Star Trek 4 - The Voyage Home (2 disk) - DVD Review

Purchasing Information

Review

After the successful resurrection of Spock in Search for Spock, the mutinous Enterprise crew return to Earth to face the charges, only to find that an alien probe orbiting the planet is threatening to destroy it. Realising the probe awaits an answer from an extinct species, the crew travel back in time to find a respondent, only to find themselves Aliens in Earth’s dark past…

Star Trek goes back to its roots in this story, with a clever examination of present and future cultures, a witty script and good performances from the veteran crew. Although in my opinion it is a little too light-hearted at times, and certainly set a precedent for some of the poor humour in the next film. However this aside the direction of the movie is top-notch, moving along at a fast pace whilst not making too many shortcuts that would confuse non-trekkies.

The special effects continue to impress, with only the bizarre time travel “busts” looking odd, though they did at the time of release, in my opinion. Despite lacking the epic space battles of ST 2&3, or their great opponents, Voyage Home is one of my favourite Star Trek movies because it’s all about the Characters and their drive to succeed, the classic Hero’s journey. There’s no need for an adversary so we get a very human story which elaborates on some of the character developments in Wrath of Khan, and brings to a close the trilogy of movies that could stand alone as what Star Trek is all about.

It’s pleasing to see that Paramount are continuing to provide these movies on a decent DVD. The transfer is colourful and clear, although occasionally grainy. The dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack is clear and active throughout, particularly during the storm scenes with wind and thunder echoing around the surround channels.

Two commentaries are included; an audio commentary with Leonard Nimoy and Bill Shatner, and it’s pleasing to hear Shatner present after his notable absence on the Search for Spock commentary. They discuss the production, cast, story, direction, script, the lot, in an informative but light-hearted manner. Although there are some gaps the commentary is very entertaining throughout. The second commentary is another text track from Star Trek uber-nerds Michael and Denise Okuda, full of Trek trivia, production notes and scientific commentary. Once again an entertaining track.

Looking at Disk 2, the first this you notice is that hiding behind the excellent animated menus is a wealth of extra material. Logically grouped in to sections. The first section of the second disk looks at the Star Trek Universe with four featurettes, all loosely related to the movie.

Is time travel possible? is a discussion with renowned physicists who discuss the possibility of time travel – space \ time relationships, Einsteins theory of Relativity, wormholes and all that, interspersed with clips from the Star Trek movies and bizarre cartoons. Some will find this interesting, other’s won’t.

The language of Whales looks at whale species and is an interesting general knowledge piece on whales; their intelligence, nurturing etc. It then looks at their communication. At 5 minutes long, it’s short but enough to explain Whales in context of the film to the sheltered Trekkie who don’t know what one is.

Next up is A Vulcan Primer is an Idiots guide to Vulcans by Author Margaret Wander Bonanno. Taking her subject a little too seriously (has anyone told her that Vulcans aren’t real??), she talks about the Vulcan race and Star Trek mythology, interspersed with clips from the movies and the original series.

On a lighter note Kirk’s Women interviews many of the actresses that played Kirk’s conquests, discussing both Kirk and Bill Shatner. It’s an entertaining featurette, which only lacks Bill Shatner’s own input – his dry sense of humour would have certainly added to this piece.

We then move on to Production Featurettes. Future’s Past: A look back continues the tradition of retrospective “making of” featurettes, with production staff interviews, considerable explanation from Writer \ Producer Harve Bennett, Director Leonard Nimoy and more dry humour from Bill Shatner. There’s some good behind the scenes footage, photos and deleted scenes included here, such as the Punk on the bus. It also discussed what made this movie the most successful of the series to date, and is an excellent half hour feature.

On location expands on the featurette, with additional interview footage. I don’t really understand why this wasn’t included in the previous documentary as it includes anecdotes on the production, and additional footage and stills.

Dailies deconstruction includes five minutes of dailies – multiple versions of shots from which the movie was constructed. A nice addition for posterity’s sake and interesting to see from a movie-making perspective just how different each take is.

Below the line: Sound design is an 11 minute documentary on the creation of the sound effects. These documentaries often crop up on sci-fi DVDs, and it’s not a bad effort, consisting mostly of Mark Mangini (Sound editor) explaining the sound effects, with examples from the movie. It’s amazing how they get such great effects using simple sounds.

The Original interview section includes interview footage, shot during or after production with Nimoy, Shatner and Kelley. There’s an impressive 45 minutes of interview footage here, and for fans of the series this is a pot of gold, as they discuss not only the movie but being part of Star Trek machine.

The Tributes section features a tribute to Gene Roddenberry featuring interview footage from son Eugene Roddenberry. It’s an odd piece as Gene died when his son was 17, and is quite a personal section as he recollects memories of his father. Also a broader tribute to Star Trek veteran Mark Lenard, who played Spock’s father Sarek. This looks at his background before Star Trek, through the eyes of his family, with personal photos and footage.

Finally, rounding off the impressive second disk is a Trailer and the Archive section, which includes yet more production footage, photos and eight storyboard sequences.

I love this movie, it’s the most accessible of the Star Trek movies as its mostly set present day – even my Wife likes it. Although I would have traded some of the relatively unrelated featurettes for more production information, I appreciate that Paramount have probably put every bit of information they have on this production on this disk, and for this they must be congratulated. I worried that the quality of these 2-disk versions was on the way down after the disappointing Search for Spock, but this package is great, a treat for the loyal fans of the series. Well done Paramount, and roll on Star Trek 5…

This page has been read: 2138 times

<< Back to Movies Home

Readers Comments

Please Wait...

About Matt Hatson

Thirty-year-old Londoner in self-imposed exile in the marshes of Leicester. With a penchant for all things technical, he lives surrounded by odd bits of machinery and obsolete computers, much to the chagrin of his wife. First dabble with the Internet came as a general reviewer, regularly reviewing household objects ('torches, like table lamps but portable - 5 out of 5'). After running his own DVD website for a couple of years, he decided to take the easy path and let someone else do the hard work and just watch films. Now he spends his time searching for bargains on the Internet and travelling around Europe on behalf of his employer, who falsely believes hat he works for a living. Other interests include shouting at Arsenal, quality tasting Stella Artois and "living his life the Dilbert way". Not necessarily a religion according to the recent UK census, but through devotion, there will come enlightenment.