@@johnschulz6627 i was a teenager that went to a lot of movies in 1989. I would have loved to have run into $3.99 tickets. After school jobs don't pay much.
Lucielle Ball also championed for the show against her own studio board. Unfortunately, the board was right: Trek and “Mission: Impossible” so consistently went over budget that Desilu Studios eventually had to be sold.
For people who dislike the implications to the canon, imagine it's a story Scotty told over a round of Guinan's Finest in Ten Forward to a throng of ensigns off-screen in "Relics." It certainly has that vibe.
I am surprised you did not highlight the scene where McCoy confronts his guilt over his father’s death. I think it is one of the best and most insightful McCoy scenes in the franchise.
At the live commentary event I mentioned in my post, Shatner talked about how Kelley didn't want to do the scene. He said Kelley claimed his character would never do that. So ironic that it's one the best pieces of acting in all of Star Trek.
@@jrock32379 I'd love to have heard his perspective. Because my interpretation of the character is that McCoy-unlike, say, Crusher-would see the morality in allowing a patient a dignified death.
I think it’s not set up well enough for a good payoff. His father is invented and dies off screen in this movie. I get what they’re doing, but when has McCoy _ever_ spoken about his father?
@@enginerdy I admit, it felt out of left field when I first saw the movie, like they needed something for Bones to be grappling with. But now, it feels like one of the better parts of the film. I don't think he would necessarily share something buried this deep in his heart, even with his friends. I also thinks it provides an interesting lens to view his personality.
I dunno. "Excuse me? What does God need with a starship" is kind of up there. All this trouble and danger to get to this place, following Sybok on his loopy crusade, and he's the first one to stop and ask the basic question why the creator of life, the universe, and everything would need the help of mortals. XD For a runner up I'd nominate Spock's "Damn you sir. You WILL try" to the Klingon general. It's subtle and a little understated. But with only a few words Spock made it clear he was on his last nerve and wasn't messing around.
That scene was pretty good to me, and the most stand out from the movie (other than the “why does God need a starship” scene). “My pain makes me who I am” has been a point of several works (Chaim Potok’s The Chosen was another one that was important to me growing up). The rest of it ranged for me between “average” and “meh.” The scene with Scotty getting knocked out by walking into a beam for a cheap laugh was just ridiculous.
@@steampunker7 Yeah, that "damn you sir, you will try" was, I think, a subtle indication that the emotion Spock was currently suppressing with logic in that moment, was blind fury at the idea of losing his friend. And I personally think the film has a TON of good lines, given how often that "what does god need with a starship?" line is quoted in pop culture, I'd say it definitely qualifies. But I think also the "Well wutaya standin' around for?!? Do you not know a jailbreak when ya see one?!" from Scotty was great. I remember having a genuine laugh out loud when I saw the film in the theaters when it came out at that line. "I need my pain" is also good. "It appears we are too heavy" in Spock's deadpan voice as they all cling to each other on the rocket boots, followed by "Must've been all those marshmellons" is a good one. The comedy bit with Uhura and Chekov, having to make static noises was hilarious (they were a really good comedy duo, given they had one of the best scenes from ST 4, when asking for the nuclear wessels, and talking to the various people on the street) I personally don't agree with the idea that this is a BAD film. Because it's really not. It's not a GREAT film, not at all, but it's a good film. It's solidly told, the structure fits well, it's nowhere near the weirdest or goofiest plot from a Star Trek story that's out there. The villain was good, and one that I enjoyed. Like Steve said, he's not a violent, bloodthirsty revenge hound. He's just a deluded cult leader, who believes he is correct about his religion, and, in a way he's proven correct. The barrier WAS an illusion, and there WAS a powerful being at the center of the galaxy. It's a good film. Not great, not terrible. And I think it says a lot about our opinion on products that we consider anything that isn't fantastic to be "bad", when the reality is most entertainment is just that...average. And average is just fine. It's an enjoyable time.
I liked when McCoy relived his pain too. Sybok: That's not the worst of it is there? McCoy: No Sybok: Tell it! McCoy: No! McCoy: Not long after, they discovered a cure, a goddamned cure! Sybok: So if you hadn't killed him, he'd still be alive? McCoy: No!--I loved my father, I released him! Sybok: Release this pain, release it!--this pain has poisoned your soul...
Yeah, I always thought I was in the minority in thinking that this was still better than Nemesis. Steve and I... disagree about Generations but as it was my first Trek movie in theaters, I have some nostalgic feelings about it.
