Now seems as good a time as any to watch it, so...tonight on #wenchwatches
This film was of course famous as "the one with the whales". And it's been a divisive one throughout Star Trek fandom. Many loved this film, many loathed it. As a kid, I was in the latter camp. I would dread a rewatch of 4, but you needed it to complete the three film arc. As I grew up, I discovered many who said this was their favorite of the Star Trek films at the time. This let me to reconsider my childhood opinion.
Let's watch!
I've warmed on this film considerably over the years. It was famously put that after the Enterprise crew had experienced "Life and Death and Life again, it was time to lighten up a little." This was one of the first films that reminded me those who create these films are people, just as human as you or me. We've seen examples of this sort of "production team catharsis" before in other more famous projects.
The anime FLCL was very much a way to the production team behind Evangelion to net a much needed reset. The less known series NieA_7 was similar for the team behind Serial Experiments Lain. In that way, Star Trek 4 is in good company.
Star Trek 1 was a tempestuous production that nearly didn't happen at all. Star Trek 2 bloody and cold and paid for in the "series dearest blood." 3 a much, much needed rejoining despite further death. Time to lighten up indeed.
There's a number of firsts in this film that go by in just the first act alone without much comment. This may be the first time we've seen any sizable portion of the Federation Council on camera. We've seen select members in previous films and The Original Series, but never more than a handful of actors.
This rolls right into the next reveal. One of the first Klingons see on camera who is *not* a warrior in the conventional sense.
Instead of the typical rubber, black fur, metal, and spikes, the Klingon Ambassador's outfit is soft and a kind of cornflower blue. It feels very much like a ceremonial purposes, a culturally specific demarcation. It's more than that, however, as we quickly learn from John Shuck's performance.
Here we have the first klingon which *feels* klingon. There's a powerful, almost Shakespearean presence to the man.
This contrasts heavily with the more villainous presentations from TOS. You can clearly see where they built the entirety of The Next Generation's version of klingons from just this opening scene.
The final first is more subtle. Star Trek 3 *feels* like a modern film. It feels sharper, the depth of field better, and a clarity of color the previous three films lacked. While ILM did return on this film, something in their technical toolkit changed to render it so.
Much of the first act is establishing. Reminder, this was released in 1986, and while consumer video wasn't unheard of, it was no where near as popular as it was in the 90s. Audiences would need to be reminded of what had happened in the previous film. To it's profound credit, Star Trek 4 does an excellent job in this regard.
Through the Ambassador's presentation to the Federation Council, we're given the highlights of The Search for Spock. as well as the current sociopolitical circumstances. It goes by quickly enough that we barely notice the exposition. The use of it as "evidence" allows such a brief replay without breaking the audience's immersion.
Running in parallel with this are two other subplots, bringing together all of the necessary elements to have a good plot. On Vulcan, our Enterprise crew is readying their commandeered Klingon craft to return to Earth, presumably for a court martial. Meanwhile, in space, a brutalist cylinder makes it's way toward earth as well. It has no apparent weapons, fires no shots, issues no threats, and disables all craft in it's path by robbing them of power.
The antagonist's craft is actually a favorite of mine. Before this, I had rarely seen a fictional spacecraft that looked so simple, yet also not. The rough texture on the ends, as well as the nearly mottled "concrete" pattern of light it reflects is just delicious to the eyes. The ship design does one better; it adds a oddly textured sphere held in place by a powerful energy beam.
And then there's the *sound*.
I've went on and on about sound design before. It feels so unappreciated in film, yet I *adored* how the craft sounded here. A droning pulse combined with that shrill, almost mournful trilling.
It's only later we learn what trilling really is. When listened to it from under water, we get to this film's plot device; it's whalesong.
But not just any whalesong, humpback whales, and ones that...went extinct by the 23rd century.
Oh.
@socketwench - So. The Wub Wub sound of the whale probe. The deep bass wub wub.
The sound designer came up with multipled versions of that sound, each time Nimoy said "No. Not like that." Over and over and over again. Eventually the sound designer got so angry, he pulled Nimoy over to the mic and told him "WHAT SHOULD IT SOUND LIKE?!"
Nimoy: "Wub wub wub."
The sound on the screen? A heavily filtered Nimoy going wub wub wub over and over again.
