Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

I guess when I was 6 i liked it, and every generation needs it's time travel movie doesn't it? But, no, bringing them back to contemporary 80s earth just doesn't work. It's sort of too close to home to be good. Star Trek is Sci-Fi, sure, but this just doesn't work. They live in a future that COULD be, with it's own history, it's own mythology, and taking the crew of the Enterprise back to our world just makes them feel more out of place than the comedic tone of the film intended.

Probably my favourite of these sci-fi adventures. Having revived "Spock" to something akin to his previous, pompous old self; the crew of the now destroyed "Enterprise" set sail for home in their captured Klingon Warbird. Meantime, unbeknown to them, a probe is wreaking havoc on the galaxy as it emits odd pinging sounds on it's way to Earth. Our explorers approach the planet to discover that the probe has polarised the atmosphere and even the sophisticated Starfleet Command has no idea what's going on... Well, it turns out that the probe is pretty fluent in humpback whale-song but we have long since hunted them into extinction. What's required now is some legerdemain and a bit of time travel to go get some from back in 20th century California. What follows is a fun series of escapades as they set about their tasks - and all of the crew have their own roles to play. It touches on the ecology issues in a humorous but pointed manner and all round delivers an enjoyable 2 hours of entertainment.