One of the things I like about 5 is that Sybok is the antagonist but he's not the kind of villain that every movie seems to have today. He doesn't stay 'evil' until the bitter end, he admits he's wrong when faced with the truth of the moment.
If all his plan was to get a Starship to get his people off "Temu Arrakis" it would be a more interesting movie. Throw a Romulan ship in the mix and a three way standoff, you don't even need the god plot.
Nimoy: When I directed Star Trek IV, I got a magnificent performance out of Bill because I respect him so much. Shatner: And when I directed Star Trek V, I got a magnificent performance out of me because I respect me so much.
Hey! Shatner's complaint that if he had had the budget, he would have had a stupid fight scene with rock monsters was a set up for a truly great pay off! Years later, in a different movie, when the captain had to fight a rock monster in Galaxy Quest.
We also attended the Shatner led screening at GalaxyCon. Bill started talking about it during his panel earlier in the day, and hesitantly told us that he wasn't sure what emotional impact seeing it after all these years was going to have. He still has a ton of regrets and anger about how he was treated by the studio and Harve Bennett (cutting a huge portion of the budget when already in production!) and he said he sees this film as a major failure of his life. In recent years Bill has been more vulnerable in public, so we had no idea whether this was a good thing for him. During the screening, he was describing what he was trying to do compared to what showed up on screen. As the movie rolled without stopping it was necessarily brief, but his self disappointment was evident from the beginning. He never tore down his cast, although he said they were surprisingly resistant to him as a director. The one scene he loved was doing the landing on ShaKaRi, with the sunrise coming from behind Trona Pinnacles. And just after that scene he said, "This is where I ran out of budget". We the audience could clearly see his struggles and disappointments. The Treksperts were saying all the time, "We see your vision. We understand. You did what you could." We were all participating in a giant therapy session as he poured out his emotions. He was an artist who wanted to make something great, and he painfully, publicly failed. At the close, we stood up and applauded. A lot because the movie really was not as bad as it's been portrayed, but also to thank him for being so open and letting us see him in what must have been a tremendously vulnerable state. He quickly left the stage. As we were leaving, a bunch of us approached the Treksperts and begged them to give him a message: He tried, he did the best he could, and that's all we could ask.
Okay, this is a wonderful and redeeming story. Someday some AI production package might even make it possible to upscale some aspects of the movie. It might make it possible to redeem the movie and maybe make it bigger and better...though maybe in hindsight the paring down may have made it less worse overall, if too spare for what it could have been.
The camping scene and the "what does God need with a starship" scene are some of the best Trek ever. Just the bonding between the main three throughout the film make it great.
Thank you. I think that line was one of the best EVER. Plus, Steve is off, here. Enterprise meeting God, or at least someone claiming to be God, was RODDENBERRY'S idea. NOT Shatner's. Why blame him? Enterprise meeting God was the premise of the pilot for Star Trek: Phase II. Which we know became ST: The Motion Picture, and the God part taken out, due to some worries over religious groups, or something.... I'm just a retired Hollywood guy.
@@CaptainHavfun-lp4ok There was a big ordeal. Roddenberry had the idea for the pilot of Phase 2. Shatner claims his idea is his own and that he totally didn't steal it from Roddenberry. It was quite a big ordeal back in the day. Also I actually used the whole "What does God need with a starship?" line in a sermon back in the day when I had to fill in and preach at a church.
@@fatenabu1 Then the SHAT is lying. I'm a member of the academies, and have friends that used to party at Lucille Ball's house. I have a lot of friends who have worked on several generations of Trek. I don't like Gene. But, the God concept was HIS idea. My friend used to be Shatner's agent...
@@CaptainHavfun-lp4ok Yea the crew meeting a being claiming to be God was a Gene thing. It was for phase 2 and Shatner may have some how forgot about it or something but yea, in TOS the crew encountered god like things all the time. Even in TNG, which was out at the time Q is a god like thing. Maybe even really being God according to the heart transplant episode of TNG. So yea it is a Gene thing and Shatner is lying. The way Shatner says it, he got the idea for it by seeing a Christian televangelist and got the idea to turn a televangelist into a Trek villain or something along those lines. Then it became they go and try to find God but find the literal devil instead. Which then became Star Trek V. I have no idea how true any of that is though. I would say though that yes it was a Gene thing :)
I actually have fond memories of when this movie came out. It was at the height of my convention days. Mark Lenard, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan were regulars at the convention and often talked friends of theirs into coming to visit with us. The year after this came out we had our usual crowd plus Spice Williams and Todd Bryant (Vixis and Klaa respectively) as guests. I remember them being quite cool with the fans. Yvonne Craig was also a guest around then. Her story about the time she ran over Vincent Price's foot was great. During one of his visits Mr. Doohan pretty well summed up a number of his fellow cast members' feelings towards Shatner. On the convention floor Doohan was almost always in Scotty mode because, as he said, he knew who people were there for. At a panel he was asked about his relation ship with Shatner and he answered as Scotty would, "I'd walk through fire for Jim Kirk. It's the other fella I cannae stand."
