Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Having recently purchased the box set of all 10 Star Trek films (including Next Generation), I watched Star Trek V, not having seen it since it was released, hoping that it would improve on a second watching.

Watching it now, I can see that here was a story that could have been very, very powerful, and the film could have been an equal to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is also underrated by non-Star Trek fans.

The overwhelming sense I got in this film was that everything proceeded so quickly, as if the producers/director felt that a successful film was trim, with no excess fat. Those people who really enjoy a good steak, enjoy that little bit of fat on the edge, or marbled through the meat. It makes it all so much more tasty, even if it has little nutritional value. To remove myself from the metaphor, Star Trek fans enjoy the taking of time over certain elements - seeing the ship, seeing it travel, dialogue en route, etc.

If there was a director's cut, or another cut, that wasn't so very lean, I think the new pace would work to the film's advantage. Of course the worst element of pacing is the finale. When we finally arrive at the centre of the galaxy, Kirk & Co. march straight in without much ado. Think to the Enterprise venturing into the cloud that surrounded V-GER. We were given time to savour the beautiful visuals set to a engaging score.

To my mind this doesn't happen in Star Trek V, and this is its weakness. I think it is still a reasonable film. The scene where Spock and McCoy are shown there heart's deepest wound is quite moving. With a little more breadth, this could have been incredible. It's frustrating that the film will not get the best treatment the story deserves. When watching the special features, it seems that the production was not smooth sailing, the finale weakened due to poor response (according to Shatner) from special effects teams. As a Star Trek fan, I can't give this film less than a 5. I hope that's not out of sentimentality.

"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" Is a mixed bag. There is a lot of humor in it. ( I suspect that's because of the success of Part 4. ) There is some action but it's not that exciting. The special effects aren't that hot at times. The weakest part is the storyline. Just when the plot needs to pick up speed, it runs out of gas. That said, it hard to not enjoy any movie with the original Star Trek cast. It's because of them that I am enjoying "Star Trek V" more these days than I used to. It's not the greatest movie but it's still better than "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". Dishonorable mention: They didn't give the always enjoyable David Warner anything to do.

20 REASONS I HATE STAR TREK 5

1. THE TITLE Trivialized by what's already a pop-culture catch phrase. A cop out.

2. YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYBODY This movie was beat from the start. A victim of TREK's revived popularity. In 1989 you had the 'classic' fans, the "KHAN" generation, civilians won over by "THE VOYAGE HOME", and "NEXT GENERATION" fans. Expectations crossed the board. Making matters worse, the writers had a "clean slate", resulting in a muddled "original" story. The answer should have been incorporating some TREK history and acknowledging the NEXT GENERATION. Instead, we got tangents. Like Spock's brother.

3. SPECIAL EFFECTS How could one of the strongest movie franchises in town let this happen? Fans should petition to get Nick Myer to do a STAR WARS style "Special Edition".

4. THE FALL From Kirk's foot slip to "I expect that's Klingon for 'hello'" this movie holds some of the most embarrassing moments in Star Trek. I remember the butterflies in my stomach as Spock dives into this dumb scene with FX from Saturday morning. The Nimbus bar (office for the delegates?) is a lame copy of the STAR WARS cantina.

5. DEFECTIVE ENTERPRISE This crew works at a disadvantage in every film but "UNDISCOVERED..."...even "GENERATIONS". The broken ship is a tired device, and here it doesn't make sense. There's no relevance to the plot, except maybe the broken transporter. Other functions are played only for 'laughs'.

6. SUPPORTING CAST WASTED Sulu and Chekov lost! --hilarious! Uhura stripping!! --A riot!! Scotty bangs his head! ...okay, that was actually pretty funny. The director was not responsible for most trouble, but he has no idea how to treat these characters. Not realizing their value, he plays them either goofy or hypnotized. A missed opportunity for drama in exposing their pain or portraying the forced betrayal of Kirk. Remember Chekov's struggle in 'KHAN'.

7. KLINGONS Used only as a conflict device, they have no motivation given except to 'get Kirk'. There could have been an effort to rescue Korrd or even direct orders from the Klingons to use the conflict as an excuse to entrap Kirk. (like "UNDISCOVERED...") I did like the use of Klingonese but if you follow closely, there's a Klingon word for Kalicams... which IS a Klingon word...

8. THE HANGER DECK The design department has no concept of perspective. The look was great but the proportions are way off. This contributes to a feeling that something is not right. A well acted scene has the effect of a school play. I was drawing technical plans for this stuff when I was 10!! How could they be so far off.

9. "I WANT JIM KIRK!" The Admiral's reason for sending the undermanned Enterprise. Why?? With Klingons involved, it means trouble. Are we to believe the average Starship captain is THAT unprepared for this situation. It would have made more sense if Enterprise were the ONLY option.

10. SYBOK'S TAKEOVER Controlling the bridge, Sybok takes over. Where is everybody? And why do crewmembers stand passively, listening to his message. He relieved everyone's pain? From here on, the story moves around the characters. Scotty tries to animate things... until he's knocked out.

