"Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing."
- Sybok
Generally considered the weakest of the original cast and the first official Trek film to utterly disappoint, “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier’s ambitiousness gets ahead of itself, deflates and never hits its intended mark. Although loaded with some of the finest character moments in the entire franchise, the film comes off as rushed and patched together without a sincere emotional core or strong action narrative, the latter of which is plagued with frugal budget counters and awful editing. The film opens on Nimbus III, the "Planet of Galactic Peace," where the renegade Vulcan Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill) is gathering followers for an invasion of the planet's only city. Next, we move to Earth, where the crew of the Enterprise is on shore leave. Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) are camping out in Yosemite, where they sit around a fire philosophizing and singing "Row Row Row Your Boat." Some fine character moments are coupled with some of the worst, the song being a huge mistake. Another big mistake is the films attempt at comedy. Kirk climbing El Capitan underscores Kirk’s need for adventure, cool, but when he falls and his rescued by Spock, the awful special effects are introduced with Spock wearing unconvincing “Jet Boots.” The gang’s vacation is interrupted as they are called back to space and reassemble the rest of the crew on board the half-working Enterprise, (A potentially great set-up that is never fully explored) After receiving orders from Starfleet to avert an interstellar incident, they're off to rescue a group of hostages taken by Sybok -- one human, one Klingon, and one Romulan. The Klingons have also dispatched a ship, commanded by a egotistical captain named Klaa who wants to boost his reputation by killing the now legendary James Kirk. There are moments of brilliance here, I can see where the Shat wanted to go, sometimes it works, but when the story veers off topic, it generates into stupid jokes and bad physical comedy and some of the worst special effects ever committed to a major motion picture, like the before mentioned Kirk falling from El Capitan and nearly all of the space shots look shoddy and slapped together. Shatner took some encouraging from his cast mate, Nimoy and asked for the creative controls contributing to the screenplay and as the film’s Director, which was a lousy idea considering the huge success of the previous installment. The studio was less than happy with Shatner’s idea of “finding God” and thusly was forced to have the screenplay re-written and ordered to add “more humor,” whether it be at the expense of the beloved characters, so be it, it came off forced and clumsy this time around; Scotty (James Doohan) is stuck delivering some terrible one-liners and is the punch line of a really pathetic joke; walking into a bulkhead Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) is made out to be a daffy slut with allusions to her and Scotty getting it on and even Kirk is laughed at a time or two. Although most of the film’s faults are levied at the Shat, who did take some of the blame, he does a respectable job as auteur; it’s the screenplay, by David Loughery that gets in the way of the enjoyment factor. The film most of all suffers from enormous possibilities that are bungled. The franchise has never shied away from controversial topics dating back to the original series, so the idea of “God” meeting Kirk and company was really a no-brainer, but its ultimately handled in such a pedestrian, low-brow way, we quickly get the drift and it’s not good. Cheap looking effects and bad editing are spread throughout and Shatner’s original idea of Kirk and company fighting a rock monster in the film’s climax was tossed out due to budget restrictions. Although there some bad stuff to wade through, (ILM was busy with the Indiana Jones sequel and some Disney hits) the film has some excellent moments between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. As presented to us by Sybok, in an attempt to control their minds, we see the characters hidden pains. Particularly with De Kelly’s McCoy as we learn he euthanized his father only to discover a cure a few days later and Sarek, Spock’s father’s ambivalence over his bi-racial son. Kirk is resistant of all of this telling McCoy about his doubts about Sybok, “Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain! A great acting moment for Shatner but it is deflated with a stupid, awkward joke. Laurence Luckinbill as Sybok (Spock’s half brother, that was originally offered to Sean Connery) is the film’s best performance as the Space-traveling televangelist/svengali who can control people’s minds and is intent on finding the legendary Sha Ka Ree, keeps things interesting when the bad special effects run rampant and the humors gets out of hand. Kirk has the film’s best moment as he explains to McCoy and Spock, “I lost a brother once. I was lucky to get him back.” The score though, is a damn near perfect. Jerry Goldsmith returned to deliver yet another fantastic score that is rousing and emotional. Despite the final product’s quality, the film was fucked from birth as it was released into one of the most competitive summers on record packed mostly with sequels, but other hits emerged with Trek V having to compete against the likes of; “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “Lethal Weapon 2,” James Bond in “License to Kill,” “Ghostbusters II and “Back the Future II” along with “Batman,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “Look Who’s Talking,” and “Dead Poets Society.” Despite the intense competition and only having a run of a mere 8 weeks, terribly short in those days; the film made a modest profit, disappointment followed though as the suits wanted Trek 4 money, not realizing what a brutal release schedule the film had just endured. For all the guff the film gets’ it still is not the worst Star Trek film ever made, that my friends belongs to “Star Trek: Insurrection!”