Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: William Shatner

Starring: The Shat and the rest of the expected crew. There's also the likes of David Warner and Laurence Luckinbill

From: Paramount

This is up a little late, but I was literally getting ready for my vacation, which will begin in a few hours. This is actually what I watched last night. It's not atrocious and yet it's so slight and inconsequential, it's not something that really needs to even be seen. I talk all about it below: 

In a few hours, I'll be off on vacation for Christmas, as has been customary the past few years. I've been busy with getting ready for the trip; thus, that is why this review is going up at such an odd hour, at least for me. I'll wish everyone a Happy Holidays. I might post a review of something while I'm gone, but it literally depends on what the family wants to watch. Things will be back to normal for me in about a week's time.

I know, what a film to see before you leave. I did watch this once before, but that was shortly after it came out on VHS. Yes, it was many years ago. Even as a 10 year old or so, I know I did not enjoy this as much as the first four movies in the franchise, although I couldn't have articulated why at the time. I was dreading seeing this again; I put it off for awhile. Finally, I decided to bite the bullet. This isn't unwatchable; it's just dull and totally forgettable.

While the movie is about more than just literally trying to “find God”, bringing up religion like that in a bold manner in the Star Trek universe just seems like a bad idea. So is having the villain be a Vulcan New Age hippy who can read minds and tries to help people ease the pain in their lives. I understand that Shatner wanted the villain to be a televangelist type character, and that idea isn't awful. Things changed by the time they started filming. Another problem is trying to be as glib and amusing as The Voyage Home while telling a story where-among other things-Bones deals with his grief over his father passing away... it doesn't work. You have that while you have Scotty do a pratfall and mid 50's Uhura does a “sexy dance” as a distraction; what a mess. The movie isn't that funny and it does stupid things such as sending a barely working Enterprise to deal with an important situation because of Captain Kirk; they couldn't have had the Enterprise crew get on a ship that was fully operational...???

What didn't help matters was that Paramount left first time movie director Shatner (of course William would have Captain Kirk literally climb a mountain with no harnesses or support) out to dry. They did not give the movie much money so it always looks cheap and the special effects... ooh boy. Some of them look really bad in HD. The Shat wished to go back and properly fix those effects in a new edition of the movie but as I imagine Paramount would like to forget everything revolving around this movie, they declined.

At least the famous cast of characters is there and the new people are fine. Thank goodness Sean Connery wasn't Sybok as originally planned, as he couldn't have helped make this any better. But it's obvious at times that this was heavily edited down and you should probably be like Paramount and pretend this doesn't exist. Sure, you don't get to find out why God needs a starship, but you also don't get to see some beloved pop culture figures sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, nor see a hellhole ironically called Paradise City, where the grass isn't green and the girls aren't always pretty...