star trek the voyage home feature

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

STAR DATE: 1986. HOW ON EARTH CAN THEY SAVE THE FUTURE?

" A catastrophe in the future can only be averted by a journey into Earth's past. "

Admiral James T. Kirk is prepared to take the consequences for rescuing Spock and stealing and then losing the starship Enterprise , but a new danger has put Earth itself in jeopardy. Kirk and his crew must travel back in time in an old Klingon Bird-of-Prey to right an ancient wrong, in the hopes of saving Earth – and the Federation – from certain doom.

• 1.1 23rd century
• 1.2 20th century
• 1.3 23rd century
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Creation and production
• 3.2 Continuity
• 3.5.1 Merchandise gallery
• 3.6 Awards and honors
• 3.7 Apocrypha
• 4.1.1 Opening credits
• 4.1.2 Closing credits
• 4.2.1 Performers
• 4.2.2 Stunt performers
• 4.2.3 Production staff
• 4.3.1 Other references
• 4.3.2 Unreferenced material
• 4.3.3 Related topics
• 4.4 External links

Summary [ ]

23rd century [ ].

Sensor analysis

It is the year 2286 , and an alien vessel is moving through space . The huge vessel is detected by the USS Saratoga , and sensor analysis reveals it to be some sort of probe . The captain of the Saratoga contacts Starfleet Command and informs them that this alien probe is apparently headed to the Terran solar system . Starfleet tells Saratoga to continue the tracking and they will analyze their transmissions and advise.

" James T. Kirk, renegade and terrorist! "

Back on Earth, the Klingon Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets demands the extradition of Admiral James T. Kirk for murdering a Klingon crew and for stealing a Klingon vessel. The ambassador also denounces the failed Genesis Project as a mere weapon and the Genesis planet as a staging area from which to launch the annihilation of the Klingon race. Just then, Ambassador Sarek arrives in the council chambers and says that Genesis was named for creating life and not death. He goes on to accuse the Klingons of shedding the first blood in attempting to possess the secrets of Genesis. Sarek points out that the Klingons destroyed USS Grissom and killed Kirk's son , which the Klingon ambassador does not deny, saying they have the right to defend their race. Sarek then asks if the Klingons have the right to commit murder, which causes an uproar in the council chambers; breaking his silence by calling for everyone else to make silence, the President states that there will be no further outbursts. Sarek says that he has come to speak on behalf of the accused, which the Klingon ambassador decries as a personal bias, as Sarek's son was saved by Kirk. The president tells Sarek that the council's deliberations have already concluded. He then tells the Klingon ambassador that Admiral Kirk faces nine violations of Starfleet regulations . The Klingon ambassador says that the fact Kirk is only facing Starfleet regulations is outrageous and decries that as long as Kirk lives, there will never be any peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire . As he and his aides storm out of the council chambers, someone in the council chambers calls the ambassador a "pompous ass."

The crew of the Enterprise

On Vulcan, Kirk surveys his crew and they all vote " Aye, sir. " Kirk states then to them " Let the record show that the commander and the crew of the late starship Enterprise have voted unanimously to return to Earth , to face the consequences for their actions in the rescue of their comrade, Captain Spock . " Scott tells Kirk that it'll take him one more day to get their Klingon ship, named by McCoy as the HMS Bounty , ready to go; saying that while damage control is easy, reading Klingon is hard. McCoy laments that Starfleet could have at least sent a ship to pick them up as it's bad enough to know they will be court-martialed and likely imprisoned but the worst is going home in the "Klingon flea trap." Kirk says the "Klingon flea trap" has a cloaking device "which cost [them] a lot." McCoy comments that he wishes they could cloak the stench. Kirk looks up and sees Spock standing at a cliff looking down at them and the ship. Spock then walks off and goes back in a room and resumes computer testing of his mental faculties. While the tests show Spock has regained full control of his faculties once again, he is confused when the computer asks him how he feels.

Spock retrains his mind

Then, Spock's mother Amanda enters and reminds Spock that as he is half-Human he has feelings and the computer is aware of this. Spock says he must go to Earth with the others and offer testimony because he was there when the events occurred. Amanda asks if the good of the many outweighs the good of the one and Spock says it does. Amanda then says that it was a mistake by his flawed, feeling, Human friends for them to sacrifice their futures because they believed that the good of the one, Spock, was more important to them. Spock says that Humans make illogical decisions. Amanda smiles and agrees that they do indeed.

Saratoga disabled

Just then, at the Neutral Zone, the probe comes close to the Saratoga . The captain orders yellow alert , but the probe, issuing a powerful signal, begins draining the ship of all power. As the Saratoga begins to drift, the captain tries to issue a distress call to Starfleet Command.

" Saavik… this is goodbye. " " Yes, Admiral. "

Meanwhile, at Starfleet Command, the President asks Starfleet Admiral Cartwright for a status update and he tells the president that the probe is headed directly toward Earth and that its signal is disabling everything it comes into contact with. According to Cartwright, two Klingon ships have been lost while two Federation starships and three smaller vessels have been neutralized. He then orders contact with the USS Yorktown and their captain says his chief engineer is trying to deploy a makeshift solar sail hoping they can generate enough power to keep themselves alive.

Heading home

As the probe continues toward Earth, on Vulcan the Bounty is almost ready for launch. Kirk comes on the bridge and asks for status reports, Uhura says communications systems are ready and the communications officer is "as ready as she'll ever be." Sulu reports the on-board computer will now interface with the Federation memory bank. Chekov reports the cloaking device is repaired and is now available in all flight modes. Kirk admits to being impressed with all that work for such a short flight. Chekov then tells Kirk since they're in an enemy vessel, he didn't want to risk being shot down on the way to their own funeral. Kirk compliments Chekov's thinking and then calls Scott, who tells him that they are ready to go. Scott says the dilithium resequencer has been converted into something not quite so primitive and that he has personally replaced the Klingon food packs as they were giving Scott a sour stomach. Kirk turns and tells all who are not going to Earth that they better get off. He then turns to Saavik , who is remaining on Vulcan, to tell her goodbye and to thank her. Saavik says that she's not yet had the opportunity to tell Kirk how bravely his son David died and that he saved her and Spock and she wanted Kirk to know. Just then, Spock arrives on the bridge and Saavik wishes him a good day and hopes his journey be free of incident. Spock tells Saavik to " Live long and prosper. " Spock gets permission from Kirk to come aboard, and Kirk tries unsuccessfully to get Spock to call him "Jim" as he is in a command situation. Spock also apologizes for only wearing his Vulcan robes as he seems to have misplaced his uniform. Kirk tells Spock to take his station, a move that concerns McCoy as after all that Spock's been through, he's not liable to be ready to assume such responsibilities but Kirk expresses confidence that it will all come back to him. Kirk then tells Sulu and Chekov to take them home. Sulu and Chekov gently lift the Bounty off the surface and as Saavik and Amanda watch, the Bounty heads off into the Vulcan sunset, on course for Earth.

The probe disables Spacedock

At the same time, the probe has reached Earth and begins the process of neutralizing Spacedock One before they can get the space doors open. All ships inside the dock, including the USS Excelsior , are neutralized and disabled. The probe then continues into Earth orbit and begins pulling water and moisture from the oceans, and clouds begin gathering over the Earth as the probe continues its transmission.

"You really have gone where no man's gone before!"

Sulu reports planet Earth 1.6 hours away, and Chekov reports there are no Federation vessels on assigned patrol stations, which Kirk finds odd. Uhura tells Kirk that the comm channels are flooded with overlapping multiphasic transmissions sounding almost like gibberish. She asks Kirk for some time to try to sort it all out. Just then, McCoy sits next to Spock and asks if he's busy. Spock says that he is simply monitoring and that Uhura is busy. McCoy says that it's sure nice for Spock's katra to be back in Spock's head and not his, stating that he might have carried Spock's soul but he couldn't fill Spock's shoes. When Spock doesn't understand the quip, McCoy drops it and asks if he and Spock could speak about philosophical matters such as life and death but Spock says he didn't have time on Vulcan to review philosophical disciplines. McCoy tells Spock, " You really have gone where no man's gone before " and is amazed that Spock can't tell him what it felt like. Spock says that they can't discuss the subject because they don't have a common frame of reference. When McCoy asks if Spock is joking, Spock defines a joke as "a story with a humorous climax." McCoy is amazed that Spock is inferring that McCoy would have to die in order to discuss Spock's insights on death. Just then Spock tells McCoy he's receiving a number of distress calls , which McCoy doesn't doubt as he gets up and walks away.

Starfleet emergency

Back on Earth, the situation is worsening. Reports from all over the world pour into Starfleet Headquarters . These reports include weather conditions worsening around the planet, such as how temperatures in Juneau , Alaska were dropping and cloud cover was up to 96%. In Tokyo , Japan , all power was gone and only available from reserve banks. Both it and Leningrad had 100% cloud cover and their temperatures were decreasing rapidly. The president asks about worldwide cloud cover and a report of 78.6% comes in. At that point, Cartwright orders a planet-wide emergency and declares red alert . Just then, the influence of the probe comes over and power begins to fade. Cartwright tells the president that even with planetary reserves, they are doomed without the sun. The president states he is well aware of that fact. Just then, Sarek enters into the command center and the president laments that there may be no way to answer the probe. Sarek comments that one cannot answer easily if you don't understand the question. Then Sarek suggests that the president issue a planetary distress signal while there is still time.

" Avoid the planet Earth at all costs!"

Still en route to Earth aboard the Bounty , Uhura tells Kirk that a signal is finally coming through from the Federation. Kirk tells her to put it on screen and they all watch in shock as the president tells all ships everywhere to not approach the planet Earth as the probe is causing critical damage to the Earth, almost totally ionizing the atmosphere. The president says that all power sources have failed and all Earth-orbiting starships are powerless. The probe, according to the president, is vaporizing Earth's oceans and that everyone on Earth will not survive unless they can find a way to respond. The president warns all ships to save their energy and to save themselves and they should avoid the planet Earth at all costs. He then bids farewell and the transmission fades. A stunned Kirk and crew are amazed at what they saw and heard. After a moment, Kirk asks to hear the probe's signal and Uhura patches it through. Spock says that the probe signifies aliens of great intelligence that somehow, are unaware of the signal's destructive nature and that he thinks it illogical that the probe's intention is hostile. When McCoy asks if this is the probe's way of saying hello to the people of the Earth, Spock points out that only Human arrogance assumes the message must be meant for them. When Kirk asks if it could be for some other lifeform, Spock does point out the signal is pointed at Earth's oceans. Kirk asks Uhura to adjust the probe's signal to account for what it would sound like underwater. When she does so, Spock theorizes there can be no response to the message. He then excuses himself to test the theory and he is quickly followed by Kirk and McCoy.

Spock's theory

In the Bounty 's lab, Spock discovers that it is in fact a whale song , specifically that of the humpback whale . McCoy at first wonders who would send a probe across the galaxy to speak to whales, but Kirk and Spock recognize that whales were on Earth ten million years before Humans. Humpback whales, Spock points out, have been extinct since the 21st century , and so it is possible an alien intelligence sent the probe to establish why they lost contact. Kirk wonders if they could simulate a response to the probe's call, but Spock says the language would be gibberish. Kirk asks if the species could exist on some other planet, but Spock answers that they were indigenous to Earth. When Kirk says they must find a way to destroy the probe before it destroys Earth, Spock reminds Kirk the probe would neutralize the Bounty with no effort. Spock does say then that they could theoretically go find some humpback whales. McCoy realizes what Spock is suggesting and is about to ask Kirk to " wait just a damn minute, " but is interrupted by Kirk, who orders Spock to start computations for a time warp .

Kirk's bright idea

In the Bounty 's cargo bay, Kirk asks Scott if they can enclose it to hold water and Scott says he could and McCoy agrees that Kirk is about to go swimming " Off the deep end, Mr. Scott! " Kirk tells Scott they have to go find a couple of humpback whales. McCoy asks Kirk if he is seriously going to attempt time travel in " this rust bucket. " Kirk responds that they have done it before . As he and McCoy head back toward the bridge, McCoy wonders aloud about the plan;

Kirk says that's it and McCoy comments that Kirk's plan is crazy. Kirk tells McCoy if he has a better idea now's the time to tell him. On the bridge he asks Spock about the computations and Spock is working on them. Meanwhile, Kirk has Uhura open a channel to Starfleet Command.

"We're going to attempt time travel. "

Meanwhile the situation on Earth is worsening. A faint transmission believed to be from Admiral Kirk is received and Cartwright orders it put through. Kirk advises Starfleet of their analysis of the probe's signal, tells them that Spock's theory is that only the extinct humpback whale can properly answer the probe and they are going to try time travel. At that moment, Kirk's signal degrades. Cartwright orders the transmission picked back up, but just then the windows behind him shatter and the wind and rain begin to blow into Starfleet Headquarters. At this point, all anyone in the command center can do is wait.

On the Bounty , Spock has completed his calculations and informs Kirk their target is the late 20th century . Unfortunately he can't be more precise because of the limits of the equipment aboard the Bounty . Additionally he had to program some of the variables for his time travel computations from memory. When McCoy worriedly recites a line from Hamlet , " Angels and ministers of grace, defend us, " and Spock recognizes it as act one, scene four, Kirk establishes his faith in Spock's memory and has the ship prepared for warp speed. Kirk orders Chekov to raise the shields and then tells Sulu to engage the Bounty 's warp drive. " May fortune favor the foolish, " Kirk says as the Bounty engages to warp speed.

The Bounty slingshots

The ship slowly accelerates up over warp nine and then as they get closer and closer to the Sun, the ship begins to shake seriously between the effects of high warp and the high solar gravity. A console next to Uhura blows out, but she says she's ok. At the last moment, Kirk orders Sulu to kick in the last of the thruster power, and the Bounty successfully performs the slingshot effect around the Sun . For a brief time, the crew is unconscious as Kirk dreams of their voices and faces (quotes from later are heard here, including Scott saying " Admiral, there be whales here! "), of a whale, and eventually of a person falling from space, through Earth's atmosphere and landing in a lake in a tranquil forest, with a sound of what may be a ship landing.

20th century [ ]

20th century Earth

Kirk awakens to find ship and crew seemingly still intact. He rouses Sulu from his unconsciousness and Sulu finds the braking thrusters have successfully fired. When the viewer is activated Spock determines by the atmosphere's pollution content they have successfully arrived in the latter half of the 20th century. He then reminds Kirk they may already be visible to the Earth's tracking devices of the time and so Kirk orders the cloaking device engaged. The Bounty crosses over the terminator into night and Spock homes in on the west coast of North America . There, Uhura finds a whale song , but is confused to find it coming directly from San Francisco . Just then Scott calls needing to see Kirk immediately.

Dead in the water

Scotty reports a new problem, informing Kirk and Spock the Klingon dilithium crystals have been drained by the time travel and are de-crystallizing. Unfortunately, even in the 23rd century, re-crystallization is not possible and Scott gives them 24 hours before they lose all power and become visible – and dead in the water. Spock theorizes that because of the use of nuclear fission reactors in this time period, they could construct a device to collect some high-energy radioactive photons safely which could then be injected into the dilithium chamber which, in theory, could cause crystalline restructure. Spock then points out that nuclear power was widely used on Naval vessels.

Mission briefing

From his seat at the Bounty 's helm, Sulu recognizes San Francisco and tells everyone he was born there. McCoy remarks that it really doesn't look all that different from the San Francisco of their time. Kirk instructs Sulu to set the ship down in Golden Gate Park . He then assigns everyone to teams, Uhura and Chekov will take care of the photon collection. McCoy, Sulu, and Scott are assigned to find materials to construct a whale tank aboard the ship; and Spock and Kirk are to attempt to find the two humpback whales they detected in San Francisco. Kirk then tells everyone to be very careful as most of the local customs will doubtless be surprising to the time travelers. Everyone then looks at Spock and Kirk says " It's a foregone conclusion none of these people have ever seen an extraterrestrial before. " With that, Spock tears a piece of fabric from his robe and wraps it around his head like a headband which covers his eyebrows and ears. Kirk calls late 20th century culture extremely primitive and paranoid. Chekov is to issue everyone a phaser and communicator but the crew is to maintain radio silence except in emergencies, and anyone in uniform should remove their rank insignia. Kirk firmly tells everyone that they should do their job and get out of there as their own world is waiting for them to save it, if they can.

The Bounty lands in Golden Gate Park , accidentally crushing a trash can (as well as indenting the surrounding ground) under its invisible landing gear, and when the hatch opens, it scares two sanitation workers, who drive out of the area leaving trash behind. Oblivious to this, the Enterprise crew continues onward, Uhura gives the coordinates of the whales to Kirk who quips, " Everybody remember where we parked! "

"Well, double dumbass on you!"

In San Francisco, the crew has trouble adjusting, from watching out for traffic – to which Kirk swears back at a taxi driver – to Kirk's realization that they're going to need some money , being that Earth of then still saw it as a driving force. Kirk and Spock go to an antique shop to sell the glasses McCoy earlier gave Kirk on his last birthday . Kirk receives one hundred dollars (wondering aloud if that's a lot) and then divides it among the teams. He and Spock walk down the streets of San Francisco and Kirk wonders how they're going to find the whales. Spock finds a city map and starts to work out the coordinates on the map. Kirk sees an ad for the Cetacean Institute and the two attempt to get on a bus , only to be tossed back off because they don't have "exact change" and don't know what the term means, either.

In another part of town, McCoy, Scott, and Sulu walk the streets. McCoy wonders how they'll make the whale tank. Scott says he'd normally do it with transparent aluminum but he and Sulu both realize the material doesn't exist yet, so they'll have to make do with a 20th century equivalent. Just then they notice a mural ad on a wall for the Yellow Pages .

"Nu-cle-ar… wessels."

Elsewhere, Chekov and Uhura have also been perusing the phone book and have found the address for the Alameda Naval Base . Unfortunately, their luck in getting those directions isn't entirely successful with people (including one SFPD police officer ) completely ignoring them and a lady telling them the ships are in Alameda , which they already knew but they don't know how to get to Alameda.

Spock takes a dip

Kirk and Spock finally find a bus and, after Spock renders a punk rocker unconscious with a nerve pinch , they arrive at the Cetacean Institute and join in with a tour group which is being led by Dr. Gillian Taylor , a guide and whale lover. Taylor escorts the tour group to the Institute's pride and joy, the only two humpbacks in captivity, named George and Gracie . Kirk comments on the amazing stroke of luck in finding a male and a female humpback in a contained space, they can beam them up together and be on the way home. Spock jumps into the whale tank and performs a mind meld with one of the whales. During Spock's mind meld, he is noticed by a completely astonished Kirk and then an elderly lady in the tour group, which raises Taylor's ire and she and Kirk run back up to the tank and she confronts Spock. Spock tries to explain that he was trying to communicate. Kirk attempts to act as if he's there to help Taylor, but when Spock tells him that if they think the whales are theirs to do with as they please, then they'd be as guilty as those who caused the whales' extinction. At that point, Taylor throws both of them out, threatening to call the police as Spock was messing with her tanks and whales. Spock says the whales like her very much, but they are not " the hell "her" whales, " and when she asks if they told him that, he admits they did.

Kirk and Spock review

As they walk away, Kirk asks about Spock's mind meld. Spock says the whales are not happy with how Humans have treated their species, which Kirk finds understandable and asks if they will help. Spock says he believes he was successful in communicating the Enterprise crew's mission.

