San Francisco, 1986 and 2286

The bulk of The Voyage Home is spent in lovely San Francisco, in two very different time periods: 2286 and 1986. Ultimately, the differences between the times are so profound that 1986 seems more like 86 B.C. than anything else.

Silicon City

In the future, San Francisco is the home of Starfleet HQ. Given the modern tech boom around the city, that might not be too far off the mark. Regardless, future Frisco is as hyper-advanced as you'd expect it to be, giving us a baseline for what the crew of Enterprise expects to see in a normal world.

Old San Francisco is a different story. Instead of sleek, technologically advanced structures, this version of the city is made up of a bunch of buildings built from boring old bricks. The people are different, too. This isn't a society of altruistic Starfleet officers—it's filled with people who use profanity because "nobody pays any attention to you if you don't swear every other word."

The Wild, Wild West

By examining these differences, we can put our current era in historical perspective. Did ancient humans think that they were primitive? Probably not. But in the same way that we look back in horror at some of their practices, denizens of the future will likely look back at us and be shocked by our barbarism. To them, we're basically cavemen.

This concept is driven home throughout the film. Spock describes nuclear power as a "dubious flirtation" with "toxic side effects." Kirk sees the concept of money as arcane and silly. And McCoy's comparison of modern medicine with the "Spanish Inquisition" is pure comedy gold. In all of these instances, The Voyage Home turns our preconceptions on their head and shows us our current era for what it is—a mere blip on the historical radar.