Marval Movie

Star Trek 4 is considered to be one of the best of the Star Trek movies along with Wrath of Kahn, but while Kahns appeal was its operatic themes and special effects Voyage Homes appeal is in its wit and characters.

The movies plot when described seems like some kind of drunken fan-fiction. While we have a recap of previous movie events the crew of the Enterprise decide to head back to earth and take responsibility for their actions, meanwhile Spock with not all the pieces of his mind back-together goes through a test of his intellect, he can solve all of the most complicated scientific, mathematical and logical problems that the three computers deal out but one question stumps him "how do you feel". This part is fine but latter we see what looks like the monolith from 2001 in cylinder form heading towards earth, and when we learn what it wants it only gets more random.

The Monolith cylinder shuts down all power within a certain radius and when it gets to earth fires beams into the sea that shakes the planet, the entire space federation is useless to stop it. The crew intercept the message to stay away from earth and try to figure out what the Cylinder wants and how to stop it, ready for this. The Cylinder is beaming a signal to the sea that can only understood by humpback whales, that's right of all things humpback whales, this would be fine but humpback whales have been extinct for about two hundred years, so the crew have to attempt time travel, even though they've done it a dozen times before and will do it a dozen more times they make a big deal out of it.

This set-up is truly bizarre and i have no idea how the writers came up with this, but if the characters would have acted like this was a straight up mission then i would have been skeptical but since they say that their situation is ridiculous then its more buy-able.

When they get to the past, which is the present when the film came out but is the past now (one of the main problems with time travel films). They park their ship in San-Francisco park and start to look for the humpback whales, and this is where the real strength of the film takes off.

Star Trek 4 unlike the other typical Star Trek movies has no big space battles with special effects, it relies on the characters entertaining us and its clever wit on the twentieth century. Also Lenard Nimoy returns as director and now that hes adjusted to the art in Search for Spock he can handle the duty of acting and getting behind the camera, even more than before he invokes the best out of his long collaboration with the cast that hes worked with for so long, every one gives a stellar performance, especially Shatner whoever says hes not a good actor watch this movie and tell me the same.

Meanwhile they locate two whales (male and female) named George and Gracy in an aquarium in San-Francisco bay (the phrase fish in a barrel comes to mind) but the crystals that power their ship have burned out but they devise a way to drain the nuclear power from a naval ship and convert it to the crystals.

Star Trek is one of the few series that i can name where the future is positive, there is no racism and no pollution, and technology is used to benefit humanity, and its clever that the crew gets taken to the past and look at how low we were. The clear ecological underlined plot is obvious but not obnoxious, its simple our actions now could doom future generations.

After they have the whales and the crystals are recharged they go back to earth in the twenty-third century, and the whales speak to the Monolith cylinder, it gets what it needs and it drifts off into space and we never learn what it wanted or where it came from, it would probably be very bizarre. After a trial Kirk gets demoted to Captain and the Enterprise has been rebuilt and the crew can have many other adventures. Ow and most importantly Spock feels fine.

Star trek 4 The Voyage Home is my favorite out of the Star Trek movies, its characters drive the plot and enjoyment and Nimoy gets great performances out of his long time fellow actors.

Rating 3 1/2 stars out of 4