This must be one of the strangest storylines in the entirety of Star Trek. The fugitive crew take their stolen Klingon Bird of Prey home to Earth to face the music for their indiscretions in The Search for Spock, only to find that the planet has been rendered helpless by a giant alien probe. The probe looks like a snapped crayon with a football sticking out of it, and naturally it's journeyed across the vastness of space to talk to humpback whales...
Putting aside the fact that there's very little Sci and an awful lot of Fi, there are massive gaping holes in the plot and every major decision seems to be made on a whim... what about the Prime Directive? Where does fully-controllable "time warp" suddenly come from? Why go back to the late 20th century? Why not go back further, and just take the whales from pre-man Earth with no trouble or opposition? I could go on... but that wouldn't be in the spirit of a film that is just brilliant fun to watch. It flies by in a series of mad capers and I don't think I'll ever get bored of watching them arrive in downtown San Francisco with no clue or how to behave, talk, or get around.
7/10 overall for me; let down slightly by some weak-ish CGI (even for the time), a poor musical score, and the aforementioned chasmic plot holes, but made up for in the sheer enjoyment factor. I'll never understand how they ever came up with this one, but in the end I'm glad they did!
Putting aside the fact that there's very little Sci and an awful lot of Fi, there are massive gaping holes in the plot and every major decision seems to be made on a whim... what about the Prime Directive? Where does fully-controllable "time warp" suddenly come from? Why go back to the late 20th century? Why not go back further, and just take the whales from pre-man Earth with no trouble or opposition? I could go on... but that wouldn't be in the spirit of a film that is just brilliant fun to watch. It flies by in a series of mad capers and I don't think I'll ever get bored of watching them arrive in downtown San Francisco with no clue or how to behave, talk, or get around.
7/10 overall for me; let down slightly by some weak-ish CGI (even for the time), a poor musical score, and the aforementioned chasmic plot holes, but made up for in the sheer enjoyment factor. I'll never understand how they ever came up with this one, but in the end I'm glad they did!