Dr. Taylor is outraged by their actions, but later tries to relax with the whales and tells them the intruders didn't mean them any harm. Just then her boss, Bob Briggs , steps up and asks how Gillian is doing and she admits she's very upset. Briggs sympathizes but points out again that they endanger the whales' lives by keeping them at the Institute and they take the same risk letting them go. He tries to calm her by reminding her that they've never been proven to be as intelligent as Humans, but Taylor doesn't buy it, angrily saying she doesn't limit her compassion for someone based on an intelligence estimate.

The nuclear wessel

Chekov and Uhura finally find the location of a nuclear vessel. Chekov begins attempting to make contact with Kirk as Uhura locates the exact coordinates of the reactor. Once Kirk is reached, Chekov reports they found the ship which pleases Kirk, and then Chekov tells Kirk "And Admiral… it is the Enterprise ." Kirk acknowledges and asks the plan. Chekov says they'll beam in that night, get the photons and beam out before anyone can ever know they were there. Kirk approves the plan and tells them to keep him informed.

"I love Italian… and so do you."

Just then Taylor approaches in her truck and agrees to give Kirk and Spock a ride back to San Francisco. Taylor asks Kirk where he's from and he says Iowa . Then asking what Spock meant about the whales' extinction, Kirk says he meant if things go as they are, the humpbacks will disappear forever, but Taylor recounts what Spock said exactly, including referring to the whales as already extinct. Kirk promises that they have nothing to do with the military teaching whales to retrieve torpedoes or "dip shit stuff" like that. Spock then blurts out the fact that Gracie is pregnant , which causes Taylor to slam on her brakes, stopping the truck in amazement because this is something nobody outside the institute knows. She demands to know how Spock knows this. Kirk says he can't say but if she gives them a chance, he'll promise they're not in the military and have no harmful intentions toward the whales. He then says that they may be able to help them in ways she can't imagine. Taylor figures she probably won't believe it either. Kirk and Spock manage to agree that she's not catching them at their best. Kirk then suggests that they all go out to dinner and discuss this further. Taylor asks if they like Italian food and Kirk and Spock banter back and forth for a moment before Kirk can get out that he loves Italian and he tells Spock he does too.

"Professor Scott" and his assistant

In the meantime, Scott and his team have managed to find a manufacturer of large plexiglass walls – Plexicorp – and he and McCoy masquerade as scientists from Edinburgh who are to tour the plant – unbeknownst to the plant's head, Dr. Nichols . Scott makes a scene, but is given a tour of the plant by Nichols and Scott, playing the role, asks if McCoy (his "assistant") can accompany. Nichols says he can and as he commandeers a forklift for them to ride on, McCoy tells Scott " Don't bury yourself in the part! "

Sulu approaches a helicopter pilot and begins speaking to him about the old Huey 204 helicopter on which the pilot is working. The pilot asks Sulu if he's flown any and Sulu says he's flown "here and there." Sulu then tells the pilot that he flew something similar during his Academy days, and the pilot recognizes that the helicopter must be old to him which Sulu admits, but says it's still interesting. He then asks if he can ask a few questions and the pilot agrees to answer them.

Altering the future or preserving history?

Meanwhile, at Plexicorp, after the tour, Scott tells Nichols that they have a very fine plant here and Nichols compliments Scott's impressive knowledge of engineering skill. Scott then says he sees Nichols still working with polymers . Nichols asks what else he'd be using. Scott asks how big a piece of the plexiglass need to be at the measurements they'll need for the Bounty 's cargo bay , holding the pressure of the water that will be inside. Nichols says that a six inch piece would do it. Scott then supposes he shows Nichols a way to make a wall that would do the same thing but only be one inch thick. At first Nichols thinks Scott is joking but McCoy suggest Scott make use of Nichols' computer and he obliges. Although Scott mistakes the old computer for one he can talk to, when Nichols finally tells him to just use the keyboard , Scott does so and quickly comes up with the formula for transparent aluminum. Nichols says it'd take years to work out the dynamics of the matrix, but McCoy tells him he'll be richer than he can dream. When Nichols asks what Scott wants, McCoy excuses them and they go over to the corner. McCoy tells Scott that if they give Nichols the formula, they alter the future . Scott then asks how it is they know Nichols didn't invent transparent aluminum? McCoy agrees to Scott's logic and they go off to make the deal.

Out to dinner

Kirk and Taylor bring Spock back to Golden Gate Park. She asks if Spock won't change his mind about dinner and Spock wonders if there's a problem with the one he has. Kirk says that's a little joke and then tells Spock goodbye. Taylor asks how Spock knew that Gracie is pregnant when nobody knows that. Spock says that Gracie knows she's pregnant and he'll be here in the park. Taylor asks Kirk if Spock is going to just hang out around the bushes and Kirk just shrugs and says it's his way. As Gillian and Kirk drive away, Spock is beamed back aboard the Bounty . Kirk and Taylor are at a pizza restaurant and Kirk allows Gillian to order for them. He then asks how she ended up as a cetacean biologist. She says she is just lucky and a sucker for hard luck cases, mentioning that while she'll never see the whales again after they're released, they'll be tagged with radio transmitters so they can keep track of them. She then asks why Kirk hangs around with " that ditzy guy who knows that Gracie's pregnant and calls you admiral. " Just then, Kirk's Klingon communicator beeps. He tries to ignore it, but it keeps beeping and Taylor notices, calling his communicator a pocket pager and then asks Kirk if he's a doctor. Kirk finally answers it and feigns irritation, saying he said not to call him. Scott is the one calling, he apologizes for the interruption but he thought Kirk would want to know he's beaming Chekov and Uhura in now. Kirk says to tell them to set their phasers on stun and wishes them good luck. He then kills the transmission. Taylor asks for an explanation, Kirk asks when the whales are leaving. Gillian asks who he is, he asks who she thinks he is. Taylor then speculates he's from outer space. Kirk reiterates he's from Iowa, but that he works in outer space. Taylor says she was sure outer space would play a role sooner or later. Kirk then decides to tell her the truth to try and gain Taylor's cooperation in getting the whales. Kirk reveals that he is, by her calendar, from the late 23rd century and he's come back in time to bring two humpback whales with him so they can repopulate the species in his century. Taylor is enthusiastic about getting the details (while not believing a word of it). Kirk asks again when the whales are leaving. Taylor decides to go ahead and tell Kirk that Gracie is indeed very pregnant and that at noon the next day, the whales will be shipped out. At that point, Kirk jumps up and tells Taylor they have to leave just as the pizza arrives. Gillian asks if they can have it to go and then asks Kirk if they use money in the 23rd century and Kirk confirms they don't.

Sneaking aboard

At the same time, aboard the Enterprise , Chekov and Uhura hide briefly from a guard and his dog. They then finish their way to the reactor and Chekov attaches the collector to the reactor. When Uhura asks how long this is going to take, Chekov says it will depend on how much shielding there is between them and the actual reactor.

Back at Golden Gate Park, Taylor tells Kirk that was the briefest dinner she's ever had and the makes it clear she doesn't believe Kirk's story at all. Kirk asks what the whale's radio transmitter's frequency is, but Taylor refuses to tell him, citing that it's classified information. Kirk then tells Taylor that he is here to take two humpbacks to the 23rd century and if he has to do so, he will go to the open sea to get them but he'd much rather have hers as it'd be better for him, for Taylor, and for the whales. Gillian once again implores Kirk to tell her who he really is, but he ignores the question and asks her to think about this but not to take too much time and if Gillian changes her mind about helping them, he'll be right there in the park. As Taylor drives off, Kirk walks toward where the Bounty is parked and Taylor hears the transporter beam taking Kirk aboard and sees the light in the corner of her eye. She looks back and sees Kirk gone and drives on, puzzled.

Aboard the Bounty , Kirk asks for an update. Spock says the tank will be finished by morning and there has been no word yet from Chekov and Uhura since beam-in. Kirk grows frustrated that they are so close with two whales that will work great for them if they don't let them slip from their grasp. Spock says there is a possibility then their mission will fail. Kirk reminds Spock he's talking about the future of everyone on Earth and as he walks away angrily ask Spock that as he's half-Human does he not have any feelings about that? McCoy and Scott look at Spock but he does not answer and simply stands there contemplating Kirk's words.

Wrong place, wrong time

Chekov and Uhura continue to collect the photons. On the Enterprise bridge, their attempts have been noticed in the form of a power drain evidently coming from somewhere aboard and the Enterprise crew begins investigating. Meanwhile, in the reactor area, Chekov and Uhura have gained enough photons and Uhura calls for transport but the signal is very weak. At that same time, the Enterprise crew confirms the power drain and the duty officer calls the commanding officer and reports intruders aboard. Uhura finally makes contact with Scott but as power is down to minimum, he'll have to transport them out one at a time. Chekov sends Uhura first with the collector. Uhura transports out safely with the collector, but due to radiation, Chekov's beam-out fails, and as soldiers converge on the reactor area, Chekov continues to try to contact Scott but his signal fails and he is discovered and taken prisoner. Chekov is held for interrogation. Chekov kept his Starfleet ID with him which is discovered by the investigator. He asks Chekov why he is on the Enterprise and what the communicator and phaser are for. Chekov simply reiterates the truth about being a commander in Starfleet and gives his rank and serial number. The investigator and his aide see that he's obviously Russian but the main investigator says about Chekov " …of course he's a Russkie, but he's a retard or something! " While they're distracted, Chekov picks up the phaser and tries to hold the investigators saying if they don't lie on the floor he'll have to stun them. The investigator tells him to go ahead and do so. Chekov apologizes and tries, but the radiation has disabled his phaser. He attempts to escape captivity but just before he can get off the Enterprise , he falls off a ledge landing in the ships elevator shafts and is injured. The Marines who were chasing Chekov call for a corpsman.

On the Bounty Uhura is desperately searching for any sign of Chekov. Kirk comes on the bridge and asks if she's found anything and Uhura says she should never have left Chekov behind, but Kirk tells her to keep looking and that she did what was necessary. He then contacts Scott and asks for a progress report on the recrystallization. Scott says it'll be well into the next day but Kirk says that's not going to be good enough and he needs to speed it up. Scott acknowledges and mutters to Spock how Kirk is in "a wee bit of a snit." Spock agrees and offers that Kirk is a man of deep feelings and Scott wonders what else is new.

That same day, Taylor arrives at the Institute and lets herself in. She then heads back to the aquarium where she is shocked to see the whales gone. She runs back inside, horrified, only to be intercepted by Briggs who tells her that to avoid a mob scene with the press they were taken away the night before and they felt it would be easier for her. In tears and anger, Taylor slaps Briggs hard across the face and calls him " You son of a bitch! " before storming out of the Institute, getting back in her truck and speeding back to the park in hopes of finding Kirk.

Desperately seeking Kirk

" Hello Alice. Welcome to Wonderland. "

Sulu meanwhile, has the helicopter he was speaking to the pilot about earlier and is using it to transport the large pieces of plexiglass to Golden Gate Park to be installed aboard the Bounty . Just then, Taylor arrives in the park and begins yelling for Kirk, when she sees the helicopter lower itself down and then she sees a man seemingly appear waist up out of thin air. After being stunned for a brief moment, Taylor begins running toward that spot still screaming for Kirk when she bumps into something invisible. She stands and feels along the cloaked Bounty 's landing gear, screaming for Kirk still and saying she needs his help as the whales are gone. Scott notices her and yells down at Kirk that they have a problem. Kirk sees Taylor screaming for him on a monitor and then transports her aboard. When Taylor materializes in the transporter chamber Kirk tells her " Hello Alice , welcome to Wonderland . " Taylor is amazed then that what Kirk had told her before was true. Kirk shows her the whale tank and she tells him that the whales were taken the night before without her knowledge. She says that while they're in Alaska by this point, they're tagged, as she said, so they can track them. Kirk says that they can't go anywhere just yet. When Taylor wonders what kind of a ship this is, Kirk says it's a ship with a missing man. Just then Spock appears to tell Kirk full power has been restored. He then greets Gillian and welcomes her aboard and Taylor can only nod back at Spock, seeing him without the headband for the first time and his ears and eyebrows are exposed to her. Just then an upset Uhura calls Kirk and says she's found Chekov in Mercy Hospital . Chekov is going into emergency surgery and he is not expected to survive. McCoy comes up and tells Kirk he's got to be able to go to the hospital and begs Kirk not to leave Chekov in the hands of 20th century medicine. Spock comes up and tells Kirk he believes McCoy to be correct and they must help Chekov. Upon questioning from Kirk, Spock concedes that it is not the logical thing to do, but it is the Human thing to do. Kirk asks if Gillian can help them. She asks how and McCoy says they'll have to look like physicians.

Unexpected guests

In the hospital, McCoy, Kirk, and Dr. Taylor begin their search for Chekov. While McCoy walks down a hall he passes by an elderly woman who is in serious pain. He stops and asks what's wrong with her and she says it's kidney dialysis . McCoy mutters to himself about this being the Dark Ages . He reaches into his bag, gives the woman a pill and tells her to swallow it and if there's any problem for her to call him, then very kindly touches her face. She takes the pill and he walks away. Kirk and Taylor finally locate Chekov and after meeting up with McCoy, the three grab a stretcher, put Gillian on it, cover her up, and run for the elevator. They reach the next floor and when they try to go into the operating room where Chekov is in, they're stopped by hospital security. Taylor screams as if in pain and McCoy tells the police guards that the woman has " Immediate postprandial upper abdominal distention! " The guards let them in, Kirk asks McCoy what he said she had and he says cramps. Just then, McCoy steps up to the operating table before the attending surgeon can start drilling on Chekov's head. The surgeon demands to know who they are and then what sort of device McCoy is using. McCoy diagnoses Chekov's problem as tearing of the middle meningeal artery. The surgeon asks if McCoy's degree is in dentistry. McCoy gets angry and asks how the surgeon would explain a slow respiratory rate and pulse with coma and he says fundoscopic examination , which McCoy argues is useless in this case. The surgeon says the pressure can be relieved by a simple evacuation of the expanding epidural hematoma. McCoy passionately tells the surgeon that the artery must be repaired and you can't do that by drilling holes into the patient's head. He then asks the surgeon to " put away [his] butcher knives, " and let him save Chekov before it is too late. The surgeon threatens to have the new arrivals removed, but Kirk takes his phaser out and moves the surgeon and the nurses into a small room where he melts the lock. McCoy heals Chekov's injury with a cortical stimulator . When Chekov comes to, Kirk asks him his name and rank. Chekov recites his name and gives his rank after looking at Kirk as admiral.

McCoy, Kirk, and Taylor come out with Chekov on the stretcher. The guards ask how the patient is doing and Kirk says he'll make it. But the guards realize they came in with a woman, to which Kirk simply mutters " One little mistake! " The guards run in, see the surgeon and others are trapped, and are informed the patient has escaped.

"Surprise!"

Realizing their cover has been blown, the three start running the gurney down the hospital corridors with the police guards after them. They run around several corners and pass the elderly woman to whom McCoy gave the pill, who is happily telling everyone that a doctor gave her a pill and she grew a new kidney, which has all the hospital doctors and nurses stunned. They continue running and when Chekov tries to look up, Kirk puts his head back down on the gurney. They finally run into an elevator and the police officers run down the stairs intending to catch them at the next level but the four have disappeared from the hospital and have been beamed to safety while the elevator was in motion. When Kirk asks where the whales might be, Gillian says she can show them if there's a chart on board. But all Kirk wants is the radio frequency. Taylor wants to go with Kirk but Kirk says their next stop is the 23rd century but Taylor, saying she has no one there, insists on helping the whales but Kirk won't hear of it. He then asks her again for the radio frequency and Taylor tells Kirk it's 401 megahertz . Kirk thanks her for everything and then orders himself beamed up but Taylor jumps into his arms just as he's being beamed aboard.

On a whale hunt of their own

On the Bounty , Kirk and Taylor come on the bridge just as Scott calls Spock to tell him that he's ready. Sulu is taking a few moments to readjust to the Bounty 's helm console as he got used to the Huey. Kirk accuses Taylor of tricking him but Taylor says Kirk will need her. He tells Taylor to sit down and orders Sulu and Chekov to take off. The Bounty , still cloaked, lifts off from Golden Gate Park just as a couple of joggers are running by and they get blown over by the dust and wind. The Bounty lifts up into the skies above San Francisco and head toward Alaska. As power settles in and stabilizes, Kirk orders Uhura to start scanning for the whales on the frequency Gillian gave him. When they reach the proper altitude, Kirk orders full impulse power which Sulu estimates should get them to the Bering Sea in twelve minutes. Scotty reports the whale tanks are secured but this will be the first time he's ever beamed up four hundred tons before. When Kirk asks why it's that much, Scotty reminds Kirk they're having to beam aboard not just the whales, but the water around them as well. Kirk then checks with Uhura but the whales haven't been located yet.

The Bounty over the whalers

At that same time, McCoy checks on Spock who appears to be concerned. Spock says that he has tried to use the calculations he used to get them to the 20th century as a reference when calculating to return to the exact moment they left the 23rd unfortunately there are some issues with the calculations that just aren't working out. McCoy says Spock will have to take his best guess. Spock says guessing isn't in his nature and McCoy says that no one is perfect. Just then, Taylor recognizes the whales' signal and Uhura confirms. She detects another signal, which is determined to be a whaling ship. Kirk orders the Bounty into a full power descent and they arrive over the whales just in time to prevent the whaler's harpoon from hitting one of them. When the harpoon bounces off seemingly nothing the whalers are confused. Then the Bounty decloaks over the whaling ship causing the whalers to panic and turn away from the whales in terror. Scotty asks for ten seconds to redirect power from all over the ship to the transporter. Scotty then beams the whales and the surrounding water into the whale tank. The tank creaks, but holds the whales and water securely. Scotty tells Kirk they have full power and as the Bounty leaves Earth behind and enters warp, Kirk takes Taylor to see the whales. But first, he stops and asks Spock about his time calculations and because Scotty couldn't give Spock exact figures he will have to make a guess. This statement surprises Kirk, who calls it extraordinary. When he and Gillian leave, Spock thinks Kirk is confused but McCoy tells him that means Kirk feels better about Spock's guesses than he would most anyone else's facts. Spock then understands it as a compliment and endeavors to make the best guess he can.

"There be whales here!"

At the whale tank, Kirk quotes a line from "Whales Weep Not," which Taylor recognizes. Kirk then notes the irony of how in the past when men were killing the whales, they were destroying their own future. Scotty notes the whales seem happy to see Gillian and hopes she likes the tank. She calls it a miracle but Scotty says that's still to come and Kirk explains that their chances of getting home aren't great and she might have been better off staying where she belonged. Taylor says she belongs with the whales as she is a whale biologist. And suppose they do make it to the 23rd century, who there knows anything about humpback whales? Kirk admits her point there. Just then the ship shudders and Scotty reports a power fall-off. Kirk tells Gillian to stay with the whales and heads to the bridge.

Altering the trajectory

The ship is at high warp approaching the sun and Scott reports that warp 7.9 is the best he can do. Spock reports that not only can they not make breakaway speed, they might not even escape the sun's gravity so he shall try to compensate by altering their trajectory. Spock then requests thruster control which Kirk grants. At the right moment, Spock orders the thrusters fired and the Bounty again disappears behind the Sun.

