The Naked Now by: J. Michael Bingham, from a story by: John D.F. Black and J. Michael Bingham, and directed by: Paul Lynch

 

“The Naked Now” is written by: J. Michael Bingham (a pseudonym for D.C. Fontana), from a story by: John D.F. Black and Bingham, and is directed by: Paul Lynch.  It was produced under production code 103, was the 3^rd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on October 5, 1987.

 

“The Naked Time” was the fourth episode of Star Trek and is one of those early episodes that really was successful at endearing the audience to characters by playing on what had come before to subvert who these characters are.  Star Trek: The Next Generation decided that the third episode they aired, the second time the show was airing, was to remake the episode after a pilot that was almost entirely unsuccessful in establishing new character dynamics or even really doing characterization.  “The Naked Now” was assigned to D.C. Fontana, who co-wrote the pilot and is genuinely one of the best writers for Star Trek, but during production Fontana requested her name to be taken off the script, another indication of the behind the scenes production issues with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Fontana going on to write two more episodes of the season and would have story credit on one final episode before leaving the show entirely, though returning to pen an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  The trouble with discussing the plot of “The Naked Now” is that despite the production team saying they simply wanted to homage a classic episode of Star Trek, “The Naked Now” is quite literally the same plot with the aesthetic difference of instead of a planet falling apart, it is a star that is about to collapse.  The Enterprise sends a team to investigate a ship in orbit of the collapsing star after receiving a message of the crew sounding drunk and apparently being blown out into space.  The team investigating the ship is the episode’s best sequence, director Paul Lynch is quite dynamic with the lighting creating an atmosphere that is quite good despite any viewer who has seen “The Naked Time” knowing exactly what is going on.  Geordi La Forge is the first to be infected here and the episode attempts to be a little slow with his descent into the illness, complete with one interesting if slightly problematic scene with LeVar Burton really playing Geordi’s disability as awkward.

 

After this point, things really start to go wrong as more people become infected, including all three of the female main cast members and Wesley Crusher.  Wesley is the one that causes actual problems on the ship, he takes up the role of Lt. Riley from “The Naked Time” in commandeering engineering and holding the Enterprise hostage complete with the same demands for more dessert.  Wil Wheaton is clearly trying with the role that he is given, and I do think Lynch is giving him direction: his scenes with Geordi and Beverly Crusher hint again at deeper character relationships, but the material he is given is quite literally a spoiled brat who thinks he can be in command.  This goes against what was established in “Encounter at Farpoint” where he was characterized as in awe at the Enterprise and wanting to prove himself, not one to just take over the ship and have no regard for the crew and passengers being in danger.  Fontana’s script is smart enough to have him take part in the solution, even if it is an utterly ridiculous amount of technobabble for a quick climax while Data works on drunkenly fixing the ship.

 

Where the episode struggles further is in characterizing everybody else.  The only main cast member who remains uninfected by the end is Michael Dorn as Worf, the trouble being that we don’t actually know much about these characters to understand where their actions while infected take place.  The female characters are given the worst of it: Troi, Yar, and Crusher are all reduced to various states of sexual arousal.  Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar is given the worst of it, being forced to slink around the ship randomly kissing men and getting into a sexual encounter with Data where the episode decides to use that moment to establish the fact that Tasha’s upbringing is one of avoiding rape gangs.  This is a character with sexual trauma that just isn’t explored, it’s using some of the worst possible sexual violence as a background detail in a scene played for comedy.  Gates McFadden probably gets the best treatment of the three (Troi is just reduced to wanting to get back together with Riker), Crusher being the one to still research how to stop the infection.  The male characters, on the other hand, are infected and characterized as bravely pushing through it, especially Jonathan Frakes as Riker, despite the fact that he doesn’t really do anything in terms of solving things.  Picard just gives a bunch of orders and looks confused as Patrick Stewart clearly doesn’t quite know who the character is yet while Brent Spiner as Data is the one doing comic relief.

 

Overall, if “Encounter at Farpoint” was a pilot that was deeply flawed but showed promise of improvement with time, “The Naked Now” is a step in the complete opposite direction.  At its best it is an episode remaking the plot of a far superior episode with characters who had already been established, and at its worst it’s an incredibly uncomfortable and sexist experience, using sexual violence as a joke instead of actually developing the little bit of the characterization the pilot laid down.  3/10.

