STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

star trek V: the final frontier (1989) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   PG 

Running time   |   107 minutes

Released         |   9 June 1989 

cast

William Shatner ... Kirk
Leonard Nimoy ... Spock
DeForest Kelley ... McCoy
James Doohan ... Scotty
Walter Koenig ... Chekov
George Takei ... Sulu
Nichelle Nichols ... Uhura
Laurence Luckinbill ... Sybok
David Warner ... St. John Talbot
Charles Cooper ... Korrd
Cynthia Gouw ... Caithlin Dar
Todd Bryant ... Captain Klaa
Spice Williams-Crosby ... Vixis (as Spice Williams)
Rex Holman ... J'onn
​George Murdock ... God

director

William Shatner

writer

​Gene Roddenberry ... (creator: based on "Star Trek")
 
William Shatner ... (story) &
Harve Bennett ... (story) &
David Loughery ... (story)
 
David Loughery ... (screenplay)

cinematographer

​Andrew Laszlo ... director of photography

music

Jerry Goldsmith

film editor

​Peter E. Berger ... (as Peter Berger)

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​52,210,049

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​​52,210,049

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movie minutiae

​William Shatner's cut ran slightly over two hours (not including ending credits or the opticals), which Paramount thought was too long. Their target runtime was 1 hour, 45 minutes, which would guarantee twice-nightly theatrical screenings. Harve Bennett was handed the task of shortening the film's running time, despite Shatner's view that nothing could possibly be removed. Shatner was horrified by Bennett's edit, and the two haggled over what parts to restore or cut.

​Initially, William Shatner believed that the film would get a positive response. In the morning after the opening night, he woke Leonard Nimoy up to tell him that the Los Angeles Times had given the film a positive review. Soon after, a local television reporter also gave the film a good review, and Shatner recalled that he incorrectly "began sensing a (positive) trend". He later agreed that the film nearly ended the film franchise, and looking back on the film called it a "failed, but glorious attempt" at a thought-provoking film, that did not come together.

Final film voyage of the complete original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Although there would be one more film featuring the original cast, Sulu is no longer a member of the Enterprise crew in the next movie, STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991), being Captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior.

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related movies

STAR TREK VI:
​THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991)

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) MOVIE IMAGES

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STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) STORY SYNOPSIS

​The crew of the Federation starship Enterprise is called to Nimbus III, the Planet of Intergalactic Peace. They are to negotiate in a case of kidnapping only to find out that the kidnapper is a relative of Spock. This man is possessed by his life long search for the planet Shaka-Ri which is supposed to be the source of all life. Together they begin to search for this mysterious planet.

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 9 June 2015

​​Pop Movee Rating

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER is regarded as the weakest entry into the franchise that featured the cast from the original STAR TREK television series. After the success of STAR TREK IV at the box office, expectation was high from the studio that Harve Bennett could deliver another successful feature film. Between films four and five, however, STAR TREK had made its way back to television with the launch of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. For STAR TREK fans, despite some initial concerns, THE NEXT GENERATION gave them twenty-six free-to-air episodes during the year. By the time STAR TREK V was released, THE NEXT GENERATION was already approaching the start of its third season. This internal competition between feature film STAR TREK and its TV version was made more difficult for ‘The Final Frontier’ with the premiere of the new BATMAN feature film starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Debuting after BATMAN, STAR TREK V struggled to get any traction with audiences as Tim Burton’s film swept everything in its path.
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Many of the film’s challenges stem from its central premise … A rogue Vulcan ‘Preacher’ compels people to become part of his quest to find ‘Sha-Ka-Ree’ – the embodiment of spirituality believed to be at the centre of the universe. The Enterprise and her crew are called into action when Starfleet come to the belief that the Earth, Klingon and  Romulan Ambassadors of the Nimbus III colony have been taken hostage. The mission is complicated when it’s revealed that the rogue Vulcan is Spock’s half-brother, Sybok!

There are so many things wrong with the STAR TREK V story that it’s hard to remain objective. It should have been clear to anyone reading the script that STAR TREK had evolved with the previous three feature films and that audiences wanted to see stories that focussed on the seven principal cast members; not for them to be relegated to spectators as a charlatan takes over their ship by brain-washing everyone except Kirk. Much of what is going on in the screenplay appears to be driven by William Shatner, who came up with the story and also served as Director on the film. This came about due to the arrangement that Shatner had negotiated for his participation in STAR TREK IV and that was, whatever Leonard Nimoy got to do, Shatner got to do as well. The problem with allowing Shatner to direct the film was that the rest of the cast were not terribly enthusiastic about their leading man at the best of times, so having to take direction from him was going to take all of the acting skill they could muster. 

None of the other cast members ever openly denigrated STAR TREK V, but some of the scenes must have gotten under their skin … The most embarrassing of these was James Doohan’s ‘Scotty’ having to knock himself out on a bulk-head after being given the line “I know this ship like the back of my hand”. In the scheme of story-telling, the line itself is wrong, as reference had been made earlier in the film that it was a new Enterprise and that Scotty was having trouble with getting it up and running to the standard he required. Secondly, ‘Scotty’ knocking himself out on the bulk-head diminishes the credibility of the character and the engineering feats he has achieved, especially in the previous film with the construction of the whale tanks aboard the ‘Bird Of Prey’. This ridiculous writing is not confined to ‘Scotty’ … 

‘Uhura’ is placed in the laughable, and extremely sexist, role of femme fatale dancing among the moonlit sand dunes to distract Sybok’s mercenaries. Really? Nichelle Nichols, a woman who has achieved so much in the broader community for minority rights and affirmative action, has to act a scene in which she uses over-sized feathers to cover her naked body? Both David Loughery, who co-wrote the screenplay with Shatner, and the Director himself should have been ashamed of themselves just for writing these sorts of scenes. The fact that Shatner was able to commit them to celluloid is even more remarkable. Harve Bennett and the Paramount senior management team of the day must have made a conscious decision that they were going to let Shatner do what he wanted to do, thus fulfilling their contractual obligation to him, so that they could regain control of the franchise for the sixth film. What everyone seriously misjudged was that STAR TREK V was so poorly received and performed so badly at the box office that it nearly killed any chance of their being another STAR TREK film. 

