Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

This is the fourth in a series of Trek Tuesday posts counting down to the next Star Trek movie set to be released this May.  Be sure to check out Shannon, the Movie Moxie, for her posts (she started the countdown) and feel free to jump in and play along or leave some comments.

This post sure is late, but it’s still Tuesday, so it counts.  Let me start by saying that this was one of my favourite trek movies so I was really looking forward to re-watching it.  The plot of the movie really just feels like an extended episode.  No big ship battles or action sequences, just a problem that only the crew of the Enterprise can solve!  Its a good thing this problem cropped up, because the crew sure needed to do something to redeem them after all the stuff from the second and third movies!

The episode also picks up on one of the things that Star Trek does best – commenting on the human condition and social problems.  In this case it is pointed out by a recovering Spock that it is illogical to hunt a species to its extinction. 

Some of the best scenes in this episode are from the crew experiencing Earth of the past and trying to figure out how to do things correctly.  Things like figuring out directions to get to the nuclear vessels or navigating a public transit system are a welcome bit of comic relief in what would otherwise be a fairly dire situation.

Cool Science/Tech:

• Clear aluminum
• Time warp

Fun Stuff:

• Thanks to watching the text commentary, I discovered that Eddie Murphy had originally been considered for the part of the marine biologist!  I think it worked out rather well for everyone that he did Golden Child instead and they cast Catherine Hicks.
• We’re starting to see some pretty good cameo appearances too.  (Guest stars and former cast members of TOS, a singer from the Go-Go’s, and a world class tennis player).

P.S. I have watched a bunch more episodes of The Next Generation, but have been too busy lately to blog them.  I’ve got high hopes that the upcoming weekend will afford me some ‘catch up’ time.