I had a photo taken with Shatner at a ST convention a few years ago. I wasn't expecting much, but in that brief interlude, he was very kind and we even exchanged a few words. He didn't have to do that.
This movie asks the most important question in all of Star Trek and frankly in all of humanity. What does god need with a starship? Everyone under recruitment should ask themselves - Why does god need MY help? Why does god need an army? Why can't this thing that created the universe manage the slightest little details without some human's help? Is this really just some human's want, masquerading as god's will? Are you praising the lord or passing the loot?
Well there is the obvious answer of free will and god giving the people the opportunity to do good and bad things since without freedom of will and choice their would be no humans but puppets. But I think that's besides the right point you wanna make that by no means faith should dictate you to go against others since "If god has a problem with some, god can manages this on his own."
Or, what could possibly be the necessity of ‘praising the Lord and passing the ammunition’, to borrow the line from the song, particularly when he is said to be “the God of peace”?
33:44 Shatner probably ended up understated because as director he had tired himself out. Instead of sitting around stewing between takes like an actor, a director has a bunch of stuff to do. So unless the AD was in charge when he was on the call sheet, he was pretty busy.
I don't even think Spock never mentioning Sybok before is unreasonable. Not only is Spock in general a closed-off individual who tends not to share much in the first place, but we're directly shown in this movie that Sybok is the source of his most deeply-rooted pain. Why would he mention Sybok before?
Well, McCoy alludes to it during the first campfire scene and Kirk alludes to it right before the second one. So it does technically come up in conversation, just not in a theological context and maybe that's because Spock's resurrection is given such a (for Star Trek) mechanistic and scientific veneer: Spock downloads a copy of his software into McCoy's hard or wetware, intending it to be transferred into a presumably non-living medium stored on Vulcan. His body is reanimated, rejuvenated and/or regenerated--cloned, really--by the Star Trek science of Project Genesis. A Vulcan adept uses Vulcan telepathy to write Spock's software onto his new hard or wetware. God really never enters the equation. It JUST occurred to me: in "Return to Tomorrow," Spock suggests that Vulcans are descendants of Sargon's people. Season One of Star Trek: Picard establishes that Vulcans are not indigenous to Vulcan. Sargon, Hanoch and Thalassa MAY this have been katrically stored, only with more powerful software copied onto more advanced storage media. Accidental continuity is my favorite kind of continuity--see also Carol Marcus and the "little blond lab technician" Gary Mitchell aimed at Kirk.
Kirk: "Hey Spock! Tell your brother about when you met God when you died!" Spock: "I just blacked out and woke back up on the planet, there was nothing!" Sybok: "Well shit." *crew all laughs, freezeframe, 80's sitcom music and credits roll*
Because the film was about the awesomeness of Kirk and to hell with basically everyone else. One of the drafts for the film included Spock and McCoy also "betraying" Kirk. Nimoy and Kelley outright refused to follow along with that because it is so utterly out of character for them.
Steve, one thing you didn't mention which I think fans didn't appreciate at the time: Star Trek V is the only TOS-era movie with all the original main cast in all their original main roles on the Enterprise for the entire length of the movie. TMP starts with no Spock. TWOK starts with no Chekov. TSFS (obvs) starts with no Spock, again. TVH starts with no Enterprise. And TUC starts with no Sulu.
@@LordAzrael707🤔 I don't know about the only one, but it certainly has the most of it. It's certainly very true to the series, much like Insurrection was to TNG.
Maybe you have to have grown up in Northern California to feel this way, but I find it fitting that a story about the search for "god's country" begins and ends in Yosemite Valley.
I have always thought that the opening credits scene with Kirk climbing El Capitan with a beautiful Jerry Goldsmith score and no dialogue was the most descriptive Insight into Kirks character in the whole franchise. This movie screams for a directors cut special addition with Shatner overseeing new FX and editing the same way Robert Wise got to finally put out his true vision of STTMP.
