It's okay, I had a conversation with a friend about this exact same thing once. It involved the phrase "tiny underwear transporters." I'll just leave it at that

My first encounter with Patrick Stewart was actually as Claudius in the 2009 TV movie version of Hamlet, with David Tennant as Hamlet.
I rewatched that Hamlet a little while ago and I found it hard to accept him in the role of a villain because he's Picard to me forever and I'm just like "YES, I TRUST YOU IMPLICITLY." xD

Same here! (DS9) Jura V jngpurq "Sne Orlbaq gur Fgnef" jurer rirelbar cynlf svsgvrf-NH punenpgref, V ubarfgyl qvqa'g erpbtavmr uvz jvgubhg gur Xyvatba znxrhc, hagvy n tbbq srj zvahgrf vagb uvf nccrnenapr nf gur snzbhf onfronyy cynlre v svanyyl lryyrq "Bu, bs PBHEFR, gung'f Jbes!"

(gif source on tumblr)
One of my favorite Kirk lines ever, and I have one other thing I wanted to share, relating to this

I'm pretty sure this is the first time that Kirk's Iowa origins were mentioned on screen. It was originally established that Kirk was from "a small town in Iowa" in the Making of Star Trek book by Gene Roddenberry. Then, in 1985 (a year before this movie's release), the town of Riverside, Iowa (population ~900) declared itself the birthplace of Captain Kirk. Because WHY NOT, I guess. They wrote to Paramount & Roddenberry for permission and were granted official status. Now there is Trek stuff in town in order to attract tourism.

I go to school in Iowa about an hour's drive away from Riverside, so obviously I took the chance to swing by and look around last year. Here are some pictures:

IIRC, this marker is in the backyard of a beauty salon, for some reason.


This is the "USS Riverside", a big model in their town square, right near a small museum dedicated to Star Trek. Unfortunately the museum was closed when I went there so I don't know what it's like.

The "Trekfest" referred to on the stand is an event held in Riverside every summer. I've never been to it, but as far as I can tell, it's like a bizarre fusion of Star Trek convention and county fair. They have things like a parade and carnival games but also a costume contest and Trek actor guests (last year it was [DS9] W.T. Uregmyre, jub cynlrq Znegbx, naq Eboreg B'Ervyyl, jub cynlrq Tbjeba). It sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun and I'd love to go someday if I can make it.

So that was your Iowa tourism fun fact of the day xD It's a neat little town and I'd definitely recommend checking it out if you're a Trekkie and you happen to be in the Iowa City area.

Ahhh, Voyage Home. Also known as "THE ONE WITH THE WHALES". To such an extent that Wikipedia has a redirect for it:

(Seriously, do a wikipedia search for "the one with the whales" and this really happens, I love it.)

I like all of these four TOS movies but this one is probably my favorite. It's SO RIDICULOUS. Are there actually any Trek fans out who don't like it?? i hope not

By the way, check out this AMAZING poster for the movie (warning for casual ableist language, I didn't want to post it directly because that's against the comment rules here, but please click through and take a look). It's so rainbow. The best way to advertise Star Trek is clearly by putting rainbows on everything.

A lot of people in the comments have been relating childhood memories of this and it's made me realize that I would have been ALL OVER this movie if I'd seen it when I was a kid, because I was one of those elementary schoolers who is obsessed with dolphins and whales. Mostly dolphins, but I'm pretty sure that Gillian Taylor would have become 8 year old me's new idol. A scientist who worked with cetaceans and then got to go to the future with Kirk and Spock? LIFE GOALS

There are so many hilarious lines in this movie that it's hard to pick one favorite but mine is probably "They like you very much but they are not the hell your whales." Spock ILU.

I have to confess, everyone says they cried when Spock died in Wrath of Khan, but I didn't because I'd seen the scene quoted and referenced too many times before for it to have a full impact on me... but the first time I watched this movie, was the first time Star Trek ever made me ACTUALLY CRY.* At the very end when Spock says "Jim" because wow, KIRK'S SMILE



it gets me every time, I swear I got a little bit teary just uploading these screenshots
so yes, it's impossible to dislike this movie for me because of how emotional that ending scene is ;__;

(* ohg fb abg gur ynfg, V'ir whfg gevrq gb erzrzore naq V guvax gurer unir orra svir zber?? ybbx, qrrc fcnpr avar vf ernyyl rzbgvbany fbzrgvzrf, bxnl)

This is also the story that raised Spirk into canon for me.
SAME HERE. I fully admit that shipping is something I enjoy, and there are plenty of pairings where It's like, "These two would make a good couple and I wish they would get together," but Kirk and Spock are on a different level from that for me. I really feel like their relationship is romantic, after TMP and on into the other movies, and that it makes the most amount of sense to view it that way??? Though even if one disagrees and chooses to view it as just a very strong friendship, I can accept that too. The important thing is that they love each other and their relationship is at the heart of the series

The download isn't working for me either, but I did find that someone's put the video on youtube if you want to watch it.
EDIT: I didn't notice it was already posted a little farther down in the comments, oops ^^

Hey, someone else who doesn't like the red uniforms! They're not my least favorite ones that Trek ever had but I totally agree that they look too "military". I particularly miss the three division colors. Having everyone be in red is too monotonous for me.

I don't really have any serious comments to make about this movie that other people haven't already said (uh, it's really good, and I always cry, THE END) so I just want to bring up a few incidental things

First of all, a couple of other commenters have mentioned a Supernatural episode that references the Ceti eels. Now I don't watch SPN so instead, the first thing I thought about at that scene was the Animorphs books! Seriously, alien slugs that go inside of your ear and control your brain = clearly inspiration for Yeerks in Animorphs. Besides being my personal childhood introduction to sci-fi, that book series was heavily influenced by Star Trek in a lot of ways (which I could talk about for AGES but won't because this is not an animorphs blog unfortunately).

Point 2 is how adorable Kirk is in reading glasses. Can we just have a Kirk glasses appreciation moment???

OK, THAT IS ALL, CARRY ON