Marty Michaels

So it comes to this. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The film that won the 1989 Razzies for Worst Picture, Worst Director (poor Shatner), Worst Actor (poor, poor Shatner) and Worst Screenplay (poor, poor, poor Shatner). The film that every critic that ever drew breath called one of the worst movies ever made. The film that even Gene Roddenberry described as “apocryphal at best.” The film that, had it not been for the 25th anniversary of the series, would have ended the franchise and all but killed the careers of all involved.

But you know what? I kinda like it.

Yes, really. For all its faults – and there are a lot of them – TFF remains one of my favorite Trek adventures for reasons I’ll get to after I do my best to describe the plot. After the events of TVH and the introduction of the Enterprise A (which, if this film is to be believed is a barley functioning peice of shit), Kirk, Spock and McCoy are called back from shoreleave to rescue some hostages on Nimbus III. Meanwhile, a Klingon comander has decided to hunt Kirk down, soley for teh lulz apparently. On Nimbus III, our intrepid heroes encounter Sybok, Spock’s hitherto-unmentioned half brother, who has rejected all that logical bullshit and is living la vida loca. Sybok admits that the hostage situation was a lie to lure the Entrprise to Nimbus III so Sybok and his band of wierdos could use the ship to go to the mythical planet of Sha Ka Ree, where he hopes to meet god. Sounds like a sort of Vulcan Songs of Praise, doesn’t it. Anyway, they get there, god turns out to be an asshole (surprise, surprise) and the Klingon catches up with them but is thwarted by Spock and some fat Klingon. The end.

Ok, so even I’ll admit, the plot is terrible, so why am I saying that I like the film? Well, for one thing, it shows the relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy better than any Trek story before or since. There are several scenes in the film where K, S and McC are the only characters on screen and the writing in these scenes is nothing short of incredible, showing the warmth, the humor and the love the three men share (no homo). Wether they’re sitting round a campfire singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” and roasting “marsh mellons” or trapped in the brig discussing escape and Spock’s brother, these scenes are some of my favorite in the entire Star Trek canon.

On the subject of Spock’s brother, Sybok is an interesting character. Originally intended to play the role was Sean Connery (hence “Sha Ka Ree” – say it in Connery’s voice), Sybok is, to quote James Tyler at the Redeemed, “the anti-Spock.” The first son of Sarek and a full blooded Vulcan, Sarek, as previously noted, rejected the Vulcan notions of logic and suppressed emotion and embarked on a quest to find the planet Sha Ka Ree. Fair enough. But don’t you think, at some point during the 10 or 12 years or so they’ve known each other, Spock would’ve at some point mentioned to his best friends Kirk and Bones that he had a brother? Take my mate James, for example. I’ve known him for far less time that Spock knew Kirk and yet I know that he has not only a brother, but also a sister. We never sat down and had a conversation about siblings, but these things come up in conversation. Regardless of this gaping problem with the plot, Sybok is played the grand Star Trek villain style by Lawrence Luckinbill, an actor who, criminally, had/has done mostly one shot TV guest apperances before and since. A shame, because Sybok is one of the best things about the film.

Ok, so that was the good, time for the bad and the ugly. We’ve already seen that the plot is awful, but that’s not the only bad thing about this movie. The special effects are noticably sub par – except the ones shamelessly lifted from previous movies, of course. ILM, who had done the great effects in previous Trek movie adventures, were too busy working on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (as was Connery, incidentally) and Ghostbusters 2 to do the effects for the film and so the effects work was outsourced to Bob’s Motion Capture Shack (not really) and suffered as a result. The anticlimactic ending is the most obvious casualty of this as the effects in the original Shatner vs rock monsters (ten of ‘em!) ending were considered too ridiculous looking to show audiences.

Another problem is the secondary villain, the Klingon captain Klaa – the most generic Klingon ever seen on Star Trek, notable only for his hair metal hairdo and his impressively cantilevered first officer.

Overall, TFF is a movie that, if you’ve not seen it for a while, or dismissed it on the strength (or weakness) of its reputation, I’d strongly recommend picking up and giving another go. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than any of the TNG movies (controversial!), and the Kirk, Spock and McCoy scenes alone are worth the price of admission. Feel free to fast forward past Uhura’s naked fan dance.

Tags: random movie review, star trek, the final frontier