Closing off an accidental trilogy, Kirk and his disgraced crew wrap up chilling out on Vulcan to go back to Earth for a bit of a wrist slapping. While they saunter back home in a stolen Klingon ship, an alien probe pops round for tea and biscuits on Earth. Except, there’s neither tea nor biscuits but a confusing sense of chaos as it sucks everything around it of power and soaks up Earths oceans for what seems like no apparent reason.
With Earth and Starfleet Headquarters completely useless, it’s all up to Spock to figure out whats gone wrong as he uses the Klingon ships communications array to figure out that the alien probe is trying to speak Whale after travelling from Q knows where to come find out why their pen pals weren’t writing back any more. The news gets worse when Spock reveals that the species of whale the probes turning the planet upside down to find doesn’t exist in the current century. If they want an answer, it has to come from a time before humpbacked whales hadn’t been hunted out of existence.
So a plan is formed; Dodge the probe, fly towards the sun, use Spocks reconstructed Vulcan brain to calculate a time warp using that suns gravity, end up in the past, kidnap some whales, time warp back home and go to the Winchester while they answer the call and wait for everything so blow over. And thus begins the adventure of the first, and so far only, Star Trek movie set in the year it was released!
For all the Star Trek movies to date, the Voyage Home still seems to be the most popular. Sure, Wrath of Khan seems to top the must watch list or every die hard fan, but for the general audience the accessible and quite literally down to Earth comedic tones make this instalment one people look more fondly on. Largely down to eliminating almost every common aspect of Star Trek for a light hearted fish out of water story.
In a weird way the film comes in with a lot of baggage. Spock died in Wrath of Khan. Was reborn in the Search for Spock. And along the way the now Admiral Kirk led the theft of the Enterprise, which led to his old ship exploding and his crew becoming outlaws. Even their new vessel, a hijacked Klingon Bird of Prey, needs a little bit of explaining for anyone watching over the festive ITV airing of the movie. Thankfully thats all condensed into a quick recap at the beginning with some quick scenes on Vulcan to set it all up and doesn’t take too much time.
The down side is that, between re-establishing where all these characters are as well as getting to the threat of the mysterious alien probe’s effects on Earth, the film does take a while to warm up and get to the point. Rewatching it kind of feels like you’re waiting for the crew to get past their mushroom trip inspired time warp and get to 1984 so the story can really begin.
That story in itself is fairly simple and comes with it’s own special Trek theme. People are generally awful and the whales are largely extinct by Kirk’s time. The selfishness of humanity has wrecked the eco system without realising the consequences. In the real world it’s still a hot topic with climate change being at the forefront. In the film, the disruption of the eco system and hunting of any animal of ‘value’ means that we’re not seeing the bigger picture. Aliens have been chatting away to the people of Earth for centuries and we just assumed we were the only important ones worth having a chinwag to. Basically, we’ve killed the aliens besties and the only way to make them leave us alone is to repopulate the species.
Ok. That didn’t seem that simple. But it’s fairly straight forward. Find whales, get whales and bring them to the future. Retrofit the Bird of Prey to become one big giant flying fish tank. Don’t let anyone see future people running around. A whale heist.
Why it all works is keeping the story telling simple. There’s no major unexpected twists or turns. In essence, it’s a by the numbers film on paper. We have a bunch of people from the 23rd century who don’t adjust well to the 1980’s, navigating local slang and punk rockers. Uhura and Chekov are tasked with finding enough nuclear energy to fix the warp drive. Scotty and McCoy get to build a fish tank. Sulu finds a helicopter and all the while Kirk and Spock take the A story of saving two captive whales about to be released into the wild while mining their caretaker for inspiration.
It’s all those small adjustments that really make the movie. Scotty trying to figure out how to use a computer is a strange little highlight while Kirk tries to wave off Spock’s weirdness as a side effect of major drug use. Though the deadpan reaction of a police officer as Chekov seems completely unaware of why it’s a bit odd that a Russians looking for directions to a nuclear powered naval ship remains a fun highlight.
By the numbers movie making also means it all goes wrong, as it should. Chekovb gets captured on a naval vessel, the USS Enterprise obviously, leading to an accident and rescue from hospital. Whale expert Gillian Taylor finds out Kirks’ from the future and pushes her way into the mission to save the whales she cares about and we even get a whaling ship having the life scared out of them when the ship decloaks above them.
It’s all so simple that it just works. As a series Star Trek had always had the benefit of moving from drama to comedy whenever the scripts said so. Seeing the films as episodes the Voyage Home follows a tense story of vengeance and an action adventure with high stakes. Bringing it all down to just simple, light hearted fun without any real bad guy was the perfect cool down to the franchise and a fun way to close everything off. As a self contained film, it’s light enough to put on every Christmas season and have a good bit of fun.
Throwing out a lot of the traditional formula, it does fit in very nicely with other sci fi films of the era by bringing Star Trek down to Earth and just having fun with it. Especially as for the first time we really have an ensemble piece with everyone being part of the story. With all the focus on the people and having fun with the idea over sci fi and special effects, the real risk in the film was in avoiding any risk and delivering something that has warmth, charm and almost refuses to take itself too seriously.
Some of it doesn’t hold up well. And the film slows to snails pace any time they’re not in 1986. Even the climax is a tricky one as it’s just whales and probes making noises at each others, which isn’t a massive climax. But sometimes you just need a bit of fun – even after 40 years, The Voyage Home is still a lot of fun.
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