William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Catherine Hicks

It's the 23rd century, and a mysterious alien power is threatening Earth by evaporating the oceans and destroying the atmosphere. In a frantic attempt to save mankind, Kirk and his crew must travel b...( read more  read more... )ack in time to save the Earth and its people from total destruction.

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78% liked it

56,100 ratings

Critics

84% liked it

37 critics

PG, 1 hr. 59 min.

Directed by: Leonard Nimoy

Release Date: November 26, 1986

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DVD Release Date: November 9, 1999

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Stats: 2,766 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (2,766)


  • September 21, 2009
    ?And a double dumb ass on you?! I saw this in the cinema with my Gran and I?ve loved it ever since!
  • July 10, 2009
    If I dare say so, I actually liked this movie a lot. Shatner's qurkey jokes and robot spock combined with a joyus propoganda ploy to stop whale hunting made for a great 2 hours.
  • May 11, 2009
    I'd forgotton what a great Star Trek film this was after watching it today. Very funny a times when we see the team arrive in San Francisco and expecially Spock's one-liners after getting confused.
    "You must be out of your mind?"
    "Is there something wrong with the one I've go
    ...( read more)t?

    Really this is the perfect film for all trekie fans, myself included. Highly recomend!
  • May 2, 2009
    This is pretty good for a sequel. The Star Trek with the whales. Still has all the old characters - Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhuru, Sulu, Chekov, etc.
  • April 26, 2009
    When going over the Star Trek films part four is always summed up with one sentence:

    This is the one with the whales.

    Star Trek IV continues the work of the previous two and starts off where three leaves off. The crew is preparing to leave Vulcan in their Klingon vessel, but wh...( read more)ile they're gone a mysterious probe has come to earth and is disrupting electronics and weather on the planet all while sending an odd sounding message that Spock (Leonard Nimoy) figures out is whale songs. All they need is whales to return the message right? Wrong. Whales were killed to extinction in the 21st century. The only answer now is to time warp back to the era of Reagan and bring back some whales.

    As you can tell Star Trek IV is going to be a fish out of water film akin to Back to the Future only a little more pronounced. Every other scene entails some member of the crew facing 20th century culture in the weirdest way. That's to be expected, but it does get old after awhile. It's also rather telling that the plot is basically taken from the first film just jumbled up a bit. Another mysterious probe threatens earth. Jesus, why is everyone so pissed off at us.

    Nimoy returns to direct again and does so adequately. There's no real flash and as I said in the other reviews the actors are the same as they had been for twenty years. Overall Star Trek IV is an average film that plays to much on the fish out of water. It's a preachy film and with that comes the responsibility to allow the viewer to understand that something is a problem without slamming it down your throat and not sacrificing the story. This film fails on both fronts.
  • November 13, 2009
    fun, very Star Trek, great job by Nimoy of Directing
  • November 9, 2009
    A mi juicio fue la mas entretenida de todas las de la serie de Star Trek. Todo un rollo con los futuristas trekkies en el siglo XX para salvar a las ballenas.
  • October 24, 2009
    The genesis trilogy raps up with a trek through time. I truly think the writing is great here. Yet, not just here but over the course of the last 2 films as well. There's an underlying concept that is brought up here and there throughout the series effectively and with purpose. T...( read more)here's the rising action, climax, and falling action over the course of Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and Voyage Home. It's all rather effective in how the crew deals with each situation genesis presents them. Greater still is the fact that each feels like a complete story and not just a piece of something. There are parts of IV that are gunuinely hilarious, like Spock's grasp of colorful metaphors, that really give the actors some time to, well, act. What special effects there are are top notch. A highlight of the trek series.
  • October 22, 2009
    brilliant, one of the best star trek's.
  • September 29, 2009
    The fourth big screen installment in the Star Trek saga may be the most commercially popular of the series, but, like the previous film, can't break away from the time period in which it was made. The result? A light-hearted, "save the whales" message just tangentially taking pla...( read more)ce in the Trek universe.

    En route back to Earth from Vulcan, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the former U. S. S. Enterprise are warned away from the planet. An alien probe is evaporating the ocean and blocking out the sun while draining power from anything it meets. In their captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey, the crew journeys back in time to procure two humpback whales-the only creature which can answer the proBe-and return to the 23rd century.