11. SPOCK'S BROTHER I'll accept that he has a half-brother we don't know about. Sybok isn't the type of guy Spock would discuss. But it's such an obvious device from which to squeeze drama. Ooooh, conflict...HOW will Spock resolve this one. The film suffers from too many plot contrivances for us to accept this on too. No matter how good these two actors are. (And they are good. When they first meet? Golden!!)

12. THE TURBOSHAFT CLIMB Dumb idea, bad FX, lame jokes. ...and the floor numbers are wrong.

13. TOO MANY RED HERRINGS The significance of Nimbus, the ship's malfunctions, Spock's brother, hostages, etc. These things don't affect the storyline in the end. Take the SOS message from the Officers Lounge. This is intercepted by the Klingons (who already know where they are..) and serves only as a vehicle for Sybok to confront them.

14. THE GREAT BARRIER Another arbitrary plot device. They zip through with no explanation as to how. Even if Sybok knew how, the Klingons follow with no problem.

15. "DON'T JUST STAND THERE... GOD IS A BUSY MAN" Don't just stand there???? Captain! The director has given us nothing to do!!

16. GOD-THING The film's lame effects especially disappoint here. The GOD face is laughable. Audiences can't believe they're viewing GOD, and guess what? It's not. Confusion is inevitable. If he's fake, make him a real fake!! (Remember Balok?) The concept of an alien being trapped on this planet and Sybok's willingness to believe should have been flushed out more. McCoy asking, "Is this the voice of God?" was wrong. That should have been Sybok. The real story of the GOD-THING is left unclear. It needed a "Perry Mason" type ending. "There's just one thing I don't understand, Jim..."

17. GHOST ATTACK There's no ghosts in Star Trek. Having 'something' shake the shuttle, chase Kirk, and make a lot of racket is a poor compromise of the Directors original idea's.

18. CONVENIENT KLINGON TORPEDO...which kills the transporter. Now what?? Oh brother! I was wise to that bit before I was in high school.

19. THE CLIMAX The story falls apart from here. Klingons aren't needed here; they clutter up the action, Kirk runs from... what? GOD lightning! It sure has bad aim. The enemy saves the day. The Klingon apology, and finally... Spock in the gunner chair. All of this feels like the results of a 'we need an ending' meeting. Although I like the exchange between Kirk and Spock, this could have taken place on the Enterprise.

20. THE SOLEMN ENDING Sybok is dead. GOD doesn't live here. The entire STORY has been a red herring. Still... we have each other... Star Trek movies aren't known for happy endings, but this one's especially dark. Cool Vulcan harp, though.

Well, I loved STAR TREK IV: it was just so different, so fresh, that it's my favourite of the original cast movies. Unfortunately, THE FINAL FRONTIER is everything that film isn't. It tries to get to grips with an equally heavy (or heavier) subject matter, but the resultant film is ponderous, devoid of action, dated, cheesy and, even worse, boring.

The film sees Spock's long-lost brother (who he?) coming out of the woodwork and commandeering the Enterprise in search of God. Unfortunately, there's no action to speak of, and the special effects used to detail the almost magical scenario are pretty shoddy. Shatner directs as well as stars, but his direction leaves plenty to be desired.

Sure, there's still fun to be had from watching the original cast going through the paces, but they really are going through the paces here and that's all they're doing. Some of them seem a little bored. The best supporting actors the movie can manage are B-movie veterans David Warner and Michael Berryman. THE FINAL FRONTIER has a philosophical tone and some of the scenes are quite sentimental - the campfire bit in particular - but you'd have to be a huge Trekkie to get much joy out of this dull instalment.

V has some of the best moments in the entire series. The camping scene is both funny, and insightful. I also love the scene in the brig. ("I oughtta knock you on your Goddam ass!"......."Want me to hold him, Jim?")

The only mistake was hiring an effects crew who had never done motion control blue screen model effects before. And that was NOT William Shatner's fault. That was Ralph Winter's and Harve Bennet's fault. Quit blaming William Shatner. The producers hold the purse strings, and hired idiots. Watch the new DVD and you will see model test shots that were not for action blocking, but were the effects team actually trying to figure out how to do the effects. Lame

Watch this movie, focus on the characters, and ignore the space shots, and it's pretty good. I think since they reworked ST:TMP with new effects based on the original story boards, they should have done the same for ST:V for the new DVD. That would have fixed the whole movie.

Besides all of the exterior ship shots, the scenes I would have fixed are as follows:

The turboshaft - Change the deck numbers to make sense and erase the shadow made by the boom holding them up.

All viewscreens - Insert remastered footage digitally to replace the poor rear-projection versions. The new Enterprise would have an even clearer screen, not a grainy, dim one. The only one that worked was the observation windows as they approached the great barrier.

The fall scene at the beginning. Inserting the closeup of Kirk and Spock ruined the entire scene.(Exactly like the parasailing scene in Die Another Day) Seeing a real stuntman is always better than seeing a fake shot of the actor.