Director: Leonard Nimoy
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Catherine Hicks
Year: 1986
Continuing to try to remember how I viewed these movies when I was younger compared to how they stack up now, my opinion of Voyage Home was that it was boring, ridiculous, out of context, and not really Star Trek, which is kinda right but also completely wrong. This is the least adventurous, most adult, least fantastic, most grounded Star Trek film of the group, an uptick in language, culture, and modern movie making, but a break from the common episodic storylines we had grown accustomed too. Basically, it’s a bold choice, which didn’t land well with me when I was young, but seems awesome as an adult.
On their way back to Earth following their battle with Khan and their rescue of Spock, the crew of the Enterprise retrieve a distress call from …Earth? It seems that the entire planet has been blocked from energy of any kind, even the sun, by a giant probe that seems to be calling out an unanswerable message. Upon further analysis, Spock discovers that the language is that of humpback whales, which are now exist, forcing Captain Kirk and Co. to travel back in time to save some whales to save a planet.
This is the third installment of the trilogy that starts with II, continues with III, and ends here at IV, the whole story arc of Kirk not wanting to give up being a Captain, fighting Khan, saving Spock, and ultimately going back to his adventuring ways. And I really didn’t like it as a kid, I thought it was terribly dull; boy do I see it differently now. It was so fun, so funny, a breath of fresh air after Search for Spock was so awful and only like a very bad episode. Voyage Home was clever, different, quick, entertaining, and really just a nice movie; not a tremendous one, but something that was so easy to watch, consume, and like.
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