Abandoning ship

Everyone wakes up again and Kirk asks if the thrusters fired. Spock reports they did and Kirk wonders where they are. Just then, he hears the drone of the probe as the Bounty begins to lose power. As the ship's systems shut down, the Bounty plunges through the Earth's atmosphere and when McCoy wonders where they might be Kirk can only tell him " Out of control and blind as a bat. " At Starfleet Command, the original transmission from Kirk to Starfleet fades. Cartwright calls for it to be restored just as the window shatters as it did before. This time Sarek points at something which is revealed to be the Bounty , and Cartwright notes it's heading right for the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bounty sails under the bridge and crash lands in San Francisco Bay . Kirk orders the hatch blown . He looks outside, sees it's the right place and now the task at hand is to get the whales out before the Bounty sinks. Kirk orders everyone to abandon ship. When he can't reach Scott, Kirk runs toward engineering after telling Spock to ensure the safety of everyone else. Kirk runs down toward the whale tank and manages to force the door open, and pulls Scott and Taylor out of the tank area which is almost completely submerged. Taylor notes the whales are trapped and if they're not freed, they'll drown. Scott says the bay doors have no power and that the explosive override is underwater. Kirk sends them out through the bridge hatch and he swims underwater to the explosive override and pulls it open, knocking the hull of the Bounty open and allowing Kirk and the whales to swim out of the ship. Kirk reaches the surface just in time and is pulled up to safety by Spock and Taylor. After a few moments the whales are seen swimming. Meanwhile, the probe keeps calling for the whales and everyone at Starfleet just watches and waits as the power completely fails.

Whale songs

Having oriented himself pointing straight downward, George begins to sing back to the probe, to which it also orients itself downward to a vertical position before replying. After a few minutes of communication with the whales the probe deactivates its scanner and the weather on Earth begins to calm. Power begins to be restored all around the planet and as the probe leaves the way it came, it passes Spacedock and power is restored aboard the station. As the skies clear over Earth, the Enterprise crew and Gillian celebrate at the Bounty 's crash site.

Vulcan overboard

Kirk pulls Taylor in the water and everyone else except Spock jumps in. Kirk gets up on the ship and manages to toss Spock in, going with him as well. The crew celebrates the end of the crisis in the water as a Starfleet shuttle heads toward them to pick them up. Having saved the Earth, George and Gracie head towards the Golden Gate Bridge for open water to explore the new world they've entered, free from the threat of Human hunters.

Standing trial

However, Kirk and crew still have to face court martial. In the Federation Council Chambers, the President calls the trial to order. Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura are brought in from where they were being held, only to be joined by Spock, who was sitting in the Council with his father. The president reminds Spock that he does not stand accused, but Spock intends to stand with his shipmates and the president accepts. He then lists the charges and specifications against the Enterprise crew: conspiracy (which is directed at Bones), assault on Federation officers (which is directed at all of them), theft of Federation property (the starship Enterprise ) (which is directed at Kirk, Scotty, Bones, Sulu, and Chekov), sabotage of the USS Excelsior (which is directed at Scotty), willful destruction of Federation property (again, the USS Enterprise ) (which is directed at Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov), and disobeying direct orders of the Starfleet commander (which is directed at Kirk). The president asks Kirk for his plea, and on behalf of all the officers, Kirk announces he is authorized to plead guilty. The president then says that because of "certain mitigating circumstances," though, all charges are dropped, except for one, and that charge: disobeying a superior officer, is directed solely at Admiral Kirk. The president asks Kirk if he recognizes the need for keeping discipline in any chain of command and Kirk tells the president he does. The president announces that Kirk's punishment is that he will be reduced in rank to captain, and as a consequence of that rank, he is given the duty for which he has demonstrated unswerving ability: the command of a starship. The council chamber begins to cheer until the President silences them and he then tells Kirk that he and his crew have saved Earth from its own short-sightedness and the people of Earth are forever in their debt. At that point, the council chambers breaks into cheering and applause, with people coming down to congratulate the Enterprise crew.

"See ya around the galaxy."

Kirk sees Taylor and she says how happy she is for him and thanks Kirk before starting to leave. Kirk stops her and asks where she's going. Taylor says since she's got three hundred years of catchup learning to do, she's going on board a science vessel. Kirk asks if this means goodbye, especially as one might say back in the 20th century, he doesn't even have Gillian's telephone number and asks how he'll find her. Taylor says she'll find him and kisses him goodbye. " See you around the galaxy, " she says just before departing.

Father and son

Meanwhile Spock has caught up with Sarek and as his father is planning to return to Vulcan, he wants to take his leave of Spock. Spock thanks Sarek for the effort he put out for them, Sarek says there was no effort as Spock is his son and in any case, he was very impressed with Spock's performance during the crisis. Sarek then recalls how he initially opposed Spock's entrance into Starfleet, saying that his judgment may have been incorrect. Sarek says that Spock's associates are people of good character. Spock tells Sarek they are his friends. Sarek accepts that and then asks if Spock has a message for his mother. Spock says he does, and to tell Amanda that he feels fine. He raises his hand in the Vulcan salute and tells his father to " Live long and prosper, " and Sarek reciprocates. Then Spock turns from Sarek, who starts to leave Council chambers en route to Vulcan, and Spock rejoins Kirk and they walk out of the chambers themselves.

"My friends…we've come home."

Flying through spacedock in a travel pod , following an orbit shuttle leading them, the crew heads toward their new assignment. McCoy, saying the bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe, expects they will get a freighter, while Sulu hopes for Excelsior . When Scott asks why Sulu would want "that bucket of bolts " Kirk simply tells Scott that " A ship is a ship ," to which Scott begrudgingly agrees.

" Let's see what she's got. "

From the forward window, the crew notes the Excelsior come into view, but, rather than docking with it, the travel pod continues over it revealing their true destination – a Constitution II -class starship, USS Enterprise , with the primary hull proudly displaying its Starfleet registry : NCC-1701-A. The crew beams as Kirk joyfully announces " My friends… we've come home. " As the new Enterprise departs the Spacedock, the crew takes up their familiar positions on the bridge. With eager anticipation, Sulu informs the captain that the helm is ready. As Kirk takes the center seat, he gives the order: " Let's see what she's got! " With a flash, the Enterprise engages her warp drive, ready to once again boldly go where no man has gone before.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Behold the quintessential devil in these matters! James T. Kirk, renegade and terrorist! Not only is he responsible for the murder of a Klingon crew, or the theft of a Klingon vessel! See now the real plot and intentions. Even as this Federation was negotiating a peace treaty with us, Kirk was secretly developing the Genesis torpedo, conceived by Kirk's son and test-detonated by the Admiral himself! And the result of this awesome energy was euphemistically called the Genesis planet, a secret base from which to launch the annihilation of the Klingon people!! "

" We demand the extradition of Kirk! We demand justice! " " Klingon justice is a unique point of view, Mr. President. Genesis was perfectly named the creation of life, not death. The Klingons shed the first blood while attempting to possess its secrets. " " Vulcans are well known as the intellectual puppets of this Federation! "

" Your vessel did destroy USS Grissom . Your men did kill Kirk's son . Do you deny these events? " " We deny nothing. We have the right to preserve our race! " " Do you have the right to commit murder? "

" Mr. Ambassador, with all respect, the Council's deliberations are over. " " Then Kirk goes unpunished? " " Admiral Kirk has been charged with nine violations of Starfleet regulations. " " Starfleet regulations?! That's outrageous!! Remember this well. There shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives! "

"You pompous ass!"

" You'd think they could at least send us a ship. It's bad enough to be court-martialed and to have to spend the rest of our lives mining borite, but to have to go home in this Klingon flea trap? " " We could learn a thing or two about this flea trap. It's got a cloaking device that cost us a lot. " " I just wish we could cloak the stench! "

" Emergency channel 0130. Code red. It has been three hours since our contact with the alien probe. All attempts at regaining power have failed. " " It's using forms of energy we do not understand. " " Can you protect us? " " We are launching everything we have. " " Our systems engineers are trying to deploy a makeshift solar-sail. We have high hopes that this will, if successful, generate power to keep us alive. "

" Cloaking device now available on all flight modes. " " I'm impressed! That's a lot of work for a short voyage. " " We are in an enemy wessel, sir. I did not wish to be shot down on the way to our own funeral. " " Good thinking. "

" …and Admiral, I have replaced the Klingon food packs. They were giving me a sour stomach. " " Oh, is that what that was? "

" Saavik… this is goodbye. Thank you. " " Sir, I have not had the opportunity to tell you about your son. David died most bravely. He saved Spock. He saved us all. I thought you should know. " (to Spock) " Good day, Captain Spock. May your journey be free of incident. " " Live long and prosper, Lieutenant. "

" I don't know if you've got the whole picture, but he isn't exactly working on all thrusters. " " It'll come back to him. "

" I may have carried your soul but I sure couldn't fill your shoes. " " My shoes? " " ...Forget it. "

" Come on, Spock. It's me, McCoy! You really have gone where no man has gone before! "

" You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death? " " Forgive me, Doctor. I am receiving a number of distress calls. " " I don't doubt it! "

" There are other forms of intelligence on Earth, Doctor. Only Human arrogance would assume the message must be meant for man. "

" Are you planning to take a swim? " " Off the deep end, Mister Scott. "

" You're proposing that we go back in time, find humpback whales, then bring them forward in time, drop 'em off, and hope to hell they tell this probe what to go do with itself?! " " That's the general idea. " " Well, that's crazy! " " Got a better idea? Now's the time. "

" Angels and ministers of grace, defend us. "

" May fortune favor the foolish. "

" Did you see that? " " No, and neither did you, so shut up! "

" Everybody remember where we parked! "

" Why don't you watch where you're going, you dumb-ass! " " Well, a double dumb-ass on you! "

" It's a miracle these people ever got out of the twentieth century. "

" The rest of you, break up. You look like a cadet review. "

" Weren't those a present from Doctor McCoy? " " And they will be again. That's the beauty of it. "

" I'll give you one hundred dollars. " " Is that a lot? "

" What does it mean, exact change? "

" Excuse me, sir. Can you direct me to the naval base in Alameda? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels . " (no response) " Nu-cle-ar wes-sels. "

" Ooh, I don't know if I know the answer to that. I think it's across the bay. In Alameda." " That's what I said, Alameda. I know that. " " But where is Alameda!? "

" Excuse me! Excuse me! Would you mind stopping that noise? (punk rocker turns up boombox louder) EXCUSE ME! WOULD YOU MIND STOPPING THAT DAMN NOISE?! (punk rocker flips Kirk off) "

" Your use of language has altered since we arrived, Admiral. It is currently laced with... shall we say, more colorful metaphors." " You mean the profanity. " " Yes. " " Well, that's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the period. " " Such as? " " The collective works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins. " " Ah. The giants. "

" To hunt a species to extinction is not logical. " " Whoever said the Human race was logical? "

" They like you very much, but they are not the hell your whales. " " I … I suppose they told you that, huh? " " The hell they did. " " Right. "

" If we play our cards right, we may be able to find out when those whales are leaving. " " How will playing cards help? "

" Very little point in my trying to explain. " " Yeah, I'll buy that. What about him? " " Him? He's harmless. Back in the sixties he was part of the free speech movement at Berkeley. I think he had a little too much LDS . " " LDS? "

" I have a photographic memory. I see words. "

" Are you sure it isn't the time for a colorful metaphor? "

" You're aren't one of those guys from the military, are you, trying to teach whales to retrieve torpedoes, or some dipshit stuff like that? " " No, ma'am. No dipshit. "

" Gracie is pregnant. " (Gillian suddenly stops her truck) " Alright, who are you, and don't jerk me around anymore. I wanna know how you know that? "

" You're not exactly catching us at our best. " " That much is certain. "

" I love Italian. " (Kirk looks at Spock) " And so do you. " " Yes. "

" I find it hard to believe that I've come millions of miles! " " Thousands! Thousands! " " Thousands of miles on an invited tour of inspection! "

" Don't bury yourself in the part! "

" Hello, computer. "

" NOT NOW, MADELINE!!! "

" You realize, of course, if we give him the formula, we're altering the future. " " Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing? "

" Are you sure you won't change your mind? " " Is there something wrong with the one I have? "

" Wait a minute! How did you know Gracie's pregnant? Nobody knows that. " " Gracie does. "

" Don't tell me. You're from outer space. " " No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space. "

" Okay, the truth. I am from, what on your calendar, would be the 23rd Century. I have come back in time to retrieve a pair of humpback whales in an attempt to... repopulate the species. " " Well, why didn't you just say so? Why all the coy disguises? "

" You play games with me, mister, and you're through! " " I am? May I go now? "

" All right, make nice. Give us the ray gun. " " I warn you, I will have to stun you. " " Go ahead. Stun me. " " I'm very sorry, but... " (Chekov uses the phaser but it doesn't work, making only a weak noise) " Must be the radiation. "

" They left last night. We didn't want a mob scene with the press; it wouldn't have been good for them. Besides, I thought it would be easier on you this way. " " You sent them away without even letting me say goodbye?! You son of a bitch!! " (slaps him hard)

" Hello, Alice. Welcome to Wonderland. "

" Is that the logical thing to do, Spock? " " No, but it is the Human thing to do. "

" Well, what's wrong with you? " " Kidney dialysis. " " "Dialysis"? What is this, the Dark Ages? (McCoy gives her a pill out of his bag) Now you swallow that. And if you have any more problems, just call me. "

" This woman has immediate post-prandial upper abdominal distension! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! " " What did you say she's got? " " Cramps. "

" Tearing of the middle meningeal artery. " " What's your degree in, dentistry? " " How do you explain slowing pulse, low respiratory rate and coma? " " Fundoscopic examination... " " Fundoscopic examination is unrevealing in these cases! " " A simple evacuation of the expanding epidural hematoma will relieve the pressure. " " Good God, man! Drilling holes in his head's not the answer! The artery must be repaired! Now put away your butcher knives and let me save this patient before it's too late!"

" We're dealing with medievalism here! Chemotherapy! Fundoscopic examinations! "

" Pavel, talk to me. Name! Rank! " " Chekov, Pavel. Rank, admiral! "

" He's gonna make it! " " He? You went in with a she! " " One little mistake. "

" Doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney! The doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney! "

" Where would the whales be by now? " " At sea. If you have a chart on board, I'll show you. " " No, no, no. All I need is the radio frequency to track them. " " What are you talking about? I'm coming with you. " " You can't. Our next stop is the twenty-third century. " " Well, I don't care! I've got nobody here. I have got to help those whales!! " " I have no time to argue with you, or even tell you how much you've meant to us. The radio frequency, please. " " The frequency's 401 megahertz. " " Thank you, for everything. Scotty, beam me up! " " Surprise! "

" Spock, where the hell's that power you promised? " " One damn minute, Admiral! "

" Guessing is not in my nature, Doctor. " " Well, nobody's perfect. "

" Admiral! There be whales here! "

" He means that he feels safer about your guesses than most other people's facts. "

" They say the sea is cold but the sea contains the hottest blood of all. "

" My God, Jim. Where are we? " Out of control and blind as a bat."

" Captain Spock, you do not stand accused. " " Mr. President, I stand with my shipmates. "

" The charges and specifications are: conspiracy, assault on Federation officers, theft of Federation property, namely the starship Enterprise , sabotage of the USS Excelsior , willful destruction of Federation property, specifically the aforementioned USS Enterprise , and finally, disobeying the direct orders of the Starfleet Commander. Admiral Kirk, how do you plead? " " On behalf of all of us, Mr. President, I'm authorized to plead guilty. " " So entered. Because of certain mitigating circumstances, all charges but one are summarily dismissed. The remaining charge, disobeying the orders of a superior officer, is directed solely at Admiral Kirk. "

" James T. Kirk, it is the judgment of this council that you be reduced in rank to Captain, and that as a consequence of your new rank, you be given the responsibility for which you have repeatedly demonstrated unswerving ability: the command of a starship. "

" I'm so happy for you I can't tell you! Thank you so much. " " Wait a minute! Where are you going? " " You're going to your ship, I'm going to mine. Science vessel. I've got 300 years of catch-up learning to do. " " You mean, this is goodbye? " " Why does it have to be goodbye? " " Well... like they say in your century, I don't even have your telephone number. (they laugh) How will I find you? " " Don't worry. I'll find you. (kisses Kirk) See you around the galaxy. "

" I am returning to Vulcan within the hour. I would like to take my leave of you. " " It was most kind of you to make this effort. " " It was no effort. You are my son. Besides, I am most impressed with your performance in this crisis. " " Most kind. " " As I recall, I opposed your enlistment in Starfleet. It is possible that judgment was incorrect. Your associates are people of good character. " " They are my friends. " " Yes, of course. Do you have a message for your mother? " " Yes. Tell her... I feel fine. "

" The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. We'll get a freighter. " " With all due respect, Doctor, I'm counting on Excelsior . " "Excelsior? Why in God's name would you want that bucket of bolts? " A ship is a ship, Mr. Scott. " " Whatever you say, Sir. Thy will be done. "

" My friends. We've come home. "

" All right, Mr. Sulu, let's see what she's got. "

Background information [ ]

The dedication displayed at the beginning of the film

Australian poster for The Voyage Home

• The film is dedicated " to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger ", which exploded shortly after liftoff on 28 January 1986 , almost ten months before the release of Star Trek IV .
• Prior to the release of the 2009 film Star Trek (which as of October, 2009, grossed over $384.9 million), The Voyage Home was the highest-grossing Star Trek film, making $109.7 million in the United States. Due to the success of this film, Paramount decided to make the second Star Trek TV series a reality (after the unsuccessful attempt of Star Trek: Phase II ). That series eventually became Star Trek: The Next Generation , which premiered the next fall. The first US VHS tape release of the movie contained a small promo clip for The Next Generation , briefly introducing the new Enterprise and characters.
• Outside of North America, the film's title was changed to The Voyage Home: Star Trek IV (see UK trailer below), and references to the Star Trek brand were consciously avoided. This was done largely because Star Trek III: The Search for Spock had suffered badly from competition with Ghostbusters outside of North America and only grossed just over ten million dollars. A special prologue (see Trivia section below), in the form of a captain's log was created to detail the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock to aid newcomers, narrated by William Shatner himself. [1] (X) While the tactic was somewhat successful, the rest-of-the-world gross of around $24 million was still less than a fifth of the film's overall total, and so Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was marketed as normal worldwide ( Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was not theatrically released in most countries). Although the early VHS releases also carried the inverted title, when the film was eventually released on DVD, its title reverted to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home worldwide.
• The Voyage Home was released in the United Kingdom on 10 April 1987 . It launched at the top of the box office and stayed there for two weeks. It earned £2,697,776 overall. [2]
• The Voyage Home is ranked #2 out of the #11 Star Trek-based films according to Box Office Mojo, not adjusting for inflation, which makes it the most successful film until the 2009's Star Trek . [3]

Creation and production [ ]

• This film marked the start of Michael Okuda 's nineteen year relationship with the Star Trek franchise, both movies and television. For this film, he designed the computer displays as well as introducing the "touch screen" computer consoles, seen in the rest of the Star Trek films and television shows (except for Star Trek: Enterprise ).
• According to several issues of the DC Star Trek comics letters page, the film was originally scheduled for release in the summer of 1986, but was delayed due to William Shatner still filming episodes of TJ Hooker and they had to wait until its shooting season was completed before Shatner could join the project.
• The letters page of at least one issue (26) of the DC Star Trek comic also refers to the film by its apparent working title, Star Trek IV: The Adventure Continues .
• The character of Dr. Taylor was originally a male character who was a wacky college professor who was a " UFO nut," and, for added humor to the lighthearted script, actor Eddie Murphy was offered the role. Mike Okuda 's DVD text commentary, as well as William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories , indicate that Murphy, as a fan of Star Trek, had approached Nimoy and Bennett about a role in the film, but later he decided to appear in The Golden Child instead (a decision he admits later was a big mistake), and Catherine Hicks won the rewritten and revised role. Nicholas Meyer later stated that when he came in to write the 20th century section of the film, he realized the earlier drafts were written with Murphy in mind.
• An early draft of the script had Sulu meeting a young child on the streets of San Francisco who was his distant ancestor . According to William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories , the scene was an idea pitched to Harve Bennett by George Takei, who was delighted when he discovered the scene was to be shot. However, when it came time to film the scene, the child they hired to play the role of Sulu's great-great-great grandfather was not a professional actor, and his mother was on set, causing the child to be extremely nervous. Consequently, they couldn't get anything done with the boy and eventually they had to move on. The scene was scrapped, much to the heartbreak of Takei. The scene survives in Vonda McIntyre 's novelization . In the novel, while Sulu, McCoy and Scotty are walking the streets of San Francisco, a young Japanese boy walks up to Sulu, thinking him a relative and begins speaking to Sulu in Japanese and Sulu would find out the boy's name was Akira Sulu. After the boy leaves, McCoy asks who that was and Sulu tells him that the boy was in fact, his great-great-great grandfather.
• Early drafts of the script had Saavik remaining on Vulcan due to her being pregnant with Spock's child, following the events of the previous movie when young Spock went through pon farr as he aged rapidly, implying that he had sex with Saavik on the Genesis Planet .
• The scene where Kirk says "LDS" instead of "LSD" originally called for Gillian Taylor to ask if he was dyslexic on top of everything else.
• Most of the shots of the humpback whales were taken using four-foot long animatronics models. Four such models were created, and were so realistic that after release of the film, US fishing authorities publicly criticized the film makers for getting too close to whales in the wild. The filmmakers reportedly said that they enjoyed telling those same authorities that except for the live shots toward the end of the film, the whale scenes weren't real. The scenes involving these whales were shot in a swimming pool in a Los Angeles area high school. A large animatronic tail was also created, for the scene on the sinking Bird-of-Prey, filmed on the Paramount car park, which was flooded for the shoot. The same spot was previously seen as a part of planet Vulcan in Star Trek: The Motion Picture . The shot of the whales swimming past the Golden Gate Bridge was filmed on location, and nearly ended in disaster when a cable got snagged on a nuclear submarine and the whales were towed out to sea.

