One point Star Trek has always attracted criticism on is its white-hat view of the future. Nowhere is this more evident than in Star Trek IV, or the Greenpeace Episode, as I like to call it. Sometimes, it can be seen as pure entertaining fluff. Sometimes, it almost feels like someone in the Bird Of Prey is going to flip a switch on the chameleon circuit, and it will morph into the Rainbow Warrior. Given that Greenpeace has been denounced by one of its founders as a mob of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics, it does make the eco-friendly message of the film incredibly hard to swallow.
By the way, you can stop reading now if you don't want to be told what happens in the film.
The plot begins with an alien space probe traveling across the galaxy, sending out signals that, seemingly unknown to the intelligence behind said probe, disables any electronic circuit within shouting distance. Even worse, once it gets near the Earth, it begins to ionise the atmosphere and vaporise the oceans. If this is a subtle comment about how greenies are definitely not above using terrorism to achieve their goals, then it certainly achieved its goal there. However, for the most part this is irrelevant because we are only shown the alien device for ten minutes of establishing footage.
When the Enterprise crew get word of this alien thing attacking Earth, they manage to deduce that the signal is in fact the song of Humpback Whales, which have apparently been hunted to extinction during the twenty-first century. This eventually leads to the decision to attempt a crude form of time-travel back to the year in which the film was released. There, the crew hope to secure a Humpback Whale in the hope that the probe will hear an answer from it, and thus go away.
The logistical nightmare this would pose aside, one must also ponder what the long-term intentions of the Federation are, regarding the continued existence of the whales. From the earlier references, it seems time travel is a very dangerous hobby to be attempted only under such extreme circumstances. This makes a bit of a contrast to later Trek, where they seem to do it every second week. However, without going back several times to bring more whales to the future, the future Humpback Whale generations are going to be frighteningly inbred. And what happens if the Humpback Whales die out naturally, like so many species have done long before humans figured out how to bang the rocks together? Do the aliens come back to wipe out every other species, including thousands that cannot respond in this manner, once again?
Where The Voyage Home succeeds is with the cross-culture references. Plunge astronauts of the future into situations where what they take for granted is a real struggle (medicine being the most successful example), and listen to the audience laugh. This is one area where the film works brilliantly. Another area where the film excels is in the use of widescreen photography, where the evolution of cinema to use a 2.35:1 frame is celebrated well. The DVD-Video includes a featurette in which Leonard Nimoy shows why he prefers to use the 2.35:1 ratio and what he thinks of the difference made by removing half the frame in order to fit the television screen. I have a basic saying that goes something like if you still believe you're getting the whole picture after seeing this, you're a moron.
In all, I gave Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home a six out of ten. The eco-friendliness message counts against it, especially in this day when a lot of such groups have exposed themselves as anti-choice terrorists, but the film saves itself from being a total loss by not taking itself so seriously. It's not the best of the series, but it will entertain for a couple of hours.
By the way, you can stop reading now if you don't want to be told what happens in the film.
The plot begins with an alien space probe traveling across the galaxy, sending out signals that, seemingly unknown to the intelligence behind said probe, disables any electronic circuit within shouting distance. Even worse, once it gets near the Earth, it begins to ionise the atmosphere and vaporise the oceans. If this is a subtle comment about how greenies are definitely not above using terrorism to achieve their goals, then it certainly achieved its goal there. However, for the most part this is irrelevant because we are only shown the alien device for ten minutes of establishing footage.
When the Enterprise crew get word of this alien thing attacking Earth, they manage to deduce that the signal is in fact the song of Humpback Whales, which have apparently been hunted to extinction during the twenty-first century. This eventually leads to the decision to attempt a crude form of time-travel back to the year in which the film was released. There, the crew hope to secure a Humpback Whale in the hope that the probe will hear an answer from it, and thus go away.
The logistical nightmare this would pose aside, one must also ponder what the long-term intentions of the Federation are, regarding the continued existence of the whales. From the earlier references, it seems time travel is a very dangerous hobby to be attempted only under such extreme circumstances. This makes a bit of a contrast to later Trek, where they seem to do it every second week. However, without going back several times to bring more whales to the future, the future Humpback Whale generations are going to be frighteningly inbred. And what happens if the Humpback Whales die out naturally, like so many species have done long before humans figured out how to bang the rocks together? Do the aliens come back to wipe out every other species, including thousands that cannot respond in this manner, once again?
Where The Voyage Home succeeds is with the cross-culture references. Plunge astronauts of the future into situations where what they take for granted is a real struggle (medicine being the most successful example), and listen to the audience laugh. This is one area where the film works brilliantly. Another area where the film excels is in the use of widescreen photography, where the evolution of cinema to use a 2.35:1 frame is celebrated well. The DVD-Video includes a featurette in which Leonard Nimoy shows why he prefers to use the 2.35:1 ratio and what he thinks of the difference made by removing half the frame in order to fit the television screen. I have a basic saying that goes something like if you still believe you're getting the whole picture after seeing this, you're a moron.
In all, I gave Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home a six out of ten. The eco-friendliness message counts against it, especially in this day when a lot of such groups have exposed themselves as anti-choice terrorists, but the film saves itself from being a total loss by not taking itself so seriously. It's not the best of the series, but it will entertain for a couple of hours.