Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

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Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Directed by William Shatner
Produced by Harve Bennett
Written by (story and screenplay) David Loughery
(story only)
William Shatner
Harve Bennett
Based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Starring See table
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Andrew Laszlo
Editing by Peter E. Berger
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 9, 1989
Running time 107 min.
Language English
Budget $27,800,000
Preceded by Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Followed by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
IMDb profile

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Paramount Pictures, 1989) is the fifth feature film based on the 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 concocted the initial storyline. The film is noteworthy for being widely panned by critics and is regarded as the cinematic nadir of the franchise by many Star Trek fans and observers alike. The film is frequently referred to as "The One with Row, Row, Row Your Boat" by Star Trek fans, in reference to the previous film's nickname of "The One with the Whales."

Contents

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
William Shatner Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy Captain Spock
DeForest Kelley Commander (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
Todd Bryant Captain Klaa
Spice Williams Vixis
Cynthia Gouw Caithlin Dar

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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 their rest is interrupted when the crew is sent on an urgent mission to rescue hostages on a desolate planet called Nimbus III.

A Klingon commander named Klaa learns of the Enterprise's mission and pursues so that he can capture or kill Kirk. His actions are not authorized by the Klingon government, however, and he takes this quest on merely to obtain personal prestige as a warrior.

Upon their arrival at Nimbus III, the Enterprise crew discovers that a renegade Vulcan named Sybok, the emotionally-driven half-brother of Spock, has taken Klingon, Romulan and Federation representatives hostage. Sybok reveals that he used the hostage situation as a ruse in order to obtain passage onto the Enterprise.

Sybok uses his unique ability to share with and help conquer a person's greatest emotional trauma to gain the trust of most of the crew. Sybok 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 awaits. Sybok claims to have had visions from the entity of its existence, and feels compelled to follow those visions in order to experience the entity's possible wisdom and power first-hand. However, the planet is somewhere behind the Great Barrier, a mysterious region of space that has been walled-off from exploration since time immemorial and never breached (the "final frontier" of the title).

The Enterprise successfully crosses the Great Barrier and finds a planet in the uncharted region of space. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Sybok explore the planet, which seems completely barren until a strange outcropping of rocks rises from the ground in front of them and an entity appears to them. Masquerading as God, the entity asks the explorers how they got there. When told about the Enterprise, it demands passage aboard the ship in order to leave both the planet and the Great Barrier. When the skeptical Kirk questions the entity's motivation ("What does God need with a starship?"), it turns malevolent.

Realizing his mistake, Sybok sacrifices himself to delay the evil being long enough to allow Spock to convince the Klingon ambassador to order Klaa (who followed the Enterprise into the Barrier and to the planet) to rescue Kirk rather than kill him).


[edit] Notes

Shatner wanted acclaimed novelist Eric Van Lustbader to write the screenplay, but Lustbader and Paramount were unable to work out a financial agreement. Nicholas Meyer, writer/director of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and writer of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, was then offered the writing job. He had to turn down the offer because he was busy directing another film at the time, leaving fans only to wonder what would have come of a Meyer-penned Star Trek V.

William Shatner's original storyline for the movie was largely identical to the final film although darker in tone, until the actual confrontation on the God planet. Instead of an alien masquerading as God, it is actually revealed that Satan was an alien. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (the latter two actually having succumbed to Sybok's brainwashing) begin to run in different directions. Spock and McCoy are surrounded by an army of the Furies of Hell, demonic beings summoned by Satan. Kirk risks his life and goes back to save them, but McCoy has been carried back across the river Styx into Hell. The two rescue him, and the film follows the basic outline from there on out, with the exception of the image of "God" following Kirk to the Klingon Bird-of-Prey.

One of the frequent criticisms of the film is the humor that was shoehorned into the script (written by Harve Bennett and David Loughery), at the insistence of Paramount.[citation needed] The initial storyline by William Shatner was 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 romantically involved. However, much of the humor is also at the expense of the main characters (including Kirk).

