edge Of Forever, and “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”.
– Watch the ending in the Starfleet gallery, where our heroes are absolved of all their transgressions, and note the smiling and laughing Vulcans. A gaffe that would be repeated during the similar scene at the end of “Star Trek VI”.
Er… It’s “The Voyage Home” right? At least, it’s always been called that in the UK. Your title says ‘Journey Home’ (and so does Torie’s review).
Whatever it’s called though, it’s a good, fun watch, with the McCoy/Scott double-act producing my favourite scenes – and I also love the back-and-forth that follows Spock’s “Gracie is pregnant”.
@ 6 S. Hutson Blount
If it makes you feel better, my little sister saw the SW prequels before the originals, and only knew about Highlander through Wikipedia. Talk about feeling old.
@ 7 DemetriosX
Nah, I believe in owning mistakes. My fault. As you can see, I wrote the outline stuff mostly from memory back in August to get ahead on reviews since I knew September and October would be nuts for me.
Also, it looks like “that guy” Is Alex Henteloff. I don’t recognize him from anything, though…
@ 9 bobsandiego
Subtitles??? For the whales?? Geez.
@ 10 Lemnoc
Agreed, agreed, agreed.
@ 12 Dep1701
The original script did leave her behind to raise the whales or something, but I guess they thought movie audiences wouldn’t like that. Kind of weird seeing as Kirk doesn’t really get the girl, strictly speaking.
@ 13 EngineersMate
I’m going to try and make myself feel better about that by noting it took 13 comments before any of you noticed.
Man, I am just not up to my usual standard this week.
bobsandiego@9: Of course this is the second time Nicholas Meyer has done the fish-out-water time traveler story in modern San Francisco, the first being his film ‘Time After Time” which if you have not seen you really should, like right now.
And I enthusiastically second this recommendation. So, yes, right now.
@2 NomadUK
Like I said, it’s two hours of best lines. Every line is my favorite in the moment that it’s spoken.
@6 S. Hutson Blount
Technically Star Trek VI is the first Star Trek I can remember, even though I’m older than Torie. I just never really watched anything Star Trek until then, though I probably caught a few minutes of an episode–I remember it so clearly, they were beaming down to a planet. Remember that one?
@7 DemetriosX
That joke worked for me because I was like, “Who?” Their relative obscurity somehow made it seem even funnier. Lots of authors become popular long after their deaths, right?
@9 bobsandiego
I would love to know if there’s a script somewhere that has that dialogue between the probe and the whales.
Probe: “Hey, how’s it going? Where were you? I thought I was going to have to kill all humans.”
George: “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.”
Gracie: “Also, who are you again?”
Time After Time has been on my to-watch list for at least a decade. It takes me a while to get around to some movies, but all this Nick Meyer love has reminded me to check it out ASAP, though I used to have it on VHS. Bumping it up in my Netflix queue right now, so I’ll get it as soon as I watch and return Bringing Up Baby, which I’ve only had for a few weeks…
@10 Lemnoc
I think the Borg were pretty alien, until they messed them up through overexposure and silliness.
@12 Dep1701
Good point about the time travel paradoxes. I explained away Scotty’s indiscretion this time because Sulu says they’re “a few years too early” for transparent aluminum. If you take him at his word rather than massive, comedic understatement, it isn’t inconceivable that they would be right on time, or not mess with history too badly. I always wished they’d checked into Gillian’s future, but I suppose they couldn’t have. It’s kind of depressing that she could be completely removed from the timeline with no long-term impact.
I refuse to look for laughing Vulcans, and I hope I won’t see them when I re-watch STVI.
@14 Torie
I sort of noticed something was off with the title, but it didn’t quite register. And no one on Twitter or Facebook picked up on it either, which is also sort of depressing. I prefer to think of this as a temporary hiccup with a parallel universe that had a different title, where STII was also “The Vengeance of Khan.”
