I have mixed feelings about this... and the film was hysterically funny at the time and some jokes and gags still work quite well (especially in context)...
On one hand, this movie is as much a big screen epic as the previous three were. It also did manage to bring in a ton of repeat ticket sales as well as finding an entry point for new fans, which gets them up to speed and without any corny "Last time on Star Trek" captions (though think into it even 1/2 iota and questions are rightly begged, such as "How did they get the footage of the Enterprise blowing up - do all Klingon ships have fantastic recording equipment that streams everything live back to High Command, even if Kruge couldn't see the events and needed his crew to verbally relay what the ship's panel was speaking, and I'm pretty sure the countdown wasn't to cue in a hit song or indicate readiness of ready-bake muffins all ready to be eaten, but who knows?"*...) And, yup, once in a while, the universe has to have an entry door accessible to get people to walk through to explore the unknown of an entirely different universe because the franchise would otherwise fizzle out, the goal is to get their interests piqued and kept.
On the other hand, the Klingon "arc" that was re-seeded in II, dived into more in III thanks to Genesis being leaked and misunderstood (but not in that "Three's Company" plot trope sort of way), was given brief lip service in IV then forgotten about - complete with a non-sequitur from someone in the court room screaming "You pompous ass!" yet this isn't the TV show "Night Court", the only show of the time where it might have worked in. Apparently, this line was not in the script and was ad-libbed out of the camera's line of sight, but not removed despite the sheer apocryphal and even hypocritical nature of the line if it was a prominent Starfleet member yelling it (thus giving more
but just as unintentional credence to "The Undiscovered Country" as nobody had a clue that it would have been made or taken in that direction at the time.) ...
...Indeed, for an ad-lib, why did the director opt to keep it in or not use audio editing to mask it out? It's not exactly so muffled you can't discern the out-of-place comment, which was not funny, nor was it foreshadowing what Kirk and crew were about to hear firsthand (on the contrary, scripted dialogue damningly confirms they don't talk potty in their time period.) Indeed, it's an incredible (colorfulmetaphor)-up given the discontinuity and begged only more questions that no amount of mental gymnastics can easily resolve, unless the person shouting it isn't an Earthling (but nobody said "Order in the court", at which point because it'd be funny**, yon flinger of the phrase "pompous ass" could have then asked for a hamburger and coke, with large fries too. Maybe some branded donuts and coffee to keep the movie most easily suited for believable product placement going. At least once they get to 1986, anyhow as it's otherwise the courtroom scenes where everything is specifically humourless to retain some sense of urgency and agency to the plot having any felt meaning for the characters. I mean, they couldn't have sold Zima back then as it didn't come out until 1993 and by 2008 it was gone anyway - at least from our universe, not theirs and theirs isn't ours, but I digress.)
And speaking of discontinuity, while the movie series wasn't stellar in it early on (but because there was also so little of it and with most issues easily fixed via "headcanon"), I find it amusing how well the Vulcans and humans could redesign the ship's interior despite not having schematics of all the components and how they work. (
Workaround: Okay, offscreen, spies managed to get some materials, also keeping in mind 'The Day of the Dove' surely had the Klingons remembering some of the Enterprise's ship schematics.)
On another hand, Gillian is the warm cozy trope of the outlier with no family who gets spirited off to a better place, go fig. It's all handled pretty well, surprisingly. The movie rightly doesn't delve into her family or wallows in them, and to think that Kirk of all people would not have thought that they'd need someone like her in the first place***. (I'm sure there's a book or thirty of them that all dive down that rabbit hole, with potentially predictable results.)
Not to mention yet another hand, the music and end credits felt way too much like a sitcom. Way too hokey and even generic...
And since I have lost count of how many hands I've got, which come in handy, the passage of time really is a biggie. It had felt dated well before its time. The use of (then-)modern day Earth is a huge part of it, which was oddly tangential since the onus of the threat was on our heroes getting back home with their cargo safely in this fairy tale and not the planet itself in direct mortal peril (which is sort of a plus as any old flick can chuck a big bad against Earth with a big ship or entire fleet of them.)
I've not rewatched this movie since the 4K came out, and even then I find it a miss. It's not about the nostalgia. For that, there are zillions of tv commercials from the 80s found on YouTube that suffice. Good crafted tv shows and movies survive the trappings of the time they're made in as well. When something like 'Duel' keeps you engaged even though nobody in it has a smartphone, you know something's done really well. If nothing else, pretend they do but there's no tower in that area so they're useless. But I digress again.
* Sod it, this was 1986, kids in summer camp the preceding year were already heckling the leaked plot details by wondering if there'd be a DeLorean with flux capacitor, etc, and more importantly TOS wasn't as conscious about every bit of minutiae - which was something TNG would hone and embrace to impeccable levels of finesse and perfect, but then later ditch it all just as readily but that's not important right now... how's that for nostalgia?
** ,or not
*** Granted, George and Gracie and unborn calves might go wandering off so far away, like that Flock of Seagulls song (or not), that she'd never hear of them. Never mind - and noting I am not an expert in this field of biology - the scientific issues involving inbreeding depression, for which Gillian would surely be cognizant of... or Spock, maybe there's a parallel Earth where the Enterprise crew with her go slingshot a few dozen more times and haul in a herd to prevent that little problem too. And if there really is a book and/or book series about all of that, then I'm genuinely shocked. (I just remembered one called "PROBE" but never bothered beyond seeing it in the bookstore's sci-fi aisle. Amazed I'd picked up "Vendetta" at the time... and just because you're reading it the same day that a classmate whipped hers out to read during break as well doesn't mean you get a match in heaven either, but I digress... again...)
