I'm a bit late writing about it, but last weekend's "Continental Flashback Movie" was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (That's the "save the whales" installment, for those of you who might be less familiar.) Having had such a good time when that theater showed The Wrath of Khan, there was no way I was going to miss this one.
Unlike Wrath of Khan, which I only had the dimmest recollections of seeing in the theater (worms in the ear = bad), I could remember exactly where I saw The Voyage Home back in 1986 and who I went with. Seeing it on the big screen last weekend was a much more familiar experience.
It's still a good movie, though. Most of the jokes are still funny, despite me (and the rest of the crowd) knowing them up, down, and sideways. They had to be funny for fans to have ever embraced this film as "one of the good ones." Sure, the original series had comedic episodes that were fan favorites (The Trouble With Tribbles, A Piece of the Action, etc.), but it seems to me now like a real risk to have gone with such a light touch in this movie when all the previous movies had been so very serious. But they got the mix right.
Except for that bizarre time travel sequence. Weird CG-morphing heads? A stryofoam mannequin falling into jet exhaust or something? Reeds in a swamp? That sequence made me go "what the hell?" then, and it still does to this day.
2 comments:
This is the first one I saw in theaters, too, though I can still recall my mom coming back from TWOK and saying, "I can't believe they killed Spock!"
nuclear wessles! I still get a big kick outta that one :) not very relevant today but in the midst of the Cold War it was a very pointedly funny bit. and the paradox about selling Kirk's antique glasses so he could get them in the future was a good bit, too.
now that I think about it, they did do some Austin Powers-type fun with time travel mechanics stuff.
the mole
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