On paper, the premise ofStar Trek IV: The Voyage Homeseems far too absurd to work. The crew of the Enterprise traveling back in time to present-day San Francisco to save humpback whales sounds like a ridiculous idea that jumps the shark. But it works beautifully, because the cast fully commits to the comedic implications of the premise, and the quest to save the whales is used to explorethe importance of conservationand protecting the environment.
The Voyage Homeis easily the lightestStar Trekmovie of the bunch, but it’s also the funniest, andStar Trek Into Darknessproved that darkStar Trekmovies don’t really work.Framing it as a comedywas a bold move, but the humor is wildly entertaining (perhaps even more entertaining than the space warfare that should be in its place).
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TheStar Trekmovie franchise has explored some pretty wild ideas. InStar Trek III, Kirk dabbles in resurrection. InStar Trek V, the Enterprise goes out looking for God in space. In the 2009 reboot, Chris Pine’s Kirk meetsLeonard Nimoy’s Spockto establish a whole new timeline. ButStar Trek IV’s cocktail of time travel, San Francisco, and humpback whales has to make it theTrekmovie with the wackiest premise.
The fish-out-of-water aspect is kind of genius. Fans had been immersed in the high-tech distant future that these characters inhabit for years, so there was a lot of juicy potential in dropping them in the present day for a culture-clash comedy. The movie realizes that potential with a series of classic gags that make use of the cast’s rarely seen comic timing abilities by thrusting their 23rd-century characters into everyday situations that are completely alien to them.
The movie’s refusal to conform toTrektraditions is exactly what makes it such a success. Gene Roddenberry’s episodic adventures inThe Original Serieswent to some really zany, trippy places. In season 1’s “The City on the Edge of Forever,” a drugged-up Bones goes back in time to New York in the 1930s and starts altering the course of human history, and that’s been praised as one ofStar Trek’s strongest episodes. Usually, inStar Treklore, the wilder an idea, the better. Unfortunately, the series’ big-screen output is another story. It’s easy to experiment with goofy, out-there ideas in television, but movie studios get very antsy when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake and they desperately need to get butts in seats.
As a result, a lot ofStar Trekmovies fall into a familiar formula: the Enterprise is threatened by some evil megalomaniac bent on destroying Earth (or something equally catastrophic) and the crew manages to stop them in the nick of time. Paramount executives seemed to settle into this formula when it became clear thatThe Wrath of Khanhad beenunanimously selected by Trekkies as the bestStar Trekmovie, but the success ofWrath of Khanisn’t imitable.Wrath of Khanonly worked so well because Ricardo Montalbán made the title character one of the most memorable villains of all time.
Shallowly borrowingThe Wrath of Khan’s “The Enterprise faces its worst foe yet!” premise every time will make for a perfectly satisfying sci-fi actioner, but the whole point ofStar Trekis to dig deeper and ponder life’s biggest questions and boldly go where no one has gone before. Transplanting Kirk and co. into modern-day California might have been weird, but it was also unique and original, and a lot more interesting thanNemesis,Generations, andInsurrectioncombined.
Being less focused on the widerStar Trekuniverse and instead dropping the iconic characters into a familiar contemporary setting madeThe Voyage Homemore accessible to casual viewers than the averageTrekmovie. It tends to be impossible to please both. Generally, aStar Trekmovie that appeals to hardcore Trekkies will alienate non-Trekkies, while one that appeals to a wide audience that wouldn’t know a tribble from a Talosianwould be dismissed by Trekkiesas a watered-down take on Roddenberry’s masterpiece. Against all odds,The Voyage Homemanaged to use its quirky premise to find the right balance between pleasing the two camps.
Director Leonard Nimoy used the absence of special effects-laden space battles to highlight the interpersonal relationships between the crew. From Kirk’s sweet but doomed romantic arc to Walter Koenig’s “nuclear wessels” delivery to the unexpected but more than welcome union of Scotty, Bones, and Sulu as a bickering trio, Nimoy gavehimself and his co-starsa chance to really act.
WhileThe Wrath of Khanis undeniably the bestStar Trekmovie andThe Voyage Homeisn’t without its problems, it is pretty astounding that this movie works so well. Considering all the elements at play, it should’ve been a sure-fire failure. But thanks to its poignant environmentalist message,fish-out-of-water humor, and flagrant disregard for the franchise’s well-worn traditions,The Voyage Homeis one of the greatest entries in theStar Trekcanon.
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