Star Trek V - L'ultima frontiera

Having been one of the shows that was part of my childhood and growing up, the original 'Star Trek' still holds up as great and ground-breaking, even if not perfect.

The fifth film of the franchise, 'The Final Frontier', is often considered the worst of the films, and one can understand why. To me, it is nowhere near as bad as its reputation, and feel in some way that the film was doomed even before it was released. Whether it is the worst overall 'Star Trek' film is up for debate, it's a worthy contender. Is it the worst of the films based of the original series? Yes.

It is not a bad film by all means. The cinematography is neat and very nicely done in the quieter scenes, and William Shatner's direction works well in these moments.

Jerry Goldsmith's score is awesome personified, there is no bias intended as Goldsmith has always been one of my favourite composers, but the score here really rouses the spirits while touching the heart also.

'Star Trek V: The Final Frontier' does have some good scenes, namely the camping fire scene, the inner/greater pain scene (very intense and moving) and Scotty knocking himself out (the one bit of humour that works).

The chemistry between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is the film's driving force, and the interaction and interplay between them is the asset that comes off strongest.

A few of the performances are good. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are very good, and Laurence Luckinbill does very well with what he's given, a villain that's both menacing and sympathetic. The rest of the crew mostly are very competently played.

Unfortunately, they are underused and what they are given falls flat completely mostly, turning them into cartoonish parodies. The erotic dance was completely out of place and the getting lost stuff feels like filler to pad out a story that doesn't have an awful lot to it. Plus we have the most embarrassing rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" you'll find anywhere.

Generally the humour is as flat as a pancake, really overdone and juvenile. 'The Voyage Home' had humour too but it was actually entertaining and even when poking fun felt more like 'Star Trek'. Shatner's direction is incredibly chaotic in the action scenes, which sees production values that look unforgivably cheap even for the budget, with haphazard cinematography and editing and the worst of the uniformly shockingly shoddy special effects.

Just for the record, as much as people would say that Shatner's ego has a lot to do with the problematic nature of the film (and yes having him trying to take on more than he could chew was excessive and most likely was not going to work from the start), the failure is much more at the door of budget limitations and studio interference, Shatner's original vision would have made for a much better and actually a fascinating film.

On top of that, 'The Final Frontier' is filled with overripe dialogue with too much emphasis on the humour, which as said doesn't work, and less on heartfelt moments and thought-provoking conflicts. While there are a few good performances, the supporting cast are too underused to shine properly and Shatner's performance has more ham than the world's biggest pig farm.

A big failure here is the story, which is dull and takes too long to get going with a plot too thin to sustain the running time. The whole stuff about god just confused the story and that for Sybok was a thrown in and unnecessary plot device done to presumably give more development to a character who was actually interesting and well developed already. The ending is convoluted and anti-climactic.

Overall, hugely problematic but not without obvious merits. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This is often said to be the worst of the Star Trek films. After watching it I can see why a lot of people would think that. It is a very flawed film but I by no means hated it. In fact, I liked it more than Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier opens with the crew of the Enterprise enjoying some well deserved shore leave. Kirk, Spock, and Bones enjoy their time off together by going camping in Yosemite park and this makes for some amusingly cheesy moments. Their vacation is interrupted when they must respond to a hostage situation concerning a renegade Vulcan who happens to be Spock's half brother. This Vulcan's name is Sybok and he is on a desperate search for God and the end of the universe. There are also some Klingons in pursuit of Kirk and the Enterprise, but they don't seem to serve much of a purpose in the end. The Final Frontier is all kinds of weird and doesn't have much of a structure, but I can't say I didn't have fun with this movie.

Remember how The Voyage Home added this element of comedy to Star Trek? Well The Final Frontier saw that and thought to itself, 'Hey! I can do that too!' Unfortunately, it was wrong. Any and all comedy in this film is completely unnecessary and either makes you cringe or roll your eyes in embarrassment. There are moments in the film where I was left wondering, 'Why in the hell did the writers think that line was a good idea?' The movie tries way too hard with its ridiculous punchlines and awkward moments that are supposed to be hilarious. A lot of the humor comes around when the friendship between Kirk, Spock, and Bones is being developed. This was always an important aspect of Star Trek, but The Final Frontier almost makes a mockery of it. Never, under any circumstances do I need to watch Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley sit around a campfire singing Row Row Row Your Boat. But I guess these were the days when Shatner and Nimoy were building their "singing" careers so they thought they needed those "careers" to carry over into Star Trek.

This movie had the potential to be incredible. Sybok's search for God could have gone much deeper and been much more intellectual than what it was. This aspect of the film had spiritual and existential overtones, but they were buried by silly nonsensical scenes that do nothing for the plot. There is a lot to strip away if you want to get down to the more intellectual meaning of this film. It is something that was so obscured by the amount of crap this film throws together that in the end it was a completely lost meaning.

But if you move past that, The Final Frontier can be pretty fun. If you enjoy it for its cheese than you can have a moderately good time. Especially towards the end, the film becomes completely over-the-top and loaded with cheese. It isn't like The Motion Picture, which tried way to hard to be something it wasn't and painfully dragged on for over two hours. The Final Frontier clocks in at only an hour and 45 minutes and just stays lively and fun the whole time. It isn't high quality fun, but its fun nevertheless. This definitely is not a Star Trek film I would watch again, but its a necessary watch if you are a fan of Star Trek like me and have made it your duty to see all of the films.

Star Trek: The Final Frontier is not a good movie. But its not a bad movie either. It isn't one of those that I just hated by the end, but I knew for sure that what I had just seen was not a very well made film. I love Star Trek so watching Kirk, Spock, and Bones boldly go where no man has gone before, even if they go to a realm of such cringe worthy cheese as this, still puts a smile on my face.

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.

Why do the people trash this movie? It is such a humanistic, emotional film, well, from my POV. I admit there were flaws in the film. What hurt this film was ILM not being available, budget cuts forced by Paramount, and the humor forced to be added because of STIV's box office success. None of these things were Bill Shatner's fault. Bill Shatner's original story was darker, MUCH darker than what we saw.

This film has got a faster pace than ST:TMP or STIII:TSFS, and and it actually tried to make a point on human nature, which was the thing that Generations failed to accomplish. Shatner's ACTUAL direction of the film was OKAY! So I give this film 8.0 stars out of 10.0 stars. And before I finish, I want to say this: GIVE SHATNER A FRIGGIN' BREAK! Thank you, and good night.