The Star Trek: The Next Generation movies also made it to film #4, but only just, and they didn't put any kind of numerals in its title. It's just called Star Trek: Nemesis. The Kelvin Timeline films don't use numbers either (they don't even use colons) so there's no danger of another Star Trek IV coming out any time soon. I mean seriously, it's been seven years since Star Trek Beyond and they still haven't made a fourth movie yet.
This is the second part of four, so if you want to go back to PART ONE click the text.
I'll be writing about the whole movie scene by scene, so there will be SPOILERS. Though I won't spoil anything from later Star Trek stories, even when there's something really obvious I should mention.
Previously, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home:
The bad news is that another massive probe has come by to harass the Earth and this time the Enterprise wasn't around to save the day because it blew up in the last film. Also Kirk and his crew are wanted for a whole bunch of crimes that they actually did. The good news is that they brought Spock back to life, and Spock has a plan on how to save the Earth. They'll just have to take their captured Klingon ship back in time to the year the movie came out, grab a humpback whale or two, and then hope that it's enough to satisfy the probe when they get back.
And now, the continuation:
Back on Earth, things are getting desperate. Plus we get a really good view of the table in the middle of their command centre which would later go on to be the 'pool table' inside the Enterprise D's engineering. Not much later though, as Star Trek: The Next Generation began airing the following year.
It's weird, I always think of this 80s movie as being from a decade before the 90s show Next Gen, but nope. There were less than 12 months between this movie and the pilot Encounter at Farpoint.
We also get cameos by Majel Barrett playing Nurse Doctor Commander Christine Chapel and Grace Lee Whitney playing Janice Rand. They don't get to say much, but they're among the people sitting with headsets on trying to manage the crisis.
Rand would return to Star Trek a couple more times, but chronologically this is Chapel's final appearance in Star Trek. It wasn't the last we saw of the character or the actress however, as Chapel is a regular on Strange New Worlds and Majel Barrett-Roddenberry played Starfleet computers and Lwaxana Troi all over the Berman-era series.
It's weird, I always think of this 80s movie as being from a decade before the 90s show Next Gen, but nope. There were less than 12 months between this movie and the pilot Encounter at Farpoint.
Rand would return to Star Trek a couple more times, but chronologically this is Chapel's final appearance in Star Trek. It wasn't the last we saw of the character or the actress however, as Chapel is a regular on Strange New Worlds and Majel Barrett-Roddenberry played Starfleet computers and Lwaxana Troi all over the Berman-era series.
This time though I replayed the dialogue and caught a line talking about bracing the windows. Mystery solved! I'm not sure one brace for three panes of glass is going to be enough though.
One thing I like about the movie is that the characters keep identifying problems and figuring out solutions. The solution to the probe problem is getting hold of a whale, the problem with that solution is that they'll need a tank to hold it. So they'll need to adapt their cargo bay to hold a whole lot of water and a 45-60 foot long sea creature.
It's a great looking corridor though, well worth its own screencap. The sets and sound design make it clear that the Klingon ship is clearly no replacement for the Enterprise: it's a creaky, dingy, scruffy looking vessel. But it's also kind of cosy, and very fitting for a crew of rogues who don't even have uniforms.
Then we get to see some futuristic picture interference as Kirk calls Earth to let them know that he's got a daring plan. The production crew did a good job of syncing up the rear projected screen with the tiny TVs underneath. A better job than they did syncing it up with the dialogue anyway, as the guy working communications accidentally puts Kirk on screen a second before Cartwright gives the order to do it.
This means that the Federation president has stood in front of a giant image of Kirk twice now in this movie. The first time Kirk was a fugitive being judged, now he may be the only hero that can save them. Kirk's had a bit of practice saving the world like this, but this is the first time in Star Trek history that we've been seen the Starfleet Command side of this conversation (and one of the last times as well).
Kirk explains the plan: they need humpback whales, they're going to attempt time travel, and that's basically where it cuts off. Hopefully everyone in the audience gets it now.
This means that the Federation president has stood in front of a giant image of Kirk twice now in this movie. The first time Kirk was a fugitive being judged, now he may be the only hero that can save them. Kirk's had a bit of practice saving the world like this, but this is the first time in Star Trek history that we've been seen the Starfleet Command side of this conversation (and one of the last times as well).
Kirk explains the plan: they need humpback whales, they're going to attempt time travel, and that's basically where it cuts off. Hopefully everyone in the audience gets it now.