Encounter at Farpoint by: Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana and directed by: Corey Allen

 

“Encounter at Farpoint” is written by: Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana and is directed by: Corey Allen.  It was produced under production code 101/102, was the 1^st and 2^nd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast as a TV movie on September 28, 1987.

 

The beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of those long journeys to screen.  Obviously, Gene Roddenberry wanted to get Star Trek back on television or on film as soon as it was cancelled, and before Star Trek: The Motion Picture was greenlit extensive pre-production was done on a potential Star Trek: Phase II, though that would have been made with the original cast.  Even with the films, Roddenberry still wanted to produce a television series with which he would have influence, Paramount pushing him into an executive consultant role starting with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Roddenberry wanted control to see his vision of the future on screen “updated” for the 1980s, yet pitching to networks would be unsuccessful, the series eventually airing in first run syndication and produced by Paramount Pictures.  The production team gathered for the pitch is one made up of people who worked on the original series, including D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold.  Fontana would be tapped to write the pilot before Paramount asked for it to be a 90 minute TV movie, produced and occasionally aired as two episodes so Gene Roddenberry stepped in to write extra material.  This is where the problems of “Encounter at Farpoint” really begin.

 

“Encounter at Farpoint” as a pilot episode is incredibly padded to meet the TV movie runtime, the script itself having several scenes that really go nowhere and are there for exposition.  The Enterprise is a brand new ship with a fantastic new model actually reflecting that this is a production for the 1980s and not a retread of the 1960s design, but it seems in places Fontana, and more likely Roddenberry, are more interested in showing the viewers the new features.  There’s an extended sequence where the two sections of the ship are separated, largely to get the non-Starfleet personnel to safety as humanity is being put on trial by the Q, played by John de Lancie, which is a fine enough explanation and it helps characterize Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, but it doesn’t actually move anything forward for the plot.  There’s a moment when new first officer Riker, played by Jonathan Frakes, doesn’t know how to navigate the large ship and is told about helpful arrows on the walls.  There’s an extended sequence introducing the holodeck that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the episode, it’s just another diversion to fill time when it would have been effective to introduce both of these elements in episodes where they would be more relevant.

 

Superfluous introductions can also be extended to the character introductions of our cast.  Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered with eight characters introduced intended to be regulars, a ninth promoted to being a regular after this episode, and a tenth as a recurring villain.  “Encounter at Farpoint”, having 90 minutes to work with, should be able to introduce each character and give them at least a little role.  The only characters who get a proper introduction is Frakes as Riker, introduced over halfway through the episode on Farpoint station, Stewart as Picard who gets a dramatic establishing shot where the character is shrouded in shadow on the Enterprise because director Corey Allen doesn’t seem to understand how to introduce a protagonist, and Q whose arrival in the plot works because it’s over-the-top and John de Lancie leaning into the camp is one of the few things holding the episode together.  The rest of the characters are just there, which would be fine if Roddenberry and Fontana were proactive in establishing the character relationships and characterizations, but these are either absent or one-note.  Riker gets to have an established relationship with counselor Deanna Troi, played by Marina Sirtis, mainly a romantic one that is communicated through a look and a nice music cue from Dennis McCarthy which is actually one of the few pieces of information not conveyed through exposition.  The ship’s new doctor Beverley Crusher and her son Wesley, played by Gates McFadden and Wil Wheaton respectively, have a nice mother/son relationship with tension about the death of Wesley’s father and the beginnings of Wesley’s own ambitions to join Starfleet.  Wesley may be infamous as an annoying kid character, but here through Wheaton’s earnest performance while he makes some mistakes he’s actually a perfectly fine character.  Everyone else gets a one-note beat: Denise Crosby and Michael Dorn as Tasha Yar and the Klingon Worf respectively both fill the tough guy roles, LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge is blind (and sadly forgettable), and Brent Spiner as Data is a discount Spock with even less understanding how conversations and words work.

 

Nothing is helped by everyone’s performance is stilted, de Lancie is the only actor in the pilot making any sort of performance choices and Stewart is skating by on his powerful voice despite Picard’s main trait being hard, cold diplomat.  Some of this is likely down to Allen’s direction, many of the shots are aimless or fairly standard in terms of blocking indicating that there is any motion to any of the scenes.  It doesn’t help that the actual plot on Farpoint, a mystery about how the station grants people’s desires as shown through clothes and food appearing, is also barely enough to fill a single episode, much less two, with the Q trial plot really only being bookends until the denouement revealing that everything about this was Groppler Zorn, played by Michael Bell, and his people have been torturing an alien jellyfish which needs to be freed so it can mate.  There’s potential with both of these plots, they just do not mesh together at all and really there isn’t much to discuss in terms of what it does because there really isn’t much plot.

