Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

(Continuing our Summer of Star Trek series)

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars (Give Your Rating)

After the commercial and critical success of ST III: The Search for Spock, both Leonard Nimoy and Harve Bennett were quickly signed to direct and produce, respectively, the next installment in the series. But with William Shatner’s reluctance to return as Captain James T. Kirk the question quickly became just what that installment would be about. They’d already had the “dramatic death of a beloved character”, and had just finished the “dramatic resurrection of a dead beloved character”; they had created a planet, destroyed a planet and destroyed the Enterprise, all in the past two films. What was left to do? And without Shatner it became an even harder question. At first, Nimoy toyed with the idea of a Starfleet Academy “prequel” to the original series and recasting the entire original crew with younger actors (something along the lines of what JJ Abrams just did with Star Trek (2009)). And then it was bandied about that the next film should star Eddie Murphy (evidently a long-time Trekkie) as a college professor who loves aliens and whales, but, while Murphy loved the idea of starring in a ST film and Nimoy and Bennett loved the idea of drawing in non-Trekkies by starring the comedian, Murphy wasn’t thrilled with the script and decided to make a different movie (The Golden Child).

Then, Shatner changed his mind (an extra two million bucks’ll do that). He tells the story that Nimoy walked into his office and in the course of a friendly discussion about various things reminded him that the two men had a common cause. Nimoy and Shatner both had clauses in their contracts that said that whatever one got the other got as well. If Shatner got a raise, Nimoy got that same raise; if Nimoy got to direct—as he had with ST III, and now the upcoming ST IV—Shatner was given the opportunity to do so as well. I was always under the impression that this discussion took place after the making of ST IV but maybe it happened earlier, and maybe it helped entice Shatner to join the production. Whatever the reasons, having the original Captain Kirk on board effectively scuttled any plan for having a prequel, although pieces of the Murphy script would live on, with Murphy’s character combined with another in the script and rewritten into a female marine biologist from the past to be wooed by the storied Kirk charm.

The story: It is a few months after the events of ST III and Spock has regained most of his memory. The crew of the Enterprise, along with Spock, decides it is time to return to Earth and face whatever consequences there are for their actions, only to find the Earth under attack by a probe which is trying to speak with an extinct species on the planet, the humpback whale. Kirk and co. then go into Earth’s past in order to bring back a couple of humpbacks so they can tell the aliens “what to go do with themselves”, as Dr. McCoy puts it. They land in 1986 San Francisco—luckily, they’re still in the Klingon ship they stole at the end of ST III, that cloaking device comes in handy here—and hijinks ensue. Kirk and Spock go in search of the whales, McCoy and Scotty go invent transparent aluminum in order to make an aquarium for the whales, Sulu finds a helicopter to transport the aluminum to the ship, and Chekov and Uhura sneak onto the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise—where Chekov’s Russian accent comes in really handy during the Cold War era—to tap into the uranium in order to reconstitute some of the Klingon ship’s dilithium which was depleted on the trip to the past. I think you can guess most of the rest of it, and you should watch it rather than read it here at any rate.

This was the second most commercially successful film in the ST franchise, after ST: The Motion Picture. It is easily the most accessible to non-Trekkies with its environmentalist base and non-Trek-centric storyline—unlike most films of the franchise, who the crew is wasn’t very important to the story, although there was enough eccentricity of characterization to keep the Trekkies interested as well. The only thing that mars this gem for me is that the comedy is a little too broad on occasion, falling flat here and there although hitting its mark far more often than not. It has always seemed strange to me after the success of his two turns at the helm that Nimoy never directed another film in the series, especially after the TNG cast took over the film franchise with Star Trek: Generations. I don’t know if that was a personal choice of his, or if it just never came up again, but it would have been nice to see.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is also the end of the three-part storyline began in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and the first appearance of the USS Enterprise 1701-A, a new ship with the old crew that presumably had many adventures between films IV and V, and then between V and VI, that we never got to see. Ah, well, maybe when the new Abrams crew is older—20 years or so from now…

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