Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

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.

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.

"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.

I've never figured out why ST V gets so much criticism. It's really not that bad, if you're a true trekkie. First off, sure the effects are a little low-fi...but so were the TOS episodes. I don't know about you, but I care more about story than effects. The main reason that I like this film because it's very episodic in nature. If you are a fan of the original Star Trek series, sit down and watch this movie as if you were watching one of the original episodes and it will be much more enjoyable. For one, it starts out like an episode with a prologue before the opening credits start. Secondly, the theme music for the movie is similar to that of the original series. Third, there are some lines from the film that sound like they would be right out of one of the older episodes. Lastly, this movie is loosely based on the storyline of an original episode. Ironically, the episode that it's based on is one of the TOS worst episodes: The Way the Eden. If you've seen The Way to Eden, the actual plot of the episode is not bad, it's just the hippie stuff that makes it so awful. This film kildly leaves out the awful hippie music of the original episode and focuses solely on the plot instead. I often wonder if Shatner wrote this film to make up for how bad The Way to Eden was. So, to sum up, watch this movie as you would watch an old episode and you'll enjoy it much more.

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.