I'd say yes to a director's cut but no to letting Shatner hold the reigns. I know that film is his baby. I know that, warts and all, he did the best he could with it. But...well, sometimes there's a reason a creative talent needs someone to stand behind them with a rolled up newspaper to bap them on the head once in a while and say "NO! Bad!" Trim out or rework a couple of lines of dialog, maybe use some CGI to slightly de-age the cast and clean up the space scenes, put in the rest of Spock's "pain" scene and...fine. Put the rock monster at the end. Then move it chronologically to be the first film in the series instead of the fifth. It doesn't fix everything. But it does make the film flow better into its series better.
I think Star Trek fans are owed a special edition where the effects are redone and in the way William Shatner originally wanted them to be done. Although I don’t think he should have complete control he should be part of the creative process as far as the new effects.
@@vernonlemoignan1392 And, speaking as a Trek fan myself, I'd rather have a good story and coherent narrative. Bill's a fine performer and actor and we wouldn't have Captain Kirk without him. But given the first draft he turned in, I don't think his ego needs any further indulging or excusing. Keep in mind, his original pitch for this film was Kirk literally looking for God and finding the devil. And this was the version they were able to talk him him down to. Sometimes too much creative control ISN'T a good thing.
"I don't want my shitty Star Trek taken away. I need my shitty Star Trek" is the most Steve Shives thing I think I've ever heard in all my years listening to you. I love it. 😂
I agree. The shitty Star Trek not only makes the good Star Trek stand out, it provides much more fodder for fun discussions and reviews. While Voyager certainly has shitty episodes, it's killed at least two Trek podcasts (Trekabout and The Pensky Podcast) because so many of its episodes are "meh." Good episodes are fun to watch and review, and bad episodes are fun to review as well. The blah episodes are not.
Cleaning up those old space probes might be a vital safety issue considering V-GER. After that I'd be ordering all old probes either recovered or destroyed.
- The seemingly inert space probe somehow dodged the Klingons' opening volleys - When it was finally destroyed, it let loose a blood-curdling scream. *Pinoneer 10 had it coming.*
I saw it as part of my surprise birthday as a kid. I enjoyed it . It was a popcorn movie. But the novelization is phenomenal. As a novel it is a great Star Trek novel. The novel captures the Sybok sharing pain thing really well. Film was the wrong medium for the story.
Bit of a hot take here, I genuinely enjoy the entire camping scenes, and just the characters living their lives. It’s pretty fun to see them not on duty, and being themselves. I agree, it’s a bit forced, but it’s some silly fun for me!
The part that always bothered me about the camping scenes, was with the characters calling marshmallows, marshmellons...I always found that very strange.
I had the privilege to attend a screening of Star Trek V at GalaxyCon San Jose this year. It was hosted by the Inglorious Treksperts Podcast with William Shatner providing live commentary. It was a lot better than I remembered from when I was younger and Shatner’s insights gave me new appreciation for the movie. Also, I partnered with Cynthia Gouw for a Star Trek trivia contest. It was a great time.
That's cool. We didn't have so much success with it. A friend of mine arranged a showing of it at an Alamo Drafthouse in northern Virginia about a decade ago. At the time, folks were pretty sure it was the first time it had played in a theater since release. We had a big crowd and everything, but we couldn't get anyone involved in the film, especially Shatner, to give us the time of day, except for Spice Williams if I remember right. I can't remember if she filmed an intro message or maybe just responded by email. But I think she was the only person who responded at all. (edit: I was wrong. It was Linda Howard, who played the cat woman who actually responded). Still, we changed a lot of hearts that night. A lot of folks who'd long dismissed the film came out of the theater with a much more positive vibe.
We were there! I was surprised that there were not more in the audience, this was a truly rare experience. I felt so bad for Bill, he really wanted to make a good work of art, and he's so disappointed. I hope he feels better after that therapy session.
@@GSBarlev She's so cool! She was so warm and genuine. We got to choose team names, and we went with the Star Trek Cyn-icks (we thought it was clever) and we won! Evan Evagora (Elnor on Picard) was playing as well and he gave me a big hug after the game. Dude is super chill.
Star Trek V is the most TOS Star Trek movie ever. I don't know why it gets so much hate. I assume because it was sandwiched between Whales and Chang - two of the highlights.
