No Good Very Bad Movies Countdown 4: The one that's the worst Trek movie

 

 Title: Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier

What Year?: 1989

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: Guinnocent!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

With this review, I’m up to 30 for this feature, dedicated to the actual worst movies. As it happens, what I’ve been ready to vent about is what really happens when I find a movie that I deem actually too bad to review, something that has happened even with material under consideration here. The thing that’s hard to explain is that few if any are much worse than the ones I have reviewed (Ingagi already broke through that subbasement); the real difference is what I can work with. Most of the ones I pass over are, as I have ranted before, are so obviously incompetent that I simply spare them. The less benign are the ones that are too muddled to offer a message or point to comment on. Then there is a remnant of films that are just so dull and irritating that I won’t go back for sustained analysis even to complain about them. You could call it my secret pain, and that’s as good an introduction as any to a film anyone following me this long probably knew was coming, Star Trek 5, or Kirk Vs. God.

Our story begins with a Messianic figure with pointy ears on a desert planet where the only tech seems to be improvised weapons. We then catch up with Captain Kirk, roughing it in the wilderness with Spock and McCoy when they are summoned for an important mission: A revolt has broken out on the desert planet, revealed as a “planet of galactic peace” where the Federation’s idealism has gone more awry than usual, and a Federation diplomat is among the hostages. Rather than assign the job to a captain that’s already out there, or give Captain Kirk a lesser vessel that presumably works, he’s sent out on the new Enterprise, which even Mr. Scott admits is barely ready for a shakedown cruise. Kirk and the crew still handily defeat the rebels, only to be double-crossed by the hostages. He’s handed over to the Messiah, a heretical Vulcan named Sybok who has reverted to emotion and religion. But capturing a starship is just a stepping stone on a greater quest to travel to the dangerous galactic core, to a planet that he believes to be Eden- and just maybe the home of God!

Star Trek V: The Final  Frontier was a 1989 science fiction/ adventure film from Paramount, directed by William Shatner. The choice of Shatner to direct was reportedly the result of an earlier agreement reached after Nimoy directed the previous two films. The story, partially credited to Shatner, had similarities to the original series episode “The Way To Eden” and unused concepts developed for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  The film starred Shatner and other series cast, with David Warner (see Cross Of Iron) as the Federation ambassador. The role of Spock’s half-brother Sybok was reportedly offered to Sean Connery, before being given to Laurence Luckinbill. The soundtrack was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, returning for the first time since the original film. The film suffered numerous difficulties in production, including a wider screenwriters’ strike, budget cuts, and the withdrawal of ILM due to other commitments. The film was released in mid-1989, with the best opening weekend in the franchise history up to that point, but its box office declined in the face of poor reviews and criticism from fans, with a final gross of $63 million against a $33M budget. Shatner has continued to direct for film and television, including the 2012 “Trekkie” documentary Get A Life.

For my experiences, this is a film I absolutely remember seeing in the theater, and for kid me, it didn’t really make that strong an impression. I usually laughed at the clearly intentional jokes, I was moderately intrigued by its concept, and as far as I can remember, I liked Sybok. In all the time since, what has kept me fascinated is the vast lore of just how much went wrong this one, which by all accounts is literally everything. With time, the backstory has become more fascinating than the film itself could ever have been, to me on the level of Greek tragedy. It’s obvious from the final product that Shatner wasn’t ready to direct a feature film, and he had nobody but himself to blame for getting there. On the other hand, once he showed his heroic hubris, the studio gods clearly and actively did everything possible to set him up to fail on an epic and hilarious scale. It’s all the beauty of a 12-car pile-up, and that still leaves the film itself to consider.

