Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier
Every major movie franchise sooner or later gets to their ābadā entry. Star Wars had it with Phantom Menace. Indy Jones did it in most peopleās eyes with Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Rocky finally fell with both parts 5 and 6. And yes, even the beloved Star Trek Series and their original crew would meet their Waterloo as well, though they can be commended for also getting a full 5 films into the run before it happened as parts 1 to 4 were all at least very solid in their own way (even the much unfairly maligned Star Trek 1, which copied its basic premise from 2001 but at least did so with some flair and style). When it came time to do up Star Trek 5 in 1989, again we would have behind the scenes drama influence the final product as star William Shatner had looked on at all the accolades that Leonard Nimoy had soaked up for the admittedly fine jobs he had done directing on both Parts 3 and 4 and practically demanded that he be given the directorās chair here in order to show everybody what heās got as well. And many say that despite being under enormous time and money constraints Shatner was actually an enjoyable director to work with, even earning the praise of his longtime nemesis / co star George Takei for the smoothness of their onset interactions. And really thatās where the good stuff ended, because as stated the film turned out to be a rushed production, with Shatner not being allowed to do the special effects work that he had wanted (including the ending), resulting in looking to many peopleās eyes as though the film had a very rough, shoddy feel to it, but the real core problem came with the story itself, originally outlined by Gene Roddenberry for the first film but rejected by the studio for obvious reasons, as it depicted the crew of The Enterprise encountering a mysterious entity which appeared to be God, and then destroying it with extreme prejudice, keeping in mind the little known fact that Roddenberry himself was pretty much a kook, an atheist, and a drug addict whose actual creative input after the original showās first season eventually became less and less pronounced thanks to the studios truly seeing him for what he is, but the similar story that Shatner ran with (and which Roddenberry approved) had to make some people apprehensive at the outset, as it involves a renegade Vulcan (Laurence Luckinbill, a good actor with a curiously limited selection of actual filmed work) who has disavowed all Vulcan notions of emotional repression and logic, embracing instead the fundamentals of thinking with your heart (which led to him being banned off Vulcan) and really more resembling a hippie cult leader refashioned into a kind of congenial Trek villain. More importantly, he has perfected his own particular brand of Vulcan mindmeld, using the technique instead to āfreeā the personās mind from whatever their greatest pain might be so that they would now have āno fearā, which might sound great on the brochure but which really turns people into mindless minions who now follow his every command. When Luckinbill and his followers invade a remote town on an outpost planet and take three important diplomats (including David Warner who is one of the greatest character actors ever in an absolutely nothing role) hostage, this leads to The Enterprise flying out to save the day as we endure an uninspired mockery of the famous Star Wars cantina scene, Uhura doing a sexy striptease as some kind of a decoy, and one of the most sloppily shot battle scenes ever before Kirk And Company are dismayed to find that the diplomats have all been āconvertedā and help take them prisoner instead, leading to Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura all being āreleasedā as well (and immediately betraying their Captain and committing mutiny even as we are told that they do so by their own free will) before nearly an hour into the film Luckinbillās hippie Vulcan finally announces his intentions: To fly The Enterprise beyond āThe Great Barrierā where he believes that there is a planet whereā¦wellā¦God is located and that he wishes to meet Him and gain from His wisdom. Now somebody in the upper offices at Paramount Pictures just had to know that this was a completely crackpot idea that was doomed to fail at the box office (which it did), but with Roddenberry and Shatner both insisting that it was the creative direction that they wished to go in, maybe that was why the budget was made to be so limited (less than even Star Trek 1 which was nine years before) and Shatner was reportedly kept on somewhat of a short leash as director. But there is possibly an even bigger problem on display here (probably one which Shatner even nurtured on the set) which was in order to show just how silly and infantily āhumanā the beloved crew was, it seems that they were encouraged to amp up the level of goofy humor on hand, perhaps to show us just how much these characters are more like āreal peopleā than anyone ever knew. And as an experiment, it failed. It starts with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy camping out at Yosemite National Park and arguing around a campfire for five minutes as Bones gets drunk and Spock ponders the meaning of Row Row Row Your Boat. It continues with such bits as Uhura becoming so overly flirtatious with Scotty to the point of our (and his) discomfort, Sulu and Chekov getting lost in the woods at Yosemite, Chekov getting ahold of The Captainās chair as a decoy measure (and yet making a brilliant tactical move against an attacking Klingon Bird Of Prey) and worst of all Scotty (just bellyaching away the whole movie) out of nowhere suddenly hitting his head on a beam and flopping to the ground in a slapstick bit out of an old silent comedy, all while the āmechanical problemsā with The Enterprise result in an ongoing running gag about nothing ever seeming to work right onboard. Some of the filmās defenders (and there are a few) maintain that this was to illustrate and illuminate the love and camaraderie that this crew has for each other, when really the true lovefest film of the series that had seen the crew risk both their lives and careers for one of their own still remains Part 3: The Search For Spock. And thus, it crosses the line from something that the fans should find to be a treat into being overly personalized, sentimental dreck, with only Nimoy escaping unscathed with the plot development that Luckinbillās crazed renegade Vulcan is actually Spockās long lost brother and another son of Sarek (resulting in a wildly stupid sitcom style exchange amongst the three principals) which at least gives Nimoy some dramatic weight and an acting leg of some sort to stand on here. Likewise, Luckinbill is really NOT THAT BAD here either, playing up the mega charismatic evangelist type with his seemingly good intentions when it comes to playing a bad guy whoās not really all that bad, itās just that he wants to find God and embrace Him. Which brings us to THAT finale, as The Enterprise sails on into the barrier (pursued by a Klingon Bird Of Prey led by the wimpiest Klingon captain yet) and Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Luckinbill confront the so called Almighty, in reality thanks to 20/20 hindsight due to what we would learn on The Next Generation show, was not actually āGodā at all but rather an extremely powerful renegade Q being who had been banished there by the other Q for trying to overthrow them. But Roddenberry had not originally intended that of course, meaning for the whole encounter to be seen as a reinforcement of his own atheist beliefs being spoonfed to a mass audience via Star Trek while Shatnerās infinitely more interesting idea was to have the being not so much be God but actually Satan himself, with the final battle seeing Kirk suspended over a pit of Hell while fighting for his life, but this was axed over the aforementioned budgetary restraints, resulting instead in Kirk being chased by a giant floating face with lightning bolts shooting out of its eyes, with the film as a whole failing as being either an action packed space opera or as a philosophical sci fi piece. In the end it became thought of as being one of the worst films of the 80s, the only Star Trek film to be nominated for a slew of Razzie awards (with dual wins for Shatner as both Actor and Director as well as Worst Picture), and maybe the final proof that when the main actors get a little too much control over the creative direction of a movie franchise (Nimoyās āSave The Whalesā meme in The Voyage Home notwithstanding), you run the risk of running the entire thing right off the rails and alienating your fanbase in the process, as Paramount seriously considered shutting the whole operation down right here but thankfully instead gave the original cast a considerably much more graceful exit to the series with the next film that was to comeā¦
4/10