LogFAQs > #970398561

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Considering the amount of godlike aliens roaming about, a religious extremist looking for the true god is possibly overdue.

Maybe it's because the TNG crew have sort of displaced them as the main characters, but everyone feels at once a little off and, sort of generic, here. Kirk is considerably more irreverent than I remember and his militant attitude towards shooting Sybok seems flatly out of character. I did like his musing on dying alone and how faith in his friends is how he knew the rock climbing failure wouldn't kill him. And he brings a trace of his familiar charm with the "what does God need with a starship?" bit.

Spock is back to his usual stoic self. He's very much fallen back into standard mode, almost the generic model for his character. Nimoy does give some haunted gazes and subtle hesitations to convey that he knows more about Sybok than he's letting on.

McCoy has also fallen into his usual form, which means some of his bitching at Spock threatens to make him unlikeable. I do like that Spock's resurrection has become another weapon for his insults, but the character development both characters got in the previous four films does seem to have flown off (though, in fairness, Spock did have a few resets already). That scene of him confronting his father's death is actually pretty alright, though. The shilling of the big three does get a little too much when Spock and McCoy are able to shrug off the same brainwashing that got everyone else.

Scotty just grumbles about getting the new Enterprise barely functional. No longer a miracle worker, apparently. Are he and Uhura meant to be something of an item? Walking into a bit of the ship is just stupid and more evidence of the weirdly wacky tone they're going for.

Sulu gets lost, which is mildly ironic for the helmsman and navigator team. He's always been the most normal of the bunch, which, unfortunately, means there's little to say.

Uhura's fan dance has to be one of the most undignified moments of an already historically poorly treated character. Having her true emotions consist of pining for Scotty feels very retrograde. Not everything in TOS is worth referencing or repeating.

I don't know if it's genuinely worse or if I need to get used to it again after TNG, but Chekov's accent is painful. He has a couple of badass moments, like the warp escape, and it's long overdue for him to play captain.

The only guest star who makes an impact is Sybok whose actor manages to convey a more than decent sense of the mad zeal and genuine belief in personal righteousness that makes such extremists especially terrifying. Even his manner of "helping" people with their pain is given a suitably predatory edge. Even "God" is a bit standard.

The opening was actually quite promising and it's a decent choice to dress the army of light in desert iconography, considering the origins of the big monotheistic religions. Then, Sybok starts laughing and we have one of the most jarring shot transitions I have seen in a film. Shatner has a pretty good eye for lighting and angles and certain scenes, like Spock brooding alone after first discovering Sybok, has an aesthetic that actually coheres vaguely well with TNG. But the execs seemed to desperately want to inject comedy in every moment and the fact that everyone is a caricature of themselves and that the transitions are not particularly graceful, makes what should be a relatively more serious plot into a wacky, confusing joke. Everything involving the rocket boots is dreadful. The campfire scene has a couple of good moments from Kirk (naturally), but it's mostly a bizarre exercise in cringe. The dilapidated Enterprise feels like an especially mean spirited jab after how much pomp and circumstance its unveiling had in the last film. The scenes on Nimbus owe a lot to Star Wars (I'm seeing a bit of Mad Max, too), but the wretched hive aesthetic, on the planet of peace, no less, combines with all this to give a very nasty vibe over the proceedings. Nothing is so horrendous as to be unwatchable, but I kind of knew early on that I probably wouldn't like this much.

Even the Klingons are played as stereotypes, which is incomprehensible after TNG spend several episodes developing a culture for them, although at least they sort of save the day. Also, were there meant to be subtitles? Maybe it's just the stream I found, but there's nothing to be read. Sure, the basic gist of the conversations is easy to follow, we know they're frustrated when the Enterprise escapes, but they go on far too long for what is ultimately utter gobbledegook.

The VFXs are much cheaper than in TNG, although the barrier and everything involving "God" is decently trippy. The film does get better as it goes on, with some shots, like the slow zoom into the Klingon warning whilst everyone admires the planet being quite brilliant actually. Once the plot gets to Sha Ka Ree, the tone becomes more appropriately serious and the gradual build towards a more horror themed style of directing, especially with the darkening of the world before "God" appears and the harsh saturation when Kirk is alone, suggests that Shatner wrested a bit more control over his film by the end. Overall, though, regardless of whos to blame, Nimoy's first effort was much greater than his co star's.

The deliberately retrograde approach to certain tropes, like the more simplistic Klingons and the unfortunate return of awful sexism (I, sadly, caught the human consul getting with the Romulan one. Incidentally, she's the best of a bad bunch, but that's not saying much), and the clear joy in deserts, national parks, camping and slightly more subtle fare like the random wheel and the unfortunate myth about Columbus, to say nothing of the godlike alien to end all godlike aliens, speaks to a general celebration of Star Trek and, especially, its roots as the western frontier in space. Sadly, Star Trek in general, but particularly the previous films, has long since moved on from this stuff, so, what could have been a pseudo nostalgia tour, feels like an ignorant step backwards.

I'm probably coming off as harsher than I intend. There's enough good stuff that I'm ultimately glad I watched it, but I wanted to like it more than I did and it is the weakest of the films I've seen. In many ways, a TOS episode blown up to feature length with almost nothing else added.

I may have liked it more if I, like some people recommend, watched it after The Voyage Home. But then, doesn't that make you question the logic of releasing it midway through season 2 of TNG?

Speaking of TNG, I genuinely liked the first two seasons, overall. Yet apparently it doesn't get good until season 3. So, I'm quite curious to see how accurate a title Evolution is.