Let me preface this by first saying IV was the film which first really got me into Trek. It's still an enjoyable film which holds up for me and is like a form of visual comfort food - if I'm sad or depressed about life I watch that film and it keeps cheer me up.
That said, rewatching it last night, I couldn't help but feel it was really un-Trekky. Yes you have the cast, and they get in good fitting lines, especially in the interactions between the newly reborn Spock and McCoy, and McCoy's scenes in the hospital are classic Bones. But the rest of the film - thematically and the entire thing behind it - just feels like a typical mid 80s comedy movie which just happens to have the TOS cast. It feels almost at times like a parody of Star Trek. Yes, there's a funniness to the fish out of water aspect of the film with the crew not understanding the 1980s but I feel it panders to the lowest common denominator. The overall plot - that there's a probe wanting answers to a question and is threatening Earth until it gets those answers - is basically a rehash of V'Ger in lesser form. Seeing the crew act like fish out of water is interesting to a degree but it stands to make them look like bumbling fools. Consider in comparison City on the Edge of Forever, when Bones, Spock and McCoy travel back to 1930. An even more primitive time than the 1980s yet Kirk seems almost enamored, comfortable there, besides his growing infatuation with Edith Keeler. He quickly lends to blend in and adapt to the period and even is going with Edith to see a Clark Gable picture. Here, Kirk seems to truly not understand anything about the time period, and seeing Kirk out of his element and almost bumbling around is kind of an insult to the character.
Kirk also was the galaxy's womanizer and he was damn good at it. And here we see him trying hard and pathetically failing to get Gillian's interest, which also kind of deconstructs his character.
It's just out of all the time periods in history, and out of all the extinct animals they could've used, they pick the 1980s and whales (I love whales, don't get me wrong)? "To boldly go where no man has gone before?" I mean I guess braving the insane fashions of the 1980s and all of its gaudiness is bold, but imagine if the film required a much more ancient extinct creature: Imagine for instance they needed to find some creature which died out during the Ice Ages or during the time of the Dinosaurs. They'd be travelling to a time so far removed from our world that it would truly feel like a journey to the unknown. But for a series which is supposedly about exploration and discovery, travelling to 1980s Earth just doesn't arouse that much excitement.
It works as a good mid 80s comedy for me but as a science fiction film it kind of falls flat.
Also, it's 1986 and there's no sign of the Eugenics Wars tearing apart Earth? What gives?
That said, rewatching it last night, I couldn't help but feel it was really un-Trekky. Yes you have the cast, and they get in good fitting lines, especially in the interactions between the newly reborn Spock and McCoy, and McCoy's scenes in the hospital are classic Bones. But the rest of the film - thematically and the entire thing behind it - just feels like a typical mid 80s comedy movie which just happens to have the TOS cast. It feels almost at times like a parody of Star Trek. Yes, there's a funniness to the fish out of water aspect of the film with the crew not understanding the 1980s but I feel it panders to the lowest common denominator. The overall plot - that there's a probe wanting answers to a question and is threatening Earth until it gets those answers - is basically a rehash of V'Ger in lesser form. Seeing the crew act like fish out of water is interesting to a degree but it stands to make them look like bumbling fools. Consider in comparison City on the Edge of Forever, when Bones, Spock and McCoy travel back to 1930. An even more primitive time than the 1980s yet Kirk seems almost enamored, comfortable there, besides his growing infatuation with Edith Keeler. He quickly lends to blend in and adapt to the period and even is going with Edith to see a Clark Gable picture. Here, Kirk seems to truly not understand anything about the time period, and seeing Kirk out of his element and almost bumbling around is kind of an insult to the character.
Kirk also was the galaxy's womanizer and he was damn good at it. And here we see him trying hard and pathetically failing to get Gillian's interest, which also kind of deconstructs his character.
It's just out of all the time periods in history, and out of all the extinct animals they could've used, they pick the 1980s and whales (I love whales, don't get me wrong)? "To boldly go where no man has gone before?" I mean I guess braving the insane fashions of the 1980s and all of its gaudiness is bold, but imagine if the film required a much more ancient extinct creature: Imagine for instance they needed to find some creature which died out during the Ice Ages or during the time of the Dinosaurs. They'd be travelling to a time so far removed from our world that it would truly feel like a journey to the unknown. But for a series which is supposedly about exploration and discovery, travelling to 1980s Earth just doesn't arouse that much excitement.
It works as a good mid 80s comedy for me but as a science fiction film it kind of falls flat.
Also, it's 1986 and there's no sign of the Eugenics Wars tearing apart Earth? What gives?
