Forty years have passed since Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home landed in theaters for Thanksgiving 1986.
I remember it well: the anticipation of those in line, so anxious as they chattered about how good the advanced reviews were. By golly, the movie lived up to the hype and then some. The Voyage Home wasn't only a hit; it became an immediate classic.
Much of its success stems from its race-against-the-clock motif, with the Enterprise crew (now occupying a Klingon Bird of Prey) voyaging back in time to retrieve a couple of humpback whales (George and Gracie). The reason: The anomaly once communicated with whales on a prior visit and has returned for an update of sorts, but whales have fallen to extinction by the 23rd Century, and thus the anomaly causes a catastrophic, ocean-sweeping conundrum as it probes to no avail.
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura meet the task (empowered, no less, by Leonard Nimoy's swift direction and Leonard Roseman's stouthearted score), but not before facing the foibles of 1986 San Francisco. Indeed, any Star Trek adventure could be considered a fish-out-of-water fable, since its principals do face entities and cultures unlike their own, but old-time Earth (the audience's backyard) proved far stranger to our intrepid crew, and in so doing, hoisted a mirror before viewers: not to be judgmental per se, but to reveal and enlighten them on their everyday quirks and propensities.
The Voyage Home is perhaps my favorite of Star Trek's big-screen adventures, which is saying a lot, since more than a few stand out for their thoughtful messages. However, there's just something endearing about this particular human adventure that's hard to shake, at least for me. (Heck, I'm partial to time-travel tales, after all, but then I also like redemption stories, and considering the risky events of The Search for Spock, our heroes were in need of the precise, noble trek that The Voyage Home bestowed.)
It's a shame that The Voyage Home didn't receive a theatrical re-release to celebrate its endurance, but it's easy enough to engage at home. Do so and re-experience one of the best entries that any franchise of any genre has ever produced.🐋
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