MovieChat Forums > Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) Discussion > Seriously?? This thing better than episo...

Seriously?? This thing better than episode III?

posted 12 years ago by WheezePuppet
38 replies | jump to latest

I've heard numerous Trekkies remark "the even-numbered ST movies are the only good ones" as they rave about episode IV and diss III. This is absolutely unbelievable to me. "Search for Spock" was a marvelous piece of cinema, nearly as good as "Wrath of Kahn" and consistent with it in tone and character. A perfect complement to its predecessor in bringing the Genesis plotline to continuation. Its only weaknesses were in not getting Kirstie Alley back to play Saavik, and in somehow forgetting about Carol Marcus completely and not explaining what happened to her. But the decay of the planet, the struggle with the Klingons to obtain the Genesis device, the destruction of the Enterprise, and the death struggle on the surface were all first rate.

Then comes this monstrosity, seemingly aiming to be a sitcom but failing entirely. Shatner loses all his energy, Kelley loses all his savvy, everybody makes dumb jokes, and it's about time travel (*groan*), saving whales (*groan*), returning to planet Earth in 1980's (*groan*), and featuring the perfectly awful Catherine Hicks. What is there to like about this movie?! Can we please move on and continue the serious-and-compelling sci-fi of the Star Trek movie universe?

[–] bond_98 11 years ago

Frankly i love all of the original series movies. I could care less which ones better. There all better then the Jar Jar movies.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bjlevine 10 years ago

Apparently, Spock was still being affected by the Genesis effect while still on the planet only. Kinda weird for something that works at the subatomic level.

But I disagree about TVH. I think it works well as a comedy.

"Lovey-dovey. Bonk bonk on the head!"

[–] Inspector_Spacetime 10 years ago

I love Star Trek: The Voyage Home so much. It is easily my favorite Star Trek movie. The chemistry among the cast works so well here. It has the whole crew working together to accomplish something. The jokes are funny, and used in the right way. For example, the humor came from the situations they are in. Star Trek V tried to have comedy too, but it did so at the expense of the characters, like having Scotty knock himself out. TVH handled it just right.

It will be hard for any Star Trek movie to ever top this one in my mind. The only ones that come close are Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: First Contact.

As for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, I do consider it probably the most underrated of the films. I enjoy it a lot, but it is around the middle of my rankings. For the record, I rank the films like this:

1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
3. Star Trek: First Contact
4. Star Trek Into Darkness
5. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
6. Star Trek (2009)
7. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
8. Star Trek: Nemesis
9. Star Trek: Generations
10. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
11. Star Trek: The Final Frontier
12. Star Trek: Insurrection

[–] Blueghost 10 years ago

by WheezePuppet » Fri Jul 27 2012 17:37:12
IMDb member since June 2007
I've heard numerous Trekkies remark "the even-numbered ST movies are the only good ones" as they rave about episode IV and diss III. This is absolutely unbelievable to me. "Search for Spock" was a marvelous piece of cinema, nearly as good as "Wrath of Kahn" and consistent with it in tone and character. A perfect complement to its predecessor in bringing the Genesis plotline to continuation. Its only weaknesses were in not getting Kirstie Alley back to play Saavik, and in somehow forgetting about Carol Marcus completely and not explaining what happened to her. But the decay of the planet, the struggle with the Klingons to obtain the Genesis device, the destruction of the Enterprise, and the death struggle on the surface were all first rate.

Then comes this monstrosity, seemingly aiming to be a sitcom but failing entirely. Shatner loses all his energy, Kelley loses all his savvy, everybody makes dumb jokes, and it's about time travel (*groan*), saving whales (*groan*), returning to planet Earth in 1980's (*groan*), and featuring the perfectly awful Catherine Hicks. What is there to like about this movie?! Can we please move on and continue the serious-and-compelling sci-fi of the Star Trek movie universe?

It's not that good of a Trek film, but, you're judging the film from a purely instinctive point of view, which is probably why you didn't like Catherine Hicks, who is an extremely accomplished actress.

Nimoy knows the characters, understands that Trek had themes in its brief three season run, but doesn't know much about what propelled those stories forward, and therefore picked a script that emphasized the characters, which is what he knew.

Nimoy is actually a pretty emotional and funny kind of guy, ergo you get his directing style in both those films. But you don't get much of a Star Trek film as such. Just a film that has Trek trappings and the characters acting as the characters.

If I had been around that time running the franchise, then I would not have brought Spock back until a couple movies later. I would not have let Nimoy direct, and I would have chosen some compelling scripts that dealt with societal issues, as was the focus of the TV series.

There's not much else to say.

