Posted by Shawn M. on Jul 3rd, 2007
Today, we’ll take a look at The Final Frontier.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Released June 9th, 1989
Directed by William Shatner
The movie opens on a barren, sandy world — the Planet of Galactic Peace, we are told. A resident of this world, looking very rough around the edges, notices somebody approaching on the horizon. Readying his firearm, he halts the stranger. But the stranger speaks to him, of pain and understanding. With a smile, the resident lowers his weapon, placing all of his trust in the stranger. Then, the stranger removes his hood, revealing the iconic pointed ears of the Vulcan race. Then, he does something very un-Vulcan like — he laughs, a deep, bellowing laugh.
Cut the the steep cliffs of the El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, where Captain Kirk is spending some well-deserved shore leave by mountain climbing. After a conversation with Spock (aided by rocket-boots) and a near-disasterous fall (Spock saves his live by catching him with the aid of the rocket boots), the two friends and Dr. “Bones” McCoy settle down in front of the camp fire for a rousing round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. But it looks like the vacation is about to be cut short — there’s trouble somewhere in the universe, and only the Enterprise and her crew can save the day.
The Enterprise — rebuilt, but not yet battle ready — is dispatched to the Planet of Galactic Peace. It seems our mysterious stranger from before has kidnapped that world’s Human, Klingon, and Romulan ambassadors. The Enterprise arrives in orbit, and Kirk and his team beam down to take care of business.
Despite Commander Uhura’s sexy dancing, the crew is unsuccsessful. They find that the three ambassador’s have been working with the Vulcan stranger, seemingly victims of his ability to brainwash people. We find out that the kidnapping was an elaborate plot to lure a starship to the planet, so that the stranger may use it as he wishes.
There’s something odd going on, though — Spock knows this stranger. In a development that would make most soap-opera writers proud, we learn that this stranger is none other than Spock’s half-brother, Sybok — up until this point never referred to, but explained by a simple line from Spock (”It wasn’t relevent to discuss him in all our years together”, to paraphrase him). Sybok wants a starship to travel to the fabled planet of Sha Ka Ree, the location of ultimate knowledge in Vulcan mythology — or, in other words, God Himself. The only problem is that Sha Ka Ree is located beyond the Galactic Barrier at the center of the galaxy, and starships usually can’t make it past the radiation and other cosmic funkiness there.
Sybok manages to “brainwash” the crew, sans Kirk and Spock, and they head towards the galaxy’s center. They manage to break the Barrier and soon find Sha Ka Ree. Kirk’s curiosity gets the better of him, and even though he’s given control of the ship back by Sybok, he decides to go down to the planet to check things out. Spock, Bones, Kirk, and Sybok go planetside, and after a bit of exploring, find “God”.
“God” explains that he is pleased to have been found, but needs their ride. “But why does God need a ship?” Kirk asks, smelling a cosmic rat. “God” then starts blasting people, and then Sybok realizes his folly. He sacrifices himself so that the old men of the Enterprise will have enough time to escape. After a chase, the Klingons (who have been following the Enterprise in hopes of pwning Kirk, but really didn’t pose that much of a threat so far) decloak and blow the ever-loving snot out of this alien entity, as commanded by the Klingon ambassador.
And like so many fairy tales, everybody lived happily ever after.
The Good: Here’s the skinny — people often say that this is the worst of the Trek films, and this just baffles me. Sure, it’s not perfect, but the worst? Give me a break! TFF continues a strong trend throughout the Trek movies, and that is expanding the characters beyond simple two-dimensional space heroes. The scenes where Kirk, Bones, and Spock talk about growing older are brilliant. These are men coming to grips with their age and the fact that they aren’t the spry young men of their youth. The underlying theme of this movie, as well as the past few, is the friendship, the aging, and the bond between the crew. It’s subtle, and you really have to know these characters to pick up on it, but this film really nails that theme in the early scenes.
Sybok, while the antagonist in this film, is clearly not a bad guy. While his introduction and relation to Spock may be a bit of a stretch, you can understand why he does the things he does. And at the end, when he realizes his error, you can feel his remorse. It’s genuine, and he is truly sorry for the ordeals he put the men he considers his friends through. He is not a man who wishes destruction, like Khan, or bloodshed, like the Klingons. He just wants what we all want in life — answers. While the way he went about obtaining the means to seek these answers may not be totally justifiable, you cannot help but feel for him. You actually want him to realize his goal, just so you yourself can see what he believes to be true.
