Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Director:

Leonard Nimoy

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek)
Steve Meerson (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

26 November 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Beaming down to Earth December 12 1986

Plot:

To save Earth from an alien probe, Kirk and his crew go back in time to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it, humpback whales.

Plot Keywords:

Probe | Whale | Space | Time Travel | Punk

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

William Shatner	...	Admiral / Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Captain Spock
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy
James Doohan	...	Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
George Takei	...	Commander Hikaru Sulu
Walter Koenig	...	Commander Pavel Chekov
Nichelle Nichols	...	Cmdr. Uhura
Jane Wyatt	...	Amanda
Catherine Hicks	...	Dr. Gillian Taylor
Mark Lenard	...	Ambassador Sarek
Robin Curtis	...	Lieutenant Saavik
Robert Ellenstein	...	Federation Council President
John Schuck	...	Klingon Ambassador
Brock Peters	...	Admiral Cartwright
Michael Snyder	...	Starfleet communications officer

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby SR (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Italy:T | Canada:G (Canadian Home Video rating) | Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | Brazil:Livre | Sweden:11 | Canada:G (Régie du Cinéma Québec) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Finland:K-11 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-12/9 (original rating) | France:U | Norway:10 (1988) | Norway:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Netherlands:AL | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

500 Block of Pacific Avenue, Chinatown, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Scenes of the Enterprise's final moments and its self-destruct were reused from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984).

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The president tells the Klingon ambassador that "Admiral Kirk has been charged with nine violations of Starfleet regulations." In the courtroom scene, the crew was collectively charged with six violations.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Saratoga captain: What do you make of it?
Saratoga science officer: It appears to be a probe, Captain. From an intelligence unknown to us.
Saratoga captain: Continue transmitting universal peace and hello in all known languages. Get me Starfleet Command.
Saratoga helmsman: Ready, Captain.
Saratoga captain: Starfleet Command, this is U.S.S. Saratoga patrolling sector five, neutral zone. We're tracking a probe of unknown origin on apparent trajectory to the Terran solar system. Attempts to communicate with the probe have been negative on all known frequencies.
Starfleet Command: Continue tracking, Saratoga. We will analyze transmissions and advise.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

I Hate You

A Vivid, Upbeat, Frequently Intelligent and Delightful Sci-Fi Adventure

The fourth entry in the "Star Trek" movie series is the most popular and unarguably the best-liked of these entertaining movies. It has a fine variety of scenes, intelligent comedy to leaven the more serious adventures. it is fast paced, beautifully directed by Leonard Nimoy who also plays "Spock". What prevented it from being even better perhaps appreciated is a deliberate attempt by the writers to write short, choppy-sentence dialogue that in some scenes does not work as well as more formally-structured words might have worked. The film is bright, the art direction is very good, the music by Leonard Rosenmann is outstanding. And the story line is one of the best that sci-fi filmmakers have yet devised, in my judgment, because it has everything. As Captain James T. Kirk of the 23rd century starship Enterprise, William Shatner acts with unusual intelligence and even strength to get by. As his half-alien First Officer Spock, just recovering from a traumatic experience that caused him to have to be reeducated from ground zero, Leonard Nimoy is even better. Everyone of Jim Kirk's crewmen, including James Doohan as Engineer Montgomer Scott, De Forest Kelley as CMO Leonard McCoy, Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura of Communications, talented George Takei as Helmsman Sulu, and Walter Koenig as Navigator Pavel Chekhov, have good scenes to perform and do them seamlessly and with professional style. Others in the cast including Brock Peters, Jane Wyatt, Mark Lenard, Grace Lee Whitney, Alen Henteloff, Robert Ellenstein and a relative unknown as the earthwoman who becomes enmeshed in the Enterprise officers' mission,are given telling moments. There are many memorable visual moments, including the departure of a stolen Klingon warbird from the planet Vulcan, the near-wreckage of Starfleet Headquarters, the landing of an invisible vessel in Golden Gate Park, a slingshot run around the sun, a descent from the invisible craft to the ground, scenes around the Alameda Navy Yards, a chase in a hospital and scenes at the cetacean Institute all make themselves hard-to-forget. It is the sheer fun and adventure of the storyline--sending a starship back in time to rescue two hump-backed whales and save the earth from alien destruction--that sets this film apart. Ignored by critics who have nearly always ignored sci-fi achievements, this cinematic attainment set a standard for future sci-fi to which hardly any film's maker has yet approached. The revelation of character could have been deeper, but the relevance of every moment to the plot line could hardly have been bettered. Harve Bennett deserves some of the credit for this script's excellences; so do the special-effects creators, since for once in Hollywood, every such effects serve to further the progress the central character and his helpers are making. This is probably a film to be watched over and over; I wish there were more such adult sci-fi efforts that eschew pretension and present so much intelligent dialogue, acting and intriguing "differences".