STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) Great Barrier? I've seen greater. This is easily the most universally hated of the Star Trek movies, but I don't hate it; no, what I feel is more like the amused pity I feel for a really, really ugly cat, that's dripping wet. It may be stupidly plotted and poorly written, the effects may be subpar, and it may even have a scene where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". Actually, that last one is inarguable; horrifying as it sounds, there are in fact two such scenes. But there's a certain bonehead charm that endears it to me a little, an exuberant lack of shame about its own awfulness. It's re-watchable in that drinking game kind of way. It is perhaps no less than "Spock's Brain" writ big-screen. When we first see the aging, indefatigable crew in Star Trek V, this much is apparent: they're a mess. Sulu and Chekhov are lost in the woods. McCoy is muttering to himself about muttering to himself. Scotty is scrambling all over the brand-new Enterprise, which doesn't work in about a million different ways, and for some reason Uhura is flirting with him. And Captain Kirk, obviously in the throes of the midlife crisis we thought he came to terms with in Star Trek II, is free-climbing El Capitan, badly, because he needs to be rescued. Only unflappable Spock is still at the top of his game, and he should be, since he would still be having adventures with the Next Generation crew seventy years later. But before we bear witness to the sorry state of our heroes, we see Nimbus III, otherwise known as the Planet Of Galactic Peace, so named (I assume) because it's a barren desert shithole with exactly one settlement and nobody would possibly want to fight over it. The Star Trek movies thusfar have been pretty skimpy in showing us new planets, and this one isn't very impressive; even its Star Wars-style cantina scene offers up its best alien in the form of a so-so three-breasted cat chick who apparently dies when she gets wet. A local who couldn't afford dental coverage is approached by a spooky stranger (Lawrence Luckinbill) who at first seems like a sinister villain, then like a persuasively powered hippie zealot, then the first thing he does after revealing he's a Vulcan is laugh, so we know he's got to be a pretty odd bird. Luckinbill plays Sybok, an exiled Vulcan heretic who looks to emotion and inspiration instead of logic, and later we are told that he is Spock's half-brother, though he hardly has to be - it's a bit of a throwaway detail that only explains a scene where Spock is in a position to kill him but won't, though we already figure Spock isn't a cold-blooded killer. Sybok takes three diplomats hostage - a rumpled, chain-smoking human (David Warner, who's recognizable enough you'd think his character would end up doing something, anything), a rumpled, alcoholic Klingon, and an orderly and idealistic Romulan whose pointy ears are covered throughout the film, possibly to avoid confusing people who would think she's Vulcan. Later during the rescue attempt Sybok is heard to cry out "Do you realize what you've done? It wasn't bloodshed I wanted!" - guess he shouldn't have taken hostages then. Spock and Kirk are equally surprised when at the moment of rescue, the hostages turn weapons on their rescuers, even though we all watched the demands video and saw that the hostages have a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome. Spock and Kirk and company are indeed the ones sent out to rescue those hostages, in the only marginally functional Enterprise, with "less than a skeleton crew". Usually the Enterprise is the only ship in range, even when it's near Earth; this time there are other ships (we even see a few) but Kirk is told there's a shortage of experienced commanders. Uh...? But then, if Spock and Kirk went out in a functional ship, they'd be able to just beam the hostages out. See, Sybok's plan to capture a starship depends upon the ship's transporters not working. One can only conclude that Sybok got to choose which ship the Federation sent to help out. That's when we're introduced to an uncharacteristically dank-free Klingon warship, captained by a young officer with more ambition than sense (and an accent that sounds like it's supposed to be Russian). He's bored, taking potshots at 20th-century Earth satellites (must not be too far from Earth then) for lack of any better targets, and the only thing he can think of to do is make trouble for the most infamous captain the Federation has. Not too smart, unless he too knows about the shitty shape the Enterprise is in ("less than a skeleton crew"!). The Klingons make a swift departure from Nimbus III necessary, and later ensure that Kirk can't be simply beamed out of danger once Scotty gets the transporters working, but otherwise what are they doing here? Obvious answer: a sop to fan expectations - Star Trek II was the only Trek movie without Klingons, and even that one had virtual Klingons. These are the first movie Klingons that aren't complete douchebags, probably an appeal to the new fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek V was the first Trek movie made during that show's run, and in that show, the Klingons weren't all bad like they pretty much were in the first four movies and the original series. At this point, the Trek people still seem a little unsure what to make of Klingons; fans take it for granted now that they're an honor-bound warrior people, but where's the honor in attacking an unarmed shuttlecraft? And where in our knowledge of Kirk and Klingons have we seen anything to suggest that the humiliating apology at the end would be followed by a respectful salute and, incredibly, a return of that salute? Sybok brainwashes his followers by alleviating their "secret pain", which he digs up and can apparently project holographically for other people to see. I winced a little at the time, fearing that we'd have to cycle through all seven Trek regulars' secret