Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V (Netflix; Amazon; Memory Alpha) is somewhere between “not as bad as I remember” and “offensive and hurtful”.
On the one hand, they start out with beautiful spots in Yosemite and have a terrific time playing with the characters: Kirk, Spock and Bones get to be grumpy old men together; Sulu and Chekov get lost; Scotty is busy fixing everything; Uhura is getting them all back together. They all shine.
On the other hand, there’s this terrible plot going on. There’s a crappy planet where everything is un-Star-Trek-ishly sad and terrible, and some guy there is plotting something. So the Enterprise un-Star-Trek-ishly sends down commandos, who steal horses from destitute people, and then raid the compound, killing people and destroying things. Spock nerve-pinches a horse. Some Klingons become involved for no apparent reason. The plotting guy turns out to be Spock’s brother Sybek, which kind of breaks Spock’s backstory. There’s some kind of mind control thing Sybek does, but it seems to have no permanent effect and isn’t very well explained in any case. Then they all go meet God but he’s not God so instead the Klingons shoot him.
Scotty’s prison break is pretty awesome, though. I’m still undecided if the rocket boots are cool or lame. They’re right on the edge.
But putting aside all the lameness, let’s just note that this plot also makes no sense. If the Klingons, the Federation, and the Romulans decided to have a place to get together, wouldn’t they choose a place that didn’t suck? And even if they did, why is Sybek there? Why is anyone there but the ambassadors? And what’s with this Great Barrier: it’s mentioned that it has stopped others, and Sybek claims that his mind control thingamajig will let them through, but Kirk doesn’t do it and he suffers no ill effects. Then they go meet God but he’s not God… so who is he? Who imprisoned him there? Why? Answering that could be a neat movie.
It’s tempting to say that the problem with this movie is that Nimoy stopped writing and directing and Shatner started. The emphasis on action and fights and special effects is a decided shift, but I don’t think we can attribute it all to the new guy on top: this movie came out after The Next Generation went on air, and this movie now has to use the big screen to full effect in order to distinguish itself from its new small-screen offspring.
But what makes classic Trek good is that it’s a cerebral show about ideas and interesting situations, and the leading man is obviously able to punch his way out. But instead he engages, connects, and learns from his environment. That’s the balance in the Original Series that makes it great: it’s not just a monster of the week show where shooting it with a bigger gun is the climax, but is instead a show about discovering the world as you live it and figuring out what to do about it. Star Trek V misses this balance completely, with a plot that carries the characters into the finale against their will and then sputters through the finale until an until-now-useless Klingon ship blasts the baddie with a bigger gun.
Grade
D
