Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is known as the Star Trek movie about whales. While it is easy to joke about this being about whales, this is a super fun movie. I talked about how Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is my favorite original series Star Trek movie. Well, this one here could be placed at number two.
How to Download Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released on November 26, 1986. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
Once again, Leonard Nimoy is in the director’s chair as well as playing Spock. This along with The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock make up a trilogy of movies in the series and it is honestly the highlight of original Star Trek for me. I liked Search for Spock, but I do prefer the story of this movie.
A Whale of a Plot: The Story Breakdown
So is this really about whales? It kind of is. After the events of The Search for Spock, Kirk, and the crew are in exile on Vulcan but plan to return to Earth to face their “crimes” from the last movie. However, things on Earth are not exactly going great and as they get closer to Earth in their Klingon Warship, they get a distress call.
A strange alien probe has been making its way through space, disabling any spacecraft it comes into contact with. This probe has shut down everything on Earth and is causing chaos with disasters and Kirk and his crew realize that this probe wants a whale. Ok, I am simplifying it a bit, but the basics are that this thing has come to Earth and is putting out a signal that Spock realizes is a whale, but whales are extinct on Earth in 2286.
Time Travel and a Bold Plan
As the crew is not close enough to the orbit of this thing, their Klingon Warship is not affected. They have a great idea to travel back to 1986 and get some whales and bring it back to address this probe. As I write this, the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home sounds so freaking dumb, but it actually works and is very entertaining.
When they make it back to 1986, the crew splits up and has different missions to accomplish. Kirk and Spock have to track down the whales, Uhura and Chekov need to get the nuclear power so that they can return home and Scotty, Sulu, and McCoy are tasked with getting a tank to transport the whales. I like how we have these smaller groups trying to complete different tasks and each one comes into some kind of trouble.
A New Approach: No Villain, No Problem
One thing that is very different about Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home from the last two movies is the villain…. There isn’t one! II had Khan and III had Kruge, two very strong villains. As great as Kruge was in III, he could not live up to Khan, I think not having a big bad villain in this movie was a very smart idea.
A Fun and Meaningful Adventure
While people like to have fun with the fact that the plot of this movie is about whales, I feel that is a huge disservice as this is one of the most fun Star Trek movies. This has more humor than those that came before it and I also like how it has a bit of a social/environmental message about it too. If you want to watch some classic Star Trek, you cannot go wrong with this, but you do need to watch II and III first.
