What was Star Trek V: The Final Frontier actually about? It’s a movie about family, religion, humanity, knowing oneself, and friendship. Or maybe it’s actually not about any of those things.
This week, all four members of the Shuttle Pod crew: Brian, Jared, Matt, and Kayla, report to the briefing room to break down one of Star Trek’s least beloved films. So, grab a bowl of marshmelons, strap on a pair of rocket boots, and share your pain with us. If you ask me — and you haven’t — I think this is a terrible idea…
Subscribe to Shuttle Pod: The TrekMovie.com Podcast on iTunes, Google Play Music and Pocket Casts!
So many mixed feelings about this one
i blame paramount.
they should have given V all the resources as a tentpole after ‘voyage home’.
a better final draft, decent effects shots and a fall release if they needed reshoots.
they should never have released it in that state during a crowded summer in ’89.
V is still the closest they got to the spirit of the 60s TOS episodes & for that alone, Goldsmiths towering score & the Kirk, Spock, McCoy character moments its one of the better movies (if you can ignore the weak VFX). All it needed was finished VFX (the ones in the movie were mainly tests apparently) & a little re-editing to be way better than the current version.
Totally agree.
Great character moments. Once in a while I’ll go back and wince through the cheesy special effects to re-live those. Sad there was the extra-overabundance of nonsense going on at Paramount at the time. Despite that I still enjoy it.
Wow, not even 3 minutes into the pod and a cheapshot comment at the Kelvin timeline….
unfortunately, I noticed that,too.
Star Trek V, dare I say it, has aged VERY gracefully. And Shatner deserves a ton of credit for bringing Jerry Goldsmith back to Trek.
Agree with you that age has been kind to Trek V. It looks well shot, and directed. I have always seen it as a harmless warm up for TUC.
Star Trek V has a lot of great moments.
Kirk: I thought I was going to die.
Spock: Not possible. You were never alone.
That gets me every time and my first thought after seeing Generations was, “He was right. For all intents and purposes, he died alone.”
I’ve thought the same thing every time I see Generations, Denny C. Kirk’s prophecy did come to fruition (albeit in a way many didn’t like). Even if his ‘death’ was considered throughout Starfleet history as saving the Ent-B, it still did.
Or McCoy letting his father die with dignity surely one of De Forrest’s finest & most powerful moments in the role!
‘don’t just stand there, god’s a busy man!’
‘I miss my old chair’
Honestly the moment in my tumblr post summarizes why I actually unironically enjoy Star Trek V. It’s actually like my fourth favorite of the Trek movies.
http://scifibrony.tumblr.com/post/87090137614
Spock’s line to Sybok, “You are my brother but you do not know me. I am no longer the outcast child you left behind those many years ago. Since that time, I have found myself, and my place. I know who I am. And, I cannot go with you.” To me, that is one of the greatest lines of the series, powerfully summing up Spock’s long journey and struggle with himself. I always was awestruck by the contrast in Spock in episodes like “The Enemy Within” and “The Naked Time”, with their references to how Spock’s two halves were constantly at war with each other, compared to the Spock we saw in TWOK who had integrated those same two halves together so perfectly. But it was never so eloquently and succinctly summed up as during that scene in the observation lounge in V.
Oh how I’d love to see a Director’s Version of V…
this movie is flawed but I do like it. that being said, one of the best lines in the whole film is a deleted scene: the Romulan Ambassador introduces herself to Korrd and Talbot, Korrd belches at her, to which she replies, “I expect that’s Klingon for ‘hello'”
Loved the planet scenes, at the end of the day glad the film was made and gave us a different view of the film series.
Think that Shatners story got watered down to this mess, plus the bad special effects did not help
BTW I didn’t like using the TNG motion picture music re hash but I loved this score
Deleted? I definitely remember that moment being in the film… but maybe they re-inserted it for TV broadcasts. The first time I watched this movie was on TV in the early/mid-nineties (and I taped it, so it was obviously also in the film the second, third, nth time I watched it)
I remember going to see this with my dad in the summer of 89′ when I was 12. I had wanted to see it on opening day but had to wait a little over a week to do so. I was so excited, because The Voyage Home was such a great experience in the theater, and I really thought this was going to be even better. How could it suck? Captain Kirk was directing it!
TNG still hadn’t grabbed me much. The second season was hit and miss at best and even though I watched and taped it every week, Star Trek to me was still Kirk and company. I also wanted to see what they were going to do with the Enterprise-A. Star Trek IV ended so positively, showing the crew reunited on a new Enterprise. I was excited to see what they were going to do. After all, they had nearly three years between IV and V.
I remember the opening scene and, when Sybock started laughing maniacally, thinking, “something doesn’t feel good about this”. However, I kept an open mind.
Scene after scene went by and I started to feel very uncomfortable. The humor was forced and really bad. The effects looked awful and the acting was really bad. The Enterprise was treated like a joke and the characters were treated just as badly. It felt like a cheap 80’s Golan Globus movie.
However, I still tried to get into the spirit of it and push ahead. “Maybe it’ll get better” I kept saying to myself. It had to!
It didn’t.
It was right at the turbo shaft climbing scene that I literally said to myself, “this is an uncomfortable movie. This is boring and bad.”
Literally, it is an uncomfortable movie. It is uncomfortable to watch and uncomfortable with itself. It makes no use of the progress and themes established in the earlier movies. It cheapens the characters to the point of being parody.
After the movie ended, i remember coming home and watching TNG. It was a repeat of “Unnatural Selection”.
I really thought Star Trek was dead.
Thankfully…
Season Three of TNG would turn things around and make Picard and company worthy successors to the Trek mantle and Nick Meyer would come back to fix the film series with “Star Trek VI: The Apology For Star Trek V”….I mean, “The Undiscovered Country”.