The crew of the USS Enterprise in San Francisco, 1986

• Some of the Bird-of-Prey footage is reused from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
• A shot of the Bird-of-Prey heading to the Sun at warp speed was reused, with added disruptor fire in TNG : " Redemption II ".
• The aircraft carrier sequences were actually filmed aboard the conventionally-powered Forrestal -class carrier USS Ranger (CV 61) . Ranger can be distinguished from Enterprise by her longer rectangular superstructure (barely visible behind the hair of Nichelle Nichols ) and different arrangement of aircraft elevators. Enterprise was out at sea at the time and unavailable for filming. Even if available, in 1986, the engineering spaces of the nuclear carriers were deeply classified and filming a movie in them would have been impossible. All Enterprise sailors and marines were played by Ranger personnel (in certain scenes, freeze-frame reveals sailors wearing Ranger ball caps rather than Enterprise ones).
• Dr. Taylor orders Michelob beer over dinner, one of the few instances where an actual product is named in Star Trek . While the beer's label was never shown, another company managed to have a rare Trek moment of product placement . The computer used by Scotty at the Plexicorp factory is clearly a period-appropriate Macintosh Plus , and Apple Computer Company – as it was then known – receives a credit at the end of the film. Pacific Bell advertising is also prominently visible. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier offers one of the few other instances of product placement in the franchise's history, when Kirk, Spock and McCoy go camping wearing Levi's jeans. Another instance of this was in the opening sequence of Star Trek Generations , when a bottle of Dom Perignon was smashed on the hull of the Enterprise -B at the ship's christening. In Star Trek , a young Kirk uses an integrated Nokia mobile car phone, while Uhura is seen ordering Budweisers in an Iowa bar .
• The Voyage Home is the first Star Trek production to be directed by a member of the main cast. While Leonard Nimoy had also directed the previous film, he was not a member of the main cast, only appearing at the end.

Continuity [ ]

• This film establishes that Hikaru Sulu was born in San Francisco.
• This marks Majel Barrett 's final performance as Christine Chapel .
• The slingshot effect used by the Bounty to travel into the past was previously used in " Tomorrow is Yesterday " and " Assignment: Earth ". Kirk directly references these events when he says " We've done it before ", referring to the slingshot maneuver. In Assignment: Earth and this movie, the Enterprise travels back exactly three hundred years, a fact perhaps explained by Spock's comment that he had to program some of the variables from memory.
• The film marks the last on-screen appearance of a Starfleet commodore , seen as a non-speaking extra in the Federation Council chambers, until the Star Trek: Enterprise episode " First Flight ". It remained the chronologically-latest sighting of the rank in-universe prior to the appearance of Commodore Oh in Star Trek: Picard .
• The city of San Francisco would be visited by time-traveling Star Trek characters again, in the episodes TNG : " Time's Arrow " and TNG : " Time's Arrow, Part II ", and DS9 : " Past Tense, Part I " and DS9 : " Past Tense, Part II ".
• Brock Peters, who plays Admiral Cartwright in this film (and later in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ), also played the father of Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .
• This film establishes that Kirk is from Iowa. However, Kirk doesn't specifically say he was born in Iowa but was from there. According to Roberto Orci , one of the writers of Star Trek , the USS Kelvin was headed to Earth where James T. Kirk was eventually going to be born in Iowa and not on the Kelvin or Medical shuttle 37 in the alternate reality created by the Narada 's arrival in 2233 .
• During the final courtroom scene, one shot of the crew filing in has the entire main TOS cast in it: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu are entering the room, and Rand and Chapel are visible in the audience behind them. This is the only shot in the entire franchise in which all of these characters are on screen at the same time.
• A copy of the San Francisco Register seen in the film dates the 20th century part of the film to Thursday, 18 December , 1986 . This is consistent with marketing for the film, which used the phrase "Stardate: 1986". Leonard Nimoy, in an interview about the film's release on "Good Morning America" in November 1986, mentions that the crew journeys back in time "300 years to now," which strongly suggests 1986 as the destination year and, perhaps less strongly, suggests the crew's own time is 2286.
• The headlines and text in the newspaper are fictional, and can't be straightforwardly linked to real events. Notably, however, one headline mentions that a "Geneva summit [is] in doubt". This is in the context of "nuclear arms talks". Two Geneva summits have been held between the US and other nuclear powers; one in 1955 and one in 1985.
• Kirk states in his Captain's log near the opening of the film that he and his crew are in "our third month of our Vulcan exile", following the final events of Star Trek III . The date of the events of Star Trek III however are not entirely clear . Upon traveling to the 23rd century , Gillian mentions that she has "three hundred years of catch-up learning to do" after being transported to the future, though may have been casually approximating the time difference. StarTrek.com , Star Trek Chronology and Star Trek Encyclopedia , 3rd ed., p. 691 use this the line from Gillian to date the film to 2286. Memory Alpha also uses this year.
• Kirk makes a reference to the HMS Bounty mutiny having occurred five hundred years ago (from his own time). Since that event took place in 1789, it suggests his own time is 2289, though he, too, may have been casually approximating.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium , used as the setting for the Cetacean Institute . The top picture shows how the aquarium looks in real life, and the bottom is how it was adapted for the film

• The lighted table in Starfleet Command eventually became the famous "pool table" located in main engineering of the USS Enterprise -D .
• The USS Saratoga seen in early scenes was actually a slightly modified shooting model of the USS Reliant from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .
• The bridge set for the aforementioned USS Saratoga was a simple redress set of the bridge of the Grissom from Star Trek III (which itself was a redress of the Enterprise bridge from the first three films). The camera angles used for scenes aboard the Saratoga do not make clear whether modifications seen to the bridge set at the end of the film had yet been made. The shot of the Captain from the Yorktown , which sent a transmission to Starfleet HQ, was also filmed on this set.
• The Bridge of the HMS Bounty was different from its appearance in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
• This film has a sense of historical irony regarding ship names. The film depicts the USS Saratoga and mentions the USS Yorktown (which Roddenberry claimed became the Enterprise -A) while featuring the aircraft carrier Enterprise (which was actually portrayed by the real life USS Ranger ). During the period before World War II, the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise , USS Saratoga , USS Yorktown , and USS Ranger , were four of the seven fleet carriers in United States Navy service. The other three were Saratoga 's sister-ship, Lexington , the unique Wasp , and Enterprise 's sister, USS Hornet . All seven of these ships served in the Pacific. Only Enterprise, Ranger, and Saratoga survived the conflict, and were decommissioned shortly after its conclusion.
• The clothes worn by Leonard Nimoy as Spock during his swim in the whale tank were auctioned off in the It's A Wrap! sale and auction . [5] (X)
• During Spock's retraining, an original configuration Constitution -class ship appears on the monitor.
• The whaling ship used in the film was a World War II minesweeper called Golden Gate . [6]
• The whale hunters speak Finnish , even though the script called for a crew of famous humpback hunters like the Norwegians, Icelanders or Russians to be used. [7] Finland has never had any sort of whale hunting industry. However, Norway, a prominent whaling country, has a minority of Kvens, who speak a dialect of the Finnish language.
• Director Nimoy mentioned in the film's DVD commentary that in the scene where Gillian Taylor slaps Bob Briggs for letting the whales leave without letting her say goodbye to them that Catherine Hicks really did slap Scott DeVenney rather hard, and that while DeVenney was neither expecting it nor very happy about it, he took it and was a good sport about it later.
• Since the producers decided not to use subtitles for the Finnish dialogue or the probe/whale song sequence (although Paramount at one point did want subtitles for the film's climax), this is the only film of the first six Star Trek movies to not have any subtitles – not even to establish location or timeframe.
• Due to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock being released direct-to-video in some European and South American territories, a prologue recapping the events of The Search for Spock , narrated by Shatner, was added to release prints of this film in the territories listed above. The UK home video masters were also used for the Australian video release. Some of these releases omitted the Challenger dedication in order to make room for this prologue, but some releases kept both the prologue and the dedication.
• Though he had been distinctly unimpressed by Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , US President Ronald Reagan viewed this film, at the White House , on 20 December 1986 . ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 160 , p. 53)
• Several costumes, props, and items from this movie were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay, including a puppet which stood in as an alien ambassador. [8] (X)
• The Voyage Home and Star Trek Beyond are the only two Star Trek films to not feature a starship Enterprise as the primary setting of the film. In both cases, it is due to the destruction of the Enterprise , and its replacement, the Enterprise -A, is seen at the end of the film.
• The Saratoga is popularly assumed to have been harmlessly disabled by the probe even though it's not seen again. And it is generally surmised that the probe just made a big mess on Earth for everyone to clean up. The overall light, comedic nature of this film tends to lead credence to the widely popularized sentiment of Star Trek IV being the only film in the series in which absolutely no one dies.
• There are several events in this film that had the potential to alter the timeline: the possibly premature invention of transparent aluminum (even if Nichols was credited with inventing it in the "prime" timeline, he only did so because of Scotty), the sudden regrowth of a kidney by the elderly patient (who otherwise might have died and an event that would have garnered wide attention), and the removal from the 20th century of Gillian Taylor (a woman in her 30s) being the most notable.
• This is the only film where none of Star Trek 's signature weapons (phasers, photons, and disruptors) are fired at a ship or individual with the intent to neutralize, kill or destroy. Only two attempts at using a handheld weapon are made; once by Chekov aboard the Enterprise , which fails, and once by Kirk, in which he melts the lock on the door to the room where the surgical staff is confined adjunct to Chekov's operating room at Mercy Hospital.
• Due to the events of the movie, DC Comics' first set of comics had to change course with their stories to accommodate the events of the movie. To this end, they had Spock's mind ravaged by a virus, forcing Kirk and his crew to take the HMS Bounty , which was docked within the Excelsior , and return to Vulcan. Thus, Kirk and his crew were fugitives again, this time for abandoning the Excelsior .
• This is the last Star Trek film to use the 1975-1986 Paramount Pictures logo.
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home 's network television premiere occurred on the March 4, 1990 edition of The ABC Sunday Night Movie , the fourth consecutive and last such TV broadcast debut of a Star Trek film on the American Broadcasting Company until the 1999 TV premiere of 1996's Star Trek: First Contact .
• For the occasion of the film's 35th anniversary , Fathom Events organized a limited theatrical release on 19 and 22 August 2021 in select North American cities of the 4K Ultra HD version of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , whose remastering to such had just been completed. Aside from the film itself, the 2009 The Three Picture Saga special feature was also shown. [9] [10] [11]

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• US Betamax release: 1987

Merchandise gallery [ ]

Awards and honors [ ]

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home received the following awards and honors.

Apocrypha [ ]

• The novel The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One established that Chekov's Klingon phaser and communicator, which he threw at the investigators on the Enterprise in order to make his escape attempt, were sent to Area 51 and then subsequently recovered by Roberta Lincoln (who was sent by Gary Seven ) before they could be analyzed and potentially alter history.
• In the novelization of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , during the court martial, when the president tells Spock that he's not accused, Spock tells the president " Mr. President, I stand with my shipmates. Their fate shall be mine. "
• The novelization also expands on McCoy and Scotty's discussion on whether or not they should give Dr. Nichols the formula for transparent aluminum. In the novel, Scotty knows for certain that Nichols did indeed invent transparent aluminum and so it is OK for them to give him the formula and it may well be essential that they do so .
• The unfilmed scene between Sulu and his great-great-great grandfather (see above) was also featured in the novelization .
• In the novelization Kirk recaps the tragic events of " The City on the Edge of Forever " while discussing a possible time travel with Spock and McCoy.
• After her initial shock, Gillian begins to like the transporter and is actually quite surprised when she finds out Doctor McCoy dislikes and distrusts it.

Links and references [ ]

Credits [ ], opening credits [ ].

• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• James Doohan
• George Takei
• Walter Koenig
• Nichelle Nichols
• Mark Lenard as Sarek
• Jane Wyatt as Amanda
• Majel Barrett as Commander Chapel
• Robert Ellenstein as the Council President
• John Schuck as the Klingon Ambassador
• Brock Peters as Admiral Cartwright
• Robin Curtis as Lt. Saavik
• Catherine Hicks as Gillian
• Gene Roddenberry
• Leonard Rosenman
• Peter E. Berger
• Jack T. Collis
• Don Peterman , ASC
• Ralph Winter
• Leonard Nimoy & Harve Bennett
• Steve Meerson & Peter Krikes
• Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer
• Harve Bennett

Closing credits [ ]

• Kirk – William Shatner
• Spock – Leonard Nimoy
• McCoy – DeForest Kelley
• Scotty – James Doohan
• Sulu – George Takei
• Chekov – Walter Koenig
• Uhura – Nichelle Nichols
• Amanda – Jane Wyatt
• Gillian – Catherine Hicks
• Sarek – Mark Lenard
• Lt. Saavik – Robin Curtis
• Federation Council President – Robert Ellenstein
• Klingon Ambassador – John Schuck
• Admiral Cartwright – Brock Peters
• Starfleet Communications Officer – Michael Snyder
• Starfleet Display Officer – Michael Berryman
• Saratoga Science Officer – Mike Brislane
• Commander Rand – Grace Lee Whitney
• Alien Communications Officer – Jane Wiedlin
• Starship Captain – Vijay Amritraj
• Commander Chapel – Majel Barrett
• Saratoga Helmsman – Nick Ramus
• Controller #1 – Thaddeus Golas
• Controller #2 – Martin Pistone
• Bob Briggs – Scott DeVenney
• Lady in Tour – Viola Stimpson
• 1st Garbageman – Phil Rubenstein
• 2nd Garbageman – John Miranda
• Antique Store Owner – Joe Knowland
• Waiter – Bob Sarlatte
• Cafe Owner – Everett Lee
• Joe – Richard Harder ( deleted scene )
• Nichols – Alex Henteloff
• Pilot – Tony Edwards
• Elderly Patient – Eve Smith
• Intern #1 – Tom Mustin
• Intern #2 – Greg Karas
• Young Doctor – Raymond Singer
• Doctor #1 – David Ellenstein
• Doctor #2 – Judy Levitt
• Usher – Theresa E. Victor
• Jogger – James Menges
• Punk on Bus – Kirk Thatcher
• FBI Agent – Jeff Lester
• Shore Patrolman – Joe Lando
• CDO – Newell Tarrant
• Mike Timoney ( Electronics Technician #1 )
• Jeffrey Martin ( Electronics Technician #2 )
• Marine Sergeant – 1st Sgt Joseph Naradzay , USMC
• Marine Lieutenant – 1st Lt Donald W. Zautcke , USMC
• R.A. Rondell
• Gregory Barnett (also Starfleet technician )
• Steve M. Davison
• Clifford T. Fleming (Stunt helicopter pilot)
• Eddie Hice ( Mercy Hospital patient )
• Bennie E. Moore, Jr. ( Starfleet technician )
• Charles Picerni, Jr.
• Sharon Schaffer ( Mercy Hospital nurse )
• Spike Silver ( Stunt double for Walter Koenig )
• Patrick Kehoe
• Douglas E. Wise
• Frank Capra III
• Ken Ralston
• Brooke Breton
• Kirk Thatcher
• Amanda Mackey
• Bill Shepard
• Keith Peterman
• Kenneth Nishino
• Jay Peterman
• Gene S. Cantamessa , CAS
• Steven G. Cantamessa
• Mark Jennings
• Michael Lantieri
• Clay Pinney
• Brian Tipton
• Don Elliott
• Robert Spurlock
• Robert Fletcher
• Eric Harrison
• Joseph Markham
• Dan Bronson
• Mary Etta Lang
• James L. McCoy
• Silvia Abascal
• Carol O'Connell
• Monique DeSart
• Lily LaCava
• Kal Manning
• Lloyd Gowdy
• Frank McKane
• Calvin Sterry
• Waverly Smothers
• Mike Brooker
• Richard Dow
• Ron Greenwood
• Bart Susman
• Charles Sertin
• Dick Bayard
• John H. Matheson
• Ed Charnock
• Jerry Gadette
• Joe Hubbard
• James Bayliss
• Richard Berger
• Michael Mann
• Michael Meehan
• Stu Statterfield
• Ray McLaughlin
• Andrew Lipshultz
• Bruce Birmelin
• George Villaseñor
• Thomas Bryant
• Reel People, Inc.
• Harry Moreau
• Mark Mangini
• David Stone , MPSE
• Michael J. Benavente
• Warren Hamilton , MPSE
• Stephen Flick , MPSE
• John Pospisil
• Alan Howarth
• George Budd
• Solange Schwalbe
• Tim Mangini
• Dan O'Connell
• Ellen Heuer
• Destiny Borden
• Christopher Flick
• Doug Hemphill
• Else Blangsted
• David Marshall
• Leonard Rosenman and The Yellowjackets
• Ralph Ferraro
• Record Plant Scoring
• Terry Porter
• Dave Hudson
• Mel Metcalfe
• Jack Cooperman , ASC
• Gina Neilson
• Robert Cecil Thorson
• John R. Craig
• Joe Adamson
• Barbara Harris
• Sylvia Rubinstein
• Brigette Roux-Lough
• Rebeca R. Brookshire
• Susan Sackett
• Susan Smith
• Kevin F. Barry
• Industrial Light & Magic , Marin County, CA
• Ralph Gordon
• Mike Gleason
• Chris Evans
• Ellen Lichtwardt
• Warren Franklin
• Erik Jensen
• Selwyn Eddy III
• John V. Fante
• Peter Daulton
• Toby Heindel
• Pat Sweeney
• Ray Gilberti
• Pete Kozachic
• Marty Rosenberg
• Jim Hagedorn
• Bruce Vecchitto
• Lori J. Nelson
• Tim Geideman
• Todd Heindel
• Rick Anderson
• Tony Hudson
• Mark Miller
• Pete Romano
• Craig Barron
• Frank Ordaz
• Caroleen Green
• Randy Johnson
• Eric Christensen
• Bruce Walters
• Ellen Ferguson
• Ralph McQuarrie
• Bob Finley, Jr.
• Brad Jerrell
• Mike Olague
• ILM Computer Graphics
• Craig Caton
• Allen Feuerstein
• Shannon Shea
• Nancy Nimoy
• Richard Hollander
• Mark Peterson
• Michael Okuda
• Hal Landaker
• Alan Landaker
• Donald Hansard, Sr.
• Music by Alexander Courage
• Craig Huxley
• Written by Kirk Thatcher
• Arranged by Mark Mangini
• Performed by Edge of Etiquette
• MCA Records and Tapes
• Monterey Bay Aquarium , Monterey, California
• Humpback Whale Sounds, Courtesy of Roger Payne and New York Zoological Society
• Mark Ferrari and Debbie Glockner-Ferrari of the Humpback Whale Fund
• Howard Weinstein
• Apple Computer Company
• Roy Danchick
• RAdm Charles Reynolds McGrail
• Capt. Walter Davis
• Lt. Sandra Stairs
• Lt. Lee Saunders
• Mr. John Horton
• Marine Detachment, USS Ranger
• US Coast Guard , Long Beach
• US Coast Guard, San Francisco
• Westheimer Company
• Todd-AO/Glen Glenn Studios
• Technicolor
• Industrial Light & Magic

Uncredited [ ]

Performers [ ].

