There is an axiom in the Star Trek fandom about the films starring The Original Series cast: only the even-numbered ones are "good." It was born from the reactions of contemporaneous fans to a series of films that felt unending. However, if Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home were released today, fans would absolutely hate it.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture perfectly represents the franchise, with its slow pacing and cerebral conflict. Star Trek III and Star Trek V have both aged well, but at the time, fans and critics felt they were perfunctory at best. The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country, however, are classic Star Trek at its best: a moral quandary sandwiched between ship-based combat and up-close fights. Yet, looking at fandom in the 21st century, it's almost baffling The Voyage Home is on the list. First, it's a comedy where the newly-revived Spock, the most revered character in the franchise, is the butt of many jokes. Rather than set in the future, much of the movie takes place in 1980s San Franciso. The Enterprise, as much a character in Star Trek as the people, doesn't even appear until the last scene. Lastly, instead of a carefully crafted sci-fi allegory, the film delivers an overt, real-world political message. However, fans that call it some of the best of that era of Star Trek are completely correct.

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Fans Today Would Say The Voyage Home Disrespects the Story and Characters

Scotty talking into a computer mouse with Dr. McCoy and a civilian in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Many fans thought The Search for Spock was a cynical movie. Kirk's newly discovered son dies simply for shock value. The Enterprise is destroyed, and some fans felt resurrecting Spock undercut the impact of his sacrifice in Star Trek II. Decidedly absent from all those films was a clear sense of fun. The Voyage Home is more comedy than any other genre. Scotty, one of the greatest engineers in Starfleet, talks to a computer mouse. Spock tries out cursing and is bad at it. When the movie wants fans to think Chekov is going to die, it still makes time for jokes. Dr. McCoy gives an old woman a pill that grows a new kidney for her. The escape from the hospital is a slapstick chase through the hallways, complete with silly music from Leonard Roseman's score.

The premise of the film is paper-thin, designed only to facilitate an anti-whaling message. A probe from some unknown part of the galaxy comes to Earth, communicating in humpback whale song. The probe is all but destroying the planet in its search, so Kirk and the gang have to time-travel and bring back some before the species goes extinct. The story spends almost no time dwelling on the momentous losses of the previous film. There is no examination of what it's like for Spock to come back from the dead, save for some light amnesia. The big emotional reunion fans may have been expecting happened off-screen. The all-caps YouTube video titles practically write themselves.

However, fans were different back then. Audiences were seemingly tired of the heavy tragedy of the previous films. There was no exploration, no discovery. There would be a threat, and Kirk would have to rally the crew to go meet it. Someone would die, but the enemy would be defeated. Because Star Trek was a TV series with many kinds of stories, the franchise was never supposed to be just one thing. Even if fans objected to the characterization or the unsubtle political moral, they were just happy Star Trek was fun again.

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Star Trek's Longevity Was Unprecedented, and The Voyage Home Proved It

Kirk and Spock sitting in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

The Original Series was among the top-rated syndicated series for decades after the show's cancellation. The first film was a budgetary boondoggle, but it wasn't a flop. Before the debut of The Voyage Home, all previous Star Trek films made tens of millions in profit for Paramount. Star Trek IV is the only film to gross more than $100 million. Again, through a 2020s lens, this seems like something that would be impossible to repeat. If the Kelvin Timeline movies returned with a fourth installment that was a comedy, for instance, critics and fans alike would likely call it unfocused and disrespectful.

Back in 1986, fandoms didn't yet know how to be cynical that the thing they loved continued. By trying something different, the Star Trek storytellers proved that audiences were receptive to different kinds of stories. They didn't punish the film for taking a very modern, real political stance, though arguing against the murder of whales for profit isn't a hard sell. In fact, the most controversial thing to contemporaneous fans might have been the Enterprise-A. Producer Harve Bennett wanted the crew to take over the USS Excelsior, but everyone else from Roddenberry to the studio wanted the franchise ship back.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a bold film through any era's lens. It was the movie where Star Trek "outlasted" Star Wars, and it proved the "old" cast still had plenty of life left in them. Even with the films that disappointed, especially Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, fans were just happy the saga continued. They didn't harass the cast or Harve Bennett or blame some Paramount executive for "hating" the franchise and fans. Even at 20 years old, Star Trek as a franchise hadn't existed long enough for fans to start taking it for granted yet.