Then that window they drew attention to earlier shatters in the storm. Man, if this is happening to Starfleet Command, the rest of San Francisco must be getting wrecked right now. It's a shame that the Federation doesn't have access to a material that's as transparent as glass but as strong as aluminium.
Meanwhile, the HMS Bounty has made it to our solar system and is hurtling towards the sun. They're setting course for the late 20th century but Spock can't be any more specific than that. In fact he's had to program some variables from memory, so I guess they're relying on McCoy's memory as well, as he was holding onto Spock's katra for a while.
Meanwhile, the HMS Bounty has made it to our solar system and is hurtling towards the sun. They're setting course for the late 20th century but Spock can't be any more specific than that. In fact he's had to program some variables from memory, so I guess they're relying on McCoy's memory as well, as he was holding onto Spock's katra for a while.
This is a tense scene and there's lots of creaking as ship goes to warp. Lots of numbers too, as Sulu reads out how fast they're going. At warp 4 the ship's already shaking enough to knock something that looks like a Klingon tablet off Spock's console and he fails to grab it in time. At warp 5 something falls off Uhura's console and she fails to grab it in time. The moral of the story: tidy your stuff away before flying directly towards the sun.
At warp 9.8 one of the steam pipes in the wall bursts and a painted monitor screen blows out right in front of Uhura's face. She says she's fine though. Hang on, 9.8? Is this using the Next Gen warp scale where warp 10 is infinity, and speeds above 9 go into awkward decimal places?
The heat shields are at maximum right now, due to the gigantic mass of incandescent gas they're flying into. Which is a bit of a concern, as if they're travelling at warp 9.8 and they're close enough to feel the heat, then they'll have about 0.0 seconds to swerve.
The sun has an interesting look to it, and I'm not sure how they did it. It ripples almost like water.
Fortunately Kirk tells his crew to press the button to do the thing at the exact right moment, one of the many skills a captain needs to have, and they slingshot around the sun with enough speed to be flung backwards through time. Anti-clockwise, of course.
I mentioned in part one how painting a set brown, tinting the screens red, and turning the lights down could turn a Starfleet set into a Klingon set. Well, here's what the Bird-of-Prey bridge looks like painted white:
Fortunately Kirk tells his crew to press the button to do the thing at the exact right moment, one of the many skills a captain needs to have, and they slingshot around the sun with enough speed to be flung backwards through time. Anti-clockwise, of course.
I mentioned in part one how painting a set brown, tinting the screens red, and turning the lights down could turn a Starfleet set into a Klingon set. Well, here's what the Bird-of-Prey bridge looks like painted white:
Taking a trip through time generally isn't all that trippy in Star Trek, but they had a movie budget this time so they're showing off.
Each face comes with a clip of dialogue from later in the movie (which is also very Babylon 5):
Scotty: "Admiral, there be whales here".I don't get this at all to be honest. All I know is that half of these lines are from after they return to the future at the end, so it's not a side-effect of time-travelling backwards through the day they'll spend in the past.
Uhura: "I should never have left him."
Sulu: "I have no control, sir."
Chekov: "The mains are down, sir. Aux power is..."
McCoy: "My god Jim, where are we?"
Spock: "But it is the human thing to do."
Kirk: "Our mission? Spock, you're talking about the end of every life on Earth!"
Some of their earlier ideas for this sequence were actually even weirder. Kirk turning into a ball of energy and flying past rows of figures in robes. The spirit of a baby becomes the sun over a field of wheat which turns into seaweed, etc. If you're wondering who was coming up with this stuff, the storyboard artist was actually legendary concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, who did a lot of the design work for Star Wars!
You know what this sequence needs? A Bond movie theme. No one would even blink an eye about how surreal it is then.
Kirk wakes up on his chair to discover that they didn't crash into the planet in their sleep. The Bounty's breaking thrusters fired automatically and they're right where they wanted to be.
They've reached Earth! It's taken over half an hour of movie, but their voyage home is over.
The first third of the movie was written by Harve Bennett, but this is where he passed it over to Star Trek II writer Nicholas Meyer for a bit. The guy starts commenting on the latter half of the 20th century right away by having Spock identify the time period they've arrived at by the pollution content in the atmosphere.
The first third of the movie was written by Harve Bennett, but this is where he passed it over to Star Trek II writer Nicholas Meyer for a bit. The guy starts commenting on the latter half of the 20th century right away by having Spock identify the time period they've arrived at by the pollution content in the atmosphere.
Spock points out that they probably don't want people from the 20th century noticing them so they engage the HMS Bounty's cloaking device. That's one feature this new ship has that the USS Enterprise didn't! Well, usually didn't.
