Bit of Ivory

Sorry for the delay. I’ve had a busy few days! I would have posted this yesterday, but I typed it up at work and forgot to e-mail it to myself. Rather than do it all over again, I just decided to wait.

“I think he did a little too much LDS”

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

If I were ever to make a series of posts about TV Shows My Family Quotes, I believe it would be safe to say that the majority of those quotes would come from Star Trek (mostly the Next Generation, but there’s a few from the original series that get trotted out every now and then) – although M*A*S*H would be a close second, and I’m not counting Animaniacs here, because it would more properly belong in the Cartoons My Family Quotes series. Anyway. Long before we began quoting “We look for things. Things we need. Things to make us go,” and “Battai. Go home,” and “You’re so stolid. You weren’t like that before the beard!” we were quoting this movie.

A big reason for that is because, of all the Star Trek movies, this is the funniest. Since most of our quotes are used for comedic effect, it would make sense that most of the movies we quote are funny ones. (Incidentally, as the second-funniest Star Trek movie, Insurrection also gets quoted at my house. It’s not on my current list, but if I ever do a second installment, it’d be included.)

For anyone who’s never seen this film, here’s the basic outline of the plot: The crew of the Enterprise, having destroyed said ship in an effort to reclaim Spock (who died and left his consciousness in Doctor McCoy’s mind, then was reborn again on the Genesis planet), set off for earth in a stolen Klingon warbird to face trial for the destruction of the ship (among other things). But as they near Earth, they are warned away—a mysterious probe is orbiting the planet, wreaking havoc on ships in the solar system and vaporizing the Earth’s oceans. Spock and Kirk and Uhurua figure out that the sound the probe is making is the call of the humpback whale—which has been extinct on Earth for centuries. In an effort to save the Earth, the crew slingshot the warbird around the Sun and travel back in time—to 1986, where they find two whales, George and Gracie just perfect to bring back to the future. Of course, their caretaker, Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Tate), doesn’t want to just hand her precious whales over to a couple of weirdos claiming to be from the future. And boy, are the crew weird—especially Spock, who hasn’t quite recovered from his death yet, and is therefore even more out of place than he usually would be:

And as a good Mormon girl I hate to have to admit this, but I (and everyone else in my family, too) sometimes find profanity extremely funny. Not most of the time. Sometimes. And Star Trek IV is one of those times. This was the movie I’d planned to do next, when I substituted Ten Commandments, because I felt guilty writing about this movie on a Sunday. Because whenever I think about Spock and his colorful metaphors, I can’t stop myself from laughing. And then feeling a little ashamed. (Incidentally, I also find the things that people say in place of swearing funny. Like Colonel Potter’s variations on “horse hockey” and “mule muffins,” etc. Hilarious!)

Now, being a good Mormon family, we don’t often actually say those colorful-metaphor-laced lines. At least not all the way. But luckily for us, the funny swearing lines aren’t the only good lines in this movie. There’s also stuff like “Admiral, if we were to assume these whales are ours to do with as we please we would be as guilty as those who caused—past tense—their destruction. I have a photographic memory, I see words,” and “No, I’m from Iowa, I only work in outer space,” and “Hello, computer. . .” and “We’re looking for the nuclear wessels” and “Doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney!” and. . . so, so many others. We like this movie because one of the ships that gets disabled by the probe in the beginning is called the Saratoga, which was the aircraft carrier my grandpa served on in WWII. In fact, Grandpa hated Star Trek in general (he always seemed to turn it on when they were playing the episode with the Gorn, and thought it was ridiculous. Which, you know, that episode is), but he loved this movie. And we like this movie because—let’s face it—time travel movies are fun, especially in something like this, where we get to see characters we know and love react to our own times. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to give a punk kid on the bus a Vulcan neck pinch now and then?

Next time, we take a step back into a much simpler time.