• Joe Adamson as Mercy Hospital doctor
• Cynthia Brian as street passerby
• Michelle Chateau as nun
• Ron Cragg as Federation Council guard
• Jay Crimp as Vulcan electrician
• Monique DeSart as Madelaine
• Michael DiMente as Deltan ambassador
• Paul Giebner as Enterprise (CVN-65) sailor
• Brooks Gulledge as Enterprise (CVN-65) sailor
• Christine Hansen as nun
• Robert Jack as Enterprise (CVN-65) sailor
• Stephen Liska as Torg (archive footage)
• Joel Marston as Starfleet Admiral
• Genevieve Martin as Vulcan noblewoman
• Mary Mascari as Mercy Hospital patient
• Nanci Meek as mental patient
• Ralph Moratz as Mercy Hospital visitor
• Leonard Nimoy as Mercy Hospital visitor
• Ken Peacock as Enterprise (CVN-65) sailor
• Trainee Enterprise crewmember
• Layla Sarakalo as street passerby
• Louise Schulze as Female cafe employee
• Melanie Shatner as Female jogger
• Madge Sinclair as Saratoga captain
• Teresa E. Victor as Aamaarazan councilor
• Philip Weyland as tourist
• Rhoda Williams as alien vocals
• Aamaarazan councilor
• Andorian admiral
• Andorian commodore
• Arcadian delegate
• Arcadian councilors
• Ariolo councilor
• Caitian officer (brown)
• Caitian officer (black)
• Civilian FBI agent
• Three Deltan ambassadors
• Mercy Hospital nurse 1
• Mercy Hospital nurse 2
• Mercy Hospital OP nurse 1
• Mercy Hospital OP nurse 2
• Mercy Hospital PA announcer
• Eleven Mercy Hospital staffers
• Nine Mercy Hospital visitors
• Five street passersby
• Aquarium tourists
• Bus passengers
• Plexicorp workers
• Restaurant cooks
• Restaurant patrons
• Street passersby
• Whale hunters
• Kasheeta councilor
• Purple-skinned alien councilor
• SFPD officer
• Saratoga navigator
• Saratoga bridge crewman and woman
• Tellarite dignitaries
• Vulcan Federation councilor 1
• Vulcan Federation councilor 2
• Vulcan female delegate
• Vulcan delegate
• Xelatian councilors
• Animatronic puppet – Bzzit Khaht councilor

Stunt performers [ ]

• Vince Cadiente
• R.A. Rondell as taxi driver
• Unknown stunt performers as two Starfleet technicians

Production staff [ ]

• Gregory Barnett – Assistant Stunt Coordinator
• Jim Bissell – Technical Advisor: Opening Sequence
• Tom Boyd – Musician: Oboe
• Al Fleming – Makeup Artist
• Pieter Folkens – Advisor, Designer, and Sculptor: Humpback whales mechanics
• Casey Simpson – Lighting Technician
• Rick Stratton – Makeup Artist

References [ ]

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blue whale ; BMR ; BMW 2002 ; bolt ; " Bones "; borite ; Bounty , HMS ; bowhead whale ; brain ; braking thruster ; breadstick ; breakaway speed ; brochure ; bucket ; Buick LeSabre ; Buick Riviera ; bumper sticker ; bureaucratic ; " bury yourself in the part "; bus ; bus stop ; Busch Gardens ; bush ; buster ; butcher knife ; button badge ; Bzzit Khaht ; Cab Co. ; cable car ; cadet review ; Caitian ; calendar ; calf ; California ; California State Assembly ; camera ; candy striper ; cannula ; Canon ; Captain Video ; captivity ; cargo bay ; cargo bay door ; Carlton ; case ; Cernan, Eugene ; cetacean ; cetacean biologist ( whale biologist ); Cetacean Institute ; chain of command ; chance ; charge ; chemotherapy ; Chevrolet ; Chevrolet C 30 Step Van ; Chevrolet Caprice Classic ; Chevrolet Chevette ; Chevrolet Townsman ; Chevrolet truck ; China ; choice ; CIC ; City Council ; Chrysler LeBaron ; classified ; climax ; cloaking device ; closing speed ; cloud ; cloud cover ; clue ; Coca-Cola ; Code Red ; coefficient ; coffee ; coffeemaker ; coin operated laundry ; Coit Tower ; collector ; colorful metaphor ( profanity ); Columbus Avenue ; coma ; combat information center ( CIC ); command duty officer ; commanding officer ( commander ); common sense ; communicator ; comm channel ; communications ; communications officer ; communications system ; compassion ; compliment ; computation ; computer ; comrade ; conclusion ; condition report ; conspiracy ; constant ; Constitution IIi -class ( unnamed 1 and 2 ); contact ; coordinates ; Copernicus , USS ; court martial ; contact ; corpsman ; country ; cops ; crab ; cramps ; creature ; credit card ; crisis ; critical condition ; crop top ; Crown ; crutch ; crystalline restructure ; cubic foot ; culture ; custom ; damage ; damage control ; damage report ; Dark Ages ; data ; Datsun ; Datsun 510 ; Datsun Truck ; day ; " dead in the water "; death ; degree (academic); degree (angle); deliberation ; demotion ; density ; dentistry ; departure ; deposition ; destruction ; device ; devil ; DeSoto Cab ; dialysis ; Diet Coke ; Diet Pepsi ; dilithium chamber ; dilithium crystal ; dilithium sequencer ; dinner ; discipline ; distance ; distress call ; Doctor ( physician ); Dodge 600 ; Dodge Lancer ; dollar ; Do not enter sign ; door ; Earth ; Edinburgh ; Efrosian ; elapsed time ; electrical power ; electronics technician ; Embarcadero ; emergency ; emergency channel ; emergency channel 0130 ; emergency light ; emergency reserve ; emergency surgery ; emergency system ; emergency thruster ; enemy ; energy ; energy reserve ; engineering ; Enterprise , USS (CVN-65); Enterprise , USS (NCC-1701); Enterprise , USS (NCC-1701-A); epidural hematoma ; escape hatch ; escape route ; estimated time of arrival (ETA); estimating ; Excelsior , USS ; exile ; exit sign ; explosive override ; extinction ; extradition ; extraterrestrial ; E-Z Scrub ; fact ; Fairground Hotel ; false killer whale ; farm boy ; Federal Bureau of Investigation ; Federation ; Federation Council ; Federation President ; feeling ; Feinberg's Loan and Pawn ; Fiat 124 Sport Spider ; Fiat X1/9 ; figure ; " fill your shoes "; fin whale ; finger, the ; Finnish ; fire alarm ; fireman ; fish ; fishing ; " fish story "; Fisherman's Wharf ; flea trap ; floor ; floor plan ; Flyer Industries E800 ; fog ; foot ; Ford Escort ; forklift ; formula ; frame of reference ; Free Speech Movement ; freighter ; frequency ; Friar Tuck ; friend ; friendship ; fuel component ; fundascopic examination ; funeral ; fusion era ; gangway ; garbage can ; garbage truck ; garbageman's significant other ; Genesis ; Genesis Device ; Genesis Torpedo ; Geneva ; genocide ; George and Gracie ; ghetto blaster ; giraffe ; glasses ; GM New Look ; God ; " God damn "; Gold Dust ; Golden Gate Bridge ; Golden Gate Park ; Gottlieb ; Gramalkin ; gravity ; gray whale ; Great Northern Railway ; Grissom , USS ; ground cushion ; Grumman LLV ; guest ; guidance system ; guide ; guilt ; gumball machine ; gums ; gun ; habit ; Hamlet ; Handi-Wrap II ; hangar deck ; harm ; harpoon ; harpoon gun ; hatch ; hate ; head ; headline ; heat shield ; helicopter ; hello ; high school ; " hit the deck "; home ; Honda Accord ; Honda Civic ; horoscope ; hostility ; hospital bracelet ; hospital gown ; hour ; Huey 204 ; Human ; humpback whale ; hundred ; hunting ; Hyster ; " I Hate You "; ice cream sandwich ; idea ; identification card ; " If we play our cards right "; image therapy ; impulse power ; inch ; infrared ; insight ; intelligence ; intention ; International Harvester Scout ; intruder ; Iowa ; irony ; Italian food ; job ; jogger ; joke ; judgment ; judo ; Juneau ; Junior Mints ; justice ; juxtapose ; Karmann Ghia ; Kasheeta ; katra ; Kearny Street ; kelp forest ; keyboard ; kilometer ; kidney ; kidney pill ; killer whale ; Klingon ; Klingon crew ; Klingon food pack ; Klingon language ; Klingon vessels lost to Whale Probe ; Knott's Berry Farm ; knowledge ; " kook "; L.A. International Airport ; landing pad ; landing procedure ; landlubber ; language ; Latin language ; Lawrence, D.H. ; lay-away ; Lay or Bust Poultry Feeds ; LDS ; " learn a thing or two "; learning ; leave ; Leningrad ; lens ; lie ; life ( lifeform ); lightbox ; lighthouse ; light year ; Lincoln Continental Mark VII ; lion ; literature ; location ; lock ; logic ; luck ; M16 rifle ; M203 grenade launcher ; macho ; Macintosh ; Magic Mountain ; magnetostatics ; mains ; main power ; mammal ; manufacturing ; manual control ; Marcus, David ; MARDET ; marine theater ; Market Street ; mass ; master chief petty officer ; mating ritual ; maximum speed ; Mazda ; Mazda B-Series ; mean sea level (MSL); media circus ; medievalism ; medical degree ; medical tricorder ; medicine ; megahertz ; megaton ; memory : memory bank ; memory test ; mentality ; Mercury Capri ; medical system ; Mercy Hospital ; message ; metaphor ; MG B ; Michelob ; microphone ; middle meningeal artery ; mind meld ; mile ; military ; milk ; million ; mind ; mining ; minke whale ; minute ; miracle ; miracle worker ; Miranda -class ( unnamed ); mission ; Mission District ; mistake ; mitigating circumstance ; MMR ; Moby Dick ; money ; monitoring station ; morning ; mouse ; Movieland Wax Museum ; M Series Walkie Stacker ; multiphasic transmission ; murder ; museum ; mushroom ; Mustang ; mutineer ; name ; name tag ; nautical mile ; naval vessel ; navigational signal ; negotiation ; news machine ; Neutral Zone ; night ; Nissan 280ZX ; noise ; noon ; North America ; nose ring ; novel ; nuclear fusion ; nuclear fission ; nuclear fission reactor ; nuclear power ; nuclear vessel ; nun ; nurses station ; nurse's cap ; Oberth -class ; ocean ; officer ; " off the deep end "; Oldsmobile Ciera ; Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais ; Olvera Street ; OMNI ; " on course "; onion ; open sea ; operating room ; opinion ; orbital shuttle ( unnamed 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ); Orbital shuttle 5 ; Orbital shuttle 7 ; order ; OrthoLav ; outer space ; owner ; oxygen tent ; Pacific Bell ; Pacific Basin ; pager ; Palace of Fine Arts ; paper towel ; paper towel dispenser ; parking ; past tense ; patient ; peace ; peace treaty ; pedestrian crossing sign ; pepperoni ; percent ; performance ; permission ; phaser ; photographic memory ; photon ; picnic table ; piercing ; pill ; pirate ; pizza ; place ; plan ; planet ; planet distress signal ; Planetary Reserve ; plant ; plant manager ; plastic wrap ; playing card ; " play our cards right "; plea ; Plexicorp ; plexiglass ; Plymouth Reliant ; plot ; poker ; police ; pollution ; polymer ; Pontiac Fiero ; Pontiac Firebird ; Pope Olive Oil ; Portola Brand Sardines ; pound ; Powell & Mason ; Powell Street ; power ; power drain ; power source ; pregnancy ; press ; pressure ; priority 1 ; probability ; probe ; problem ; professor ; property ; pulse ; puppet ; pygmy sperm whale ; quadrant ; question ; Queen Mary, The ; radiation ; radio frequency ; radio silence ; radio transmitter ; range ; rank ; rank insignia ; ray gun ; red alert ; reentry ; reference ; renegade ; rescue ; reserve bank ; reserve power ; respiratory rate ; result ; " rich beyond the dreams of avarice "; right ; Robbins, Harold ; Robin Hood ; " Roger "; room ; Russian language ; Russkie ; rust bucket ; sabotage ; St. Paul Hotel ; salinity ; Saloon, The ; Sam ; San Diego Zoo ; San Francisco ; San Francisco Bay ; San Francisco City Hall ; San Francisco Chronicle ; San Francisco Department of Sanitation ; San Francisco Ferry Building ; San Francisco Municipal Railway ; San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge ; San Francisco Police Department ; San Francisco Register ; Saran Wrap ; Saratoga , USS ; Sausalito ; scene ; Scots language ; screen ; scrubs ; Seaboard Air Line Railroad ; seal ; sea otter ; seat ; seawater ; SeaWorld ; secret ; Sector 5 ; security corridor ; service number ; Shepard , USS ; shield ; shipmate ; shoes ; short-sightedness ; shrimp ; shorts ; side effect ; signal ; silence ; singing ; slaughter ; slingshot effect ; Slits, The ; Smith & Wesson Model 15 ; smoking ; solar flare ; solar sail ; SONAR ; " son of a bitch "; Sony ; soul ; sound ; " sour stomach "; Spacedock One ; spacedock door (aka space door ); Spanish Inquisition ; speaker ; species ; specimen ; speed ; stairs ; " stand by "; Starfleet ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Command ; Starfleet Commander ; Starfleet regulations ; Starfleet uniform ; starship ; status report ; stench ; storage tank ; story ; street ; Stryker ; subject ; subbscription ; sucker ; summit ; Sun ; superior officer ; surgical mask ; surprise ; Susann, Jacqueline ; suspicion ; swim ; system map ; systems report ; " tango ; Taylor's science vessel ( science vessel ); teaching ; team ; team leader ; Team 2 ; teeth ; Telegraph Hill ; telephone ; telephone booth ; telephone number ; temperature ; terminator ; terra incognita ; Terran solar system ; terrorist ; testimony ; test program ; " that's the ticket "; theater ; theft ; theory ; thing ; thousand ; three smaller ships neutralized by Whale Probe ; thruster ; thruster control ; time ; time continuum ; time re-entry program ; time travel ; time warp ; tire iron ; tissue ; toast ; toaster oven ; Tokyo ; ton ; torpedo ; tour ; tour of inspection ; tracking device ; trajectory ; Transamerica Pyramid ; transmission ; transparent aluminum ; transporter ; transporter beam ; transporter power ; trash can ; travel pod ; travel pod 05 ; tricorder ; tricycle ; truth ; toucan ; Toyota Corolla ; unicorn ; universal constant ; underground storage system ; United States Government ; United States Marine Corps ; United States Navy ; United States of America ; Universal Peace and Hello ; universe ; University of California, Berkeley ; Universal Studios ; uranium ; Valvoline ; value ; variable ; violation ; visit ; visor ; Volkswagen Beetle ; Volkswagen Rabbit ; vote ; Vulcan ; Vulcan (planet); Vulcan language ; Vulcan nerve pinch ; Vulcan salute ; walker ; wall ; warm-blooded ; warp drive regulator ; warp speed ; Washington, DC ; water ; weapons system ; " wee "; Weintraub ; Wendy's ; west ; West Coast ; whale ; whale hunter ; whale song ; " Whales Weep Not! "; whale tank ; whaling ; whaling ship ; whiteboard ; White Rose ; White GMC Xpeditor ; Winchell's Donut House ; Winchester Model 1200 ; Wonderful World of Whales, The ; Wonderland ; word ; year ; yellow alert ; Yellow Pages ; Yerba Buena Island ; Yorktown , USS ; Yorktown chief engineer ; zebra ; Zober, Sandi

Other references [ ]

Memory test: 1987 ; anti-graviton ; anti-neutron ; bioengineering ; Cambridge ; carrot ; checkmate ; Constitution -class ; electron configuration ; gadolinium ; Kiri-kin-tha ; Kiri-kin-tha's First Law of Metaphysics ; Klendth ; Klingon mummification glyph ; knight ; Loonkerian outpost ; New York Times ; magazine ; magnetic envelope ; Massachusetts ; matron ; metaphysics ; molecular formula ; object ; pawn ; queen ; rook ; sensor ; sine wave ; three-dimensional chess ; toroidal space-time distortion ; T'Plana-Hath ; universal atmospheric element compensator ; Vulcan philosophy ; white ; yominum sulfide

Phylum search mode : Alopex lagopus ; amphibian ; armadillo ; Beardius baerdi ; Cancer productus ; cattle ; Cervus elaphus ; Chama arcana ; chameleon ; Ciona intestinal ; Coleonyx brevis ; Crisia occidental ; crocodile ; Dasypus novem ; feline ; flatworm ; insect ; kangaroo ; lamprey ; lion ; Martes pennanti ; Megaptera novaeangliae ; moth ; Myotis volans ; nautilus ; Orcinus orca ; Ovis dalli ; Physeter macro ; Plethodon dunni ; Podiceps auritus ; Sciurus griseus ; Sebastes mustinus ; trilobite ; Tursiops tancts ; virus ; Vulpes velox ; Ziphius cavitro

MUNI system map : Albany ; Alcatraz ; Angel Island ; Bay Farm Island ; Belmont ; Berkeley ; Brisbane ; Brooks Island ; Burlingame ; Daly City ; East Richmond ; El Cerrito ; Foster City ; Hillsborough ; Kensington ; Millbrae ; Oakland ; Oakland Army Base ; Oakland Supply Depot ; Piedmont ; Richmond ; Richmond-San Rafael Bridge ; San Bruno ; San Francisco State Fish and Game Refuge ; San Mateo ; Tiburon

San Francisco locations : 101 California Street ; 123 Mission Street ; 30-Stockton ; 345 California Center ; 44 Montgomery ; 50 Fremont Center ; 580 California Street ; 601 California Street ; 650 California Street ; Baker Beach ; Bank of America Center ; Bathhouse Building ; Bay Street ; Embarcadero Center ; Fort Mason ; Fort Point ; Gateway, The ; Greenwich Street ; Holiday Inn Chinatown ; Hoyt Street ; Hyatt Regency San Francisco ; Marina Green ; Mason Street ; Mount Davidson ; Mount Sutro ; One Maritime Plaza ; One Market Plaza ; One Sansome Street ; Sentinel Building ; Stockton Street ; Sutro Tower ; Treasure Island ; Twin Peaks ; Van Ness Avenue ; Yerba Buena Island

Unreferenced material [ ]

A-13 ; Adams ; Argus ; Bandit V ; bio-sterilization capsule ; Clampett ; Com Sat 4 ; Com Sat 12 ; Delta V ; dirt bike ; dyslexia ; Engineering Control ; four dimensional time gate ; great flood ; hiber-sedative ; Intrepid , USS ; Jesus ; Joe ; K-12 ; Leaning Tower, The ; Lee ; maternity leave ; Mona Lisa ; Noah's Ark ; parallex matter echo ; Pleadian Quadrant 5 ; Pleadian Quadrant 7 ; Quadrant 12-340 ; Reon VII ; rescue shuttle ; Rigel ; Rigel IV ; Rigel V ; San Francisco Bay Area ; Sector 15 ; Seron, Ralph ; shore patrol ; Shres ; Sphinx, The ; Sulu, Akira ; Vegan D virus ; warp drive regulator ; Zanxthkolt Dynasty

Related topics [ ]

alternate timeline ; Riverside ; Starfleet ranks ; time travel

External links [ ]

• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home at Wikipedia
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home screenplay at Star Trek Minutiae
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home screenplay at CCDump.org
• Filming locations at FilmInAmerica.com
• " Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home " at MissionLogPodcast.com
• 1 Bell Riots
• 3 Daniels (Crewman)

“Star Trek: The Voyage Home” feature Answer

STAR TREK THE VOYAGE HOME FEATURE clue of Up and Down Words Game. After playing around with today’s puzzle we were able to crack and find the correct solution of STAR TREK THE VOYAGE HOME FEATURE and shortly after, we posted it here on this page. Please note that before posting it here we have checked in with the game to confirm that the 11 letter answer was indeed the correct one that solved this particular clue.