For me, this is the exception that proves the rule, about even-numbered Trek films being the good ones. The humour fell flat, save for a couple of moments (like, since I’d had a green Mohawk myself a few years earlier, I loved the bus scene), and I was mostly taken with noticing how much the actors had aged, and how unflattering the higher-definition lenses made them look.
Chekov as a combovered middle-aged man, Uhura as a portly matron (and, as ever and like Sulu, criminally underused), craggy Spock looking really weird in what looked like a bathrobe from a “high-class” hotel, and balding Jim. They were so huge on the screen, it felt like I could have fit my head in one of Spock’s facial crevasses. I couldn’t bring myself to suspend the disbelief that these would be the people chosen to save Earth. Surely Starfleet had some experienced-but-still-not-dining-cheap-at-4-pm-and-using-their-Zimmer-frame-on-the-ship people who could take the job on?
In fact, I was so disappointed in this one, that I’ve never watched the later TOS films, V and VI (and only half-watched the TNG-era films). I wanted to keep the memory of their earlier work clear in my head: Jim in his confident full power, somewhat younger than I am now myself, Spock, older and wiser, McCoy, the old man, Scotty a vigourous 50 or so, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Rand, Chapel – all at the height of their time, as characters and as actors.
Sorry to harsh the buzz. What can you expect from a freak who still thinks Way to Eden was a laugh and a half? :D
@10 Lemnoc, I seem to have had the general thrust of the line wrong in my memory. After I looked up the exact quote, I agree that these were probably better choices, although I don’t know if they used a lot of profanity in their work or not. Spock’s line could be taken as sarcasm or as him still being a bit befuddled and not wanting to admit to a gap in his knowledge.
@16 Eugene: I suppose I’m going to have to order you off my lawn or something. Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins were anything but obscure in the mid-80s. They’d both been around for quite a while and were regular NYT bestsellers (and that back when the publishing industry hadn’t turned that little bit of recognition into something totally meaningless – they sold and they sold well). Both even had several of their novels turned into movies. Susann wrote Valley of the Dolls! The fact that they slipped into obscurity so fast is interesting. I’m on the cusp between Boomers and Xers, and I freely admit I’ve never read any of their stuff, though I’d at least heard of them.
@18 DemetriosX
Correct about the popularity of these authors. No one ever got rich by producing quality, as the bromide goes. “Dallas” was one of the most watched things on TV in this era, essentially unendurable today. Disco… need I say more?
So, yeah, I think the joke revolved around indisputably, inarguably bad, but exceedingly well known authors, elevated into the lofty ranks of Shakespeare centuries on. Perhaps the only cultural icons that survived the rubbish piles of Earth’s (much commented on in ST) WWIII?
@17 CaitieCait
I can understand you not wanting to ruin your Star Trek memories, but I hope you’ll reconsider and try Star Trek VI this time around. It’s really a wonderful film. Torie and I are trying to work out a screening party for next weekend, if you’d like to try to join us. I promise you, everything will be all right.
@18 DemetriosX
I’ve heard of Valley of the Dolls of course, but didn’t know the name of the author :(
@19 Lemnoc
Good thing they’re remaking Dallas then, eh?
@20 Eugene Myers
Dallas. Yeah, I assume like the recent Star Trek reboot, they’ll get it right this time 8-/
Iowa was established long ago, in all of the written material when the show was being drawn up and maybe the Guide. I am not going to search to find it stated during the series or the animated series- maybe the BLish novelizations- but if I come across it… I mean, I’ve been aware of his birthplace since before the movies.
Kirk’s exchanges with Fellini always reminded me of LCDR “Curly” Cue in D. V. Gallery’s “Stand By-y-y-y to Start Engines”- after ejecting from his fighter, he ends up with the Napa police. When asked to identify himself, he is concise and truthful. When the truth is met with disbelief (based on his pajama clothing and leaving his flight gear in the woods, plus an escaped patient at large that night), he concocts a colorful lie based on their expectations.
The movie is good enough, but I think it was closer to the “stupid” edge than has been acknowledged. It also inspired too many to try forcing bad humor into their Trek scripts.
