MovieChat Forums > Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) Discussion > Question from an ST new-comer

Question from an ST new-comer

posted 10 years ago by bluersun
3 replies | jump to latest

I've just got into the Star Trek films, I've watched them successively over the past few nights - I'm upto this one (Voyage Home) - and not really watched the t.v. series, however I have a question that may have been asked before...

If the characters know how to time-travel, why not go to before Kirks son dies on Genesis and prevent that from happening?

I realise that the destruction of Earth is a bigger issue, but if you could travel back in time to save a loved one...?

[–] TheSharkFromJaws 10 years ago

Because time-travel at the time of the film isn't exactly fool-proof and isn't very reliable. They attempted it here (Kirk even says they are going to "attempt" time travel) because the fate of Earth depended on it. The death of Kirk's son wasn't worth the risk. They also couldn't pinpoint exactly what time period they would end up in, so there's that.

I could be wrong, though, that's just my explanation based on the movie.

[–] bluersun 10 years ago

Yeah I got that time-travel was risky but must've missed whoever said what about not being able to pin-point the exact time - cheers for that! :)

Looking forward to the 5th one now - parts 2,3 and 4 felt like one long story that ended with TVH.

[–] bjlevine 10 years ago

In cases like City on the Edge of Forever, where history is changed and Nazis take over the world (oops...spoilers) or The Voyage Home, where life on Earth is in danger of being destroyed, and the only solution is in the past, time travel is warranted. Otherwise, things could get quite messy over trivial things (I forgot to send that check last week!).

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