Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 sci-fi film and the fifth entry in the Star Trek film series. It was directed and co-written by William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk. Originally, the film was supposed to be about a Vulcan anmed Sybok searching for God with his followers, but instead finds a devil creature. However, Paramount wanted the script to be more light-hearted, resulting in the final film. The film released to mixed-to-negative reviews and eventually won a Razzie award for Worst Picture.

Plot
Spock's seemingly mad half-brother, Sybok, stages a rebellion on the backwater planet of Nimbus III, also known as the Planet of Galactic Peace, and takes the Federation, Klingon and Romulan ambassadors hostage. The new USS Enterprise-A is hastily pressed into action to deal with the crisis, and the crew discover that Sybok's real goal is to find God, who he claims is living on the planet Sha Ka Ree at the center of the galaxy.

Why It Can't Find Sha Ka Ree

 * 1) The main problem with the film is that it tries to balance the tone between being serious and light-hearted at the same time. However, it strays to much into a more lighter territory and in the end ruins the entire film as a result.
 * 2) Executive meddling: Related to the above, the final film is much different from Shatner's intended vision for it. While the film kept the Sybok plot of him wanting to find God and paradise it would have had a much more darker and serious tone, and in the end of the film it turned out that this "God" being was actually a devil like creature disguising itself as what people would have idealized as God.
 * 3) The plot is a bit of a mess and a huge disappointment compared to previous films in the franchise, lacking of story-telling, has some plot holes, and overall doesn't feel very finished. As well as that, some scenes are unintentionally hilarious due to the film's budgetary problems.
 * 4) Many of the concepts in the film, while great and have a lot of good physiological aspects to them, are not at all fully realized, making the film feel more disappointing a result.
 * 5) The attempts at humor in the film are not that great, instead it's all campy, just like Batman & Robin. For example:
 * 6) There are quite a number of continuity errors in the film. While some are nitpicky, others can be quite bothersome and are related to the film's production problems.
 * 7) Awful special effects that haven't aged well, quite surprising for a Trek film, although understandable due to the lower budget of this film compared to past Trek films.
 * 8) Many of the scenes in the film are quite boring and don't keep the viewer interested for long. There is quite a lot of talking in the film and when something does happen, it doesn't last for too long. Due to this, the viewer may get lost on what is going on.
 * 9) The pacing can be very inconsistent at times and it makes the film feel a little disjointed to watch. For example, there are some scenes that go by a little to quickly and don't really give you enough time to process what is happening, such as the fight scenes on Sha Ka Ree.
 * 10) The fight scenes are also incredibly disappointing. The direction for these scenes is not very clear and they mostly consist of Kirk fighting Sybok's followers with his fists and the occasional phaser fire.
 * 11) Due to the problems with the script, some of the characters in the film are not fully fleshed out.
 * 12) Also similar to the first film, the color pallete is very dull. Most of the colors in the film consist of browns, blues, and greys which isn't that appealing to the eyes. Any other colors such as the red on the Starfleet uniforms and the greens of Yosemite National Park get a little overshadowed occasionally due to the abundance of these colors.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) As mentioned before, many of the concepts in this film were very great ideas for a Star Trek film and have some good philosophical aspects to them.
 * 2) Sybok is a great character, and one of the best antagonists in all of the Trek films.
 * 3) Despite the many problems related to the film's script and tone balance, there are some great scenes in the film that really show the potential of what the film could have been.
 * 4) As always, Jerry Goldsmith's score for the films is very excellent, including the memorable opening theme as well as the quieter, emotional tracks that give the film a really great score.
 * 5) The costume, set, and model designs in the film are very well done and perfectly capture the vibe the film was going for. These include the simple but new field uniforms and the Nimbus III attire for clothing, the impressive exterior Paradise City set (One of the largest exterior sets filmed for any Star Trek media) and the Enterprise interior for sets, and of course, the impressive Klingon Bird of Prey model.
 * 6) The cinematography is excellent, thanks to Shatner's direction with different shots. For example, when the crew take a shuttlecraft to the Enterprise in some scenes, we can see a reflection of the Enterprise off the window.
 * 7) The actors do an alright job with the scripts that they were given and genuinely seem to care putting as much effort into their roles as possible, especially Sybok's actor.

Reception
Upon release, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, audiences, and Star Trek fans. On review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an aggregated score of 22% based on 49 reviews. The site's consensus reads "Filled with dull action sequences and an underdeveloped storyline, this fifth Trek movie is probably the worst of the series. " On Metacritic, the film has an aggregated critic score of 43/100 and a user score of 5.7/10. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film a negative review, giving it two stars out of four and calling it "a mess". In his review, he found the film confusing and finally stated "Star Trek V is pretty much of a mess - a movie that betrays all the signs of having gone into production at a point where the script doctoring should have begun in earnest. There is no clear line from the beginning of the movie to the end, not much danger, no characters to really care about, little suspense, uninteresting or incomprehensible villains, and a great deal of small talk and pointless dead ends. Of all of the Star Trek movies, this is the worst." . Stan James of The Advertiser stated the David Warner's talents in the film were wasted and that almost all of the characetrs lacked motivation for their roles James, Stan (November 18, 1989). "This one's strictly for die-hard Trekkies".

Trivia

 * In the novelization of the film, it actually explains why Spock mistakenly calls a marshmallow a "marshmelon". According to the novelization, McCoy knew that Spock was going to look up camping traditions on the Enterprise's computer, so as a cruel prank, he got an ensign on the ship to change every mention of "marshmallow" to "marshmelon".
 * When the Klingon Bird of Prey fires on "God" near the end of the film, it uses sound effects from the Star Wars films.
 * The producer of this film, Harve Bennett (Who also co-wrote Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, wrote and produced Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, and co-wrote and produced Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) plays the Starfleet admiral who gives the Kirk the details on his mission to Nimbus III.
 * In the same scene, the background behind the admiral was a matte painting used in the film Logan's Run.

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