I've been telling friends from Star Wars/TNG fandom this for ages. It feels the most authentic to TOS to me. I love it for its comparative goof. It still feels better, to me, than either Insurrection or Nemesis
I saw it right after I saw the original pilot. This is very similar. Instead of the Edge of the Galaxy, it's the center. Instead of the crew acting weird and having unusual powers, it's a stranger. And, instead of a climactic fight with said crew members, it's a fight with the entity causing all the trouble. I just kept thinking how similar this was to that and, while it's not my favorite, it's fun! I honestly think NEMESIS is waaaaaaaay worse, lol. And while I ADORE the vibe of The Motion Picture that could totally come off as boring, if you're in the wrong mood. At least this is pretty consistent throughout, tonally.
@@joshuaabe4832 I mean, if that’s the case, I would argue it’s TMP. Literally searching for knowledge and seeking out new life, not to mention V’ger is basically Nomad from The Changeling.
I've always liked it. It's not my favorite that's four, and it's not my second favorite that's six, but it's perfectly serviceable. It's not the worst certainly, that's nemesis. Is this joke dragging on way to long without getting to the point? No, that's Star Trek the Motion Picture...
When I saw STV in the theater, there was an incredibly strong thunderstorm raging right when KSM and Sybok are fighting GOD. It was such an amazing effect hearing and even feeling these deafening blasts of thunder inside the theater, seemingly as part of the climax of the movie!
I've always liked Star Trek V. It has some of the most iconic scenes and lines in the franchise for me ("What does God need with a space ship anyway?" and Spock killing God with a Klingon Bird-Of-Prey). I've also always liked how it's this mysterious voyage with an unknown destination. Also the opening with Spock and the hover boots and all 3 of them hanging out around a campfire as friends.
When "what does God need with a space ship?" turned into a meme, my kids wanted to see this movie. I had skipped it during our Classic Trek films marathon and they absolutely loved 2, 3, 4, and 6, and even respected what The Motion Picture was attempting. When I showed them 5, they were initially stunned by how different it was from the others. Then they came around and enjoyed it as a film that is bad enough that it becomes good again.
I still contend the best of the Star Trek films is " Star Trek the Motion Picture" and is in fact one of the best sci-fi films of all time. To this day I will stand by that.
There are absolutely some goofy moments in this movie, which is SO on brand for Star Trek, and none of them take you fully out of the movie. (I.e. okay, so they fly past “deck 72” and the numbers are out of order, call it a movie gaff). A handful of major elements that make this movie excellent: the Trio camping and bonding, Lawrence Luckenbill’s captivating performance as Sybok, the sense of mystery heading down to Sha-Ka-Ri, the scene in which McCoy’s and Spock’s inner pains are revealed and Kirk’s powerful refusal, and of course the magnificent score by our man Jerry Goldsmith
This movie's existence is justified if only for Fall On Your Sword's Shatner of the Mount, which started playing in my head the moment in your summary Captain Kirk was climbing a mountain.
@@Xpndable Exact same reaction. It's just what follows next in my brain, like how if someone declares "Let's get down to business!" then Huns must be defeated soon.
A plot where they find “God” is a very TOS idea. It’s not off-brand at all. TOS was rife with plots where they find “gods”, even gods from earth’s antiquity.
There is a difference between finding some Greek god and finding "the God". Look at Stargate, the show is all about just about every god ever being an alien, but not "the God". They even state as much in one episode.
@@boriszakharin3189 Is there a difference? Yahweh, “the God” for the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is just a Canaanite sub-god, son of El, and part of another pantheon.
I love the soundtrack particularly. The opening music during the rock-climbing scene just stirs me every time I hear it. It's not my favorite movie, but it's got a lot of good moments in it for sure.
Star Trek V was my first introduction to live action Star Trek - possibly my frist introduction to Star Trek as a whole (I can't quite remember if I'd seen TAS on a Saturday morning at that point). I remember it being available in my local video rental store. I used to rent it for a week at a time and watch it over and over again. Eventually, when it moved of the rental shelves and in to the bargin bin, I begged my mother to buy it. And she did. I loved the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. And as someone who grew up in a christain household the line 'What does god need with a starship' stuck with me. So it has a lot of sentimental value and formative memories for me. It may have it's problems, but I like it.
It's insane that 10 weeks used to be considered a short run. Now most movies are lucky if they get that because studios can't wait to start losing money by dropping them on streaming. Sometimes in the middle of their theatrical run.
You had first run theaters, second run theatres, dollar show theatres, VHS and finally cable. VHS was about 6 months after release and cable was one year or so. Even mediocre movies played for about a month at that time.
When I was younger I remember newspaper ads that proclaimed, "Raiders of The Lost Ark - 110th week!!". That's of course more than TWO YEARS! VCRs existed back then but not everybody had one as they were too expensive. The only way to see some of these big popular films was to go to the cinema.
