After actor Leonard Nimoy directed the third Original Series Star Trek film, he was given the green light to direct the fourth entry, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where he and producer Harve Bennett formulated a story with environmental overtones and no clear villain. The movie was dedicated to the crew of the Challenger Space Shuttle that blew up after its takeoff on January 28, 1986, and was released the same year in November. The opening credits give an excellent first impression, given composer Leonard Rosenman's main theme, which is really freaking beautiful.
The film opens in the year 2286 with a probe moving through space, sending out a signal that wreaks havoc and causes all sorts of hell on Earth, with the former crew of the USS Enterprise getting the call and finding that the signal matches the song of long-extinct humpback whales. Spock, still recovering from his revival, notes that the probes will continue to do their thing until unanswered, and he and the other Starfleet officers use their captured Klingon Bird of Prey to slingshot around the sun, with a really weird sequence landing them in 1986 San Francisco, where they split to do their own things.
Kirk and Spock find that a pair of humpback whales are under the care of Dr. Gillian Taylor at an aquarium and will soon be released back into the wild, with all sorts of stuff done to get them to the future to pacify the probes. Overall, the film is one of the stronger entries of the TOS films, given its Green Aesop plot and decent humor, though some of it is asinine, with the movie feeling like a huge period piece given the setting in 1986 and has aged horribly. There is also zero backstory on the probes that incite the narrative, but the fourth film decently wraps up the plot arc of its two predecessors.
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| The Bottom Line | |
| One of the stronger TOS films, but still feels dated. | |
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