Star Trek V: The Final Frontier--A Look Into Shatner's Psyche? (1989)

After a break, we're back, returning to the year that gave us Batman and Do The Right Thing...

 Star Trek. For fifty years, this series has been a defining staple of scifi television, going boldly to split infinitives like nobody has done before, exploring new realms of storytelling and new ways to slap rubber onto someone’s forehead and call it an alien. From the heights of spectacular serials like Best of Both Worlds to the criminally publically-overlooked Deep Space Nine, to the dire depths of Enterprise and, well, let’s face it, most of Voyager, nobody can deny the sheer scope the franchise has taken on over half a century. 

And then there were the movies, which also varied wildly in quality. So let’s look at one of the worst!

First, the context. In 1979, Trek launched itself onto the big screen with the imaginatively titled Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The effects budget gave us incredibly detailed ship models and amazing vistas of solar system-sized space clouds, but this was offset by the disco-themed uniforms and the, ah...deliberate pacing. I personally have a soft spot for this one—albeit for more specifically one of the less indulgent cuts—but things didn’t get off to a good start critically.

Afterwards, however, things were shuffled around. The budget was cut, allowing for more focus on the characters rather than exquisite peeks up the Enterprise model’s shiny backside, and director Nicholas Meyer came on to bring a fresh new perspective. What we got was one of the greatest scifi flicks of the eighties, and arguably of all time—namely, The Wrath of Khan. Incredibly tense space battles, a riveting villain performance from Ricardo Montalban that has him orgasming with evil most of the time, and a great emotional core that forced our dear Canadian captain, William Shatner, to genuinely act. It’s a rightful classic, and bought the film series onto the right track.

The following two, which together with Khan formed the renowned ‘Trek Trilogy’, weren’t as well received, but I still like ‘em. Master of eyebrow-raising, Leonard Nimoy, took on directing duties, starting with Search for Spock, which while not as impactful as Khan, still has some great moments, especially the happy but tear-inducing ending. 

The subsequent Voyage Home is a rare example of Trek doing comedy that doesn’t want to make you impale yourself on a Klingon blade, allowing the entire cast to shine and embracing the fish out of water story in eighties San Francisco with gusto. Overall, these three films provide a satisfying overarching story with top-notch emotional climaxes, Montalban and Christopher Lloyd providing fun villains, and of course, spaceships ‘splodin’. So, how could they top that?

They didn’t. Five years after Voyage Home wrapped up the story, Shatner himself took on the reins of directing. Now, in case you haven’t seen it, here’s Shatner acting. 

Now imagine him directing. Are the shivers of horror creeping up your spine yet?

The storyline is…something. The central conflict is Spock’s hitherto unmentioned half-brother, Sybok, stirring up trouble on the apparent craphole central planet of the galaxy, Nimbus. As we learned 30 years later in Discovery, Spock has a lot of half-siblings he doesn’t like to talk about apparently. And so we meet our hero, who the film makes absolutely sure to center entirely around  as opposed to the rest of the loser cast who dared to get their own highlights last time, namely Shatner as Kirk—literally farting around in the woods on vacation. 

There’s some vague attempt for Kirk to get a theme of getting old, but it’s not a patch on how it was done in Khan. Anyway, Starfleet, having nobody better to toss out into space, gets Kirk’s ass out there to sort out Sybok from making a crappy planet even crappier. For some reason, even the Enterprise has spontaneously become a pile of crap, with malfunctions aplenty, and even in one scene seemingly manifesting more decks than could possibly fit inside. 

This theme of everything in the future being crap seems to be the most permeating one—it feels like Shatner took the feel of the prior films, which could be accessed on several levels by a common audience, and went “Screw that! I need…stripper cat people…Nichelle Nichols doing a sexy dance…and the Enterprise is…now…designed by…Ikea!” Because his way is so much better, mature, and realistic, y’see. But, would you know it, the theme of everything being crap just leads to a film that’s crap.