@ 15 NomadUK
Okay, okay, I added it to the Netflix queue.
@ 17 CatieCat
Fair enough, but to me that’s the strength of the movies–they allowed the characters to age (and I think, age with dignity). Look at Indiana Jones for an example of what happens when you don’t…
Star Trek VI is my favorite of the films and I think most everyone should see it, but I expect you won’t like it. It’s all about feeling old and obsolete.
Don’t watch V.
@ 18 DemetriosX
I can’t really think of modern equivalents to Susann and Robbins. Maybe Sue Grafton or Patricia Cornwell? It’s that category of book hugely popular to people outside of SF/F, i.e. “stuff my mom reads.” I think Robbins in particular is one of the world’s bestselling authors in the modern age, period.
@ Generally
I’m really amused at how much this movie is split, more than the others. Humor’s weird that way. There are lots of movies people tell me are hysterical and I find, well, not. It’s a genre I find difficult to recommend.
Oh, Torie, you’re probably right about VI, then. I’m feeling too old and decrepit myself right now, to want to watch other people dealing with it! :)
Ironically, of course, Netflix in Canada has now got most of the TOS movies available streaming (we don’t have mailout service yet), just a few weeks’ late for me, and now we’re up to the ones I’m dubious about wanting to see.
But hey, if I weren’t disagreeing with everyone at once, I wouldn’t be me on this site, now would I? :D
@ 24 CatieCat
It occurs to me that I’m pretty obsessed with movies about getting old. Hmm.
In any case, I don’t find VI depressing at all. It’s actually really inspiring in the sense that it deals with letting old biases and racism die the death they deserve. But your mileage may vary…
And we don’t usually disagree! That’s why I find this so interesting. :)
I like VI, but Khan trumps it. (VI would have been better had Alley cam back and reprise Saavik as they wanted her to.)
@22 sps49
I agree with your take on the Kirk / Fellini exchanges. On top of that, Kirk might have known that family already lived there and didn’t want to draw any attention that way.
Also. It’s been years since I read Stand By-y-y-y To Start Engines. I wasn’t sure if anyone else remembered it. I still get a laugh out of what Curly and the rest of the Blue Angels did when they saw that transport between the cloud layers. (Or was that the other book? As I said, it’s been years.)
I had to think about this movie for a bit before commenting.
On this movie in general. I think this one, more than any of the other original cast movies, is very much a product of its time. While Star Trek did have that famous “Let’s get the hell out of here.” line, the franchise had been seen as generally a safe zone. While it did have sci-fi violence and dealt with a few hard edge issues from time to time, parents didn’t have to worry about inappropriate language or scenes for their kids. I do remember some parents being upset with the language in this one.
In the theater the laughter was genuine but I do remember hearing some say on the way out things like “I hope they don’t start using that language all the time now.” In a discussion with friends after seeing this one, we likened the experience to the reaction of a character within the movie S.O.B. “Sally Miles says shit!” (If you’ve seen this movie you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, it might be worth taking a look at.)
At the time I took The Voyage Home as part satire of our times. Eddie Murphy’s colorful dialogue was showing up everywhere at the time and while Lenny Bruce had been an earlier major force in bringing profanity into stand-up and comedy, Eddie Murphy and others of that time did more to really bring it into the mainstream. Kirk and Spock didn’t go to the extremes practiced by Murphy and others but what they did say was shocking. Mr. Spock Says…! Funny but still shocking.
The last time I watched this one it didn’t hold up for me. There are moments that I still love such as the Bird of Prey de-cloaking and the scene between Spock and his father at the end but overall I’d have to say that too much has happened – in the real world and within the franchise – for me to be able to get into this one as fully as I did back then.
I’m a little excited to find out that I’m not the only Trekkie who dislikes this movie. Oh, it’s not horrible, I guess. But Trek in general has always been really bad at humor (“Trouble with Tribbles” excepted) and even the first time I saw this in my teens I remember thinking how belabored the jokes were. See, it’s funny because he doesn’t know how to say “LSD”! It’s funny because he says “wessels”! It’s funny because Spock doesn’t know how to use vulgarity! Very, very thin beer.