pain, climaxing in the one I wanted to see the least, but we only have to see two. McCoy's is pretty good, though it has such a dorkily cliché punch line ("A week later, they found a cure!") it plays like one of those evangelical Chick comics. The other involves Spock's birth, which suggests a hell of a memory, though it also suggests a pretty unlikely complaint from his father (what was he expecting?), and even better, that he was born in a cave. I liked that he gathers followers not through promises of religious revelation, but essentially through self-help-type stuff. If the self-help stuff is the bait and the critically vacant brainswashing the hook, for once the line isn't a pipeline for donations but a sincerely ventured religious quest, which he finally announces when the movie's over half finished. See, Sybok's looking for God. Seriously. He's been getting communiqués from God, and God's been telling him to meet Him beyond the Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy, an electric blue oil slick from beyond which nothing has ever returned. Now, Star Trek history up until that point (a little less so since) has cast a VERY suspicious eye on gods, beings that claim to be gods, and people who think they're in communication with gods. So it's a bit of a safe bet that they're not actually going to meet God. But if it's not God, then what? That question never gets answered. In the twenty-plus seasons of TV Trek since, I don't think they've ever come back to this to find out. I speculated, but everything I came up with had some pretty serious logic problems. But one mystery at a time, please. The first thing I'm wondering about is the Great Barrier is another thing Trek didn't have a handle on yet at the time: distance. Under the stellar geography laid out in Trek for the past decade or so, we know that the other side of the galaxy would be something like a seventy-year trip at top speed - you do the math on the trip to the center. It doesn't take nearly that long. Everybody but Sybok is apprehensive about crossing the Great Barrier, because no ship or probe has returned from beyond it. Sybok calls it "the ultimate expression of this universal fear (of the unknown)". The Enterprise flies in without a problem (and the Klingon ship follows, again without a problem), and presumably leaves without incident as well, since there was a Star Trek VI. It is never even guessed at, how they managed to cross the barrier, much less get back. In the years since, Trek has never revisited the Great Barrier either. But this was the brief window when this movie had me, and I know I'm not alone even among us curmudgeons who can find so little to like in it. When the Enterprise arrives at its destination, a pretty self-lit blue world that appears to orbit no star, it had me. I felt that wonder, that sense of imminent discovery that you'd think Star Trek would corner the market on, considering its "boldly go" mandate. It occurs to me that of the five Trek movies at that point - and even of the five since - Star Trek V is possibly the one that best attempts to answer Picard's "does anyone remember when we were explorers?" lament nine years later. Then they get on the planet and it's another desert shithole and you know it's downhill from here. That sense of imminent discovery is quickly replaced by a certainty that there's nothing they could possibly meet on that planet that wouldn't be a giant letdown, and indeed that's exactly what their confrontation with "God" is, which raises so many more questions than it answers that they might as well have met the one without the quote marks. As always, this show mostly belongs to Spock, Kirk, and McCoy - as is often the case, the others get maybe one moment of their own each. Scotty bonks his head on that beam (you saw it in every ad), Chekhov masquerades as captain to deceive Sybok, Sulu pilots a shuttlecraft through a hazardous maneuver (in other words, he sits in a chair), and Uhura...man, this just wasn't right. That she does an apparently nude, silhouetted dance (with feathers) in one scene is an odd pick for her "moment" for this movie, but I was willing to swallow it up until a point, where the guards she's trying to distract are not only distracted, but they shamble towards her zombie-like while moaning that it's a woman, and she's naked! Can you imagine competent, intelligent, well-adjusted men falling for this trick, the naked dancing chick who just happens to appear on your shift while standing guard? The implication here: only toothless inbred crap-planet hillbillies where the only available tail is from the cat chick with three boobs would find this sexy. I know Nichelle Nichols was in her late 50's at the time and couldn't be the dish she used to be, but to construct a whole scene whose end result is elaborately pointing that out is...rude. The tone is mostly comic, which might have seemed like a slam dunk after Star Trek IV was such a hit, but most of the attempts just flop forth and die. Only Shatner seems to have much of a handle on the comedy, and Spock's relentless stoicism is often funny in itself (sometimes making McCoy funnier through no responsibility of DeForest Kelley), but most of the other attempts just made me cringe. Star Trek V was plagued with more than its fair share of budget cuts and production problems, but they can't be blamed for the fruitcake script and swiss cheese story. Shatner, who directed, often takes the blame, and though his direction is the least of this movie's problems it's part of a director's job to take responsibility for the end result. In this case, he should take more than one might otherwise think, since he's responsible for so much of the flaky story. This movie crashed and burned, pissing off the notoriously hard-to-disappoint Trek fans like they'd never been pissed before. If the entirety of the Trek franchise can be said to have jumped the shark, it would've been here. BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE