Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home turns 40 on November 26. It opened in North America on that day in 1986, the day before Thanksgiving, and was the top-grossing film at that weekend's box office.
Leonard Nimoy directed for the second time, and he and producer Harve Bennett set out to make a lighter film with an environmental message and no clear-cut villain. The crew travels back to 1986 San Francisco to find humpback whales, and most of the comedy comes from 23rd-century officers trying to blend into a city that barely looks at them twice.
It nearly looked very different. An early draft wrote in a part for Eddie Murphy, a Star Trek fan, as a professor who believed in aliens. He chose The Golden Child instead, and the role was folded into Gillian Taylor, the whale biologist played by Catherine Hicks.
The film grossed $133 million worldwide and earned four Oscar nominations. Forty years on, it is still the easiest Star Trek film to hand to someone who has never seen one, which makes it a good pick for a holiday crowd.
