Customer Reviews

Star Trek Movie 1 Iv (Star Trek (Unnumbered Audio))

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"Star Trek IV" remains my favorite Star Trek movie of all time, the combination of humor, social message and action make it a great story. This book is an excellent novelization of the movie, McIntyre captures the events with just the right amount of poetic license in converting the on-screen action into words. In my opinion, this is the best literary adaptation of any Star Trek video, if you pay very close attention you will recognize some differences between the book and the movie, but in my opinion, they only serve to make the book better.

Why did I enjoy this more than any of the other Star Trek movies? Probably because it's got all of the elements I love. Kirk and McCoy trying to relate to Spock, and Spock too puzzled by his Human half to help them much - if at all. Humor. A feisty, intelligent "love interest" who actually has a key plot-driving role, in Dr. Gillian Taylor. Sarek. And, at the end...oh, never mind. Just in case there's someone left who may want to read the book, or see the film, without already knowing the ending - no, I wouldn't spoil it for worlds.

So the science doesn't make a lot of sense. It often didn't in the original Trek, on TV. The plot premise and execution worked well enough to let me temporarily suspend my disbelief when I first saw "The Voyage Home" on the big screen, and I found that unchanged when I finally read the novelization. So the humor's lame at times. It still felt to me like a visit with old friends, and that's really what I'm looking for in a Star Trek story. On screen, or between book covers.

It is even better then the movie. It has all the elements of a classic Star Trek episode, with Capt. Kirk falling in love with a beautiful young women, the crew dealing with a different time periode, MR.Spock and Dr.McCoy going at it like an old married couple.......And there are the Klingons, a major threat to Earth, and, of crouse, the whales... Who wouldn't like this book?

If you are familiar with the movie that this book was based on, I will say that this is one of the most faithful novelizations of a movie that I've ever seen; almost every scene from the movie is included, and most of the dialogue is faithfully kept as well. Ms. McIntyre satisfies her creative urge by filling in gaps in the storyline, adding internal dialogue and insight into the characters' thoughts as well as transitional scenes that further explain and clarify the storyline.

If you are not familiar with the movie, there are a few quibbles you might have with the story, but for my money, the quibbles are all things that originated in the movie, and that Ms. McIntyre is not responsible for: the running gag of Kirk attempting to "fit in" to 20th century society by cursing, which he does clumsily, and Spock's even more clumsy attempts to follow Kirk's lead. I'm not certain whether this was supposed to be purely a humorous bit, or whether it was supposed to be a comment on how silly vulgarity makes one look, and how foolish it is to try to fit in in that way. If it was intended for humor value, its humor wore thin very quickly, and if it was intended for the latter purpose, I'm not sure that it was effective. But in any case, that, as I say, is not Ms. McIntyre's fault; it was part of the movie that she was working from. Similarly, any part of the plot that referred back to the previous movie, and Spock's tenuous grip on his memories as a result of being recently "reborn", do not sit well with me (see my review of "The Search For Spock" for my objections to that movie/book) but again, this is not the author's fault. I also do not believe that a bit of ambient radiation causes malfunctions in phasers, as happens in one scene, but the same disclaimer of responsibility applies.

On its own merits, and outside of the consideration of how well it remains faithful either to the movie it was based on, or the Star Trek universe in general, or the previously established characters, this book is still quite good, and better able to stand on its own as a Science Fiction Action-Adventure novel than most Star Trek books, and it also does a better job of faithfully portraying the known characters than many. And as I said, it does a marvellous job of faithfully depicting the story from the movie while building on it plausibly and believably. All in all, by almost any measure I care to use, it is a very good book.

One of the abilities of the Star Trek franchise has been the ability to alleviate a potential cliche in a story by bringing a bit of humor in. A time travel scenario can be really hackneyed and lame except for the fact that this one gets a good laugh out of it. Like Kirk and Spock wandering around San Francisco traffic without a working knowledge of profanity. Most of us know how Kirk & co use a borrowed Klingon ship to go back to our time when the humpbacked whale was not yet extinct so that they could bring a couple of them forward in time to tell the mysterious probe to shut down the hurricane already, we hoid ya da foist time--if not from reviews, then by seeing the movie. One scene that got ad-libbed into this novelization didn't make the screen, though. Remember if you will the sequence where Kirk pauses by the checkout of a restaurant and hands Spock an after-dinner mint ("Don't say I never gave you anything"/ "Why would I say that, Captain?")? Now fast forward to the scene where Kirk and Spock find the whales at an aquarium and Spock goes "swimmin' wit' da fishes" (yeah yeah, whales aren't fish, I know). The scene we didn't get in the movie is right after scientist Gillian gives Spock hell for that little swim. In this book, Kirk gets Spock aside and asks him what's the matter with him. Spock reminds him of the mint and reveals the not widely known medical fact that sucrose has a certain physiological effect on Vulcans. If I'd written this book, I would have also added the above reaction by McCoy.

This book was wonderful. If you've seen the movie, you'll want to read the book. It's a Star Trek book with all the familar characters, yet it takes place in the 1980's. Imagine Cap. Kirk and the others going back in time to capture and bring two humpback whales back to the future to save earth from being destroyed and in the meantime they run into a few problems. Because that is mostly what the books about, except of course for Cap. Kirk falling in love again.

If the book Star Trek 4 the voyage home is anything like the movie that i'm going to enjoy the book.

Rondall Banks

I liked it because it really helped to put the movie into prospective.

I believe that this story was the best that the Series of star trek books has. Great ending and begining. I especially enjoyed the time travel that goes into this. A very good book.