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

• To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.
• The most acclaimed Star Trek adventure of all time with an important message. It is the 23rd century, and a mysterious alien probe is threatening Earth by evaporating the oceans and destroying the atmosphere. In their frantic attempt to save mankind, Admiral Kirk and his crew must time travel back to 1986 San Francisco where they find a world of punk, pizza and exact-change buses that are as alien to them as anything they have ever encountered in the far-off reaches of the galaxy. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy return as Kirk and Spock, along with the entire Star Trek crew. — Robert Lynch <[email protected]>
• It is the 23rd century, and a space probe appears over Earth, emanating strange sounds towards the planet, and apparently waiting for something. As time goes on, the probe starts to cause major storms on Earth and threaten its destruction. Admiral James T. Kirk and crew are called upon once again to save mankind. They discover the strange sounds are actually the songs of the humpback whale - which has been hunted to extinction. They have only one choice - to attempt to time travel back into the 20th century, locate two whales, and bring them back to 23rd century Earth to respond to the probe. — Colin Tinto <[email protected]>
• In 2286, an enormous cylindrical probe moves through space, sending out an indecipherable signal and disabling the power of ships it passes. As it takes up orbit around Earth, its signal disables the global power grid and generates planetary storms, creating catastrophic, sun-blocking cloud cover. Starfleet Command sends out a planetary distress call and warns star ships not to approach Earth. On the planet Vulcan, the former officers of the USS Enterprise are living in exile, after the events of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Accompanied by the Vulcan Spock, still recovering from his resurrection, the crew - except for Saavik, who remains on Vulcan - take their captured Klingon Bird of Prey vessel (renamed the Bounty, after the Royal Navy ship) and return to Earth to face trial for their actions. Hearing Starfleet's warning, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) determines that the probe's signal matches the song of extinct humpback whales, and that the object will continue to wreak havoc until its call is answered by the whales. The crew uses their ship to travel back in time via a slingshot maneuver around the Sun, planning to return with a whale to answer the alien signal. Other officers include Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Medical officer, Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) engineer, helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) Arriving in 1986, the crew finds their ship's power drained. Hiding their ship in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park using its cloaking device, the crew split up to accomplish several tasks: Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock attempt to locate humpback whales, while Montgomery Scott, Leonard McCoy, and Hikaru Sulu construct a tank to hold the whales they need for a return to the 23rd century. Uhura and Pavel Chekov are tasked to find a nuclear reactor, whose energy output will enable their ship's power to be restored. Kirk and Spock discover a pair of whales in the care of Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks) at a Sausalito Museum and learn they will soon be released into the wild. Spock does a mind meld with a whale and figures out that it is preggers. Gillian is suspicious of Kirk and Spock, but Kirk manages to charm her and take her out to dinner. Kirk tells her of his mission and asks for the tracking frequency for the whales, but she refuses to cooperate. Meanwhile, Scott, McCoy, and Sulu trade the formula of transparent aluminum for the materials needed for the whale tank. Uhura and Chekov locate a nuclear-powered ship, the aircraft carrier Enterprise. They collect the power they need but are discovered on board. Uhura is beamed back but Chekov is captured and severely injured in an escape attempt. Taylor learns the whales have been released early and goes to Kirk for assistance. Taylor, Kirk, and McCoy rescue Chekov and return to the now recharged Bird of Prey. After transporting the whales aboard the ship, the crew returns with Taylor to their own time. On approaching Earth, the ship loses power and comes down in San Francisco Bay. Once released, the whales respond to the probe's signal, causing the object to reverse its effects on Earth and return to the depths of space. All charges against the Enterprise crew are dropped, save one for insubordination: for disobeying a superior officer, Kirk is demoted from Admiral and back the rank of Captain where he is returned to command of a star ship. The crew departs on their ship, the newly christened USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A), and leaves on a new mission.

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Making Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Released in 1986, coinciding with the franchise’s twentieth anniversary, The Voyage Home remains the most successful of the Star Trek feature films.

It is also the most lighthearted of the series, despite its lofty themes. Director Leonard Nimoy was responsible for both attributes.

Back in time

Early in the planning stage with Producer Harve Bennett, Nimoy had decided, “no dying, no fist fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical ‘bad guy’.”

I wanted people to really have a great time watching this film, to really sit back, lose themselves and enjoy it. That was the main goal. And if somewhere in the mix we lobbed a couple of bigger ideas at them, well, then that would be even better.

Nimoy told Cinefantastique in 1987 that the first idea was to return the Enterprise crew to the Stone Age. The next idea was traveling back in time to 1890s. But the team quickly decided that the then-present day (1986) provided the greatest opportunities for fun, as the twenty-third-century characters would collide with contemporary life on Earth.

The next question was why the crew should travel back in time in the first place?

“There were several possibilities,” Nimoy said.

One, it could be an accident because they’re driving a ship they don’t know well. We decided not to do that. Then we thought, maybe they’re chasing somebody. We had done that before in Star Trek . Then we thought, what if there’s a problem in the twenty-third century and the solution lies in the twentieth century?

An epidemic? “We didn’t want to make a movie about people dying of diseases all over the place.”

The answer came when Nimoy was talking with a friend about endangered species “and up came the subject of the humpback whales and the mysterious song they sing.”

We don’t know exactly what it is or what it means. I thought, that’s it! If we can pull that off, sending humpback whales 300 years through space, that would be exciting.

Nimoy gave the story to screenwriters Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes. They drafted a 140-page script, which went through two rewrites. But the result still wasn’t very convincing.

Nicholas Meyer — who had cobbled together the best parts of the various scripts for Star Trek II — was called in to once again put the story together.

Meyer to the rescue

In an interview with the official Star Trek website in 2014, Meyer recalled that Paramount told him not to read the scripts but talk to Bennett and Nimoy.

They told me the story. Harve said, “Can you write the parts on Earth and I’ll do the bookends? I’ll do the beginning and the end.” I said, “Okay. Do they have to go to San Francisco in a time travel movie, because I’ve already done that? Can’t we go to Paris?” They said, “No, we can’t go to Paris.” So, I wrote all the stuff on Earth, beginning from when someone says, “When are we?” And Spock says, “Judging by the pollution content of the atmosphere, we’ve reached the late twentieth century.” And from there until they go back into outer space, was all my stuff.

William Shatner was involved toward the end. Meyer told Cinefantastique in 1987 that Shatner came back “with a whole bunch of notes,” which they incorporated.

He credited Bennett with keeping the process on track through numerous rewrites:

At times, when I would have long before thrown my hands up and told somebody to start suing, Harve would always go the extra mile, one more meeting, one more conversation, patiently holding everybody’s hand, and in the meantime also writing.

Acting and directing

Meyer had no desire to direct. “I was directing another movie.” Nimoy, who had successfully directed Star Trek III , was the obvious choice.

Nimoy told Cinefantastique he was lucky to be surrounded by people whose tastes he could trust:

I established very good contact with my cinematographer, so that he was watching carefully and he knew what I wanted to see. I’m very meticulous about the camera. I look through the camera on every shot and help line up the shot. I like my own compositions. If the cameraman shows me a composition I like, I say, “Great, that’s it.” Once I knew I could trust him, I knew I was technically covered.

The real challenge was balancing acting and directing.

You’re in the scene playing with one or two other performers and you’re giving your own performance, but you’re making mental notes like, “On the next take, I want to tell her to do something different here.” That gets complicated. But we managed to get through it.

Sharing the spotlight

The setting made it possible to give the supporting cast — James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei — bigger parts.

Nimoy told Starlog in 1987 ( My Star Trek Scrapbook has the full interview ) that it is difficult to keep everybody happy all the time. “They know that, and I know that.”

We have tried from picture to picture to see that there was a balance from one film to the next. A person who perhaps had a little bit less to do in one would hopefully have a little bit more next time.

Filming in San Francisco

The twentieth-century also freed the production to shoot on location without the need to create an expensive illusion of the future in every frame. With half the movie set in the present, The Voyage Home contained the least amount of science-fiction design of any of the Star Trek films. Which, ironically, accounted for its wide general appeal.

Nimoy had fond memories of shooting on location in San Francisco. “I loved being there. I loved the whole idea of bringing Star Trek home to today.”

Visual effects

Bennett and Nimoy wisely retained the winning visual-effects team that had contributed to the success of the previous two movies. Industrial Light and Magic was excited about the opportunity.

“ Star Trek has been in space so long,” Ken Ralston, the film’s consulting effects supervisor, told Cinefantastique .

You’ve seen it all before, many times. But to see those ships that you’ve become accustomed to put into a more terrestial environment is refreshing. When I have a ship in front of a starfield, I have no opportunity to be creative. Sure, I could put another nebula out there, but we’re really locked into things. When we come down to a more interesting environment, boy, the possibilities are endless.

One of the most memorable images of the film was the Klingon Bird of Prey swooping under the Golden Gate Bridge. Ralston also remembered it as one of the most difficult shots to get right.

ILM built an almost 5 meter-long model of a section of the bridge. Because it had a forced perspective, the foreground roadway measured about 16 inches [40 centimeters] wide while at the very end, on the other side of the tower, it was 2 inches [5 centimeters] wide.

Originally, ILM model shop supervisor Jeff Mann had hoped that by photographing storms in San Francisco, they would be able to save themselves the trouble of creating one artificially. No such luck.

Even though it was storming, on film it looked pretty tame. We wanted the storm in the film to be wild.

So they built a tank, “and then we tried everything to create rain and wind and smoke levels and clouds, using wind machines and water sprayers.”

Mann remembered the end result as “quite a thing to see”.

We had the Golden Gate Bridge sitting in the water tank, wind machines, foggers and sprayers, and the wire rig with the Bird of Prey flying past as it crashed into the water. That was fun.

Another effect was so realistic that few viewers noticed it wasn’t real: the humpback whales themselves were either miniatures shot at ILM or life-sized robotic replicas filmed in the Paramount parking lot.

The studio had hoped to use stock footage of humpback whales, but there wasn’t much available and the movie needed them to behave in certain ways. That also meant miniatures weren’t always sufficient.

To make sure both the miniatures and the life-sized mechanical whales looked accurate, they were built under the watchful eye of Peter Falken of the Oceanic Society.

Critical response

For the first time, the critical response to a Star Trek film mirrored its fortunes at the box office.

Understanding its appeal, USA Today wrote that the film would “delight those who don’t know a tribble from a Romulan” and that the funny script “turns Kirk and his followers into the most uproarious out-of-towners to hit the Bay area since the Democrats in 1984.” Referring to the film’s reduced use of visual effects, the review went on to note that without the usual special-effects camouflage, “the performers prove themselves more capable actors than ever before.”

Janet Maslin of The New York Times summed up the film’s impact best when she noted that The Voyage Home “has done a great deal to ensure the series’ longevity.” That there would be a fifth film was a near certainty.

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Using a Klingon ship, the crew of the Enterprise returns to 1980s Earth to retrieve two whales that may save the planet from destruction in their own era.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

When they finished writing the script for “Star Trek IV,” they must have had a lot of silly grins on their faces. 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. I’m relieved that nothing like restraint or common sense stood in their way.

The movie opens with some leftover business from the previous movie, including the Klingon ambassador’s protests before the Federation Council. These scenes have very little to do with the rest of the movie, and yet they provide a certain reassurance (like James Bond’s ritual flirtation with Miss Moneypenny) that the series remembers it has a history.

The crew of the Starship Enterprise is still marooned on a faraway planet with the Klingon starship they commandeered in “ Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .” They vote to return home aboard the alien vessel, but on the way they encounter a strange deep-space probe. It is sending out signals in an unknown language which, when deciphered, turns out to be the song of the humpback whale.

It’s at about this point that the script conferences must have really taken off. See if you can follow this: The Enterprise crew determines that the probe is zeroing in on Earth, and that if no humpback songs are picked up in response, the planet may well be destroyed. Therefore, the crew’s mission becomes clear: Because humpback whales are extinct in the 23rd century, they must journey back through time to the 20th century, obtain some humpback whales, and return with them to the future – thus saving Earth. After they thought up this notion, I hope the writers lit up cigars.

No matter how unlikely the story is, it supplies what is probably the best of the “Star Trek” movies so far, directed with calm professionalism by Leonard Nimoy . What happens is that the Enterprise crew land their Klingon starship in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, surround it with an invisibility shield, and fan out through the Bay area looking for humpback whales and a ready source of cheap nuclear power.

What makes their search entertaining is that we already know the crew members so well. The cast’s easy interaction is unique among movies, because it hasn’t been learned in a few weeks of rehearsal or shooting; this is the 20th anniversary of “Star Trek,” and most of these actors have been working together for most of their professional lives. These characters know one another.

An example: Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ) and Mr. Spock (Nimoy) visit a Sea World-type operation, where two humpback whales are held in captivity. Catherine Hicks , as the marine biologist in charge, plans to release the whales, and the Enterprise crew need to learn her plans so they can recapture the whales and transport them into the future.

Naturally, this requires the two men to ask Hicks out to dinner.

She asks if they like Italian food, and Kirk and Spock do a delightful little verbal ballet based on the running gag that Spock, as a Vulcan, cannot tell a lie. Find another space opera in which verbal counterpoint creates humor.

The plots of the previous “Star Trek” movies have centered around dramatic villains, such as Khan, the dreaded genius played by Ricardo Montalban in “ Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .” This time, the villains are faceless: the international hunters who continue to pursue and massacre whales despite clear indications they will drive these noble mammals from the Earth. “To hunt a race to extinction is not logical,” Spock calmly observes, but we see shocking footage of whalers doing just that.

Instead of providing a single human villain as counterpoint, “Star Trek IV” provides a heroine, in Hicks. She obviously is moved by the plight of the whales, and although at first she understandably doubts Kirk’s story that he comes from the 23rd century, eventually she enlists in the cause and even insists on returning to the future with them, because of course, without humpback whales, the 23rd century also lacks humpback whale experts.

There are some major action sequences in the movie, but they aren’t the high points; the “Star Trek” saga has always depended more on human interaction and thoughtful, cause-oriented plots. What happens in San Francisco is much more interesting than what happens in outer space, and this movie, which might seem to have an unlikely and ungainly plot, is actually the most elegant and satisfying “Star Trek” film so far.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• William Shatner as Adm. Kirk
• Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock
• Deforest Kelley as McCoy
• Brock Peters as Federation President Robt. Ellenstein Cartwright
• Catherine Hicks as Gillian Taylor
• John Schuck as Klingon Ambassador
• Jane Wyatt as Spock's Mother

Screenplay by

• Nicholas Meyer
• Peter Krikes
• Steve Meerson

Photographed by

• Don Peterman

Produced by

• Harve Bennett

Directed by

• Leonard Nimoy
• Leonard Rosenman

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – revisiting the movie

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy lead the Star Trek crew on a quest to rescue some whales. Yep, it's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home...

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Star Trek IV remains the oddity of the Trek films. There’s no real villain for large swathes of the film, there’s no Enterprise, and the emphasis is squarely on comedy. Yes, a Star Trek comedy. Three words that ordinarily send shivers down the spine of any Trek fan and conjure up images of Ferengis in drag and sodding Neelix getting everyone killed. But let us not forget that this is William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy we’re talking about here. Nimoy in particular played Spock as deadpan, rather than stoic, so perhaps a fish out of water comedy is the right way to go.

That’s not why everyone remembers it though. No, The Voyage Home will forever be the one where they go to the 80s to get some whales.

The story conception began in the same vein as all the even numbered films – the producers, writers and director (in this case a returning Leonard Nimoy) gathered around a table and decided to distill the successful elements of the previous films and shed the baggage.

See also: Looking back at Star Trek: The Motion Picture Looking back at Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan Looking back at Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

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In a remarkable display of movie making common sense, Paramount not only asked Nimoy back for another crack of the megaphone, but even said to him ‘we want your vision’, and allowed him to oversee this distillation free of meddling. This meant that the pervading gloom of  Star Trek III was out the window immediately, but the focus on character from  Star Trek II and  Star Trek III remained. The heavy sci-fi themes of life, death and revenge across time were gone, to be replaced with a gentle environmental theme that was considered to be ‘on message’.

Naturally, this resulted in a story where the Enterprise has to travel back in time because everyone in the 23rd Century is dying of an ebola like disease. It’s a light-hearted movie that effectively begins with trillions of people coughing up their own pancreas.

Eventual rewrites steered the story towards something more familiar, with modern day (well, 80s) San Francisco being the main hub of the film, and a pair of humpback whales being the target. Nimoy felt their song added mystery, which remained in the final film as the whales’ way of telling a cylinder to stop boiling the oceans in the future. I realise that by putting it that way I’m making the film sound weirder than it actually is. Although since the moral of this story happens to be ‘don’t needlessly kill animals because one day it might turn out angry aliens put them here deliberately and they’ll make it rain on you’, maybe I’m not giving the writers enough credit. 