 

Overall, “Encounter at Farpoint” is a pilot that suffers from both poor direction from Corey Allen and a script where Roddenberry and Fontana are clearly fighting for control to build things up, making it so none of the characters really get any depth or an introduction.  Roddenberry as a writer in particular is stuck in the 1960s, setting things up like he would an episode of the original series with characters in those roles, smart enough to not rely on emulating the performances of the previous cast, but not enough to replace those performances with anything.  There are moments of potential, both plots could make an interesting episode, the resolution and general reliance on diplomacy helps set Picard out as budding towards his own character, and of course John de Lancie is stealing the show, but this is a rocky start.  4/10.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country directed by: Nicholas Meyer

 

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Kim Cattrall, David Warner, and Christopher Plummer.  It is directed by: Nicholas Meyer, written by: Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn, from a story by: Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal, and is produced by: Ralph Winter and Steven-Charles Jaffe.  It was released theatrically December 6, 1991.

 

This is the end.  My first viewing of Star Trek has finally reached the ending of the original crew, all together for one last adventure in a film celebrating the franchise’s 25^th anniversary.  Like all the films up to this point, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country had a long road to production.  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was both a critical and commercial disappointment, in my estimation it is one of the weakest outings for the cast and just a bad film all around, so the producers thought to genuinely end the story there and do a prequel for the anniversary with a new cast playing younger versions of the crew.  As an idea, this is honestly not a bad one since Star Trek: The Next Generation had aired multiple seasons at this point so the thought process believed audiences would have likely accepted a new cast.  However, the idea made it to Star Trek fans who reacted with a backlash so Leonard Nimoy suggested an idea of the fall of the Berlin Wall but in space.  This is the germ of the idea for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  Nimoy was initially approached to direct the film, but he declined (partially to avoid the clause that would have given William Shatner a second film to direct as well) instead staying on as executive producer and Nicholas Meyer was brought in after his work directing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and co-writing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of those films that went through several drafts, each main cast member getting input and the focus of the film being a one last hurrah to say goodbye to this cast.

 

The title of the film is taken from Hamlet, quoted with other Shakespeare quotes within the film, the major theme of the film is changing with the times.  The Klingons and the Federation are coming together to dismantle the Neutral Zone, there is a conference coming to facilitate this, and universal peace is coming.  That is the backdrop of the film, the conflict becoming an assassination on the Klingon chancellor Gorkon, played by David Warner working much better with the brief material here than in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, framing the Enterprise and specifically Kirk and McCoy who are exiled to a harsh mining colony while Spock and company on the Enterprise defy orders to unmask the conspirators.  The film is particularly reflective on the political situation of the unity being allowed, William Shatner as Kirk is portrayed in this film as understandably stubborn about the Klingons being integrated, partially reflected in minor Klingon characters equally worried about losing their culture and identity in the integration.  The Klingon perspective sadly isn’t nearly as well explored in the film, however due to this being filmed during the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, it is likely that that perspective is there in the post-integration world.  Shatner plays Kirk as at the very end of his career when everything is said and done, he has made his legacy known but he cannot grow past the death of his son at the hands of the Klingons in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  This is the point that damns him and McCoy to their fates while it also informs the way he acts towards the Klingons throughout the film.  The dinner sequence in the first act of the film is probably where Shatner gets his best performance in the film, despite Shatner not entirely liking the tension he had to portray, but he played it well.  While Kirk and McCoy are in exile, DeForest Kelley is used largely for comedy, though their trial has a cameo from Michael Dorn playing an ancestor of his character from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 

The Kirk and McCoy plotline which becomes a prison break featuring a very fun performance from Iman, is sadly slightly less interesting than the plot on the Enterprise as Leonard Nimoy as Spock gets to be in command, playing off Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan to maneuver the politics and discover who the real assassins are.  It’s essentially a murder mystery in space tinged with political thriller.  George Takei as Hikaru Sulu (being given a first name for the film) has the least amount of scenes in the film, though his role is still important as Captain of the Excelsior.  Sulu has the least to do in terms of the original cast members, but it still feels like a nice button for his character, growing to lead his own ship.  On the Enterprise proper, like in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Uhura and Chekov get elevated roles because they are the ones being used as the replacements for the missing Kirk and McCoy, both Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig giving great performances.  Nichols in particular gets to shine by being on top form in terms of comedic wit while James Doohan as Scotty gets to be the more outrageous comedic relief.

