A Look Back at 1986: 'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home' - A College Student's Review

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Author's Note: This review first appeared in an issue of Catalyst, Miami-Dade Community College, South Campus' student newspaper in  November of 1986. 

 Star Trek IV - a treat you will enjoy this holiday season

 Alex Diaz-Granados
Copy Editor

 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, actor-director Leonard Nimoy's second entry in the continuing saga of Admiral Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the crew, is the best film of the series to date.

 It's a holiday present sure to please.

The Voyage Home takes up the story three months after the rescue of Spock from the doomed Genesis planet.

 Self-exiled on Vulcan with his officers, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has saved his friend, but at great cost - his son is dead, his beloved Enterprise destroyed and his career is in jeopardy.

 Meanwhile, the Klingons are demanding the Federation Council extradite Kirk for his "crimes against galactic peace,"(if stopping a Klingon plot to take Genesis can be called criminal) and warn that there will be no peace while Kirk remains alive.

 But there is a bigger threat to Earth's existence - a strange alien probe is immobilizing everything in its path as it heads toward our solar system. It threatens to destroy Kirk's home world unless it receives a reply to its signal - which is not intended for man.

 On their way home to face the consequences of their actions, Kirk and his crew come across Earth's distress signal and realize that the answer to the problem lies not in the 23rd century, but in the San Francisco of the past - 1986, to be exact.

 Star Trek IV's main strengths, a lighthearted approach (in contrast to The Wrath of Khan and The Search For Spock) and its clever mixture of adventure, comedy, suspense, and even a dash of courtroom drama, definitely show that Nimoy, who, in addition to writing the story with producer Harve Bennett, also plays a "new and improved" Spock, has a feel for the characters and their environment.

 This should be a box office smash.

 And yes, Virginia, there will be a Star Trek V. 

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