Star Trek V The Final Frontier - 25 Years On

Wedwood

Onwards goes my defense of seemingly indefensible movies. This time it's 1989's Star Trek V, otherwise known as Shatner's Folly.

The origins of how Shatner came to direct this movie are well known at this stage. Basically Nimoy directed 3 and 4, so Shatner wanted 5, so I wont go over all that again.

Now, I will admit to exiting the Adelphi Cinema in '89 a little underwhelmed, given that I had earlier seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, License to Kill, Batman and Ghostbusters 2, however I've never fully understood the mass hatred this movie has generated over the years.

Granted, the effects are less than special and the 'Finding God' story is a bit hokey, however, I'd contend the movie is closer in spirit to the original series than most of the rest of the movies.

Anyone who's watched The Original Series will know that the central story was mainly about how the situations affected the 'Big Three' and how they dealt with them.

In this respect, The Final Frontier handles this admirably. There are numerous scenes, well executed, which deliver some of 'The Big Three's' best moments together.

Perhaps The Final Frontier's biggest failing is that it was marketed as yet another epic, when in fact it's quite an intimate character study.

The earlier Yosemite scenes deal with how Kirk's arrogance almost gets him killed. It also deals with Kirk's reluctance to accept he's perhaps over the hill. There's also a sense that life has passed them by and they (Kirk, Spock McCoy) only have each other left.

The middle of the movie deals (ok, a bit clumsily) about betrayal (Sulu, Chekov joining the enemy), but it's more to do with how Kirk, Spock and McCoy deal with that betrayal/mutiny.

The scene dealing with how McCoy deals with his father's death is widely regarded as Deforest Kelley's best Trek scene.

The Final scenes deal with Kirk having to face the prospect of his own demise (again after the failure of his own arrogance), but to be saved again by the intervention of his friend Spock.

Unfortunately, Shatner's insistance that he direct this movie, unwittingly set up a critical ambush that was more interested in knocking Shatner, rather than properly assessing what has become perhaps the most misrepresented and misjudged Star Trek movie.

Shatner no doubt tried to make this movie all things to all people and in the process did none of these things. However, he did have a great understanding of how these characters knew and interacted with each other and that shines throughout the movie.

As an action picture the movie fails, but as a character study, it's perhaps the best Trek movie.

nyarlothothep

I thought the finding god, or a space god was pretty interesting as a concept, just executed horribly in this film, as god turns out to be an alien. Also the Uhura scene was funny in the sense of what was Shatner thinking? It's a testament to Shatner's cheesiness, in that sense it's great and you can't beat the big 3 even in an underwhelming film. Good times, I enjoy this over overtly serious yet bland sci fi, eg Total Recall remake.

flynnlives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ

I agree with your review, Shatner tried to make it about their own mortality but got lost in the cheese because he cant help himself!
And tbf i dont care! Shatner is still a legend even tho the final frontier was rubbish and compare to the voyage home its a disaster!

StompToWork

Worst. Star Trek Movie. Ever.

Only fairly good part was the "I know this ship like the back of my hand. *Clunk*" bit by Scotty. And even that was out of character for Scotty, but I was taking any emotion, even humour, at that point of the movie.

Beefy78

There was some good character work, especially in the interaction amongst Kirk, Spock and McCoy. I love the scene around the campfire at the start and Spock asking Kirk not to embrace him in front of the Klingons at the end. It isn't a good film though. I rewatched it recently when I bought the first six on BluRay and it is one of the worse two. It's a lot more watchable than the first film though.

CiDeRmAn

Christ,
I rushed to see this on release, I was in college at the time and a bunch of us went to catch it.
And, I know it was lousy because we struggled to find something positive to say afterwards.
It was that lousy.
After all the crew had been through over the previous three films, this was terrible awful tripe.
The canon got nicely screwed up and all with the trip to the galactic core and some bull about energy fields, now I'm not green enough not to know it's all made up but, generally, the movies and show have been at least self consistent, this isn't Red Dwarf!
The only saving grace was the scene where McCoy is reliving his fathers death, that's pretty good, the rest is pure tripe.
Thank glob that David Warner got to forget about the muck he was in long enough to forgive the producers to appear in the bloody fantastic Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that got pretty much everything right.

