When going over the Star Trek films part four is always summed up with one sentence:This is the one with the whales.
Star Trek IV continues the work of the previous two and starts off where three leaves off. The crew is preparing to leave Vulcan in their Klingon vessel, but while they're gone a mysterious probe has come to earth and is disrupting electronics and weather on the planet all while sending an odd sounding message that Spock (Leonard Nimoy) figures out is whale songs. All they need is whales to return the message right? Wrong. Whales were killed to extinction in the 21st century. The only answer now is to time warp back to the era of Reagan and bring back some whales.
As you can tell Star Trek IV is going to be a fish out of water film akin to Back to the Future only a little more pronounced. Every other scene entails some member of the crew facing 20th century culture in the weirdest way. That's to be expected, but it does get old after awhile. It's also rather telling that the plot is basically taken from the first film just jumbled up a bit. Another mysterious probe threatens earth. Jesus, why is everyone so pissed off at us.
Nimoy returns to direct again and does so adequately. There's no real flash and as I said in the other reviews the actors are the same as they had been for twenty years. Overall Star Trek IV is an average film that plays to much on the fish out of water. It's a preachy film and with that comes the responsibility to allow the viewer to understand that something is a problem without slamming it down your throat and not sacrificing the story. This film fails on both fronts.
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