@@tulinfirenze1990 And even if you did have vcr and rented a copy of raiders of the lost arc or recorded it off TV the quality was actually pretty low and you were most likely watching it on a 19 inch television too lol.
ST5 really grew on me over the years. As you say, not a 'great' film, but the character moments are amazing. Loved Sybok and the campfire scene. But that scene where he tries to take Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's "pain" makes it all worth it. Kirk's rejection of it all is a genuinely important message: we're shaped by our experiences. They make us who we are, for better or worse. Our scars tell a story. But for me, McCoy's flashback absolutely slays me, with that utterly heartbreaking moment with his father, especially his breakdown afterward, learning they found a cure not long after. Jesus christ, DeForest Kelley was probably the best actor in the cast and that, for my money, was his best performance ever.
In the episode "Disaster" when Picard is trying to find a song to keep some childrens' morale up after the ship is struck by a quantum filament, the kids suggest a few songs that they've learned in school before eventually landing on Frère Jacques. One of the titles suggested is "The Laughing Vulcan and his Dog" and I've always wondered if that was a subtle jab at this movie, with Sybok and Farmer J'onn.
According to Lisabeth Shatner's book on the making of the movie, Gene Roddenberry himself suggested making Sybok Spock's brother. He also suggested giving Sybok mind control over the crew. His ideas/memos were taken more seriously here than in the movies directed by Meyer and Nimoy. Meyer having infamously stated: "Maybe if he gives back some of the money he's made off my movies, then I'll care what he has to say." Shatner showed more respect. I believe that after the film was released and considered a disappointment, Roddenberry did an about face and distanced himself from it. Anyway, yes, it IS the most TOS like. And it's my favorite. 👍🖖❤️
I can at least accept Michael as Spock's sister for the same reason I Sybok accept as Spock's brother. Given the fact that Kirk didn't know who Spock's parents were until they were introduced, there's nothing unexpected about Kirk not knowing about his brother until he had them locked in the brig while taking control of the ship. The real world precident for my acceptance of Spock's unknown family members is the fact that I'm that private with my own personal information too.
I'm not a fan of retroactive siblings and offsprings. I can see the Hand of the Writer on the screen and it ruins my suspension of disbelief. Just because something happens in real life doesn't mean it's gonna make a good plot point. To me it just screams lack of ideas, lack of creativity, and taking shortcuts to gain sympathy for the character.
@@madquest8 They also changed Spock to be developmentally disabled and Vulcans to be unable to provide proper special education for people with these kinds of learning disabilities. So Michael had to tutor Spock or he would not have been able to get through kindergarten. He was going to be discarded from all education before she helped him get through it. It's a nice story and representation for people with these problems, but the problem I have is that Spock is canonically supposed to have been an unusually gifted child for whom learning was easier. Not a kid with a learning disability. At least he is still supposed to be super intelligent, just suffering from some severe mental disabilities and neurodivergent. I think he is supposed to be severely autistic and dyslexic now among other problems, per Discovery and Strange New Worlds. TBH they didn't really say what he had, just described his experiences much like the scenes in Game of Thrones. Because we all know Vulcan is at a medieval level as far as psychology and education technology.
@@rifter0x0000 to be fair, I have known neurodivergent people who struggled in school for a while until something clicked then it was off to the races. I don't think the storyline contradicts him being a bit of a savant.
I just downloaded this video to listen to at work tomorrow, but I just want to drop here that this movie spawned my favorite trilogy of Star Trek books. They were written by Greg Cox (whom I actually just got in touch with about said books!) and it's a Q trilogy. The creature in this film, as established in these novels, is actually an evil Q that the Continuum banished to the center of the galaxy. That's why the Great Barrier was there. Not to keep us out but to keep it in! I will sing the praises of these books until I die. I hope I've piqued at least one person's interest reading this!
I do adore this movie, it probably has one of the best Chekov scenes when he's pretending to be captain as he tries and inevitably fails to distract Sybok from the raid being conducted which leads to Sybok's best line: "No! It wasn't bloodshed i wanted!" as he runs off
I've long been a fan of V. I know it's not anyone's favorite, but it's got the best Kirk/Spock/McCoy moments in it and a FANTASTIC antagonist, Sybok. Plus, “what does God need with a starship" is the most baller move Kirk has ever done.
I had written Star Trek off when I heard Spock utter that most despicable, vile, disgusting line of dialog every put out by Hollywood in Star Trek II... it took 3 and 4 to redeem it for me.