With Nicholas Meyer on board to actually make something saleable, Nimoy on board to get the best from the characters, and even Paramount on board to not needlessly meddle, the only thing left was the cast.

William Shatner in particular had pay demands that made some at Paramount consider continuing Trek as a TV show again rather than a film series. In the end Shatner (and Nimoy) agreed a new deal worth a comparatively low $2.5 million, but that figure was enough for Paramount to go for the cheap option, and so work began on a new series featuring new and cheaper actors. Thus, The Voyage Home accidentally created Star Trek: The Next Generation . The other bridge crew were of course on board, but the 1986 San Francisco setting meant there was an opportunity to bring on board a big star name to promote the film to a wider audience. This tied nicely in with Shatner’s (alleged) demands that he be given a love interest to seduce and “teach about this Earth thing you call making love”, like in [insert any original Trek episode here].

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Paramount’s first choice for Kirk’s love interest was Eddie Murphy. However, Murphy wasn’t interested in playing an expy of himself and wanted to play a starfleet officer or an alien, and turned down the role. And to think that in 1986 we could have seen Trek ’s first interracial gay time travelling sex scene. Ah well, we can only hope. Interesting note: Eddie Murphy also turned down Ghostbusters . Just think, we could have had a Ghostbusters / Trek crossover. Anyway, the part was rewritten for Catherine Hicks, meaning her two most famous roles have been alongside captains of the Enterprise.

The last step was to bridge the film to the wider Star Trek storyline. After III the crew were trapped on Vulcan, fugitives for stealing (and then blowing up) the Enterprise, but going back to Earth would require facing punishment. Harve Bennett wrote the first and final sections dealing with this to form something of a trilogy, and also to provide a framing device for the time travel story which makes up the meat of the film. It’s actually quite surprising how quickly the dangling threads from Wrath and Search are dealt with, yet it never comes across as a cheat. The Klingons want Kirk because of Genesis, Starfleet wants him to stand trial for stealing the Enterprise, and Kirk is quite willing to hand himself in and face the music. Starfleet tells the Klingons to Klingoff (setting up the events of Star Trek VI ), and then give Kirk a slap on the wrist demotion and issue him with another Enterprise. This is the civilised 23rd century after all, no eye for an eye here.

Of course, if I were in charge of starfleet I would have ordered him to be burned at the stake, but this is The Voyage Home we’re talking about, where there the rule was ‘no dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy’.

There is one oft-cited criticism in all this though, and it is one that would be levelled at other even numbered films – The Voyage Home is Trek- lite. This was deliberate, and even played up in the marketing – in this country, the official title is The Voyage Home: Star Trek IV , designed to give a wider audience. As such, much of the philosophy that defines Trek is absent. The one big question posed, when McCoy asks Spock to describe death, is brushed off with a glib (although unnervingly deep) remark that there is no frame of reference that could make the conversation make sense. I have to admit, this lack of a big idea is what put me off the film for a long time, although my opinion has softened over the years. I’m as conflicted as the film is about its message.

I get that the theme is supposed to be ‘be careful with nature because you won’t know how valuable it is until it’s gone’, but by having the whole time travelling whale probe thing, you could easily interpret the theme as ‘don’t worry about the environment, because sufficiently advanced technology can overcome anything’. After all, the probe didn’t seem to particularly care about keeping the whales alive, just in making sure it had enough technology to punish anyone who killed them. And in the end it didn’t even matter, because a bunch of criminals in a stolen spaceship just used that technology to make everything better. Is that really the message we’re supposed to take away? No. The fact that I do take this away means that, as philosophical Trek goes, this one has problems. There’s only so far you can water down a message.

I do have another beef with this film, and much bigger than any philosophical worries (after all, no one watches an 80s time travel comedy because the library was out of Kant) – I think a lot of 80s comedies were crap. Not all comedies, but the broad appeal, PG rated comedies generally starring Steve Guttenberg. The kind that didn’t really have any jokes in but were somehow supposed to be funny.

Star Trek IV  is a film that pretty much has no jokes. There’s setup, there’s characters playing off each other, but there’s no payoff. Just situations that might make you smile, and the occasional Spock one liner. Nimoy would go on to direct Three Men And A Baby , a film I’m certainly ambivalent about. It’s funny because they don’t know how to take care of a baby! I think there was a moustache involved. The point is, I can’t remember much about it, because it’s so insubstantial. And I don’t enjoy those films. Unless there’s some sort of edge, some interesting hook, I can’t get excited.

Take Short Circuit . First film, Steve Guttenberg teaches a robot to tell bad jokes. Hmmm. The second? Childlike robot gets involved with a criminal gang and a con artist, and then gets brutally hacked to death. That kind of stuff gets my interest. I think I might need help.

Point is, I was never the biggest fan of  Star Trek IV – a favourite amongst the series for many – but that’s mostly because I don’t like this sub genre. Yet if this weren’t a Trek film, I’d probably think much better of it. I need to explain that otherwise you’ll wonder why I’m being such a double dumbass.

Onto the film in more detail, then.

It begins with a bombastic transporter effect as the title beams in, and then descends into quite possibly Trek ’s worst theme tune (and I’m including Faith Of The Heart in that). To be fair, it does sound like a rejected score for a 70s sitcom. It also sounds like someone’s getting married. Stop toying with me, film, I already know that Shatner and Murphy don’t get it on. It doesn’t even sound like any of the other films, even in a series with little musical continuity. It also liberally borrows from Rosenman’s other works, including Ralph Bakshi’s Lord Of The Rings . And to think, only two films ago people were borrowing Star Trek music, not the other way around. Probably should say something nice. Okay, I like the font.

The opening itself, however, is much more effective. For all I’m not the fan many are of the comedy bits, the sci-fi stuff is great. The Cetacean probe is a damn odd piece of design – a giant, screaming pipe armed with a testicle that turns the lights off. There are also the Klingons. While the whole trial thing is a way of tying up Star Trek III ’s loose ends, it also provides a neat backdrop for non-fans. Klingons hate Kirk because of stealing their ship, Kirk hates Klingons because they murdered his son, Vulcans are emotionless, and there’s no Enterprise because that maniac Kirk blew it up (as shown by Star Trek III itself being played to the jury).

Finally, there’s Spock. He doesn’t feel emotions, but he’s half human so he should. We are told this at great length, presumably because otherwise the non-Trekkies would get confused about the pointy eared dude in a dressing gown. 

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So there’s the setup. Bad things are happening on Earth, Kirk et al are conveniently the only ones who can help because they start the film on Vulcan, and Spock isn’t quite right in the head yet having spent much of the last few months stuck in the head of a guy who hates him. It’s good: the setup is quite clever in bringing all the pieces together. The meat of the film though? Let’s see…

Good: That time travel sequence makes me wonder if Nimoy really did do a little too much LDS. It makes the stargate sequence from 2001 seem accessible.

Bad: Learning to swear like only a Trekkie can. Don’t try and fool me into thinking Kirk doesn’t know how to use colourful metaphors. Get him in bed and I bet he swears like a ginned up 50 year old dock worker.

Good: The crew are endearingly awkward.

Bad: The heavy handed ‘killing whales is bad’ bit. Look, I know killing whales is bad, which is why I have only eaten whale a few times. Tastes like rabbit.

Good: Kirk creates a time paradox to make money. Screw you universe.

Bad: Kirk is still dressed as a bad lampshade

Good: Spock is the hell mentally ill.

Bad: Chekov doesn’t realise he nearly starts World War III, idiot. I don’t care if he can’t say ‘nuclear vessels’, he can’t even say ‘diplomatic incident’. The whole subplot is daft. They need to rekerfooble the dilithium crystals and the solution is “high energy photons”. In other words, x-rays and gamma rays. Just hold the thing up to the sun!

Good: The glue on Shatner’s toupee is incredible. Just look at it ‘naturally’ blowing in the wind.

Bad: Transparent aluminium can hold a whale tank but can’t withstand rain? The future is an idiot. And if Scotty can make the tank with acrylic, why doesn’t he just use that? Why does he take the formula for transparent aluminium to a plastics manufacturer? Surely somewhere that actually deals with aluminium would be better? 80s comedies – sacrificing plausibility for laughs, then not bothering with the laughs.

Good: Sulu seduces a pilot. No one can resist that man.

After these hijinks, it’s time to go back to the future. Whales released, everyone a bit damp, probe sods off (and is never mentioned ever again), Kirk is given a slap on the wrist demotion and he gets another Enterprise to blow up. Which is a bit of a shame, because as a trilogy, the end is a let down. After all the crew have been through, you’d expect they’d be in a different place at the end. That there would be some sort of growth. But no, by the end they’re back on the Enterprise, back exploring the galaxy, and not a single one has changed. In fact the only character development in The Voyage Home is Spock, and all that serves is to turn him back into the Spock we know. Ultimately, it’s a bit of fluff, where nothing really matters and nothing really changes.

Entertaining fluff? Sure. But fluff? Yes.

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Alex Carter

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Is the Original Crew's Best Feature Length Outing

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home -- directed by Mr. Spock himself , Leonard Nimoy -- opened in 1986, performing exceptionally well at the box office and scoring high with both Trek fans and general audiences alike. The film's lighthearted nature, emphasis on humor and focus on specific ecological themes -- a stark departure in tone and story from the preceding two films -- provided a fun, character-driven reprieve from villains, vengeance and violence. Known today largely because of its plot surrounding humpback whales, The Voyage Home excels as a sci-fi film and, out of all six outings featuring the original cast, flies high as the series' strongest installment precisely because it's unabashedly fun. The Voyage Home works because it highlights Star Trek 's understanding of science as well as each character's idiosyncrasies, something that kept viewers engaged back in the '60s.

The Voyage Home Spotlights the Full Crew - Not Just Kirk and Spock

Nimoy, who also directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , is just as good at directing as he is at acting, helping the movie stay brisk and engaging while trimming off any unnecessary elements. The crew of the Enterprise -- this time operating out of a repurposed Klingon Bird of Prey that was salvaged and commandeered after a dangerous confrontation in Search for Spock -- is in top form in this fourth chapter, with each member of the team getting something to do. This was another change from the preceding films, as Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and, to an extent, Star Trek III -- while obviously including the entire original cast -- focused primarily on the emotional arcs of Captain Kirk and his best friend Spock . The Voyage Home utilized the whole team in ways that underscored their usefulness, as well as their wit and obvious appeal.

RELATED: 10 Best Friendships In The Star Trek Franchise

Wrath of Khan rejuvenated the Star Trek film series, making them thrilling and exciting enough to go up against Star Wars , but the original cast demonstrates that these characters can successfully tell very different kinds of stories, varying in subject matter and tone -- yet never wavering on entertainment value or forgetting who each character is at their core. And because The Voyage Home embraces all the little quirks and details of the crew, as well as the concept of Star Trek as a whole, the movie is just plain fun. One character particularly stands out: the ever-cautious and grouchy Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy , portrayed by veteran actor DeForest Kelley. He gets several great scenes with Spock, showcasing his grumpy but endearing personality.

The Voyage Home Is Both Fun and Insightful

While it might sound silly on paper, The Voyage Home makes a story about time travel, humpback whales and a mysterious alien probe seeking to reinstate contact with said whales an engrossing adventure. With humpback whales being extinct in the 23rd century, Kirk and company must return to a time on Earth when these creatures existed -- specifically, the year 1986. The film is never heavy-handed about its ecological concerns, though, leaving it up to the audience to make up their minds and hearts on the matter. The probe of unknown origin, while causing damage and destruction to much of the Earth after it fails to make contact with any whales, is never categorized as a villain. This lack of a good vs. evil dynamic -- having the probe just be what it is without any kind of moral demarcation -- benefits the movie and helps it stand apart from what came before.

RELATED: Late Star Trek Actor Nichelle Nichols to Have Ashes Sent Into Space

An awareness of the real world, however reconstructed through fiction it might be, is nothing new to the genre -- but something that the original Star Trek series modeled very well. The Voyage Home continues this dynamic, whereas Star Trek II and III were primarily focused on action-based stories with obvious antagonists -- the most famous of which is still Khan Noonien Singh. There is also a heartfelt dedication at the start of the film to NASA's Challenger space shuttle crew, an instance of science fiction paying respect to real-world pioneers and space explorers.

With deft directing, a talented and engaging cast and a sense of fun, the film never dissolves into slapstick, always managing to balance its levity and seriousness. The time travel component of the plot results in a great "fish out of water" sequence (no pun intended) where the Enterprise crew is standing around in the heart of '80s San Francisco looking dazed and confused. 20th-century problems -- like currency -- and its vulgar use of language are momentary barriers for the movie's heroes, humorously underscoring all the ways in which humanity as a species had changed in roughly 300 years. After an almost madcap series of events, Kirk and his crew manage to bring back a pair of humpbacks, and as usual, they succeed in saving the day. The Voyage Home , while light years apart from modern, gritty Trek , is a masterclass in filmmaking with an overpowering earnestness.

• Movie Features

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ( Paramount Pictures , 1986 ) is the fourth feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series . It completes the trilogy started in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .

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• [Opening dedication text]

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Star Trek IV's Kirk Rule Changes How You Look At The Voyage Home

It's well known that William Shatner saw himself as the most important cast member in "Star Trek," both the original TV series and the six films featuring the entire classic cast. And per the studio, the rest of the ensemble, along with the directors, writers, and producers, had to constantly yield to his desire to have Captain (later Admiral) James T. Kirk be the center of attention at all times.

This edict extended to the fourth film in the series, 1986's "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," which still ranks among the "Star Trek" franchise's highest earners at the box office. As "Star Trek IV" co-screenwriter Steve Meerson pointed out in Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross' book, "Captain's Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages," that so-called "Kirk rule" led to some awkwardly constructed scenes even in this acclaimed film.

In one such sequence, Meerson said that it was Spock (Leonard Nimoy) who determines that our heroes must go back in time, retrieve a humpback whale, and use its song to communicate with a destructive space probe, but that Kirk had to actually put the idea into words. "Kirk verbalizes it, and that's the way it had to be played," recalled Meerson. "We were told Bill had to be the leader at all times. In that scene, if you're reading it, you say, 'It's Spock's idea,' but on film, Spock's discovery that it's humpback whales is not as important as Kirk's idea of going to get them."

The studio brass wanted to keep William Shatner happy

Steve Meerson also noted that whether he had dialogue or not, William Shatner's Kirk had to appear in scenes even if there was no specific reason for him to be there. Meerson cited one such scene near the end of "Star Trek IV," in which Kirk watches from the sidelines while Spock and his father, Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard, who played multiple "Star Trek" characters ), have a private conversation that has nothing at all to do with the captain.

Meerson said that instructions regarding Shatner's pervasive placement in any given scene came from the top echelons of Paramount Pictures. "The approach we were told to take is that Kirk really had to be the one to lead everyone," Meerson said in "Captain's Logs." "Not necessarily that he had to actually have the idea to do something, but it had to appear as if he has the idea."

Paramount's effort to placate its star was perhaps understandable; certainly, at the time, it would have been very difficult to make a "Star Trek" film without William Shatner and Captain Kirk. And despite the need to bend the story toward Shatner at all times, "Star Trek IV" director Leonard Nimoy did manage to give almost all the other crew members a moment or two in the spotlight — even if that light was eventually blocked by the shadow of their captain's massive ego.

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Reviews

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home may be the most important film within the franchise, as it demonstrates how the potential of its venerable characters transcends space and time.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 5, 2023

Offered quite a bit more levity than the previous films- or at least, as much as is possible for a movie that features the possible end of life on Earth.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 1, 2021

The comedy in this entry is so broad that the movie often doesn't even feel like a Star Trek project (which of course explains its wide popularity).

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 10, 2021

Much of the fun to be found in the quite witty screenplay involves the bemused citizens of the future trying to cope with 20th-century life.

Full Review | May 27, 2021

Time travel is a new concept for this series, and having the crew visit a familiar version of Earth is certainly an amusing idea; but why did it have to involve whales?

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Sep 8, 2020

As much a passionate, heavy-handed environmental screed as it is a flighty space opera, The Voyage Home can't ever quite reconcile its disparate moods and ideas into a holistic experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 31, 2020

The marching orders here were for a romp, and a romp they produced.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 8, 2019

If most movies today are doomed to be sure-fire, presold properties--with ideas leached from our recent TV or cinematic past--let's hope they're all as good at the game as "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."

Full Review | Sep 7, 2016

A bit flimsy to be legitimately counted as "great" Star Trek, but aware enough of its characters and their attachments to each other and the audience that it's "fun" Star Trek.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | May 23, 2013

Buoyant, farcical time-travel Enterprise escapade.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 15, 2010

...Kirk has finally reached his full lounge lizard potential (it's as if the comedy has freed him from his remaining inhibitions).

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 3, 2009

The eco-themes are writ large, but are saved from smacking of cringe-worthy earnestness by the good humour of the whole endeavour.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 19, 2008

Latest excursion is warmer, wittier, more socially relevant and truer to its TV origins than prior odysseys.

Full Review | May 19, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 11, 2007

By far the silliest and most self-mocking of the series.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 6, 2007

I suspect the unconverted will want to be beamed up pronto.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2007

It's a lightweight, entertaining, relentlessly mainstream action-farce. A high old time, no question. Too bad it's such lousy Star Trek. Here's where the series 'jumped the shark' -- and found that it was a whale.

Full Review | Apr 8, 2006

Kirk & Co return to present-day San Francisco to save the whales in the most enjoyable film of the series so far, also returning to the simplistic morality-play format that gave the original TV series its strength.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 26, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 8, 2005

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is pure, joyful cinema

Entertainment Geekly's 'Star Trek' series looks at the best whale movie ever made

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise – and the release of Star Trek Beyond , the 13th feature film in the series. To celebrate this big year, and ponder the deeper meanings of Trek ’s first half-century, the Entertainment Geekly column will look at a different Star Trek film each week from now till Beyond . This week: The only Trek film that feels like a Howard Hawks comedy. Last week: The Trek film about the clashing egos of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy . Next week: Shatner unleashed .

In 1965, Leonard Nimoy said the first words ever uttered in the Star Trek universe. “Check the circuit!” says Spock at the start of “The Cage,” the original pilot for Star Trek and the first time Star Trek was boring. To modern eyes, Spock doesn’t look like Spock: Eyebrows too big, hair too mussed, a noose-collar atop a too-baggy uniform, flanking an un-Kirk Captain who looks too much like Jay Leno’s chin chest-bursting out of Ray Liotta’s face.

NBC didn’t like Star Trek , didn’t like Spock. A year later, Gene Roddenberry filmed a new pilot. He fired everybody — he fired his mistress! — but he kept Nimoy.

Twenty years later, Roddenberry was gone — to Next Generation , not for long — and Nimoy was in control. Tricky thing, applying words like “control” or “authorship” to anything Star Trek . Nimoy directed Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , and received a “Story By” credit. So did Harve Bennett, the producer of Movie Two through Movie Five, making him another Man Who Saved Star Trek and another Man Who Almost Destroyed Star Trek . Bennett shares screenplay credit alongside three other men. One of those writers later wrote Double Impact , the movie where Jean-Claude Van Damme headbutts Jean-Claude Van Damme.

