Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray Movie Review

Paramount has released 'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home' to Blu-ray with a remastered 1080p transfer. The disc replaces the imperfect 2009 issue. No new primary audio track or supplemental contents are included. This disc is available individually, unlike the concurrently released UHD, which is only available as part of a four-film boxed set.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This Blu-ray release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home shares more in common with the look of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and less Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The old Blu-ray looked garishly smooth and inorganic. Here, the picture is decidedly more filmic. Grain can be quite aggressive (look at the scene early in the film when Spock is taking the test and speaks with his mother). Overall definition is not quite so finessed as the better remastered Blu-rays in this series, but essential clarity and filmic nuance are intact. Grain is somewhat aggressive but fairly flattering, obviously far and away superior to the nonexistent grain on the 2009 disc. The picture does struggle in extreme conditions (the Saratoga running on red emergency lights at the 12-minute mark shows some compression issues) but begins to take shape once the action shifts to 1980s San Francisco where the more roughhewn and familiar textures push the image well ahead of the old Blu-ray. It's sharp, approachable, and organic, all present in just about as much complexity, it seems, as the format can muster. It's quite nice and amongst the nicest stretches in this or any of the previous films on Blu-ray.

Color output characteristics wildly vary, again with the demarcation point being everything before time travel and everything after. Prior, the film is murky and dark, whether in the low power Starfleet headquarters interiors on earth or the dim, spartan, and utilitarian interiors around the Klingon Bird of Prey. There's not much opportunity for vivid color output but the low light tones and drab colorings are well represented, though the red Starfleet uniforms, problematic for color depth and density in The Search for Spock, still look a little flat and washed out here. Once in San Francisco circa 1986, the expressive tones around the city spring to life with definitive output and firmer depth. There is no shortage of bold, accurate coloring to be found, perhaps not quite so expressive and perfectly punchy as one might expect (and lacking the UHD's brilliance) but well capable of squeezing quite a bit of depth from the available tones. Whites are creamy but adequate and blacks are deep but not so true as the UHD has to offer. Skin tones appear accurate within any given scene's lighting parameters and limitations. This is a good looking Blu-ray in total.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This Blu-ray release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home recycles the existing Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless soundtrack from the 2009 Blu-ray. Please click here for a full review.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home contains the full suite of extras from the 2009 Blu-ray. Below is a list of what's included. Please click here for full coverage. A digital copy code is included with purchase, but a DVD copy is not. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• Audio Commentary: William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
• Audio Commentary: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
• Library Computer
• Production
  
  
  • Future's Past: A look Back
  • On Location
  • Dailies Deconstruction
  • Below-the-Line Sound Design
  • Pavel Chekov's Screen Moments
• The Star Trek Universe
  
  
  • Time Travel: The Art of the Possible
  • The Language of Whales
  • A Vulcan Primer
  • Kirk's Women
  • Star Trek: Three Picture Saga
  • Star Trek for a Cause
  • Starfleet Academy SciSec Brief 004: The Whale Probe
• Visual Effects
  
  
  • From Outer Space to the Ocean
  • The Bird of Prey
• Original Interviews
  
  
  • William Shatner
  • Leonard Nimoy
  • DeForest Kelley
• Tributes
  
  
  • Roddenberry Scrapbook
  • Featured Artist: Mark Lenard
• Production Gallery
• Storyboards
• Theatrical Trailer

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Voyage Home remains the most fundamentally fun of the Star Trek films, though Khan is still the best film overall. Paramount has done well by this one on remastered Blu-ray. The 1080p presentation looks good overall if not demonstrating some room for improvement (UHD is the place to be for this one). The studio has chosen not to upgrade audio or supplements but the existing carryover content is very good. Highly recommended.