Unless you're watching An Inconvenient Truth, you're not going to find a film as wholeheartedly pro-environment as The Voyage Home. In this movie, humpback whales are revealed to be the most intelligent form of life on Earth. And that's not all: they also have powerful intergalactic buddies, one of which is currently bearing down on the planet trying to figure out where the whales went. (Spoiler: they're extinct.) Inconvenient, indeed…
Questions about Man and the Natural World
- What do humpback whales symbolize? Are there multiple potential interpretations?
- What is the significance of whales' capacity for interstellar communication?
- How does humanity's approach to environmental issues differ during the two time periods shown?
- Why is Spock more environmentally conscious than other characters?
Chew on This
Take a peek at these thesis statements. Agree or disagree?
Spock's personal focus on environmental issues suggests that environmentalism is logical.
Whales' capacity for interstellar communication undermines our innate belief in human-centrism.