instead of the super bowl friends and i reconvened for a last-minute Spoopy Bowl II. unlike last year the programming was not spoopy at all, star trek IV: the voyage home. again, last-minute thing. i'm just glad a spoopy bowl even happened
anyway, was struck by
1. 1986 marine biologist lady is a sketchily written, emotionally limited otaku who literally only cares about whales
2. Kirk's attempts to be sauve and smooth with her fall flat and he ends up being creepy a lot
3. Sulu is almost always smiling in the SF scenes and we are reasonably certain he traded sex for that Huey copter he obtained
4. Chekhov lost his rad leathers when he got captured :(
5. the soundtrack is very... fanciful? upbeat? for a sci-fi movie
6. when the opening title appeared i thought how it must have felt so grand to fans back in 1986, before TNG was a thing and ST content was still in short supply. as the cast's names appeared onscreen they would've been like "those our OUR PEOPLE"
7. various instances of "i must travel to earth to speak to someone" or "when you go vulcan say hi to mom". before the internet instantaneous long-distance communication was not in the zeitgeist, even in the 23rd century
8. the outlandish / cheap / garish / '80s alien getups in the court scenes are well worth freeze-frame inspection