Review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) by Allan C — 15 Jan 2018

This is likely the Star Trek film with the widest appeal, in that it's essentially a fish-out-of-water comedy with a little sci-fi thrown in. An unknown ship is approaching earth, broadcasting an indecipherable message, and destroying all planets in it's wake.

The Enterprise crew figures out that the message is whale sounds, except that whales have been extinct for hundreds of years, so there's no one left to answer the ship. This leads our intrepid crew to slingshot around the sun to travel back in time in order to bring a whale to the future to save future earth.

Once in modern day San Francisco (or 1980s San Francisco), the crew has a series of humorous encounters with cars, money, and punk rockers, while trying to secure a whale. It's all quite funny and entertaining, but it's not very "Trek.

" The characters are all still the characters we know and love, but the story is pretty much "Crocodile Dundee" "Coming to America" or "The Out-of-Towners" except with the Star Trek crew out of their element.

But not to be too dismissive, it is a lot of fun and is never boring, which is more than can be said of most Star Trek films, which tend to be pretty hit-or-miss. The film also get bonus points for including my favorite Go-Go, Jane Wiedlin as an Alien Communications Officer.