Uhuru soon picks up whale song... from the oceans hundreds of miles beneath them. The vacuum of space is no obstacle to Klingon microphone technology. In fact she's able to pinpoint its source as being San Francisco! Hey this will work out great for them, they all went to Starfleet Academy in San Francisco so they should know it really well.
Uhuru soon picks up whale song... from the oceans hundreds of miles beneath them. The vacuum of space is no obstacle to Klingon microphone technology. In fact she's able to pinpoint its source as being San Francisco! Hey this will work out great for them, they all went to Starfleet Academy in San Francisco so they should know it really well.
Unfortunately they have a serious problem: the Bird-of-Prey has a box in engineering just like the one Spock had to fix in Star Trek II, and this one's full of faulty dilithium crystals. The time travel has drained them and they won't be able to get back home if they can't recrystallise them. Unfortunately that's a trick they haven't figured out even in the 23rd century. They've got 24 hours of power left to keep the cloaking device running, and then after that they're grounded and visible. Hey I wonder if they can rig up the ship to be powered by a 1.21 gigawatt bolt of lightning.
Fortunately Spock has a better plan. They could inject high energy photons borrowed from the nuclear reactor of a naval vessel. It was mentioned earlier in the film that it was illogical for a group of people to sacrifice their futures for the sake of the one, but it's becoming really obvious now how important this particular one is. Spock's the MVP. Again.
Sulu mentions he was born in San Francisco, which is new info I don't think we had before. That means there are three Americans on the crew: Kirk, McCoy and Sulu. Scotty is Scottish, Chekov's the most Russian man in space, and Uhura is from somewhere that speaks Swahili (spoiler: it's later revealed to be Kenya). Oh and Spock's from Vulcan.
Landing is another trick this ship can do that the Enterprise couldn't, so Kirk decides that they'll put the ship down in Golden Gate Park. Which is apparently a really dumb place to put a giant invisible spaceship, as it's a public place with a ton of visitors. Putting the ship down makes a lot of sense though, as it requires a lot less energy to use the ramp than it does the transporter. (If they'd had the Enterprise they would've have no engine problems and could've just stayed in orbit with full power and been fine).
They've got three problems to solve so Kirk decides they're going to split into three teams. Chekov and Uhura will go get them some photons from a naval vessel's nuclear reactor, Scotty, McCoy and Sulu will construct a whale tank, and Kirk and Spock will follow the whale songs to their source.
Fortunately they're all human so blending in won't be a problem... except for Spock, who tears off a bit of his robe as a bandana to cover his eyebrows and ears. That'll save the actor a few hours in the makeup chair, which is good because he's also the director and he's very busy. McCoy has an opinion about how Spock looks... but he just shakes his head with a grin and keeps it to himself.
Fortunately they're all human so blending in won't be a problem... except for Spock, who tears off a bit of his robe as a bandana to cover his eyebrows and ears. That'll save the actor a few hours in the makeup chair, which is good because he's also the director and he's very busy. McCoy has an opinion about how Spock looks... but he just shakes his head with a grin and keeps it to himself.
Cut to two binmen having a very un-Star Trek conversation about how one of them's fighting with his wife/girlfriend again. He's actually fine with it as he likes the way she fights.
The conversation's cut short by a sudden storm blowing all the trash into their face. They see a slice of ground getting crushed and a hatchway open up to reveal a bright light, UFO-style. So basically the Bounty crew didn't check for life signs before putting their ship down. Good thing there wasn't anyone directly under the landing gear! Anyway the binmen decide to drive off and leave the other bins and I don't blame them.
The effect of the invisible landing gear pressing into the ground isn't flawless as the grass itself isn't flattened, only a bin that'd rolled underneath, but you'd have to be really pedantic to care. Personally I'm more bothered by the way they just parked right in the middle of a city where people are clearly going to be. There's a picnic table right there next to them! I guess the crew are just hoping that no one's going to walk where the invisible landing gear is.
The conversation's cut short by a sudden storm blowing all the trash into their face. They see a slice of ground getting crushed and a hatchway open up to reveal a bright light, UFO-style. So basically the Bounty crew didn't check for life signs before putting their ship down. Good thing there wasn't anyone directly under the landing gear! Anyway the binmen decide to drive off and leave the other bins and I don't blame them.