The biggest challenge of the screenplay is not how ill-conceived some of the character moments are; it’s the concept that a crew who have been together for so many years and have been there for each other in so many adventures can, for the sake of a plot point, be manipulated into betraying each other. The worst betrayal is McCoy. The scene where he watches his father die is a great scene and DeForest Kelley is superb, but it’s all in the name of allowing the Command Crew to hand over control of the Enterprise to Sybok. Any fan of the television series and the four preceding movies found it hard to accept that one of the three major characters would allow this to happen to either themselves or the other two. This translated at the box office, with any fans admitting that they only saw ‘The Final Frontier’ once at the movies, where they had previously been two, three and four times to the previous feature films.

Another problem with the story is the way the Klingons are written and directed. ‘Captain Klaa’, played by Todd Bryant, comes across like some kind of high-school jock bully looking for someone to beat up on; while his off-sider ‘Vixis’, played by Spice Williams, joins in the scenery-chewing and makes sure that the duo are the most one-dimensional Klingons ever put to film. The problem for these Klingons was exacerbated by ‘Worf’ from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. By the time STAR TREK V premiered, it was clear that Michael Dorn’s Klingon Security Chief was becoming one of the more popular characters on the new show and additional dialogue was being written for him that developed and layered the character to a level not previously explored for a Klingon character. There’s no doubt that STAR TREK fans would have found ‘Klaa’ and ‘Vixis’ regressive by comparison, while non-fans probably would have found them just downright silly!

It’s been well documented that STAR TREK V had a much larger budget than the fourth film, but that didn’t result in more going up on the screen. Like STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, many of the effects that were produced for the film could not be used, but this was not before the contractor doing those effects had been paid. There’s also the infamous ‘Rock Monsters’ that were written as part of the film’s climax. Shatner went so far as to film these ‘Rock Monsters’, but the dailies showed them to be more like men in rubber suits than any sort of threatening creature. Having scrapped the monsters, Shatner was forced to improvise with a lot of flashing light and a voice-over from George Murdock. It was not the sort of climax that was going to play well with audiences who had just seen ‘Batman’ and ‘The Joker’ battling it out on the streets of Gotham, through the air and, ultimately, in the Gotham City Cathedral on a scale that was worthy of their superhero and super-villain status!

The great shame of STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER is that there’s probably about sixty minutes worth of really good scenes that, had they been part of a movie with a better screenplay, may have resulted in a better box office performance. The opening scenes of the movie are visually strong and intriguing. Sybok’s reveal as a Vulcan with emotions is a good way to start. The scenes with Kirk, Spock and McCoy at Yosemite National Park are well played and there’s really good chemistry between the three leading characters; a testimony to the fact that each of them know their characters intimately. There is some silliness introduced into the story with Sulu and Chekov getting lost, but it’s tolerable. Even up to the point where the somewhat compromised Enterprise heads off on her mission, the story is still working and there’s every chance that the audience is in for a follow-up worthy of the STAR TREK IV and the box office success it enjoyed. It’s about the time that the crew’s rescue plan unravels of Nimbus III that the movie itself unravels. The aforementioned Uhura scene is an example. There’s also specific dialogue that is meant to be funny but isn’t. Spock’s line to “hold your horse, Captain” in response to Kirk’s enquiry as to the whereabouts of the hostages, as they ride horseback into the town, is utterly ridiculous. 

Like STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, one of the highlights of STAR TREK V is the musical score. Like the first feature film, the man responsible for the music was Jerry Goldsmith. In the ten years between scoring the first and the fifth movies, Goldsmith had evolved the way he created movie scores. The feeling that the audience was sitting among the orchestra as they were recording the score had been replaced with a smaller-scale of music that used much more electronically synthesised music in its production. Never-the-less, the STAR TREK V score does not fail to disappoint the listener. Goldsmith revisits a number of the musical motifs he created for the first film and, this score, updates them with variations and an entirely different production method. 

Another highlight of the film is the design work of Herman Zimmerman, who, at the time, was also working on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. Despite a larger budget than its predecessor, in the scheme of a feature film production, STAR TREK II through to STAR TREK: NEMESIS did not have large budgets. For STAR TREK V, Zimmerman manages to pull-off a MacGyver-like trick by delivering a high-budget look with a piece of sticky tape, a paper-clip and some bubble gum. The film was able to use many of THE NEXT GENERATION sets and re-dress them to create the feeling that the audience was seeing more than before, especially with the Enterprise. Movies II and III did not provide any new Enterprise sets and the Bridge in STAR TREK IV only appears in the final moments of the film. As much of the movie’s action is set aboard the Enterprise, especially in Act Two, Zimmerman gives Shatner a number of sets that have not previously appeared, including a full-scale landing bay in which one of the pivotal scenes in the film takes place. My favourite new set is the Officer’s Rec Room where Kirk, Spock and McCoy head to make an emergency distress call. Some of the best character moments in the film take place on this set, which was a clever redress of the TNG ‘Ten Forward’ set.

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FORNTIER (1989) USEFUL LINKS

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - Wikipedia
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) - IMDb
Star Trek V - The Final Frontier (1989) - Rotten Tomatoes

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