"Star Trek IV: The Voyage" Home saw Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and their shipmates travel back to 1986 on a mission to restore two humpback whales and bring them forward in time to the 23rd century to save the Earth from an alien invasion.
The film debuted on Nov. 26, 1986; The Voyage Home became a crossover hit, pleasing "Star Trek" fans and general audiences alike. It would stand as the top-grossing Trek film ever until J.J. Abrams' big budget 2009 film, and it is considered the most charming (and by far, the funniest) Star Trek movie.
The amusing and environmental friendly screenplay was written by the young writings Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes; who caught the attention of the Paramount and the Star Trek brain trust with a script for Fox called The Long Way Home, which had some of the charm and fun the pair would deliver back to Star Trek.
"They knew they wanted to make a movie that would make a statement about the environment. They knew that they wanted it to include whales. They had a notion that time travel might enter into it. But it's basically all they had," Meerson tells the Heat Vision in an early meetings on the project with director Nimoy, producer Harve Bennett and the rest of the filming team.
They wrote somewhere between seven and ten outlines, with the final one getting approval. It included a role for Eddie Murphy that would never materialize.
Eddie Murphy was going to play an astrophysicist at Berkeley, and the original story did not include Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks), the marine biologist and love interest to Kirk. Eventually the Murphy deal fell through and Gillian Taylor was worked into the script to replace him.
"I was asked to write Star Trek IV very much at the last minute. They had a script, based on a story by Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy. And they didn't like the script. They threw out the script."- Meyer stated in an interview at IGN's Transporter Room 3 Podcast.