The effect of the invisible landing gear pressing into the ground isn't flawless as the grass itself isn't flattened, only a bin that'd rolled underneath, but you'd have to be really pedantic to care. Personally I'm more bothered by the way they just parked right in the middle of a city where people are clearly going to be. There's a picnic table right there next to them! I guess the crew are just hoping that no one's going to walk where the invisible landing gear is.
The good news is that there isn't a joke where Kirk takes out a remote and turns on the car alarm with a beep. Though he does tell them to remember where they parked. One of the drawbacks of owning an invisible vehicle is that you can't see it. They could spot it in the last movie when they noticed the stars behind it shimmering, but I suppose the visual distortion effect is harder to spot with the naked eye than it is with starship sensors.
This wasn't actually filmed in Golden Gate Park by the way, as they found another park much closer to their base in Los Angeles that wasn't as muddy. In fact I've read that up to this movie Star Trek had almost never filmed outside of the Los Angeles era. Though there was that shot of Spock's coffin lying on the Genesis Planet at the end of Star Trek II, which was filmed... in Golden Gate Park.
It's funny comparing this to Back to the Future from a year earlier, which started off in the normality of 1985 and jumped back to the unfamiliar world of ancient 1955. Here it's 1986 America that's presented like an alien planet, with the slightly Christmassy orchestral soundtrack replaced by jarring jazz fusion.
The characters themselves have had a bit of time to get used to it though, as it's clearly hours later and they must have hiked through 4 miles of San Francisco to get here. I went looking on Google Maps and it turns out that we're on Columbus Avenue right now. The green building in the middle is the Sentinel Building, and that's the Transamerica Pyramid on the left. Though it doesn't look so pointy when you can only see the base of it.
I love all those ancient automobiles by the way. The movie's really showing off its budget here by taking over a street and filling it full of cars. Kirk's less impressed when one nearly hits him, replying "Double dumbass on you!"
Man it's so weird seeing the whole senior staff out on an away mission together. You could probably count the amount of times this happened in the Original Series on one finger. It's also weird to get an actual date for an episode we can understand, as if you're watching it in HD and you really squint you can almost see that today's newspaper has December 18th, 1986 on it. So it almost is a Christmas movie! That was three weeks into the future for people watching in cinemas the day it came out.
The future scenes apparently take place in 2386, so they've time travelled back exactly 300 years. The last time they deliberately travelled to Earth's past (in Assignment: Earth) they ended up in 1968, which was exactly 300 years ago as well, so I guess Spock just reused a lot of the same numbers in his calculations.
This isn't Kirk's first trip to the 20th century (in fact he and Spock were stuck in the 30s for a while in The City on the Edge of Forever) and he realises that they're still using money in this time. Which means to make any progress in their mission they'll need to get their hands on some. This is a pretty important line as I think it's the first time they've ever said that people in the 23rd century don't use money. Fortunately I guess he spotted an antiques store, as he tells his crew to wait for a moment while he goes and gets them some cash.
The future scenes apparently take place in 2386, so they've time travelled back exactly 300 years. The last time they deliberately travelled to Earth's past (in Assignment: Earth) they ended up in 1968, which was exactly 300 years ago as well, so I guess Spock just reused a lot of the same numbers in his calculations.
This isn't Kirk's first trip to the 20th century (in fact he and Spock were stuck in the 30s for a while in The City on the Edge of Forever) and he realises that they're still using money in this time. Which means to make any progress in their mission they'll need to get their hands on some. This is a pretty important line as I think it's the first time they've ever said that people in the 23rd century don't use money. Fortunately I guess he spotted an antiques store, as he tells his crew to wait for a moment while he goes and gets them some cash.
Turns out that Kirk still has the glasses that McCoy gave him for his birthday in Star Trek 2! I love this kind of continuity. I'm less keen on Kirk implying that the same pair will be given to him again in the future. Time loops I'm fine with, I have no problem with predestination paradoxes, but I don't like objects with no origin looping through time.
I mean it's weird enough that McCoy gave him glasses that were already antique in the 1980s just to wear, but it gets even weirder when they're infinitely old. Every part of them must have been replaced over time, like the broken lenses, or else there'd be nothing left of them to give. Fortunately there's absolutely zero evidence that Kirk will receive these glasses again, so he was probably just making a quip.
I mean it's weird enough that McCoy gave him glasses that were already antique in the 1980s just to wear, but it gets even weirder when they're infinitely old. Every part of them must have been replaced over time, like the broken lenses, or else there'd be nothing left of them to give. Fortunately there's absolutely zero evidence that Kirk will receive these glasses again, so he was probably just making a quip.