Like I said elsewhere, I enjoyed the film for what it was, but it was not a good Trek film, albeit very entertaining.

[–] jaystarstar 10 years ago

How many times are you going to rehash/regurgitate the same post ("character-driven" vs. "plot-driven")?

BTW, if you had been running the Star Trek franchise at the time (late 1980s), the whole thing would have tanked with ST IV.

After the whole rollercoaster of Spock's 'death' in II and his 'resurrection' in III, the fan base would have exploded in anger and essentially boycotted if he had been written out of the storylines for two or three films.

There never would have BEEN a ST V, VI or any of the rest, including TNG, any of the spinoff series or succeeding films.

As far as the original series dealing with "societal issues" ... LOL.

And as far as your colleague: ST III being a "marvelous piece of cinema" ... (shakes head).

================

4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

[–] Blueghost 10 years ago

Is that a promise? Because I thought TNG was one of the worst shows ever to hit the air waves. IV was so-so (see my tiresome plot verse character analysis). V was, well, V.

And yes, the original ST series tackled major social themes. The fact that you can't see them, and have essentially insulted me, is just demonstrative of your inability to respond accordingly.

Thanks for your time.

[–] SteveResin 10 years ago

and featuring the perfectly awful Catherine Hicks

I agree with this part, but not the rest. IV is just the perfect ST movie for me, it has the perfect balance of comedy, sci-fi, suspense and action. If they had a different and more competent actress playing Gillian it would be damn near perfect.

--------------------
Duty Now For The Future

[–] bjlevine 10 years ago

I got the impression that they wanted her to play Gillian as sort of a pain in the ass.

👷👳
Bob the Builder and Hadji walk into a bar...

[–] SteveResin 10 years ago

You could well be right. I got the inpression she was meant to be a sympathetic character, what with her doe-eyed looks everytime she simpered about the plight of the whales. Unfortunately for me anyway she just came across as a blinkered loon. 😵

--------------------
Duty Now For The Future

[–] bjlevine 10 years ago

She definitely came off as the typical bleeding heart So-Cal tree hugger.

👷👳
Bob the Builder and Hadji walk into a bar...

[–] musicbytes 10 years ago

You and the op are both hateful republican trolls !

[–] tobian85 10 years ago

She definitely came off as the typical bleeding heart So-Cal tree hugger.

Um, since when is San Francisco (or Alameda for that matter) in SO-Cal?

Having been a resident of both Southern and Northern California, I can tell you that most San Franciscans would be grossly insulted if you lumped them in with <<ugh, blecchh, icky-poo>> Southern Californians.

I now live in No-Cal and have lived here for many years, but I still find I have to be careful about admitting that I was born in Burbank in <<ugh, blecchh, icky-poo>> Southern California, much less that I actually miss some things about living down there. 

To get back on topic (kinda), I would rank the OS movies in this order:

1. ST IV: TVH
2. ST II: TWoK
3. ST VI: TUC
4. ST III: TSFS
5. [tie]: STTMP/ST V: TFF

I didn't include Generations because it was a transitional movie, passing the torch from TOS to TNG. However, I would probably rank it between TWoK and TUC (which I'm pretty sure puts me in a minority).

Re: ST V, I can at least say that it generated one of my all-time favorite review headlines/descriptions (in Rolling Stone): "Windbags at warp speed". 😁

I have been, and always shall be, your friend. We'll miss you, Leonard.

[–] theguitarman18 10 years ago

I find IV to be enjoyable, although it definitely shows its age and is a bit hard to take seriously. It isn't bad, but the tone doesn't fit with II and III. The Genesis story line deserved a better ending. Still, it's not a bad movie, just turn your brain off and enjoy the campiness.

III is very underrated. It was the first of the ST movies I ever saw and it is a lot better than most people make it out to be. I wouldn't put it as high as II, but it brought a lot of good stuff, not least the destruction of the Enterprise. That is an incredible sequence. I also love the new ship designs, especially the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and the Excelsior.

The curse of the odd-numbered movies is just rubbish. III is great, I really enjoy Generations and ST09 was great too.

[–] bjlevine 10 years ago

Heck, I like TMP. But TVH wasn't meant to be taken too seriously. TSFS was pretty dark, and they needed to lighten things up.

The bad thing is that it led to rather poorly executed humor in the next two movies.

👷👳
Bob the Builder and Hadji walk into a bar...

[–] hoochiemoochie 10 years ago

Man, what a hater.

=Last time I taught, I was like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society...by which I mean I got fired=

[–] hnt_dnl 9 years ago

I definitely think that III is the best odd-numbered Trek, and a very good movie in it's own right, so the odd-numbered theory is false.