 

Thematically the reveal of those responsible for the assassination is one of those that is slightly obvious, a new Vulcan character of Valeris played by Kim Cattrell is part of the conspiracy and is close to Spock as his potential replacement.  The motivation of the conspiracy is a stronger stubbornness to accept change than Kirk’s.  Cattrell’s performance is fascinating, her emotion is intentionally subtle but not too subtle to not be there.  The main threat of the film is the Klingon commander Chang, played by Christopher Plummer giving his usual caliber of performance.  Despite being under a lot of makeup Plummer is still quoting Shakespeare the most of anyone in the film, and because it is Christopher Plummer it seems entirely natural.  Chang is the most obvious conspirator: he is disappointed he never got to face Kirk as a warrior in battle and is adamant on finding him and McCoy guilty for the assassination.  Importantly, while Valeris provides some commentary on Federation having deeper layers of mistrust, the third conspirator is a higher up in Starfleet: Admiral Cartwright, a minor character from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home played by Brock Peters once again.  Now there is one final aspect of the film underneath the compelling characters and Nicholas Meyer’s direction and the almost haunting score from Cliff Eidelman and that’s while it deals with its themes nicely there is a slight sense that it doesn’t quite grapple with the allegory entirely well.  Early in the film, Chekov says “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”, a line originally meant for Uhura that Nichelle Nichols rightly refused to say.  The Federation conspirators are motivated largely by xenophobia and racism, which is a little uncomfortable hearing racist tirades coming from Brock Peters, whose most famous as Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Peters apparently expressed discomfort at some of the dialogue as well.  This is not enough to entirely bring down the film, at least for me, but it adds this layer of seemingly intentional discomfort that doesn’t quite understand the complexities of racism.  Then again Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country isn’t really about race, it’s about unity and going into that undiscovered country of the future (and not death as the original line in Hamlet details).

 

Overall, the one last hurrah nature of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is only succeeded by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in terms of a film.  It’s close to a pure distillation of everything that this particular cast of characters are and succeeds at, with each of them getting a happy ending (even Janice Rand gets a slightly larger cameo with Grace Lee Whitney returning to the role).  It’s all about looking to the future and albeit retroactively is the perfect setup to open the doors to the new era of Star Trek which I will be boldly going into.  9/10.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier directed by: William Shatner

 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei.  It is directed by: William Shatner, written by: David Loughery, from a story by: William Shatner, Harve Bennett, and David Loughery, and is produced by: Harve Bennett.  It was released theatrically June 9, 1989.

 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the definition of an unnecessary film.  The first four cinematic Star Trek installments are each films that cover the same ground thematically and in terms of character development, all with the overarching theme of the Enterprise crew as a family going out to explore space with the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  The film only came about because of a favored nations clause in the contracts of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy during the filming of the original series, meaning that Shatner and Nimoy would be offered the same opportunities.  Nimoy directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and when being selected to direct Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home it was agreed William Shatner would direct Star Trek V.  Now going into the production of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier does show that there were production problems outside of the control of Shatner: the budget was cut causing the climax to be redesigned, there was both a Writer’s Guild of America and Teamsters Strike, the production itself was rushed to completion, and the effects teams at Industrial Light & Magic were too busy with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to work on this film.  Shatner also had no experience directing film before this point, though Leonard Nimoy was also an untested director when selected for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

 

William Shatner is actually a good actor, despite his reputation in pop culture for over the top delivery and outbursts.  His performances in the original series and the previous films is enough to show this because Captain Kirk is a character fully in depth and Shatner gives him life.  William Shatner is not, however, a good director.  While there were plenty of production problems outside of Shatner’s control, his directorial style could best be described as amateur.  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, despite a large budget of $33 million looks incredibly cheap, with the sets of the Enterprise being over lit and the general shot composition of the film being basic.  Some of this can be explained away from Shatner’s previous directorial work, mainly television episodes of his own show T.J. Hooker which is a show I have never seen an episode of, but the way the film is directed feels like how television was shot especially during the 1980s.  That and a general mix of admiration and pale imitation of popular films from the late 1980s: there are sequences straight out of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark but without the filmmaking experience or magic of George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg.  The opening 30 minutes is where a lot of Shatner’s directorial decisions can be put on full display, the first big sequence of the film being incredibly oddly paced as Shatner attempts to establish the villain Sybok, played by Laurence Luckinbill, the planet Nimbus III in the Neutral Zone, and his general motivation.  The expository dialogue in the sequence is incredibly off kilter, the lighting is overdone with the sun of the planet in the background in what Shatner is attempting to display a prophetic idea as this is a film largely concerned with religion.

