Star Trek II - IV: The Spock Trilogy - 10 Things You Never Knew
2. Star Trek IV: It Was A Huge Success And Almost Killed The Franchise
The Voyage Home ends with the trial of the crew, which quickly becomes a list of their achievements and the reveal of the new Enterprise A. It would signal a new beginning in the franchise, one that would lead into the almost disastrous Star Trek 5. But before that, the crew was back together again and there was a ship named Enterprise ready to fly around the stars.
The film was a huge success, not quite matching the box office of the Motion Picture but still securing a sizeable income. Contracts were then renegotiated and Shatner wanted a piece of the directing pie. Tensions among the cast began to simmer, not least the now infamous feud between George Takei and William Shatner. Despite this, the Voyage Home remains one of the brightest movie examples of what Star Trek was intended to be.
It shows a future where mankind has to learn from the mistakes of its past if it is ever to survive going forward. While it takes the cold logic of an alien to show them the means to save the day, it also shows that by working with people of the time, meaning Gillian Taylor, past and future can come together to fix the worlds problems, if they can just concentrate long enough to do that.
This was the last Star Trek film to exist in isolation before the Next Generation appeared on screens so, in a way, it is one of the last times that the Original Series crew were the definitive Star Trek characters. A fantastic way for them to bow out, if it had been the end.