9-25-2017

Defending The Truth: Star Trek V Is Awesome

By Fred Topel

With Star Trek: Discovery making Trekkers decide if they need a new Star Trek badly enough to pay for CBS’s streaming app, Defending the Truth is here to say maybe the Trek you need was there all along. While conventional wisdom says that the odd numbered Star Trek movies suck, Search for Spock and Generations better than their reputations, and here’s the kicker. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is awesome. This is likely the only Trek V defense you’ll ever read, including from William Shatner himself, but let the record show it’s a great standalone Trek.



Sure, Shatner’s directorial debut (save for a batch of T.J. Hooker episodes) wasn’t the epic he set out to make. Budget cuts show, but taken on its own, this is a great vehicle for the original Enterprise crew. In case you’ve shut it out of your memory, Star Trek V is the one where Spock’s half-brother Sybok hijacks the Enterprise to look for God. But what they actually find beyond the final frontier, man oh man...

First of all, Star Trek V is Shatner unleashed. Since Shatner was directing, there was no one to tell Shatner the actor to pull back, or to cut his most extravagant moments in post. Kirk's disgust when he hears Sybok's plan begins a string of scenes where Kirk responds in exasperation. When he has to lower shields in the presence of Klingons, he starts to lose it. Kirk seems to have a harder time understanding the Spock family tree than the audience did. Shatner goes big, and fans of Captain Kirk should embrace a performance so overconfident it leads by pure conviction.





Sybok goes crew member by crew member and removes their most painful memories, which we see acted out dramatically. Those are powerful scenes, and when Kirk declares he will not give up his painful memories, that is the essence of Star Trek. Take out the God Planet story and you’ve got a solid philosophical Star Trek episode. Maybe it only needed 60 minutes to deal with a metaphysical question like this and answer it thusly. Would you give up your most traumatic past if you were able? No, because you need that heartache or mistake or error in judgement to be the righteous person you’ve become.

Star Trek V is a great example of the Enterprise crew united. Granted, it’s twice demonstrated by having the gang sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” but this is an adventure that utilizes the whole Enterprise as a unit. Of course on episodic TV, individual crew members can have their own episodes to give the other actors a lighter load. When you only get a movie every two or three years, you don’t want to see anyone sidelined. Even the beloved Voyage Home separates the crew into teams that go on their own mini-adventures, and the recent Star Trek Beyond literally separates them as a plot point.





The God Planet may not have been the best visual execution of the concept. This was 1989. CGI for film wouldn’t be truly mastered for two more years, and certainly not on an ‘80s Star Trek budget. However, the core idea of a face in a planet was a good one. How good was it? Well, did you see Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2? This summer’s big Marvel movie ended with Star-Lord fighting a planet. At one point, the planet takes on Ego’s face. Granted, Guardians is automatically superior because it’s Kurt Russell’s face, not some other dude’s, but perhaps you have Shatner’s big ideas to thank for that

If that’s trying too hard to make lemonade out of Romulan Ale, then just watch Star Trek V: The Final Frontier from the point of view of Shatner unleashed, the metaphysical question and the crew unity. See if that works. If the rinky-dink FX are really a deal breaker, be glad they at least cut the rock monsters.

Images: Paramount