Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

As part of my 60th anniversary celebrations of ‘Star Trek’ in 2026, I decided to revisit the fourth film of the ‘Star Trek’ film series – ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ – at the cinema last Friday. It was great to see this movie on the big screen, since it’s one of my favourites.

And it’s amazing to find that ‘Star Trek IV’ is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a limited re-release at cinemas in the UK! My Mum and I went to see the film at Cineworld in Cardiff. We got a front seat viewing of the film. It was incredible to see it on the big screen.

Usually, that is often the case when seeing these limited re-releases of films at cinemas, but it was incredible to see ‘Star Trek IV’ in that way, especially having seen it multiple times on DVD in the 2000s. It was also the first time I’d seen the film on the big screen. 🙂

I missed out on checking out ‘Star Trek III: The Search For Spock’ on the big screen when it had its 40th anniversary big screen limited re-release at the cinema in 2024. So, I decided to make up for this by revisiting ‘Star Trek IV’ for its 40th anniversary re-release. 🙂

I did wonder about whether there would be any issues seeing ‘Star Trek IV’ on its own at the cinema without having seen ‘Star Trek II’ and ‘Star Trek III’ beforehand. This is particularly as ‘Star Trek IV’ happens to be the third of a linked trilogy of ‘Star Trek’ movies.

I was hoping for there to be a recap of the previous two movies in ‘Star Trek IV’, like there was for the 2-disc Special Edition DVD release we have at home. Sadly, there wasn’t. At least it’s recapped in the film by the Klingon Ambassador visiting Starfleet Headquarters.

Also, despite the links to ‘Star Trek III’ with Spock recovering from his resurrection, it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of ‘Star Trek IV’ at the cinema. Then again, that’s probably because I knew what happened in ‘Star Trek III’ and wasn’t too worried about any continuity issues.

‘Star Trek IV’ is a very fitting film to see at the cinema to celebrate 60 years of ‘Star Trek’. This is especially when it happens to be a time-travel story, involves two humpback whales and there’s a nice blend of adventure, comedy and drama throughout the film. 🙂

Having not seen ‘Star Trek IV’ in a while, it was easy to get into the film and be invested in the character journeys of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov when they journey back in time aboard the Klingon Bird of Prey and collect two humpback whales.

Whilst watching the film, I could hear sounds of laughter in the background from audience members watching the comedic moments in ‘Star Trek IV’. This was easy for me to participate in, as I enjoyed the comedic moments featured throughout ‘Star Trek IV’ too.

It was off-putting to see the scenes of whales being spliced up in 1986 during Dr. Gillian Taylor’s tour of the whales to visitors at the Sausalito aquarium in San Francisco. At certain points, I had to look away from seeing those images, as they’re very horrific to see.

During the climactic scenes of the two humpback whales in the sea communicating with the alien probe in outer space, I picked up more details of the humpback whales, particularly with seeing one of their eyes. Something that I didn’t noticing in seeing the film on the DVD.

When I did my full-on detailed review on ‘Star Trek IV’ in 2016, I was young and inexperienced when I began my ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog. It’s amazing 10 years have passed since doing my ‘Star Trek IV’ review before revisiting the film at the cinema in 2026.

It goes to show how different my review style was back in 2016 when I did my reviews on the first ten ‘Star Trek’ films, including ‘Star Trek IV’. My viewpoint on ‘Star Trek IV’ is the same as it was back in 2016. I still regard ‘Star Trek IV’ highly as one of the best films ever made.

I’m very pleased to have seen ‘Star Trek IV’ at the cinema recently, especially as part of ‘Star Trek’s 60th anniversary celebrations. The film deserves its 40th anniversary limited re-release at cinemas, as it’s a very compelling film that features the original ‘Star Trek’ cast.

I’m currently wondering whether ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ will be re-released at cinemas someday, as that’s my favourite ‘Star Trek’ film. It should have its own 30th anniversary re-release at cinemas, as the film came out in 1996. Hopefully, it’ll get a re-release someday.

Regardless, it’s been great to see ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ at cinemas recently. I’m still aiming to continue celebrating 60 years of ‘Star Trek’ for the rest of 2026, including checking out the ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ novelization, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Thanks for reading!

Live long and prosper! 🙂

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