Of course it would get worse, once the makers of Trek decided to make Data into comic relief.
@28 etomlins
Having re-watched “Encounter at Farpoint” last night, I would argue that Data has always been comic relief. I was more annoyed that they decided to make him one of the most important characters ever; Picard and Data dominated the Trek films, and I feel like they gave the other characters short shrift. TNG was always an ensemble show, and the movies became less so, while the original films went in the other direction. They still focused on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, but the supporting cast was given more to do.
“Having re-watched ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ last night, I would argue that Data has always been comic relief.”
You’ve got a point there. It’s a depressing one, but it’s there.
I must be fair. As you work your way through TNG you’ll remind me that there were actually episodes where Data was used to good effect. Too often, though, TNG resorted to the, “Data says something stupid!” ploy. To make it worse, Brent Spiner actually seemed to think he was good at comedy when he really was no bloody good at it. (He sucked at playing villains, too, but that didn’t stop him either.) But this will all have to wait.
Even in high school I preferred Star Trek III to Star Trek IV and it’s never really changed. There’s a lot that’s silly about III, starting with the casting of Christopher Lloyd and the conclusion of the supposedly climactic fight scene, but at least it’s sort of trying to make us care. And it succeeds; if nothing else, the destruction of Enterprise will remain in my memory as one of the most poignant moments of Star Trek ever. Star Trek IV never tries at all. The only thing I can remember about it are some lame jokes.
The Jacqueline Susann/Harold Robbins line is, I think, a gag specifically meant to twit Harlan Ellison, whose love-hate relationship with the Trek franchise is well known. Several times in his Glass Teat and Harlan Ellison’s Watching essays, he described Susann and Robbins as hacks who were not really writers but what he calls creative typists. He talked about their appeal to the lowest common denominator of “slack-jawed strap-hangers”. He indicates that because their books were insanely popular, some people may assume that what Susann and Robbins wrote was literature.
Interestingly enough, Ellison was asked to write a treatment for the screenplay for Susann’s Valley of the Dolls, and he agreed thinking he could improve it. He says he was removed from the project when 20th Century realized they’d made a mistake giving Susann a contract with an ever-increasing amount of $ depending on how long the book stayed on the NY Times best-seller list; it was there for over a year, seven months at #1. Ellison was replaced with soap-opera writers who could be paid less.
@DemetriosX: That would be Alex Henteloff as Mr. “I Quit Smoking” Nichols. Henteloff was best known for his recurring role as sleazy lawyer Arnold Ripner on Barney Miller.
God, Harlan Ellison. He almost exceeds Andy Warhol in his talent for being famous just for being himself. I had to love how Ellison kept talking up his Hollywood writing career even though his greatest hit was a co-writing credit on the gawdawful film The Oscar. If I ever met the guy I’d ask him about that. I’m sure–if he said anything other than “fuck off”–he’d claim that his original script had been altered, but I tend to doubt that because there’s a bizarre quality to The Oscar‘s awfulness that you don’t find in other bad movies of the time. People in that movie talk like their dialogue was translated into Martian and back. It must be the Ellison touch. What else could it be?
@31 Bluejay Young
The Jacqueline Susann/Harold Robbins line is, I think, a gag specifically meant to twit Harlan Ellison
Ah, that makes sense! And I really hope you’re right :)
It recently occurred to me, when McCoy asks Spock about “going where no man has gone before”: McCoy’s been dead before, too (in “Shore Leave”). Scotty died and came back to life in “The Changeling.” I’m probably forgetting a few other regular cast members who died and were resurrected in the original series. So maybe McCoy is welcoming Spock into the club after 15 years!
Chekov in “Spectre of the Gun.” I’m trying to think if it ever happened to Uhura.
I don’t think City on the Edge of Forever is a great example. Edith was a critical figure in history that changed everything. No everyone is that important to the course of events.