Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
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Template:Infobox Movie (2) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Paramount Pictures, 1989; see also 1989 in film) is the fifth feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series. It is often referred to as ST5:TFF or TFF. The film was directed by William Shatner, following two films directed by his co-star, Leonard Nimoy. Shatner also came up with the initial storyline.
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Plot summary
Following the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the crew of the USS Enterprise is enjoying some well-deserved shore leave. The newly-christened starship's shakedown cruise goes poorly and is in Earth Spacedock for repairs. In Yosemite, Captain James T. Kirk faces two challenges: climbing El Capitan and teaching camp fire songs to Captain Spock. Unfortunately the crew's rest is interrupted when the crew is sent on an urgent rescue mission on a desolate planet in the Klingon Neutral Zone called Nimbus III.
Once there, the Enterprise crew discovers that a renegade Vulcan with unusual mental abilities named Sybok, has taken Klingon, Romulan and Federation representatives hostage. He uses the hostage situation as a ruse in order to fulfill his obsessed vision of finding The Ultimate Knowledge.
Sybok, who is discovered to be Spock's half-brother, then seizes control of the Enterprise so he can breach a dangerous energy field known as The Great Barrier, to reach a mythical planet named Sha Ka Ree, where a mysterious entity (that could be God) awaits. Together, he and the crew begin to search for this mysterious planet.
To make matters worse, Klingon captain Klaa is set on killing Captain Kirk to make a name for himself.
Main cast
- William Shatner: Captain James T. Kirk
- Leonard Nimoy: Captain Spock
- DeForest Kelley Dr. Leonard McCoy
- James Doohan: Captain Montgomery Scott
- George Takei: Commander Hikaru Sulu
- Walter Koenig: Commander Pavel Chekov
- Nichelle Nichols: Commander Uhura
- David Warner: St. John Talbot
- Laurence Luckinbill: Sybok
Notes
This film is widely considered to be the weakest entry in the original Star Trek film series. In spite of the problems of this movie, many fans feel that the film stayed true to the original series and explored the friendship between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy better than any of the others.
One of the weaknesses of the film is the humor that had to be essentially shoehorned (often with poor results) into the script (written by Harve Bennett and David Lougherty), at the insistence of Paramount. The initial storyline by William Shatner was originally going to be much darker, but after the success of the humor-filled Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Paramount insisted that the story be "lightened up" with humorous elements. Fans complained that too much of the humor was at the expense of the popular supporting characters, particularly Uhura and Scotty, who the film strongly hints are somehow romantically involved.
Another weakness of the film is the special effects. The best effects teams at Industrial Light and Magic, who were used for most of the earlier Trek films, were unavailable due to their work on the second and third Back to the Future films. So instead the crew went with the much smaller company, Associates & Ferren. The special effects supervisor, Bran Ferren, publicly admitted he did not care about the quality of the effects work, and the end results were predictably poor.
The ending of the movie originally involved Kirk being chased by a creature hewn from the rocky terrain. This footage was scrapped when it was decided that the costume looked unconvincing. Due to budget cuts, Shatner was unable to refilm sequences and ended up having to use stock shots of the false god's face.
Following the success of the Director's Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 2002 and subsequent director's edition DVD releases of the second, third, and fourth films in the series, William Shatner lobbied Paramount to be allowed to film new special effects sequences and otherwise retool Final Frontier in order to improve the film. His request was rejected by the studio and the original release version was reissued instead.
Trek creator Gene Roddenberry jokingly considered elements of this film to be "apocryphal at best". He made similar comments concerning elements of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Exactly what Roddenberry objected to is uncertain, but there is speculation that he disliked the idea that Sarek had fathered a child with a Vulcan female before Amanda. Nonetheless, these movies remain part of Trek canon.
Trivia
- This film marks the first known appearance of the Starfleet marines, seen accompanying the Enterprise crew on their mission to save the hostages on Nimbus III.
- To explain the glaring contradiction of the USS Enterprise being able to reach the center of the galaxy, while later starships (in particular, the USS Voyager) would take decades to complete such a journey, the novel of Star Trek V indicated that Sybok was an engineering genius who had modified both the shields and engines of the Enterprise so that the trip to the center of the galaxy would only take a few days.
- The name of the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree was derived from the name of the actor originally sought for the role of Sybok: Sean Connery, who was unavailable because he was busy filming Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
External links
- Template:Imdb title
- Template:Memoryalpha article
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/MOV/005/index.html) at StarTrek.com
- Unofficial Star Trek V Information Page (http://www.geocities.com/phineasbg/st5.html)
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