Even without taking Thanksgiving into account, Star Trek fans have a lot to celebrate this week. There’s the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery, the silver anniversary of Star Trek: First Contact, and on top of all that, today marks thirty-five years since the release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
If there’s one Star Trek movie that everyone has at least a passing knowledge of, it’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But if there are two? The other one has to be The Voyage Home, better known to casual fans as “the one with the whales.” What’s particularly remarkable about that is that the two films couldn’t be more different. Wrath of Khan, of course, is a high-stakes action/drama. The Voyage Home on the other hand? It’s a romp, a time travel story that gets a lot of mileage from fish out of water comedy. Sure, there are stakes, but they’re not something you feel in an immediate sense for most of the film. In fact, they’re largely present in the form of a framing device, an answer to the question of why our heroes are traveling back in time. It’s only when they arrive in the then-present of 1986 that the movie really begins. And once it does get underway? It’s easy to see why the film has been such an enduring favorite.
It would be easy (and more than a little reductive) to say that Star Trek IV is as beloved as it is because it’s one of the best Star Trek films to date, even if it has the benefit of being true. There have been a lot of Star Trek movies, most of which have been at least good. Better, then, to focus on what makes the fourth entry stand out from the pack. And that’s easier than you might expect, because when you stop and think about it? Star Trek IV is kind of a weird movie.
That’s mostly the case within the large context of the franchise. See, earlier, I described it as a romp, but out of the thirteen movies to date, Star Trek IV is the sole installment that is primarily a comedy. That’s not to say that Star Trek has ever been a stranger to comedy. The original series alone is littered with gems like The Trouble With Tribbles and A Piece of the Action, and even on the feature film side of the franchise, it’s easy enough to point to funny moments in virtually any of the movies. Star Trek IV though? Whether it’s “nuclear wessels,” “hello computer,” or “double dumbass on you,” Star Trek IV keeps the memorable and hilarious moments coming fast and furious. And in doing so, it becomes quite possibly the poster child for funny Star Trek, so much so that Star Trek: Lower Decks – which is basically a workplace sitcom on a starship – takes its official abbreviation (LDS) from a joke in Star Trek IV.
But the film’s genre isn’t the only thing that’s unusual about Star Trek IV. As a narrative, it forms the third part of a loose trilogy that began with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And even looked at from that angle, it’s a bit of an odd one. The prior films had been to some heady places – life, death, life – and dealt with some big ideas in the process. And The Voyage Home is such a contrast to all that that it’s hard to imagine it being anything other than deliberate. It could almost be seen as a celebration of sorts now that the heavy stuff has been dealt with. If this were a more conventional film trilogy, this is the sort of thing that would be expected to draw harsh criticism for being so inconsistent in terms of tone, narrative, and overall style with its predecessors. So why does it get away with it? Well, for one, it is as noted a loose trilogy. But given Star Trek‘s roots, it also may be helpful to think of it in terms of television storytelling.
From that view, the major storyline actually consists of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, with The Voyage Home being less a “proper” third act than the status quo reset that inevitably follows that sort of shakeup. And once that reset button is hit, the movie reverts to a closer approximation of the original series’ status quo than any Trek production since its relaunch as a feature film franchise. The Wrath of Khan killed Spock, for example, but now he’s alive, well, and (more or less) back to his old self. Then The Search for Spock destroyed the Enterprise, but that’s okay! This film ends with the crew being assigned to a brand new Enterprise – one that just happens to be nearly identical to the first. And as “punishment” for his action in Star Trek III, Kirk is demoted from admiral to captain and placed in command of the new Enterprise. Or, to put it another way, the writers of future Star Trek movies no longer need to find an excuse to put Kirk in command of “his” starship.
When all is said and done, yes, The Voyage Home is quite possibly the least conventional Star Trek movie of them all. I’ve called it “weird” more than once in this article, but that’s never been meant as a criticism. In fact, it’s an acknowledgment of what may well be the movie’s greatest strength. Whatever else you might say about it, there’s precious little like it in the Star Trek canon. In fact, it’s almost impossible to imagine a Star Trek film like this being made today, with audiences demanding spectacle and the studio expecting Star Wars-level box office returns. In that sense, it’s an artifact of a bygone age.
Of course, I can’t wrap up without acknowledging that beyond its popularity and various quirks, The Voyage Home represents a very significant moment in Star Trek history. Namely, it marks the last time that Star Trek was defined solely by the original series. Ten months after the film’s release, Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in first-run syndication. It would be about three years (and one more original series movie) before TNG found its footing, but as rocky as those first couple seasons could be, the show redefined Star Trek simply by existing. In August 1987, the thought of doing Star Trek without Kirk, Spock, and the rest would have been inconceivable to most viewers. But just one month later, TNG would do exactly that. And once that door was thrown open? Things would never be the same.