The Bad: Unless I’m missing something, Sybok’s ability to brainwash people is never really explained, nor is it something that’s usually attributed as a Vulcan ability. At best, we can consider it has a plot device to make things fall into place. The journey to the Galactic barrier should’ve taken a considerable amount of time to reach, as the very edge of the barrier is thousands of light years from Federation space — even at warp, it’s a journey that should have taken them many years to reach. Kirk’s hatred of the Klingons seems to have been forgotten, especially when they play an important role near the end. And lastly, and this is what really brings the film down, is Shatner’s direction. While a great actor (don’t laugh, he is), his turn behind the camera is kind of rough. Scenes aren’t as tight and well-shot as previous films. Though, to be fair, this could be attributed to how the film was edited and cut, a process that Shatner didn’t have control over.
Final Rating: B-. Not great, but definitely not the worst. It reminded me a lot of The Wrath of Khan in spots, as it has a good mix of action and character development in it. This one is definitely for the dedicated Trek fans, as you really need to understand the characters to get the full effect of this movie. If this movie was handled by somebody like Nicholas Meyer or Leonard Nimoy, it could have been epic. As it is, it’s either a love it or hate it film. Personally, I like it, and am still confused why it gets the hate it does. I mean, it’s not a total slap in the face that Nemesis was!
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Devin de Gruyl
July 3, 2007 at 9:35 am
As far as Sybok’s “brainwashing” ability goes, I always just assumed it was a built-in feature of the well-established mind meld, but one that was forbidden to be used by Vulcan mores. Whereas a typical Vulcan would be content to “look but do not touch” when traipsing around in someone else’s mind, Sybok would see “problems” that needed “fixing” in there, and would not hold back in attempting to do so. So I wasn’t too chaffed that we didn’t get an explicit explanation in the film as to how he was able to do it, since my brain was able to fill in the blanks enough to present a passable theory for it.
And thank you for illustrating what I always felt were the good points of this movie, which I honestly believe is probably the best illustration of the Kirk-Spock-Bones trinity ever committed to film. Because the rest of V is so nigh-universally reviled, this is often overlooked.
As an old-school TOS fan, I’m amazed that more people haven’t commented on the notion that V is really a remake of the third-season “classic” (by which I mean, one of the worst episodes of the entire series), “The Way to Eden.” Think about it: Enterprise crew encounters a religious zealot and his followers, one of whom is a surprising relation to one of the bridge crew (Sybok is Spock’s half-brother; one of Dr. Sevrin’s “space hippies” proves to be Chekov’s younger sister). The ship is hijacked by the leader of the cult, and put on course to a planet he believes to be Paradise. Despite Kirk’s best efforts, the Enterprise arrives at this planet, upon which the leader is completely shocked to learn it is anything but the Paradise he was promised.
The only thing I really hated about V was the ending, which looks like it was patched together from existing footage at the very last minute. And surprise, surprise, that’s exactly what happened (I assume you know the story of the “Rockman” costume and its expensive failure). I suppose Shatner et al should at least be happy they salvaged something out of that mess, but this is probably the one point in the Trek film franchise where you can see the “spit and chewing gum” holding everything together.
I wholeheartedly agree, this is far from the worst of the ten films. But actually, I don’t even think Nemesis was the worst either, but it’s a very close call! I actually give that dishonor to Insurrection, but I’ll hold off on my reasoning there for when you get to that wonderful thing…
[Reply]
Shawn M.
July 3, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I too thought Sybok’s brainwashing ability was an offshoot of the mind meld, but I noticed that when he presented the vision of Bones’ father to him, Sybok never touched him. But then again, you could also assume that Sybok has rejected traditional Vulcan teaching, it could be a technique learned from another culture.
I’ve heard the Rockman story. If it ever made it to film, it sounded like it would be perfect MST3K material.
Insurrection was pretty terrible, I’ll give you that. Just based on a few of Data’s lines, it deserves a place at the bottom of the barrel. But I’ll save my opinions on that film for later.
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