Star Trek Poster #34 Catherine Hicks Dr. Gillian Taylor

Description

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fourth feature film in the film series and completes the story arc begun in The Wrath of Khan and continued in The Search for Spock. Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their crimes, the former crew of the USS Enterprise finds the planet in grave danger from an alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. The crew travel to Earth’s past to find whales who can answer the probe’s call.

After directing The Search for Spock, cast member Leonard Nimoy was asked to direct the next feature, and given greater freedom regarding the film’s content. Nimoy and producer Harve Bennett conceived a story with an environmental message and no clear-cut villain. Dissatisfied with the first screenplay produced by Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes, Paramount hired The Wrath of Khan writer and director Nicholas Meyer. Meyer and Bennett divided the story between them and wrote different parts of the script, requiring approval from Nimoy, lead actor William Shatner, and Paramount.

Principal photography commenced on February 24, 1986. Unlike previous Star Trek films, The Voyage Home was shot extensively on location; many real settings and buildings were used as stand-ins for scenes set around and in the city of San Francisco. Special effects firm Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) assisted in postproduction and the film’s special effects. Few of the humpback whales in the film were real: ILM devised full-size animatronics and small motorized models to stand in for the real creatures.

The Voyage Home premiered on November 26, 1986, in North America, becoming the top-grossing film in the weekend box office. The film’s humor and unconventional story were well received by critics, fans of the series and the general audience. It was financially successful, earning $133 million worldwide.

The film earned several awards and four Academy Award nominations for its cinematography and audio. It was dedicated to the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which broke up 72 seconds after takeoff on the morning of January 28, 1986. Principal photography for The Voyage Home began four weeks after Challenger and her crew were lost. A sequel titled Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was released on June 9, 1989.

Despite Shatner’s doubts, Nimoy and Bennett selected a time travel story in which the Enterprise crew encounters a problem that could only be fixed by something only available in the present day (the Star Trek characters’ past). They considered ideas about violin makers and oil drillers, or a disease that had its cure destroyed with the rainforests. “But the depiction of thousands of sick and dying people seemed rather gruesome for our light-hearted film, and the thought of our crew taking a 600-year round trip just to bring back a snail darter wasn’t all that thrilling,” explained Nimoy. The director read a book on extinct animals and conceived the storyline that was eventually adopted. Nimoy hit upon the idea of humpback whales after talking with a friend—their song added mystery to the story, and their size added logistical challenges the heroes would have to overcome.

When Kirk and Spock are traveling on a public bus, they encounter a punk rocker blaring his music on a boom box, to the discomfort of everyone around him. Spock takes matters into his own hands and performs a Vulcan nerve pinch. Part of the inspiration for the scene came from Nimoy’s personal experiences with a similar character on the streets of New York; “I was struck by the arrogance of it, the aggressiveness of it, and I thought if I was Spock I’d pinch his brains out!” On learning about the scene, Kirk Thatcher, an associate producer on the film, convinced Nimoy to let him play the role; Thatcher shaved his hair into a mohawk and bought clothes to complete the part. Credited as “punk on bus”, Thatcher (along with sound designer Mark Mangini) also wrote and recorded “I Hate You”, the song in the scene, and it was his idea to have the punk—rendered unconscious by the pinch—hit the stereo and turn it off with his face.

Gillian Taylor, PhD was the assistant director of the Cetacean Institute until 1986. Dr. Taylor was an expert in Cetacean Biology and was especially fond of two Humpback whales in her care, George and Gracie.

In 1986, Gracie became pregnant, and Dr. Taylor had to arrange for them to be released back into the wild due to the inability to keep them in captivity. When the time came for them to be released, Gillian was contacted by Admiral James T. Kirk, who had come back in time to secure humpback whales for transport back to the 23rd century where they would repopulate the species and make contact with the alien probe that was unwittingly causing Earth’s destruction. Taylor was understandably disbelieving of Kirk’s claims, and infuriated with Spock’s rather indiscreet method of communicating with the whales (Spock had entered the whales’ tank and mind-melded with one of them and informed them of the plan to rescue Earth in the future).

However, after learning that the whales were released prematurely without her knowledge, she desperately sought Kirk out. She was revealed to the truth to her surprise when she experienced being beamed up and greeted by Kirk on board his stolen cloaked Klingon Bird-of-Prey.

After rescuing the freed whales from a group of whalers, Taylor willingly time-traveled to the 23rd century along with George and Gracie, explaining that she had nothing in the present, and reasoning that the future would need somebody who actually knew something about whales. She was later assigned to a Federation science vessel shortly after her arrival to the 23rd century, in order to “catch-up” on the past 300 years.

Dr. Taylor had a photographic memory, claiming she could “see words.” She could thus quote spoken passages verbatim from memory.

Catherine Mary Hicks (born August 6, 1951) is an American television, film, and stage actress. She is best known for her role as Annie Camden on the long-running television series 7th Heaven. Other notable roles have been: Dr. Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Karen Barclay in Child’s Play, Dr. Faith Coleridge on the soap opera, Ryan’s Hope, and her Emmy nominated performance as Marilyn Monroe in Marilyn: The Untold Story. For her work in 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Hicks received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Catherine Hicks plays Doctor Gillian Taylor, a biologist on 20th century Earth. During production a rumor circulated that the part had been created after Shatner demanded a love interest, a regular aspect of the television series that was absent from the first three films. Writer Nicholas Meyer denied this, saying that the inspiration for Taylor came from a woman biologist featured in a National Geographic documentary about whales. Nimoy chose Hicks after inviting her to lunch with Shatner and witnessing a chemistry between the two.

Near mint condition.