Anyway Kirk got $100 for the glasses so they are back in business! Kirk shares out the money with his team (Spock declines to take any) and then they split up to get on with their tasks.
Here's some trivia for you: George and Gracie are named after the husband and wife comedy duo of George Burns and Gracie Allen, who did movies in the 30s and a TV show in the 50s. I had to look that up as I had no idea.
The good thing about the 80s is that the city is covered in useful adverts. I always assumed that the filmmakers decided to film here because it was an interesting building, but they apparently painted it on the wall themselves. I'm not going to speculate on whether the movie got paid by Pacific Bell for product placement, but that ad would've been huge on a cinema screen.
I think this is the part of the movie where Sulu would've met a kid called Hikaru who was one of his ancestors, but they couldn't get it filmed because the boy wouldn't stop crying. Probably not a huge loss. Though Sulu later acquired the first name Hikaru for himself in Star Trek VI.
Uhura and Chekov are way ahead of them, learning about the naval base in Alameda from a Pacific Bell phone book. They still need to know how to get there however, so they're left going around the street asking people if they know where the nuclear vessels are. Both completely oblivious to how his strong Russian accent sounds to people when he's asking them where their warships are.
I think this is the part of the movie where Sulu would've met a kid called Hikaru who was one of his ancestors, but they couldn't get it filmed because the boy wouldn't stop crying. Probably not a huge loss. Though Sulu later acquired the first name Hikaru for himself in Star Trek VI.
The scene works really well because no one they talk to replies to them, they're just standing there confused like they think this a joke. It makes it feel like the director set up a hidden camera and sent the actors into the street to adlib some lines at the passing pedestrians to capture their genuine reactions.
I've heard a bunch of stories about how they actually filmed this, mostly contradictory. Some people say that the cop was the only one who had no idea what was going on, some say that the woman who talks to them had wandered into the scene by mistake, and some people say that no one knew that they were being filmed for a movie. The best I can figure out, the true story is that Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig were adlibbing their lines, the pedestrians were all extras, the cop was originally there for security but had been asked if he wanted to be in the scene, and the woman wasn't supposed to talk, as it broke union rules.
She's apparently fashion designer Layla Sarakalo, who became an extra for the money to get her car back after she inadvertently left it parked where they were filming (she didn't see the signs they'd put up). The other extras told her to act naturally, but I guess they never mentioned she couldn't reply, so she adlibbed a line, which the actors rolled with. The take worked so well that she joined the Screen Actors Guild so they could use the footage in the movie.
Why two people who lived in San Francisco for years are asking for directions to Alameda remains a mystery however.
I've heard a bunch of stories about how they actually filmed this, mostly contradictory. Some people say that the cop was the only one who had no idea what was going on, some say that the woman who talks to them had wandered into the scene by mistake, and some people say that no one knew that they were being filmed for a movie. The best I can figure out, the true story is that Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig were adlibbing their lines, the pedestrians were all extras, the cop was originally there for security but had been asked if he wanted to be in the scene, and the woman wasn't supposed to talk, as it broke union rules.
She's apparently fashion designer Layla Sarakalo, who became an extra for the money to get her car back after she inadvertently left it parked where they were filming (she didn't see the signs they'd put up). The other extras told her to act naturally, but I guess they never mentioned she couldn't reply, so she adlibbed a line, which the actors rolled with. The take worked so well that she joined the Screen Actors Guild so they could use the footage in the movie.
Why two people who lived in San Francisco for years are asking for directions to Alameda remains a mystery however.
Everyone knows the story of Punk on Bus already so I won't bore you by repeating that he's played by associate producer Kirk Thatcher, who also wrote and performed the annoying punk music he won't stop playing. He got a band together with the sound editor and recorded his own tune with crappy mics because he want it to sounded authentic, and it actually kind of does.
Thatcher did a whole bunch of stuff for the movie (like playing the role of the Vulcan computer) and had already worked on props for the previous two films. Afterwards he went on to work on for Jim Henson on Muppets projects, though he eventually returned to Star Trek to provide the narration for the Short Treks episode Ephraim and Dot. He also reprised the role of Punk on Bus in Spider-Man: Homecoming, making him one of the few characters to crossover between Star Trek and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (The Punk's actually called 'Krash' according to the actor, or at least it was in Spider-Man.)
I'm going to assume that they filmed this scene by sticking the actors and camera crew in a bus and driving it over the Golden Gate Bridge, because it looks completely real.