Moving to the film itself, this is really the kind of film that gets hard for me to work with. If there’s anything to say in its defense off the bat, it’s that the most genuinely nonsensical elements of the story are already at “noise level” for the franchise. The actions of Starfleet and the cast are no more or less irrational than usual, to the point of repeating several plot holes I ranted about way back when I was roughing up Trek 3. What’s more problematic that Sybok’s plan doesn’t really check out, either. He doesn’t do anything with the Enterprise that he couldn’t hire a Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones to do for him. (Why the Hell weren’t they in the movies?) If he really needed Starfleet’s help, all he really needs is enough tithing converts to make the Federation pay attention. (Surprise, a franchise created by a 1960’s secular humanist is bad at religion and politics...) One more thing I find worthy of attention is the surprising level of humor, which I usually reckon a chronic weak point for the franchise and especially the original series. Here, there’s slapstick that’s for the kids at best, yet there’s also some very sophisticated satire, especially when Kirk talks back to the wrathful deity. Then there’s real insight into Kirk’s character when he counters Sybok’s mysticism, culminating in one of my favorite lines of the entire franchise, “I need my pain!”

On the con side, the obvious issue is simply that this film needed more money and definitely needed ILM’s talent, and considering that Wrath Of Khan only cost $12 million, the studio didn’t even get a bargain. The limitations when compared to the previous films are so stark that certain scenes look like they could literally have come from the original TV series. What’s all the more unfortunate is that some of these remain very effective, notably the Enterprise crossing the galactic barrier. By comparison, far too many of the “bad” effects, especially of the Klingon ships, are really only undone by wonky matte work and other quite subtle problems that break the “realism” without crossing back over into true stylization. The frustration factor peaks with the finale, which otherwise goes a long way to redeeming the film by sheer bonkers. It’s here that comparison with the original series is most starkly unfavorable. If you had told an old-school effects guy like Wah Chang to portray an angry god on a TV-episode budget, it might have looked “campy” even by ‘60s standards, but it could have worked, dammit, where this certainly does not. What twists the knife for me is that I can still “remember” the effects as far better than they really are, perhaps from a few fleeting moments that rise above the rest, which just goes to show that engaging the audience’s imaginations is better than all the money in the world.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with what are really a couple moments. After taking control of the Enterprise, Sybok gives a speech on the universal belief in a paradise he identifies with both Eden and a Vulcan tale of Shaka Ri, praising the value of emotion in the process. That sets off a discussion of a barrier around the core of the galaxy, which Kirk insists no ship can cross, even though the Enterprise went through pretty much the same thing leaving the galaxy in the original series. Skip forward just a little, and Kirk has made his way back to the captain’s ready room, only to find Sybok waiting. Sybok then gives a more intimate speech, asserting that the barrier is an illusion that he seems to think is created or given power by fear. In the process, he states that humans once believed the Earth was flat, but “Columbus proved it was round”. What I find vaguely fascinating is that I have personally read works from before the original series aired that disproved this piece of absolute nonsense. My “head canon” here is that the learned Vulcan certainly knows his history is off, but is still running with it for the rhetorical point. And that gives an unsettling angle on his character, undoubtedly sincere but still willing to fudge facts if it will dispel doubt.

In closing, what I come back to is the long-running question I opened with, what makes a movie “too bad” to review. On a certain level, the present movie has been a borderline case. By any objective criteria, it’s every bit as bad as people have said, I will even admit the “worst” of the Trek movies. Its obvious weaknesses, however, were a major reason why I looked elsewhere for review material, particularly in the further light of its established notoriety; for real insight on when and why the series went wrong, I looked deeper. At the same time, I absolutely did not accept that it was “worst” in terms of actual entertainment value. Just compare it to the other “odd” Trek movies I’ve had on the chopping block. It wasn’t a studio cash grab. It wasn’t preachy or formulaic. It wasn’t actually boring. To give my big rant (see my worst movies list), it wasn’t so completely unmemorable that kids like me grew up unaware of its very existence beyond the fact that the other movies started with Trek 2. It’s on that basis that I give it the “unrated” ranking, simply to denote a film that is more than the sum of its limitations. With that, I can call it a night.

Image credit Simon And Schuster.