Another criticism of the film is the special effects.[citation needed] The best effects house at the time was Industrial Light and Magic, which were used for most of the earlier Trek films, but were unavailable because of their work on the second and third Back to the Future films. It was also reported in publications at the time (e.g. Starburst magazine) that the effects requirements were so huge that ILM "priced themselves out of the market." Instead, the crew went with a much smaller company, Associates & Ferren. A common error frequently pointed out by fans is that the Enterprise-A is shown to have at least 78 decks—this would easily make it the largest ship in the history of the fleet. Shatner's newest book states that ILM's "A-Team " was working on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade while the "B-team" was working on Ghostbusters II. This led to a small company out of Hoboken, NJ, being in charge of the picture. Shatner claimed that this limited what he could do as far as extravagant effects, like hordes of warriors, a Powers of Ten opening shot, multiple rock monsters and demons in the final scene, and as a result many effects were cut due to budget restrictions.

The original end of the movie involved Kirk being chased by a rock monster hewn from the rocky terrain. This footage was scrapped when William Shatner decided that the costume looked unconvincing. Because of budget problems and delays partly caused by the expense of the costume, Shatner was unable to re-film sequences and ended up having to re-use shots of the false god's face instead. Test footage of the rock monster appears in the 2003 special edition DVD release. (The idea of the "captain" being attacked and chased by a "rock monster" was later used humorously in the 1999 Star Trek spoof, Galaxy Quest.)

Following the success of the Director's Editions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 2002 and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and subsequent collector's edition DVD releases of the third and fourth films in the series, William Shatner lobbied Paramount to be allowed a budget to film new special effects sequences and otherwise re-tool 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", and particularly disliked the idea that Sarek had fathered a child (Sybok) with a Vulcan female before Amanda. Roddenberry made similar statements about elements of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Nevertheless, both films are included in Trek canon.

[edit] Additional production information

  • 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.
  • The initial shots of Spacedock and the Enterprise were taken from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and several shots of the Bird of Prey were taken from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
  • Filming overlapped with that of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the sets of the Enterprise interior used in previous films had been significantly modified for the TV series. Familiar sets such as the curved corridors and transporter room are only seen briefly in this film, and are barely altered from how they appear on The Next Generation.
  • The communicators appear to be of much the same design as communicators from the original 1960s Star Trek episodes.
  • One of the full-size shuttlecraft built for this film was subsequently modified and regularly used on Star Trek: The Next Generation, solving the problem that a full-size shuttlecraft had never been budgeted to be built for the series, although stories frequently called for one.
  • For the scene where Cmdr. Uhura dances in the desert, Nichelle Nichols -- an accomplished singer and dancer -- performed the dance and planned to sing one of her own songs, the studio ultimately decided against it, and a song by the group Hiroshima was dubbed over instead. Nichols reported in her bio "Beyond Uhura" that this decision infuriated her.
  • This film is one instance of where James Doohan's missing finger is clearly visible, when Scotty is opening a bag of dinner that Uhura gives him around the beginning of the film.
  • One scene shows a Klingon vessel destroying a probe which has a picture of a man and woman holding hands on its side. It is Pioneer 10, an earlier real-life space probe.
  • Producer Harve Bennet makes a cameo appearance as "Admiral Bob" when he speaks to Captain Kirk over the viewscreen, explaining the captain's new assignment.
  • While Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country marked the final Trek film with the entire original series cast, Final Frontier is the last time the crew serve together on the same ship.
  • This is the first Star Trek movie not nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. All following Star Trek films except Star Trek: Nemesis would also be nominated, though none have won.
  • A mistake, which was made during the scene where Kirk was climbing El Capitan, made it through to the final cut. When he initially falls from the rock and when Spock catches him he is seen wearing a blue shirt, however while he is actually falling he can be seen wearing a black shirt.

[edit] External links

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v • d • e
Star Trek television series and feature films
Television series The Original Series (Eps)· The Animated Series (Eps)· The Next Generation (Eps) · Deep Space Nine (Eps)· Voyager (Eps) · Enterprise (Eps)
TOS-era Feature films The Motion Picture · The Wrath of Khan · The Search for Spock · The Voyage Home · The Final Frontier · The Undiscovered Country · Star Trek (planned release 2008)
TNG-era Feature films Generations · First Contact · Insurrection · Nemesis
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