Jumboman

I read somewhere that the budget for Star Trek 5 was cut from 50 million to 25 million, maybe thats one of the reasons why the film is so crap.

Adamantium

flynnlives wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ

Thank you.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Oafley Jones

Jumboman wrote: »

I read somewhere that the budget for Star Trek 5 was cut from 50 million to 25 million, maybe thats one of the reasons why the film is so crap.

Well it's the reason we get rear projection God. Galaxy Quest took the original ending with rock monsters as a homage.

pah

StompToWork wrote: »

Worst. Star Trek Movie. Ever.

Only fairly good part was the "I know this ship like the back of my hand. *Clunk*" bit by Scotty. And even that was out of character for Scotty, but I was taking any emotion, even humour, at that point of the movie.

I'd bet my 1997 star trek fact files collection that scene was from vi , the undiscovered country.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Adamantium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kestt5BI3eg

You will never be as good as this Chris Pine. Never. And that's O.K.

RustDaz

Adamantium wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kestt5BI3eg

You will never be as good as this Chris Pine. Never. And that's O.K.

The bit about the living granite i can ignore but the mountain humping....... i dunno.

pixelburp

Whoah, a zombie Star Trek thread; when you look at hits versus misses, the original crew were poorly served by cinema; of their 7 films (if one includes 'Generations') only Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country were great films without question, the rest being either poor or just plain laughably bad, as was the case with The Final Frontier.

I will say this in its favour though: Shatners script understood the franchise's beating heart was the trio of Kirk, Spock and Bones and the narrative archetypes they represented; it was cheesy and the inclusion of the singalong was misplaced, but the scene with the three friends at a campfire was a touching distillation of their friendship & rivalry. Hell, Kirk's admission that he knew he'd never die while the other two were with him was a great moment.

nyarlothothep

The time travelling whale film was inspired though? Incidentally TWoK and TUC are by the same director I think.

pixelburp

nyarlothothep wrote: »

The time travelling whale film was inspired though? Incidentally TWoK and TUC are by the same director I think.

#4 was a fairly throwaway Fish out of Water comedy with the Star Trek crew, all by way of a heavy-handed environmental message. It wasn't bad, just pretty silly imo. Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country (which, yes, were directed by Nicholas Meyer) were both genuinely excellent films regardless of what franchise or genre they belonged to, using an ageing Enterprise crew to tell some great character-driven stories among well-staged action and relatable themes. They're still the gold standard of cinematic Trek, and really show just how hollow the reboots are.

Wedwood

Oh, I should have mentioned Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack for this movie is top notch !!

bnt

I know I've seen this film, though I can't remember much about it, so I'm reading the Wikipedia article. (Yeah, I know.) What comes across very strongly from the article is how much credit everyone gives Shatner, for the quantity and quality of the work he put in as writer-director. Even George Takei says it was great working with Shatner as a director. Reading about all the arguments over the story, and the cost-cutting that scuppered the special effects, well, I have to wonder about what could have been.

Jumboman

bnt wrote: »

I know I've seen this film, though I can't remember much about it, so I'm reading the Wikipedia article. (Yeah, I know.) What comes across very strongly from the article is how much credit everyone gives Shatner, for the quantity and quality of the work he put in as writer-director. Even George Takei says it was great working with Shatner as a director. Reading about all the arguments over the story, and the cost-cutting that scuppered the special effects, well, I have to wonder about what could have been.

Cost cutting is no excuse for a crap film. Star Trek 2 cost less than half what Start Trek 1 cost yet it still the best film in the series.