Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Completing a story arc from The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is essentially the conclusion to a trilogy. We find the crew of the Enterprise stranded on Vulcan with only a damaged Klingon Bird of Prey for transport. Having achieved renegade status in The Search for Spock, Kirk and crew must return home to face the music. Only, when they do, they discover the music to be a dreadful cacophony caused by a massive probe hovering above this island Earth, ionising the atmosphere and in the process of destroying the planet and everything on it. The plot – which yanks us out of the 23rd century and into (then) present day San Francisco – works in part because the collision of a fantastic future with the contemporary present has no attendant baggage – thankfully, the original plan to cast Eddie Murphy, of all people, as a doctor came to nothing; instead we get Catherine Hicks in a charming turn as cetacean expert Doctor Taylor. There but for the grace of God…

The story, by returning director Leonard Nimoy and Khan director Nicholas Meyer, is essentially a variation on a theme of the V’ger plot in The Motion Picture. There are a host of hands, Friends-like, in the screenplay and the film is one beloved of fans and cast alike because of the greater interplay and screen time enjoyed by the whole ensemble. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig), Sulu (George Takei) and Scotty (James Doohan) all take centre stage at some point and the jokes work. Those that don’t are mostly ones specific to the time, but even then the context is so sure-footed that a good many of them do. Like the one in which Chekov, with thick Russian accent – and in a 1986 with the Cold War yet to thaw – asks a San Francisco policeman directions to the “nuclear wessel”. The fact that no one in the city turns so much as a flower in their hair at the sight of Kirk and crew wandering the streets in full Starfleet uniforms (and Spock in a druid-like gown), is as funny as it is believable; while the joke in which the noisy yob on the bus is incapacitated still gets a laugh and a cheer even now. “This is an extremely primitive and paranoid culture,” Kirk (William Shatner, soon to exude primitive Lothario tendencies with Dr Taylor in a pizza parlour) warns the crew before they step onto the sidewalks of ‘Frisco. Some things never change.

The V’ger plot in The Motion Picture had a thing not a person as enemy, with pure science fiction concept, breathtaking visuals and an amazing Jerry Goldsmith score to fill the drama-is-conflict void; The Voyage Home also has a thing as enemy, with humour and humpback whales. Star Trek IV proved to be the most successful original crew Star Trek film at the box office and only a geek with less humanity than the great Spock himself could quibble at the illogical science involving slingshots round the Sun and spaceships in the park. Ultimately, it is Star Trek in essence (including scenes from the film interspersed with the credits at the end, as in the TV series) because while the romping tone might mean that the outcome is never really in doubt, like the voyages of the Enterprise itself, the journey is as important as the getting there. To be enjoyed with fistfuls of popcorn crammed in your cheek, along with your tongue.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Dir. Leonard Nimoy 1986. Sold as part of six-disc boxset Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection, Paramount Home Entertainment DVD £44.99, Blu-ray £99.99