Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

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.

Fmovies: 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.

The voyage here is a search for God, the big guy in the sky, the big cheese with a beard. Cunningly disguised as the thirst for ultimate knowledge. Taking over from Leonard Nimoy in the directing chair is The Shat himself, Captain Tiberius William Shatner Kirk. In an attempt at blending the fun corny aspects of the series with sci-fi histrionics (Klingon dialogue consultant, really?), Shatner and his co-writers have only achieved what is almost an embarrassing parody of a parody.

Where's the danger? Where's the brothers in arms spirit? In fact where is our badly underwritten crew? Star Trek humour is a wonderful thing, when it's in the right places and done with a straight lace so befitting what has come before The Final Frontier. Some light moments exist, but they do not compensate for the lack of serious moments. While do we really need another Spock revelation? Really?

Some nice sets and little knowing Trek moments aside, The Final Frontier is just a bad movie experience. 3/10

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier fmovies. I find it almost touching how Star Trek fans try desperately to like this film in spite of its unbelievable number of flaws.

To begin with, none of the familiar characters are really in character so to speak. Scotty is depicted as a bumbling tinkerer instead of the competent engineer he was in the original series. Uhura...Gods, I can't even think about what they did to her character. All of her dialog was painful to listen to. McCoy seemed like a neurotic stepfather to Kirk instead of his trusted friend. Spock...well, let's just say that Leonard Nimoy was terribly wasted. He was given bad dialog ("I do not believe you have grasped the gravity of your situation Captain." Gravity, get it? Get it?) and made almost into a buffoon. Kirk...oh man, don't get me started. William Shatner is a hammy actor to begin with, so to allow him to direct really is to invite disaster which is what we got.

The plot is beyond ridiculous. Giving Spock a brother is a pretty desperate story line and unnecessarily soap operaish. But hey, let's go with it. The search for God. Again, a weak plot basis. You don't think so? OK, let's go with that too. So assuming that the two aforementioned plot elements are sound, what's wrong with the script? Well, for one thing, it recycles way too much. The Enterprise, for example, is yet again, not working properly. Are we to assume that Starfleet would send a grossly malfunctioning ship with a skeleton crew into a potentially dangerous situation just because they want James Kirk to handle the situation? If that's the case, then why not put him on a better ship as an adviser? Adding to that...the crew is grossly incompetent. Scotty has the ship in pieces (and apparently is cloddish enough to bump his head knocking himself into unconsciousness WHILE there are hostiles on board!), no one seem to notice the Klingon ship decloaking at a crucial moment (despite the fact that the sensors are clearly showing the ship in weapons range) and the crew all seem way too familiar with each other. In other words, there is no sense of discipline. If this is the flagship of Starfleet, then it's a wonder that the Klingons hadn't already overthrown the Federation.

As to the personal struggles with pain, it was crap. Lawrence Luckenbill is a competent actor, but even he couldn't save this turkey. In short no one could. Of all the people involved, I imagine Leonard Nimoy is the most embarrassed by it. I hope he is, anyway.

Thank god the original cast didn't bow out on this cloddish opus.

What is it with studios like Paramount that have a proven hit film series on their hands, and figure it can screw around with the budget and formula? Paramount spent less on this film than they did on TMP, which doesn't sound bad until you realize that there's a 10 gap between when the films were made. The $40 TMP cost to make would be equivalent to about $75 million in 1989. This film is the reason that Shatner has never been given a fair chance to direct other films, as well. Every time he turned around, the studio was slashing the budget and making demands regarding the storyline. The fact that this was the one storyline that Roddenberry and Shatner could agree upon for the most part made the freshman directorial task tough enough, but after all the machinations were done, all anyone ended up with was an uneven story and a load of badly executed special effects not worthy of the original series, much less a major motion picture. The most glaring examples: - All of the Phaser effects were severely ashed out and fake-looking. - The shot of the Enterprise going into the great barrier was so obviously a still-frame shot being zoomed away from. At least the popsicle stick that held the Enterprise cut out up was successfully matted out. - God "chasing" Kirk up the mountain... Egads, they may as well have just cut in shots of Godzilla climbing the volcano at the end of "Godzilla 1985," and used thumbtacks to scratch the emulsion off of the film to make electric bolts come out of his eyes at the imperiled Captain Kirk.... Yes, friends, I have a real problem with the look of that last scene, especially.

Thank goodness Star Trek VI was such a redeemer of a film...

Seriously, why all the hate? This is such a fun, adventurous and highly humorous Star Trek movie (I mean the humurous part in the best way). Boldy goes where predecessor Trek films have not gone, yet still holds all the warmth, humor and rich character development true Star Trek fans should all hold dear and find comfortingly familiar. Sure, there are some slightly goofy moments but overall, I like it just as much as the rest... Take it easy people. It's a wonderful addition to the Star Trek canon. Bravo William Shatner on his directorial debut.