And one of those writers was Nicholas Meyer, the man who made Wrath of Khan . Meyer’s generally credited with writing the film’s 20th Century-set Act 2. Perhaps not coincidentally, The Voyage Home has one of the greatest and daffiest Act 2’s of any film ever. Here is a movie that begins as A Race Against Time To Save The Earth and then takes a sharp detour into aquarium etiquette and Bay Area geography; a movie where the stakes are global, and there’s plenty of time for Kirk to take a marine biologist out for an Italian dinner; a movie where Kirk is a noble romantic protagonist who makes his date foot the bill. There’s a wonderful lack of seriousness powering The Voyage Home , recalling Howard Hawks’ loopy genre exercises To Have and Have Not or The Big Sleep . It is the kind of movie where characters spend the whole movie taking a break from the movie.

So it was a team effort, in front of the camera and behind the scenes. But it was a team effort with a leader. And the leader wanted to make a different kind of film. Nimoy later explained the core concept: “No dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy.” His previous Star Trek film had all those things, and outer space, and aliens, and sets. Nimoy wanted to make a movie about Earth, right now, shot on location, with human people.

Nimoy was an actor, a director, a photographer, a memoirist, a musician, a cameo cartoon voice, a face in advertisements that baited your nostalgia and dared you not to smile. In all things he was Spock. Sometimes that bothered him: He wrote I Am Spock , but also I Am Not Spock . Nimoy was never a dilettante, a preening highbrow — never the Alan Rickman character from Galaxy Quest, that self-loathing Shakespearean slumming for fanboy dollars and residual fame. Nimoy liked Spock, truthfully. He liked the work, occasionally. He liked the money, naturally: $2.5 million for Trek IV . (That’s more than Hemsworth made on Avengers — and that’s mid-’80s dollars, unadjusted.) Nimoy was frustrated with Spock, but it wasn’t merely the frustration of typecasting or of repetition. It was the internal struggle, the human condition: Nimoy struggled with Spock the way Hamlet struggles with Hamlet.

And Nimoy loved people. That sounds like a simple thing to say, until you watch The Voyage Home , one of the loveliest and strangest and lightest comedies ever made, and you realize that “loving people” can be something tangible, like an added filter on the camera. Nimoy loved the supporting players, and his film bestows each of them with a Hall of Fame moment. Scotty: “A keyboard. How quaint .” Chekov: “Nuclear wessels .” Uhura: “But where is Alameda ?” McCoy, undercover as a surgeon, asks an old lady in a hospital what’s wrong with her. Kidney dialysis, she says. “Dialysis!” McCoy sputters — an actual honest-to-god sputter, DeForest Kelley’s voice like an old engine cackling. “What is this, the Dark Ages ?”

Sulu was supposed to get a showcase scene meeting his own great-great-great-grand-something. It didn’t work out — the kid got scared — and Nimoy was still bummed about it a decade later when he wrote I Am Spock . But oh, how I treasure Takei, in his baritone voice, narrating the Enterprise’s warpspeed run into the center of our solar system: “Nine point five! Nine point six! Nine point seven! NINE POINT EIGHT! ” (And The Voyage Home continues one of the great embedded subplots in Trek history: The love story between Sulu and the Excelsior .)

Did I mention that they’re warping straight into the sun so they can travel through time? There’s an energy-sapping probe destroying Earth, apparently because no one can respond to the probe’s message. Is the probe saying “hello” to humanity? “Only human arrogance would assume the message must be meant for man,” Spock chastises.

It’s been said there are no villains in Star Trek IV. In the future, the probe hails from some unknown intelligence that almost destroys Earth by accident. In the past, every hint of antagonism is quickly undercut. At one point, Chekov is captured by the FBI, and there’s a much simpler, more on-the-nose version of this movie where the FBI becomes the bad guys. Maybe that wouldn’t be terrible; maybe it would be sharp, playing the utopian sensibility of the Federation against Cold War paranoia. But in The Voyage Home , it’s an opportunity for a “Who’s On First” routine:

FBI AGENT: Let’s take it from the top.

CHEKOV: The top of what?

FBI AGENT: Name?

CHEKOV: My name?

FBI AGENT: No, my name.

CHEKOV: I do not know your name!

FBI AGENT: You play games with me, mister, and you’re through.

CHEKOV: I am? Can I go now?

At this point, the FBI agent — who looks like the uncanny valley between Paul Rudd and Armie Hammer — whispers to his partner, “What do you think?” His partner says, “He’s a Russkie.” The FBI agent, completely deadpan, missing a beat: “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life.” Every one-scene character in The Voyage Home is smarter than they should be, wittier than they have to be. Chekov grabs his phaser and tries to fire it, but it’s run low on batteries. He tosses it to the FBI agent, and watch closely here.

The actor is Jeff Lester — who naturally played both “Lane Brody” and “Lance Jarvis” on Baywatch — and he catches the phaser with a look of weary amusement. Here’s a film where the shady FBI guys feel tired, and a bit embarrassed, about being shady FBI guys.

The Voyage Home reminds me of something Dan Harmon told Vulture regarding Cheers : “The characters were so distinct. As with Peanuts , you could put them in outer space and still know which one was Charlie Brown.” The Voyage Home is the inverse of that theorem: It takes its characters from outer space and sets them down on the streets of San Francisco, in the halls of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in the front seat of a truck. And here’s something strange. You’ve seen Kirk and Spock on alien planets production designed like pop art comic strips, in cosmic mountain ranges battling aliens beyond our ken; you’ve seen them battle gods and monsters.

Yet I don’t think there is any single moment in Star Trek history where Kirk and Spock look better — at once grander and more approachable, like statues of the Founding Fathers buying rounds at sports bar — than the moment when they walk along Marina Boulevard. Behind them: The bay, the Bridge, the fog.

Kirk’s still wearing his magenta-maroon disco suit, looking like the communist dictator of Studio 54; Spock’s wearing a karate bathrobe. You can giggle at the buried joke of the movie — they fit right into pre-digital San Francisco — but you can also appreciate how the movie makes them seem so much bigger by bringing them down to Earth.

No other Star Trek film has done location shooting like this; maybe The Voyage Home is Trek as neo-realism. Legend holds that the “nuclear wessels” scene was shot in secret, with Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols talking to random passers-by. That’s maybe not true — counter-legend holds that those are all paid extras — but in the most memorable part of the scene, Russian Chekov asks a nearby policeman for directions to the closest nuclear reactor. The cop says nothing, doesn’t even move; he was an actual San Francisco, working with the production crew in an official capacity. So, actually, hang the neo-realism: The Voyage Home is as close as Trek ever gets to the start of “Duck Amuck,” when Daffy walks off his own film strip.

The humor of The Voyage Home is playful without ever becoming sarcastic, self-aware without ever feeling like self-loathing. The characters feel engaged — watch how Takei is constantly looking around San Francisco, a great grin on his face. Think of how this movie shifts from Act One to Act Two: Spock says they need to save the whales; Kirk says “Let’s time travel!”; and then they aim their ship right into the sun. Think, too, of Catherine Hicks, in a tricky role. She plays Gillian, the whale-loving marine biologist. She thinks Kirk and Spock are crazy, but intriguing; she doesn’t really believe they’re from the future, but she intuitively understands that they’re people she should hang out with.

A lesser film might try to architect this interaction somehow. (Maybe Gillian is an FBI agent; maybe the wrong thing for America circa 1986 is the right thing for the world .) Hell, one of the greatest hours of television ever is a Star Trek time travel episode where Kirk goes to the past and falls in love with the most important woman in history. The Voyage Home has no time for such pretensions. Gillian’s an obvious love interest, but they never really have a “romantic” scene. Gillian thinks Kirk is interesting; Kirk likes how much she cares. And Gillian is allowed to come to the future — where she promptly says goodbye to Kirk, because there’s just so much more to see.

Their final scene together is one of the most graceful light-comedic romance moments in any movie I can think of. “How will I find you?” he asks her — kidding but not quite, Shatner’s laugh a bit too forced. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll find you.” Nimoy holds his camera for two long moments, first of Gillian saying farewell:

Then of Kirk, astonished. What do you think is going through his mind?

Is he amazed that, for once, he’s the one left behind? Is he bemused at the grand divine comedy of existence? Maybe I’m a shameless romantic, but I can’t help but imagine his thought bubble in Shatnerian overspeak: “My god, Bones! I think I’m in love!”

Shatner! My god, Shatner! Another one of the graceful jokes powering The Voyage Home is that, here in the past, Captain Kirk remains the most confident man in the galaxy, despite all indications that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Needing money, he pawns McCoy’s birthday glasses at an antique shop. The owner will pay a hundred dollars for them. “Is that a lot?” Kirk asks, smiling wide like a con man.

Later, at the aquarium, Kirk spots Spock swimming with the whales, and his wild overreactions belong in a silent movie museum:

Of course, Kirk is a con man in The Voyage Home . To his crew, he pretends to know everything about the past. (“Double dumb ass on you!”) To people in the past, he offers one BS line after another. (“I think he had a little too much LDS.”) The joke of his brimming confidence paired against Spock’s Holy Fool confusion reaches Chico-and-Harpo levels:

But the film isn’t some shallow self-parody of Kirk, or Star Trek . It has heart, and passion — Save the Whales! — and a tremendous sense of fun. When the crew crash-lands into the Bay, they need to climb out of their sinking ship. The whales start singing; the probe is vanquished. Another film might cut away, but Nimoy’s camera lingers, and we watch the crew of the Enterprise cheerfully jump into the water. The line between character and actor falls away, phasered into nonexistence. James Doohan does a bellyflopping dive into the water; Nichelle Nichols splashes water toward DeForest Kelley. At one point, Kirk pulls Spock into the water — or maybe that’s Shatner and Nimoy, fooling around.

And yet, there is a seriousness to the wonderful, exuberant silliness of The Voyage Home . At the film’s beginning, the resurrected Spock is asked a question: “How do you feel?” At the end of the film, Spock has traveled across space and time, has rescued a dead great species from the dustbin of existence, has saved the Earth one more time. And none of that plot stuff matters half so much as Spock saying, nonchalant: “I feel fine.” To feel “fine” is not to feel “perfect” or even “happy,” does not imply tremendous success nor some massive personal change.

To feel “fine” in The Voyage Home is to be aware of your place in the great scheme of existence, content in your place among your fellow creatures. There is such optimism in this movie, and perhaps that optimism is residual from Roddenberry — but Roddenberry preferred grand statements, not whimsy. The Voyage Home needed Nimoy, a thoughtful man with a sense of humor, a leader who loved his people, and loved people in general, and damn it, who loved the whales, and Earth, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and the nightmare intersection where Columbus and Kearny and Jackson hit each other right in front of the Zoetrope Building.

Nimoy died last year, age 82: A long life, and prosperous. Spock will live forever, of course — and The Voyage Home is his magnum opus. Quickly, listen to the theme music for Voyage Home by Leonard Rosenman.

Can you hear the festive melody? Aren’t those bells ringing vaguely yuletidal? There’s no obvious comparison in movie history for Star Trek: the Voyage Home , not many time travel message movies about family and friends and the fear that we’re all doomed because of sins in the past, and how that fear will always crash like waves against the shore of the eternal human hope that it’s not too late, that we can change.

But there is that famous story about heavenly visitors and time travel, a myth about how any person can change a dark-sad future into a happy-better one, a parable that argues that the great heroic act of existence is being an engaged part of a community. So maybe The Voyage Home is our new A Christmas Carol . Maybe Ebenezer Scrooge can save Tiny Tim; maybe the Earth isn’t doomed; maybe, in 2286, whales will still be swimming through oceans unrisen; maybe our descendants will be here, too, in this world someone saved for them. Probe bless us, every one.

THE WHOLE MOVIE IN ONE SHOT:

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the voyage home.

• About the Book

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy comes the powerful third installment to the Women of Troy series.

I never saw Cassandra as a victim. I saw a woman as focused on a single aim as any raptor stooping to its prey; but then, I had more opportunities to observe her ruthlessness than most. I was in her power, you see. I was her slave.

Pat Barker has crafted the latest in a brilliant reimagining of Greek mythology, and THE VOYAGE HOME is the work of a writer at the height of her powers. In this third outing, she follows the young Ritsa and the unpredictable Cassandra on their perilous return journey to Mycenae. Cassandra has acquired the powers of prophecy from the kiss of Apollo, but the very same god has taken away the people’s belief in her abilities. Though she warns of the carnage that awaits the Greek warrior king Agamemnon --- who numbs himself with alcohol on the storm-plagued trip home --- her shipmates disregard her.

While Cassandra’s prophecies fall on deaf ears, Ritsa instead remains focused on surviving once they make land. When a mysterious young girl begins to shadow them, and Agamemnon’s cruelty takes a new turn, Ritsa must find a safe place for Cassandra, whose mood alternates between cruelty and frenzy. But it’s the ongoing ire between Queen Clytemnestra and Agamemnon that could prove fatal for everyone.

In THE VOYAGE HOME, Barker elevates myth and legend and asks us to examine the stories we hold dear through a feminist lens, and in doing so she has crafted a tale that upholds her legacy as one of our finest contemporary novelists.

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker

• Publication Date: December 3, 2024
• Genres: Fiction , Historical Fiction
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday
• ISBN-10: 0385549113
• ISBN-13: 9780385549110

Screen Rant

Spock’s original parents didn't appear together after 1960s star trek.

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Star Trek: The Original Series Cast & Character Guide

After 57 years, star trek settles the truth about trelane's godlike species, i’m glad voyager’s tom and b’elanna are no longer star trek's only successful romance.

The original actors who played Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) parents, Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard) and Amanda Grayson (Jane Wyatt), only appeared together once in Star Trek: The Original Series and didn't share the screen again. Sarek was the Vulcan Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets, a position he held in the 23rd and 24th centuries. Amanda Grayson was Sarek's first human wife , and she is the mother of Spock. Sarek and Amanda adopted Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and raised her on Vulcan alongside Spock.

Spock's family dynamics are among the most fascinating in Star Trek . Spock and Sarek were not on speaking terms for many years after the son chose Starfleet over his father's wishes that Spock join the Vulcan Science Academy. Ironically, after Michael Burnham graduated from the Vulcan Science Academy but was targeted by Vulcan logic extremists because she is human, Sarek pulled strings with Starfleet to post Michael on the USS Shenzhou. All throughout, Amanda stood by Sarek's side , and gave her children, Spock and Michael, as much love as she could while facing the continuing difficulties of living as a human on Vulcan.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, set in the 24th century decades after Amanda Grayson's death, Sarek was married to another human woman named Perrin (Joanna Miles).

Star Trek: The Original Series features some of the most iconic characters in all of science fiction with the crew of the original USS Enterprise.

Spock’s Parents Only Appeared Together In Star Trek: The Original Series

Sarek and amanda debuted in "journey to babel".

Ambassador Sarek and Amanda Grayson were introduced in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2's "Journey to Babel," and this was the only time the original actors who played Spock's parents shared the screen together. Sarek and Amanda came aboard the USS Enterprise, which carried numerous Federation dignitaries, on a journey to an important diplomatic conference. "Journey to Babel" established Spock and Sarek had not spoken for 20 years, and showed the important role Amanda played in Spock's life .

Mark Lenard's Sarek and Jane Wyatt's Amanda did return in the Star Trek movies , but they did not appear together on-screen. Sarek was in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , and in both appearances, the Vulcan Ambassador was either at Admiral James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) San Francisco home or at Federation Headquarters. Amanda's lone movie appearance was in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Hom e. where she counsels Spock on Vulcan after her son's death and resurrection.

In a vision of Spock's birth seen in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , young Sarek and Amanda were played by Jonathan Simpson and Cynthia Blaise.

Spock’s Kelvin Timeline Parents Appeared Together In J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek

In the film and in a deleted scene.

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009) reboot introduced Ambassador Sarek (Ben Cross) and Amanda Grayson (Winona Ryder). Amanda and Sarek share the screen in Star Trek 's alternate Kelvin timeline. A deleted scene from Star Trek (2009) shows Sarek and Amanda together during Spock's (Zachary Quinto) on Vulcan. Later in Star Trek (2009), Sarek and Amanda are together (for the last time) when Spock tries to rescue them before the Romulan time traveler Nero (Eric Bana) destroys Vulcan. Tragically, while Sarek is beamed to the USS Enterprise, Spock watches his mother and his homeworld die.

Spock's Parents Appeared Together In Star Trek: Discovery

Sarek and amanda finally share the screen again.

Star Trek: Discovery seasons 1 and 2, set in 2256-2258, years before Star Trek: The Original Series , finally showed Ambassador Sarek (James Frain) and Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner) sharing the screen again in Star Trek 's Prime Timeline . Both Sarek and Amanda play crucial roles in Michael Burnham's life, counseling her as she regained her Starfleet rank as Commander and redeemed herself after becoming Starfleet's first mutineer. Amanda and Sarek were also important in helping Michael save Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) in Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

Star Trek: Discovery showed the closeness between Sarek and Amanda Grayson.

Sarek and Amanda were together to watch Commander Michael Burnham's speech to the Federation at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 1 , Flashbacks in Star Trek: Discovery season 2's premiere showed how Sarek and Amanda welcomed young Michael Burnham (Arista Arhin) to their home on Vulcan and introduced her to young Spock (Liam Hughes). Star Trek: Discovery showed the closeness between Sarek and Amanda Grayson that Star Trek: The Original Series only showed once.

Star Trek: The Original Series

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First is the classic  Constitution -class  Enterprise , which will retail at $115 and features “red enamel and two sapphire blue cubic zirconia crystals set into the warp nacelles, along with an additional blue crystal in the bridge.”

Next is the Enterprise -D, which will retail at $115 and features “two garnet red cubic zirconia crystals set into the warp nacelles, along with sapphire blue crystals emulating the glow of the navigational deflector.”

Following is the  Deep Space 9 station, which is also priced for $115 and “hangs from an adjustable sterling silver cable chain complete with a lobster clasp and signature tag.”

Voyager fans will also get their  Intrepid- class starship, with a $115 cost, that will come “accentuated with two garnet red cubic zirconia crystals set into the warp nacelles, along with sapphire blue crystals emulating the glow of the navigational deflector.”

The classic  Galileo  shuttlecraft necklace is slightly more pricey at $125, but it features “red enameled markings and two garnet red cubic zirconia crystals set into the twin nacelles” and “the articulated roof of the ship hinges open to reveal tiny seats within.”

One of the more higher-priced necklaces features the classic Starfleet communicator at $150, “crafted in solid sterling silver and plated with black rhodium and warm 14K yellow gold.” It also opens, as “the divot-textured cover is articulated, allowing it to open and reveal intricately carved details, accented by white, garnet red, and sapphire blue cubic zirconia.”

Of course, the Vulcan IDIC makes an appearance in this collection, as this $150 necklace has “a luxurious 14K yellow gold plate” and a “sparkling white cubic zirconia crystal” at its center.

The Klingon Empire is also included, with its own $125 necklace; it has “black rhodium plating on the handles and a distressed texture” to emulate a battle-worn look. This one is intended to be a unisex design, as the pendent “hangs from a 20 to 24 inch adjustable slender curb chain.”

In addition to all the necklaces, RockLove is also debuting a ‘spinner ring’ with a sculpted 23rd century hand phaser.

This ring features a sculpted phaser that remains stationary at the top, with an interior ring band set beneath it. As the inner band revolves, it creates the illusion of a spinning beam of energy. Inside the ring, the engraved command “Set phasers to stun” reflects the show’s ethos of prioritizing exploration and diplomacy over aggression.

All of these new  Star Trek  jewelry items will go live at the RockLove website on Sunday, September 8 at 9AM PT (12PM ET).

Keep coming back to TrekCore for all the latest in Star Trek merchandise news!

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