Here's every way the Enterprise crew risk messing with history in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Arguably one of the best Star Trek movies, The Voyage Home was released in 1986 to fan and critical acclaim. Directed by Leonard Nimoy, the whale-centric story was somewhat of a departure for the Enterprise crew, presenting a fish-out-of-water blockbuster with no real villain. The Enterprise's mission is odd, but simple. They must travel back in time to 1986 and bring two humpback whales to the 23rd Century to sing to an alien probe in the process of destroying Earth’s atmosphere.
Unfortunately, there were many temporal casualties along the way. Whereas the vast majority of movies and TV shows treat time travel as a fraught affair with the potential to alter history forever, Kirk's crew showed no such concern in The Voyage Home.
A cloaked Bird of Prey landing in Golden Gate Park sets the tone immediately. Fortunately, it's dark and the only witnesses are two garbage men, who feel the hurricane-like effects of the landing, and also watch the ship's invisible legs flattening nearby terrain. When the ship departs, two joggers feel a similar takeoff impact. After that less-than-inconspicuous start, Kirk sells a pair of 18th century glasses to a pawnbroker, and these are the same glasses given to Kirk by McCoy as a birthday present in Star Trek II, three centuries later. Although the glasses aren't a problem in themselves, Kirk creates a time loop by essentially setting the glasses on a 300-year course back to him.
While it was certainly well deserved, Spock uses a Vulcan neck pinch while riding a bus. Although most onlookers would surely put the move down to some kind of martial arts technique, it wouldn't have been implausible for the crew to return to their own time and discover the "Terran neck pinch" was now a thing and can be traced back to a very astute public transport user. A scene was scripted in which Sulu would meet his great-great-great grandfather as a young child. The only reason this moment wasn't filmed was the youngster playing Sulu’s ancestor becoming too nervous on set.
In order to obtain the plexiglass needed to house the whales, Scotty strikes a deal with Dr. Nichols, the head of a manufacturing plant, despite McCoy's misgivings. Scotty gives the man a formula for transparent aluminum that hasn't yet been invented, arguing that Nichols might have invented it anyway. This lazy explanation was expanded upon in The Voyage Home's tie-in novel, where Scotty knew for sure Dr. Nichols would invent the aluminium variant. In a separate mission, Chekov finds himself captured on a nuclear vessel and, in the ensuing escape, not only does he manage to critically injure himself, Chekov somehow manages to leave behind his Starfleet ID, phaser and communicator. Fortunately, the radiation on the ship had rendered the devices inoperable, but everyone knows how much scientists love to reverse-engineer technology...
Many a time crime is committed in Mercy Hospital. The first offender is McCoy, who gives a pill to a woman on kidney dialysis. Later, the lady is seen happily telling perplexed medics that a doctor gave her a pill and now she’s growing a new kidney. Meanwhile, Chekov is in an operating theater about to have his head drilled, but Kirk & co. crash the party. In front of surgeons, nurses and techs, McCoy uses a scanner to diagnose Chekov's condition, while Kirk points a phaser at the confused hospital staff, shepherds them into a nearby room and uses his phaser to melt the lock. In front of everybody, McCoy then uses a 23rd century cortical stimulator to treat Chekov. Also in the hospital, Kirk’s group are beamed out of a descending elevator between floors after police saw them getting on.
Near the climax, a whaling vessel fires a harpoon at the Enterprise's target whales. Just before the missile strikes, the harpoon bounces off a cloaked Bird of Prey, which then becomes an uncloaked Bird of Prey, scaring the crew of the whaling boat and forcing their retreat. It’s one thing to take three nearly extinct whales forward in time, but to take a person creates even more anomalous possibilities. Star Trek IV doesn't reveal much about Gillian Taylor’s personal life, but Kirk seems happy to take her word about having no loved ones in her own time, and brings Gillian to care for the whales in the future.
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