Star Trek IV: The Journey Home
1986
A deep-space probe reaches Earth, transmitting a message in an unknown language. When Starfleet is unable to decipher the message, the probe begins causing planetary power failures and disastrous weather. The Enterprise crew discover the language to be that of humpback whales (which are extinct in the twenty-third century), so the crew casually fires up the time-warp drive and jumps back to 1986 to retrieve a couple. What sounds like a recipe for disaster is actually a true delicacy. Episode IV was the most daring and different of them all, shooting for more of a romantic-comedy than an action-drama. Surprisingly, it works. Very well, I might add. It's very Back To the Future, or should I say, Back to the Present. Watching the nerdy crew trying to adapt to the 1980's proves thoroughly hysterical. The film achieves the perfect level of sophisticated humor without descending to a dimwitted screwball. There’s even a nice love story between Kirk and the marine biologist he needs the whales from. There’s no central villain, but the stakes are still high enough and the story is so fun that you’ll hardly notice. The theme is communication, or the lack thereof. Journey Home was a radical change of pace, but that’s exactly what made it my favorite Trek of all. 4/5 stars.
Warp to my Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Review
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