@@TightPantsJack The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one. Thank God they spent the next two movies proving what murderous garbage that is.
@@gnericgnome4214It's not murderous garbage when used in the context of the film. Vulcans embrace logic, arguably to a fault, but alongside a code of ethics so that the logic isn't used in ways that are unnecessarily destructive which logic alone can certainly rationalize without having a full perspective which no one will ever have. From the Vulcan standpoint this isn't the majority choosing to sacrifice an unwilling minority in order to save themselves but the minority being selfless and courageous enough to make that decision themselves, which is what Spock did.
@@crosana01 bs. it's flat-out socialism. it asserts that the value of Vulcan life is additive. Well, maybe it is, but the value of human life is not additive. Selflessness is not a virtue.
You talked about the lack of money, but didn't mention that this & TMP are the only TOS movies that ILM didn't do the effects for, & the difference is OBVIOUS!
I'd personally argue that TMP has some of the best VFX of any of the TOS films but there are some notable deficiencies that were because of the accelerated production timeline instead of issues of skill or technology at the time. Many of the people who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey worked on TMP, which is why the models look so good. Unfortunately, they were given half the time they wanted to finish the effects, there was VXF and editing work going on until the day of the premier with some shots that were simply not finished. This is one of many reasons the Director's Edition is the version that people should watch. As for the worst looking of the TOS films, I would say it's Search for Spock but it had the smallest budget of them all, $16 million, half that of even The Final Frontier. Even that movie has some great model work but lots of other visual aspects really look the budget.
@EdwardM104 The worst thing about Search for Spock was Doc Brown chewing up the scenery while hamming it up as the captain of a Bird of Prey. I hated all of his scenes in ST III. That was a terrible casting decision.
I love your retelling style. I only got into Trek within the last decade or so, with a quest to watch all the main series and movie content in order. I embarked on Star Trek V with a sort of knowing dread and morbid curiosity, and I remember my overall impression being "I can see why a bigger fan could be offended, but to me it just falls a little flat." Definitely better than Generations.
My parents separated around the time TNG first aired. There wasn't much to do at my dad's. I was 10 or 11 and so bored I thought i would literally expire. I'm 47 now, and I still think of Wesley Crusher as an old friend who got me through a hard time. We had matching sweaters. I am smiling fondly RIGHT NOW. Thanks to you, I'm now aware this is mildly hilarious.
"What does god need with a starship?" was my dad's favorite scene. He rarely quoted movies, but he would always quote that when it was coming up or happening. Sometimes he'd even randomly quote it. He knew how silly it was, but loved it because of that.
I agree with you about continuity…for the most part. It genuinely _does not bother me_ when things are changed or retroactively introduced, as long as they’re not franchise-defining changes (with a few exceptions). Though I do kinda enjoy it and find it fun when writers show that they’ve paid attention and give an intelligent, considered reason for something in a line or two. I think it’s fun to see the clever ways that can be done. But neither side will ever be able to convince the other to see it their way on that argument. So here’s _my_ reasoning as to why the people who hate on Sybok or Michael being introduced with no word of them before are…kinda ridiculous. As far as I remember, Sulu does not ever, not once _EVER_ mention having parents. (If he does, just go with me on this, because you’ll get my point. If not him, then I’m fairly sure at least one member of the crew is this way, and even if not, the hypothetical still makes the point.) As I remember, he never even made mention of “My mother used to sing me to sleep with that song” or “My father taught me to do this when I was ten years old”. Nothing even _that_ small, let alone anything more pronounced like actually _meeting_ his parents. If we look just at the actual _words spoken_ of The Original Series, with no outside knowledge of how life and reality work, we would have no reason to believe Sulu even _had_ parents. Yet if they were to make something today that involved TOS in some way, and they came out and said “And this is _____ Sulu, father of Hikaru Sulu!”, would you be surprised by that? Would you be astonished and go “WHUHHHHHH? Sulu has a DAAAAAAAD?????”? ………..? So why would a sibling be any different, just because we’d never heard of them? And _especially_ with Spock, who’s a _very_ private person, sharing even with his crew only things that are relevant to the current situation? So yeah. That’s my thought as to why the hate on Sybok and Michael “suddenly existing” is ridiculous. If someone never explicitly _told you_ that they had parents, for like five years, would you be astonished to suddenly learn that they had a mother and a father? Why would a sibling be any different?
Years ago me and my friends were talking about Star Trek 5 and discussing how silly the whole thing was and I just said it one point "What if 'God' is just a future version of Wesley Crusher that the travelers got tired of and used there powers to dump him there in the distance past and trapped there." We all had a good laugh about it and it's something I still think about every now and then to give myself a little chuckle and a smile.