 

Things only get more awkward from there with the introduction of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all on shore leave.  Now Shatner, Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley are giving fine performances, good especially for Shatner who is juggling acting and directing, but again this is a sequence that keeps cutting from Kirk and Spock on a mountain and McCoy watching.  The cuts to McCoy are placed awkwardly throughout the scene.  The film thematically wants to have the arc of Kirk over everyone else realize that his crew is in fact his family.  There is a scene in the first act around a campfire with a painfully unfunny round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” which has a great idea of Kirk being isolated and scared of dying alone.  This is after the initial four films having a cohesive arc culminating in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home having the Enterprise crew as an actual family in the end.  This just adds to the pointless nature of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Kirk doesn’t actually have an arc because he has already learned what the character arc is attempting to teach him.  It does not help that between Shatner being in charge of the story and the screenplay from David Loughery doesn’t understand Spock as a character.  Spock is the alien in the film.  He is back to being completely emotionless and his dialogue is particularly stilted throughout, his familial relation to Sybok being a particular twist that means they must respect each other for no real reason.  Again the previous four films have had Spock have an arc throughout where he genuinely has love for both Kirk and McCoy, that was the point of his sacrifice in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and his arc of integrating back to life in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. 

 

The rest of the Enterprise crew also give generally good performances despite this film reverting to the problem of rarely giving them things to do.  Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan are paired early on, with some dialogue that is oddly flirtatious for Uhura and Scotty (which is explicit but goes absolutely nowhere) though they at least get things to do early on, while George Takei and Walter Koenig are paired though given even less to do then be comic relief and Chekov becomes a distraction at one point.  Koenig’s portion in the comic relief is particularly bland.  The Enterprise itself is also falling apart for some reason, mainly for comic relief for the film which is more tedious than anything and makes the film feel slower than it is.  The rest of the film’s cast really does not excel under Shatner’s direction.  Luckinbill as Sybok, revealed to be Spock’s half-brother for attempted drama, is not a good villain nor is giving a good performance, though he at least delivers his lines the best he can.  David Warner has a smaller role where it’s clear that he is bored in the role but he’s David Warner so he is still quite fun to watch.  The whole idea of finding God who is essentially a televangelist is another of those ideas that could make an interesting film but again this is a film with a plot by William Shatner who does not understand how to execute the ideas.  The climax of the film is structurally similar to the climax of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, yet somehow executed more poorly than that film’s already messy climax.  It’s got some fun lines for Shatner and goes on far too long because the final scene needs to ram home the poorly defined theme of family.

 

Overall, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a poorly defined film.  The direction is from an amateur, the themes are just outright stated in stilted dialogue, the performances don’t actually have anything to happen.  There’s also some really random moments added in for sex appeal that just feels wrong.  There are points where it is outright aping imagery from other films and while there are decent ideas for commentary, Shatner is rightfully angry at televangelists, but this is just a slog to get through.  This is through and through a bad film from a bad director with really a score from Jerry Goldsmith and actors attempting to work through it to work.  3/10.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home directed by: Leonard Nimoy

 

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, and Catherine Hicks.  It is directed by: Leonard Nimoy, written by: Steve Meerson, Peter Kirkes, Nicholas Meyer, and Harve Bennett, from a story by: Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy, and is produced by: Harve Bennett.  It was released theatrically on November 26, 1986.

 

It's genuinely quite surprising that Leonard Nimoy would be asked to return to direct another Star Trek film, mainly because any follow up to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock would bring the challenge to Nimoy of directing a film where he is a main character.  There are obviously challenges having to direct yourself, but Nimoy was attached to the fourth Star Trek film before there was even a script developed.  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home had a particularly odd development, starting life as a potential prequel due to the potential of William Shatner dropping out though he would be signed on after negotiation.  Like Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home would be afforded a budget increase from the previous film and uniquely much of the film would be shot on location, largely in California though not entirely San Francisco where the majority of the film is actually set.  This above everything else is what gives the film its unique atmosphere and tone, it’s very different to see our characters interacting with real locations and not the science fiction sets.  Robert Fletcher returned from the previous three films to provide the costumes and his work on the film is integral in making the futuristic costumes work in the modern setting.  Yes, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a time travel film where Kirk and company in their stolen Klingon vessel (rechristened the Bounty after Mutiny on the Bounty) have to go back to the 1980s to steal some humpback whales because an alien probe is causing havoc on Earth by emitting the call of humpback whales.