Oh, and you think I may be kidding about fifty-something Nichelle Nichols as Uhura doing a sexy dance for very flimsy reasons. I’m not. I wish I wasn’t. Nor do I want to know what Shatner’s priorities were here. 

Anyway, Sybok ends up basically taking over the Enterprise and brainwashing the crew through…I don’t know, some voodoo scientology psychic bull about inner pain. As it transpires, it turns out Sybok wants to go and use the Enterprise to travel to the center of the galaxy and meet God. I don’t know why he has to go that far, as going from the TV show you have godlike beings hiding under every other rock, but there you have it. And so, Kirk finds himself on his own, besides for Spock, as he gets pulled along. Shatner is apparently trying to convey that only he is worth a damn, and all his co-stars are perfidious assholes willing to jump along with the first snake oil salesman (read: an actual decent director). 

Of course, they end up making the journey, and find out that God is indeed real—well, sort of. He’s some sort of powerful alien masquerading as God, or something, as Kirk finds out through one of the actually genuinely memorable lines in the film. 

After that, ‘God’ turns into a hilariously composited floating head that goes around shooting remarkably puny lasers. If it sounds really stupid, it’s because it is. The timeless effects of the prior films are gone here, as ILM was busy doing better things, and as such aren’t that far off from the actual sixties show. Eventually, Spock saves the day in a Klingon vessel (yeah, there’s some subplot about a Klingon captain pursuing the crew, but you’ll be forgiven for forgetting it). Nevertheless, the subtext of Shatner’s psyche is clear—he is not God. He is, in fact, bigger than God, and everyone around him needs to be cognizant of that fact. As such, with the crew no doubt fully aware that they pale in comparison to their Canuck supreme leader, we end with Kirk resuming his camping trip as if absolutely nothing happened. 

And for all intents and purposes, nothing almost did. This film is ignored by almost all other pieces of Trek media, and a few years later, the original crew got their real sendoff in the Undiscovered Country, with Meyers returning to the director’s chair. While very heavy on the allegories to the end of the Cold War, it’s still great fun, with Christopher Plummer being absolutely joyous as a Shakespeare-quoting Klingon bad guy. It thankfully washed out the taste of Final Frontier and gave the Original Series movies a nice cap. 

But is Final Frontier the worst Star Trek film? In my opinion…no, not quite. You see, as spectacularly idiotic as this film is, with relentless awkwardness, bad effects, and bizarre performances, there’s a certain amusing charm deep down under it. It’s stupid, but stupid enough that you keep watching to see how the trainwreck ends up. 

And that brings us to the subsequent Trek films, focused around the cast of The Next Generation, starting with, well, Generations. I don’t think it’s as bad as some say, but it definitely could’ve and should’ve been much better, for something that had Shatner and Patrick Stewart team up. First Contact was another great one, even if it recycled some of the themes of Khan, but was followed by, in my opinion, the worst Star Trek film—Insurrection. To put it as succinctly as possible, it’s boring, boring, boring, with a really contrived conflict, a feel more akin to an extended TV episode, forgettable villains, and incredibly lame space spectacle. Final Frontier is, at least, not boring, though more in a bewildering sense. 

“Oh, but Nemesis! Into Darkness! Those are surely far worse!” some fans might say to me. To which I respond that Nemesis at least felt like a movie and, despite the possibly even more idiotic plot, had some half-decent spectacle. The JJ Abrams films had their flaws (though I’ll get to those another time), but the same basic thing applies. In my opinion, the only true sin any piece of entertainment can make is to be boring. As such, despite hairy cat-strippers, despite Nichols being forced to show her wrinkly thighs, despite a cutout of ‘God’ floating about and shooting lasers…Final Frontier is not the worst Star Trek film, in my opinion. It’s only, ooh, second or third worst?

And so, we end our cosmic voyage of discovery into laughable crap. The lesson we must take here is that if you’re going to be a really stupid movie, be a memorably stupid movie. And, for the love of God, keep Shatner to directing his hair stylist than directing behind a camera.