    In Star Trek III, the production outfitted the new U. S. S. Excelsior in pink chairs, Chekov (Walter Koenig) in a pink jumpsuit and a snarky sense of humor, at least in some scenes. Here, instead of being confined to one or two scenes, the very plot of the movie is ripped from environmental organizations. In essence, The Voyage Home is a two hour advertisement on why the whaling industry is wrong. Now, certainly, it can be argued this is the most Trek movie of the first four, combining character moments, action and a positive social message. Yet, at the same time, it's impossible not to feel like we're being lectured, chastised and reprimanded by a group of our friends.

    There's another issue with the film, aside from the overly preachy tone of the plot. Well, it may not be an outright problem, just a deviation from where the series had been before. I'm referring to the humor quotient. From beginning to end, there's a cutesy feeling to the movie, as if everyone involved knew they were making a light flick. This isn't to say every story needs to be dark and heavy, but the tone simply feels like a throwback to science fiction films of old, with everyone cracking jokes and coming up with witty one liners. Let's remember their home planet is under attack and can be destroyed at any time. This isn't the time to be snappy. (The argument that humor is bourne out of desperate times may hold water after the threat is realized, but not before.)

    To simulate the time travel effect, the film uses an ethereal, nebulous vision with clay heads of the main crew, a body diving into the water and an undetailed clay-ish reproduction of a whale. Why? There's no good reason, other than the film had the budget to put it on screen. None of the time travel episodes of the series had the money to do this kind of effect or sequence. It just seems out of place in the context of the story and the series.

    That being said, some of the interactions can't help but elicit a chuckle simply because the script treats the crew as longtime friends capable of jabbing at one another goodnaturedly. Much like the television series, it's DeForest Kelley's Dr. McCoy who receives the lion share of these lines. His reparte with Spock (Leonard Nimoy)-especially en route to Earth-is among the best the script has to offer. Even if Kirk shouting "everyone remember where we parked" is the most quotable portion of the film, McCoy and Spock trying to discuss life and death without the good doctor having a "proper frame of reference" is more organic to the characters.

    Everything else about Trek IV is more or less above board. For the first time in the entire run of the series, each of the seven main characters gets something substantial and positive to do. While Kirk and Spock are off procuring the whales (the A-story), McCoy and Scotty (James Doohan) are tasked with creating an enclosure for the animals. Sulu (George Takei) commandeers a helicopter and Chekov and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) find a way to repower the vessel. No one is stuck purely behind a console or left spouting technobabble. Rather, they all get something wholly unique and active to do.

    In the grand tradition of Trek, the film has a half-hearted "romance" between Kirk and Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks). It may be a bit of a misnomer to call it a romance, per se. They kiss only once, never actually have sex or express a romantic interest in each other. Instead, they're more like friends. She's fine in the role, confident and believable as a whale biologist, just wide-eyed enough about the 23rd century to be our proxy in this universe.

    (This is, obviously, a fish out of water story, no pun intended, for both the crew and Taylor. Each has to learn and adapt to their new environments. Naturally, most of the humor comes from the characters not knowing what to do-money is a foreign concept to Kirk and Spock, for instance. As mentioned before, this is the most Trek of the movies because of the subject matter but also because the crew is exploring a "strange new world.")

    So does Trek IV deserve all the praise it gets? Not really. It is a step up, production value wise, from the previous flick but also a step down in tone and seriousness when, in reality, it should have been just as dire as either Trek II or III. The film and script does get major points for utilizing the entire crew as well as anything before it, though.

Critic Reviews


January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

This is easily the most absurd of the Star Trek stories -- and yet, oddly enough, it is also the best, the funniest and the most enjoyable in simple human terms. full review

View more Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


  • kewlliz
    January 31, 2007
    The best Trek movie!!!!!!!
  • tomkinsman
    August 13, 2006
    Probably the best star trek film second only to the wrath of Kahn, it has some great comedy moments coupled with a more serious message about Mans duty to the environment and to other species on Earth.

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Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home Trivia


  • “Him? He’s harmless…part of the free speech movement of Berkeley in the sixties. I think he did a little too much LDS.” Is a quote from which film?  Answer »
  • Which Star Trek film was the first to feature a woman in command of a Federation starship?  Answer »
  • Which "Star Trek" movie did Kirk and crew travel back in time to save Earth?  Answer »
  • Which Star Trek film involved going back in time to find a whale?  Answer »

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