Review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) by Ken R — 02 Jul 2009

The Voyage Home is not as bad as other films in the franchise but not nearly as good as I remember. Taking place just after the events where Spock is ressurected courtesy of The Genesis project, the crew of the USS Enterprise take off in their New Klingon Bird Of Prey spaceship to reunite with the Federation Of Planets on Earth. When they get there, they find that a probe has appeared above the planet causing weather patterns to go ape shit whilst sending out a beacon that is unknown in origin. Kirk and Spock get on the case and decipher the beacon as Whale song. we soon find that the probe is looking to communicate with the whales of Earth. One problem. No whales in the 21st century. So the crew slingshots around the sun and goes back in time to retrieve 2 whales from the 80's which coincidentally is the exact time period that The Voyage Home was made. The whole film exhibits the culture of the time period and humor ensues as the crew splits up to achieve their goals. This is the second film where Leonard Nimoy takes the directors seat and while much better at it than William Shatner (we will get to that later with The Final Frontier) he still has much to learn. Nimoy again summarizes the story of the last film by incorporating scenes and footage into the beginning of the new film. In Voyage Home we witness a hearing in which Catain Kirk and crew are scrutinized for their actions against the klingons at the same time having destroyed the Enterprise. The evidence presented at this hearing is footage showcasing the Enterprise being blowed up into itty bitty bits and is the exact same footage that was used in the first film which makes no sense unless there were cameras all over space catching these events as they had happened and in the same way it was filmed in The Search For Spock. Anywayz this is just one of a few complaints, and they are minor when looking at the first film and the next two films in the series. Overall The Voyage Home is a rather enjoyable film that works on multiple levels and if your not a fan of Star Trek then you still might enjoy this one which is what Paramount was striving for when penning the story. If you just let yourself accept it for what it is while not expecting anything likened to the Wrath Of Khan then you might find yourself enjoying one of the better Star Trek films.

Additional Blue Ray information - The quality in the video for each of the Star Trek films seems to degrade as the films go on. The Voyage Home so far looks the worst of the bunch. The image is not always sharp and detail is lost in grain. Occasionally you will notice artifacts popping up here and there which is something you wouldn't expect as you progress through the Motion Picture Anthology. You would expect to get better but age has been not so kind in this regard. I still have to say it is far better than the murky look of its DVD release. Overall I wuld give it a 2 1/2 stars out of 5 as it still just looks too much like an upconverted DVD.