 

The actual premise to get our characters to travel back in time when you think about it is utterly ridiculous, there is no explanation as to why an alien signal would even be Earth humpback whales.  This, of course, doesn’t matter.  The film needs to have a plot to end the trilogy of reflection on ideas of humanity’s needs and the sacrifices that are made to meet them.  The first act of the film, before the time travel slingshot maneuver gets these themes right out in the open.  Jane Wyatt and Mark Lenard as Amanda Grayson and Sarek are integral to this, the former giving her son advice while the latter advocates for clemency towards the Enterprise crew for the actions in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  In terms of roles, they’re quite small, Wyatt doesn’t even get to appear in the film’s denouement, but they both provide the film the harmony that Star Trek so often represents thus making the film work.  There’s a knock on effect of making Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home feel like an ending for the Star Trek films, despite two more being produced with the original cast (though it’s possible they would have stopped here with the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation beginning after this film was released).  There’s a finality in the production even down to the score, Leonard Rosenman being brought in and basing everything on variations both obvious and subtle of Alexander Courage’s original television theme.  Rosenman’s theme work for the film is potentially among the franchise’s best and most interesting so far, even above the stellar work of Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner (legendary composers in their own right).

 

So much of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home can be described as an incredibly fun time.  While the premise is ridiculous, it’s a vehicle to allow the cast to have some of the best interactions and for the supporting cast the deepest characterization.  The film is one that is carried by a script full of some of the best one liners and character interactions that the franchise has done.  Nimoy’s portrayal as Spock is characterized as the stiffest and most logical he has ever been, rationalized as an effect of his resurrection in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock for better and for worse.  By the end he is back to the character familiar to viewers and there are especially good interactions with the fish out of water setting of 1980s San Francisco, but Nimoy is perhaps given the weakest material, likely reflecting Nimoy pulling double duty of acting and directing.  Everyone else on the other hand is clearly relishing the chance to play against the typical supporting material.  Each character has a mission in San Francisco to capture the two humpback whales, a pair set to be released into the wild.  This is where some of the film’s best lines and ideas come about: from Walter Koenig just blatantly asking people where he can find nuclear vessels, to DeForest Kelley being intensely angry about 20^th century medical practices, to James Doohan causing a bootstrap paradox to get materials in a smug way only James Doohan could.  Nichelle Nichols is also clearly relishing the chance to be the authoritative figure in her own plotline, being largely paired with Koenig and getting some of the best pieces of face acting she’s had to pull.

 

William Shatner is still the leading man of the film as Kirk, for the first time in these films being given a love interest in Catherine Hicks as Dr. Gillian Taylor, a marine biologist who has fallen in love with the whales.  This is where the script’s dialogue equally sparkles, the roundabout way Kirk gets to the point is a particular masterstroke before culminating in the line “I’m from Iowa, I only work in outer space.”  There is this pop cultural depiction of Kirk as incredibly sexually active, but Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home avoids that.  The relationship between Kirk and Taylor is one that grows over the film, but never actually spills out into proper, explicit romance.  Despite Taylor ending the film in the 23^rd century with her precious whales, the ending is explicit that their romance really wasn’t a romance at all.  The film makes the decision to not frame this as disappointing for either party, handling it with an adult sensibility that really works.  It helps that Hicks is perfect at playing the straight man to a lot of the film’s future comedy, especially as it goes on and she is embroiled in the science fiction plot.  It’s another aspect that really builds the film and helps end things in a satisfying way that the series probably should have ended here.

Overall, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home can be described as an incredibly fun film.  Somehow, each installment of the Star Trek films has had a radically different tone and plot, yet each feel like an aspect of Star Trek.  This review couldn’t possibly encompass everything that makes the film work, especially with how strong the script is in terms of comedy while not ever letting the viewer or characters lose the tension.  The premise is just a tad too ridiculous and in terms of drama it obviously doesn’t become as emotionally satisfying of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but it is certainly a satisfying film just to let watch over you.  It’s a funny adventure with huge stakes and the cast giving it their all under a director they already love working with and the quality reflects what makes that work.  8/10.