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Why did "The Voyage Home" do so well at the box office?

posted 8 years ago by TMC-4
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It's the highest grossing of the first ten Trek films and the only one of them to gross over $100 million at the domestic box office. Was it simply because it was the type of Trek movie that was the most "accessible" (i.e. you didn't necessarily have to be a hardcore Trekker to enjoy it) to the masses. I always assumed that it was because of the sheer novelty (or taking Trek in a place that we hadn't yet gone before) of seeing Kirk, Spock and crew visit "our time" and get into some cute fish-out-of-water hi-jinks.

[–] jenkinsdaniel 8 years ago

Star Trek IV had several things going for it...

* It was made during an era when at least a dozen great films involving interplanetary travel were made between 1977 and 1987.

* It was released in 1986, a key year for four movie franchises with failed sequels that tried to attack God.

* It was immediately followed by a failed sequel that tried to attack God, just like another 1986 sequel, Aliens. The failed sequel to Star Trek IV contains the line "What does God need with a starship?".

* It was co-written by Nicholas Meyer soon after he directed the successful holocaust movie The Day After.

* It has the line written by Nicholas Meyer: "It's a miracle these people ever got out of the 20th Century."

* 1986 was the year of the failed sequels Poltergeist II and Psycho III, a coincidence of great importance.