Defending Star Trek V

by ScottDS

Let’s go back in time to the summer of 1989. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon 2, Licence to Kill, Ghostbusters II, the juggernaut that was Batman. . . and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the film that easily could’ve killed the Star Trek franchise (but thankfully didn’t). I’d say a good 90% of Star Trek fans consider the film an unmitigated disaster – or at the very least, an odd curiosity, a vanity project for its director, a film that had the rug pulled out from under it by the studio. . . a film about Big Ideas without the Big Budget to pull it off. But I like it!

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had in their contracts a “favored nations clause” which stipulated that anything one actor received, the other would also receive. After Nimoy’s success behind the camera on Star Trek III and IV, it was Shatner’s turn. His original outline was titled An Act of Love and told the story of a holy man named Zar (later Sybok) who is searching for God. Zar hijacks the Enterprise and turns the crew against Kirk. After arriving at the planet where God supposedly resides, Kirk and Zar instead find Satan (and, by extension, God exists). Zar dies and Kirk manages to save Spock and Bones from being whisked away to Hell. The studio liked the idea but producer Harve Bennett (who had joined the franchise on Star Trek II) said it reminded him of a TV Guide logline: “Tonight on Star Trek, the crew finds God.” Immediately, the viewer knows this is impossible.

Ultimately, the crew would not find Satan, but instead an alien entity masquerading as God. Gene Roddenberry had his misgivings and both Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley demanded revisions: neither Spock nor McCoy would ever betray Kirk. Screenwriter David Loughery was hired to turn Shatner’s outline into a script but two things were working against him: the 1988 Writers Guild strike and the studio brass who, after the success of Star Trek IV, wanted more humor in the film. The studio also demanded budget cuts, which meant Shatner had to scale back his vision for the ending, which involved angels and demons in a rather Dante-esque tableau. Shatner and Co. scrapped this and went with six lumbering rockmen. . . then later one rockman. . . then finally some flying energy bolts. Unfortunately, Industrial Light & Magic wasn’t available to produce the visual effects and the filmmakers went with Associates and Ferren in New York. As anyone can see from the final film, they were in over their heads.

Looking back at the film now with the benefit of hindsight, it’s actually not bad. I think it’s better than the last two TNG films (Insurrection and Nemesis) and I give this film all the credit in the world for having a big heart and for wearing it on its sleeve. As much as Shatner enjoys action, he also dares to ask the Big Questions about man’s purpose and relationship to the universe. This harkens back to the first film which, despite its flaws, had a good old-fashioned sense of adventure. Whereas most of the films are your standard action films with Hornblower-inspired space battles and fisticuffs (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), Star Trek V is an adventure in which our crew sails into the unknown, survives it, and emerges on the other side wiser for having faced the challenge. There’s also a great familial feeling on display. The trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy has never been better and they share some heartfelt scenes throughout the film.

Shatner proves to be a capable director. This was his first theatrical film but he had prior experience directing theater and episodic television. I don’t entirely blame him for the difficulties he had to face here (all of the above plus a Teamsters strike!) and it’s a miracle we even got a watchable movie out of it. Shatner knows how to frame a shot and, as I wrote in my Temple of Doom article, establishing geography and spatial relationships is important. There are also some interesting camera moves (including a bridge shot which starts at an overhead angle, rotates, and eventually tilts to eye-level) and some great individual shots including one in the opening of Sybok riding his horse which looks like something out of Lawrence of Arabia, and another towards the end with Kirk, et al. walking down a mountain which is silhouetted against the sun.

The opening credits feature Kirk free climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. While some may consider this nothing more than an ego trip for Shatner, I believe it when he says (in on-set interviews) that it is representative of man’s need to scale new heights. Kirk, Spock, and Bones share a poignant scene in front of a campfire where, as usual, they contemplate their own mortality and Kirk admits that he’ll die alone. This comes full circle wonderfully at the end when he tells Spock he thought he would die and Spock, having just rescued him, replies: “Nonsense. You were never alone.” Kirk also insists that men like them don’t have families – another line that is paid off when Kirk mentions that he lost a brother once but (looking at Spock) he’s glad he got him back. Bones: “I thought you said men like us don’t have families.” Kirk: “I was wrong.” It’s scenes like these that make geeks like me want to be a part of this universe and spend time with these characters.

Sybok is portrayed by Laurence Luckinbill, who does not get the credit he deserves for his performance. Sybok, it turns out, is Spock’s half-brother. He was banished from Vulcan for embracing emotion instead of logic. This is best exemplified in his first scene in which he laughs – something Vulcans aren’t exactly known for. Luckinbill portrays Sybok as cunning and manipulative (the character was inspired by televangelists after all!) but also strangely dignified and we genuinely feel for him at the end when he’s defeated by his own vanity and avarice. His best scene – and arguably the best scene in the film – takes place in the ship’s observation lounge in which he attempts to relieve Kirk, Spock, and Bones of their “secret pain” – which is how he’s able to amass followers, who are so grateful for the experience that they’ll follow him anywhere. We see Bones relive the experience of pulling the plug on his ailing father and Spock’s father’s initial rejection of him for appearing “so human.” Kirk will have none of this and the scene culminates in a great Kirk Speech in which he yells, “I don’t want my pain taken away. I need my pain!” It’s might be one of the best scenes in any Trek film.

Another item in the plus column is the excellent music score. This film marked the return of composer Jerry Goldsmith to the franchise ten years after his Oscar-nominated work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He reprises his theme to that film (which had since become the theme to TNG) along with his Klingon theme while developing four entirely new themes: a theme for Sybok, a theme for the “God planet” Sha Ka Ree, an Americana-flavored theme for the Yosemite scenes, and a four-note “quest motif” which he would use again in future Trek scores.

While most of the visual effects are subpar (Shatner and Co. admit this much on the DVD retrospective), there are a few great shots, including one of the Enterprise against the moon as well as a fun crash sequence in which a shuttlecraft barrels its way into the shuttlebay. The scale is off but it’s still exciting. No one will ever argue that Star Trek is about special effects but, sadly, this is one film in which they were sorely needed. Ironically, the low budget meant they had to produce many of the effects in camera (without compositing) and there are some good shots that resulted from this, mainly any shot in which we see outside the Enterprise through a window. With bluescreen, the camera would most likely have been locked down. . . but with rear projection live on the set, Shatner could have a moving camera and there would be no matte lines.

As much as I enjoyed the new Star Trek reboot, it wasn’t nearly as humanistic as this one, nor did it have that extra little bit of intellectual “oomph,” the Big Ideas that keep people thinking on their way out of the theater. At the end of the day, I think this film deserves another look. There are some good lines of dialogue and character moments and while some of the humor falls flat, some of it actually works, including the Yosemite “Goodnight” scene which must’ve been the filmmakers’ homage to The Waltons. If Paramount ever allows Shatner to produce a Director’s Cut of the film, I’ll watch it (he was already denied once) but if they don’t, I can live just fine with the film the way it is now.

Bonus: Captain Kirk is Climbing a Mountain (Techno Remix)