Kirk and Spock take a moment to discuss the colourful metaphors creeping into Kirk's vocabulary, leading to a joke about the literary giants of the period, Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins. I never heard of the authors though so I didn't get it.
They arrive at the Cetacean Institute in Sausalito (played by Monterey Bay Aquarium) and disembark their vehicle. For some reason I've never noticed before that everyone else gets off the bus as well, which makes perfect sense really. You don't get on the bus that's going to the whales if you don't want to see the whales.
Kirk and Spock take a moment to discuss the colourful metaphors creeping into Kirk's vocabulary, leading to a joke about the literary giants of the period, Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins. I never heard of the authors though so I didn't get it.
They arrive at the Cetacean Institute in Sausalito (played by Monterey Bay Aquarium) and disembark their vehicle. For some reason I've never noticed before that everyone else gets off the bus as well, which makes perfect sense really. You don't get on the bus that's going to the whales if you don't want to see the whales.
It cuts inside to show Doctor Gillian Taylor noticing the latest busload of people arriving for the tour and I like that we get to see a moment of her life before Kirk and Spock arrive in it. Just enough to give us a subliminal hint that unlike the antique shop guy and Punk on Bus she may actually be a character in this story.
And then the gruesome clips of whales being cut up start, as Dr Taylor brings her tour group to a TV showing what people are doing to them in this barbaric period of history. You could say that the movie's a little preachy at times, though I don't think anyone's ever complained about it. No one I'm aware of anyway. Spock's a bit confused, saying that hunting a species to extinction isn't logical, so she just points out that humans aren't logical and that shuts him up. We never learn if whales are logical.
And then the gruesome clips of whales being cut up start, as Dr Taylor brings her tour group to a TV showing what people are doing to them in this barbaric period of history. You could say that the movie's a little preachy at times, though I don't think anyone's ever complained about it. No one I'm aware of anyway. Spock's a bit confused, saying that hunting a species to extinction isn't logical, so she just points out that humans aren't logical and that shuts him up. We never learn if whales are logical.
It's actually Leonard Nimoy doing this, but it's not a real whale. They used a prop made of foam and fibreglass and stuff. Unfortunately the tank has a glass window so everyone on the tour can see him in there. They're presumably still the same people from the bus ride who clapped at Spock neck-pinching the guy though, so this is just the latest chapter of the Spock Show for them. Oh damn, I just realised that Punk on Bus must have wanted the see the whales too, but he didn't wake up and got driven away on the bus!
You might think it's a stretch that the punk wanted to join the tour, but look at the other people here:
There is a reason why everyone's wearing recognisable outfits by the way. It's to make it obvious that it's the same tour group in every shot, even though their tour was filmed in two different locations (neither of them Sausalito).
Shatner gets to do a bit of 'oh no what's Spock up to now?' acting when he sees him in there, then he and Gillian run upstairs to confront him.
Also he keeps throwing 'the hell' into dialogue where it doesn't belong. Funny how things have changed since The Original Series, where the writers only got to deploy words like 'hell' into their scripts on rare occasions, like the end of The City on the Edge of Forever, and... okay that's the only time I can think of. Now it's part of a joke in a comedy movie aimed at families.
Well the good news is that they've found the whales. The bad news is Gillian kicks them out and it's a long walk back to San Francisco.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART THREE
NEXT TIME
Thanks for reading! If you want to share your opinions about all the stuff you just read, you're welcome to leave a comment.
The last time they deliberately travelled to Earth's past (in Assignment: Earth) they ended up in 1968, which was exactly 300 years ago as well, so I guess Spock just reused a lot of the same numbers in his calculations.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense, given he's recovering from being dead. He wouldn't be as agile in his thinking and wouldn't update his calculations. I doubt it was deliberate though, and much more likely that it's cheaper to film in 1986 than making 1986 look like1968.
but I don't like objects with no origin looping through time
ReplyDeleteUh oh...
He also reprised the role of Punk on Bus in...
ReplyDeleteAnd somewhere else as well, but we may not be allowed to talk about that for spoilery reasons.
I'm in 1986 so I have absolutely no idea what you could be talking about. Though, changing the subject entirely, I'll be jumping to March 2022 after the movie...
DeleteI am baffled by the significance of that date. I can't imagine how it could be relevant to the discussion we are definitely not having.
DeleteI adore the "nuclear wessels" scene. Chekov is hilarious, it's great to see Uhura interacting with something that isn't a console, and the clueless comedy of it is wonderful. The wide angle looks great too, and really does make it look like they are lost and talking to random people.
ReplyDeleteI love this film so much.