In Short:	The one with the whales!
Recommended:	Yes!

	[Spock is still learning how to use profanity correctly]
SPOCK:	They like you very much, but they are not the hell "your" whales.
DR GILLIAN TAYLOR:	I suppose they told you that.
SPOCK:	The hell they did.

So when choosing movies dealing with time travel, the first one that popped in my head was Star Trek IV. There are certainly other time-travel-esque movies, some better, some worse, even other Star Treks (Star Trek: Generations [#7], Star Trek: First Contact [#8] and the latest Star Trek), but perhaps none of them are more well-known than Star Trek IV. Why? It's the one with the whales! Ask non-Trek fans and/or non-genre fans to name a Star Trek movie, and the one that sticks in people's minds seems to be Star Trek IV.

The plot in a nutshell: Uber-space-probe comes to Earth, inadvertently causing the failure of all electronic systems. Turns out to be attempting to talk to whales which have been extinct for centuries. Thus, Kirk and crew with their stolen Klingon ship decide to travel back in time, find some whales, bring them back so they can tell the probe to go away. What is it really about? An excuse for the crew to be wandering around 1980's San Francisco.

But, of course, you all are quite aware of the movie, so instead of a deep, insightful review, I'm just going to list various things that caught my fancy, good or bad. Why? Well, a) Lists are fun, and b) it's the one with the whales! Really, what else do I need to say?!

♦ It's nice with the older Star Trek movies that still have the numbering, so you clearly know that this is one of the even-numbered movies and therefore one of the good ones.

♦ Not having watched the movie for many years, it was amusing to realize how bad some of the special effects were (others are pretty good, though).

♦ I know it's common for Star Trek movies, but really, there is some bad physics in this movie (even ignoring the time travel thing in general, or specifically the whole sling-shot around the sun, as that was done in an episode of the original series so at least it is consistent).

♦ Yay! The 80's! Who wouldn't want to go back to that time?! Big hair, punk rock, no one with cell phones so Star Trek communicators still seem futuristic...

♦ Spock attempting to swear (errr...use colorful metaphors) is highly amusing.

♦ In doing some research for writing this, I discovered that Leonard Nimoy also directed Three Men and a Baby. I had no idea!

♦ The cast all have great chemistry with each other, and it definitely shows. Particularly between Kirk, Spock, and Bones. Watching this again shows what the producers of the recent Star Trek reboot were going for, but not quite achieving (and totally missing out with Bones).

♦ Two words: Nuclear Wessels. Heh.

♦ It's amusing that dealing with time travel that the movie doesn't flat out ignore potential issues with paradox, but instead confronts and then completely dismisses them.

♦ I wonder what the main prompting for this becoming the story was -- was it supposed to be a commentary on the issue of whale hunting? Did higher-ups say "we want another Star Trek movie, but your budget is limited to what you have in your pockets... Go!"? Was it purely for fun, with the writers getting drunk and saying "you know what would be amusing to do..."? I'm guessing that last one: this was purely to have fun.

♦ It's the one with the whales!

So go have some fun and (re)watch the movie. You owe it to yourself and to the 80's. (And to the whales.)