I think one of the non-canon Star Trek novels wrote the God-being as a rogue Scytherian (the entity that gave Barclay superintelligence in "The Nth Degree").
Your dedication to making sure everyone understands that the REAL worst Star Trek movie is Nemesis warms my Nemesis-hating heart. Final Frontier doesn't hold a candle, doesn't hold a patch to the badness of Nemesis. I enjoyed whole sections of Final Frontier, whereas I've got two scenes of Nemesis I was actually entertained by, and if you asked me if I wanted to rescue them from a fire I'd ask if any other films were burning.
Frankly, and this is admittedly a dissenting view, “Generations” and “Nemesis” are far better than any of the Abrams films. I tried watching one of those films on television one time, and it just wasn’t “Star Trek” despite being given the title. Abrams nearly destroyed the franchise. However, that damage is finally being repaired with “Picard” and some of the fan-based series available here on UA-cam.
This movie will always be a guilty pleasure for me. My dad introduced it to me when I was a kid. I liked it back then and still like it today, in spite of all the flaws.
I'm a big fan of this movie. I don't pretend it's good but I don't get why anyone would ever hate it. One thing you didn't mention that I like is how on several occasions the heroes work together with the villains for the common good. First when they have to manouver the shuttle to the Enterprise which is under threat from Klingons, then after they breach the barrier because why not, we're already here and these guys aren't that bad at all, and finally right at the end with the Klingons. There's nodoby really evil in this movie (except the god monster), which is a very Star Trek thing. Sybok himself isn't really that much of a villain, he only has different goals than the heroes, and not only does he never hurt anyone, he actually seems to care about the destitute people he encounters, he helps them, and they join him out of their own free will. I like that too.
It’s got some very thought provoking elements, along with some weak points. Given the budget and time constraints on production, Shatner did a very efficient job directing.
Originally Spock was supposed to be brain washed with the others and join team Sybok but Nimoy refused, insisting that Spock would never turn against Kirk so they had to come up with another reason for him not to shot Sybok.
"Your brother Sam came back to life??" I always think of that during that scene too, I guess Kirk forgot about his less important one-episode bio brother.
I just realized…”God” was Palpatine who had come back somehow. Glowy blue, shooting lightning…it makes sense to me (at least as much as anything written into the film).
I admit some form of musical Stockholm Syndrome here, but I absolutely adore the soundtrack for this movie. Most tracks are recognizable and bouncy, full of action potential (you can close your eyes and imagine what's happening, just like most of A New Hope), and contains bits and pieces of what would become the Next Generation theme, and the Klingon theme.
And that's not to mention Goldsmiths sweeping, haunting score for The Motion Picture and First Contact, and the same goes for McCarthy's score for Generations, and much more.
*"I doubt any God who inflicts pain for his own pleasure."* is one of the most subversive lines in the history of the franchise. It was a lifeline of sanity for a young man who grew up nearly drowning in unquestioning religious certitude. (It was like TNG's "Who Watches the Watchers" in a single masterfully delivered line by the late great DeForest Kelley.)
Sybok's pain dialogue was sampled by Tupac for the song 'Pain' for the Above The Rim soundtrack, so this film does have some big fans due to I think the whole pain and salvation messiah aspect.
I don't hate the flick, but don't love it either. It looks like the budget was blown in the first 15 minutes. (Except for the opening credits, which literally look like they were thrown together the day before release. ) The opening climbing scene, with some brilliant Jerry Goldsmith music is something I come back to watch every so often. I also love the character dynamic of the triumvirate, even in a clunky movie. Laurence Luckinbill was great as Sybok, and with a better script, could have really added something even more special. (I am always baffled at the continuity error of his hair being cut differently when they are on Sha Ka Ree, which I assume was a reshoot.) Still, I give it a watch every several years. Partly to see if I feel any different, but mostly just to enjoy the few moments of that film that I actually enjoy. I'm just glad this wasn't the original cast's final film. Credit to Shatner for taking responsibility for his part in it. I just feel he was in way over his head.
I have recently rewatched Final Frontier, and I'm here to tell you that it's a better movie than everyone remembers. As a director, Shatner really gives people time to have their moments on screen and that is really wonderful to see. There are portions of the movie that are not good. It needed better effects. It probably could have used a rewrite but the core elements of Star Trek are there and when it succeeds it really succeeds. Also one little note, I worked in theater for a few years, and this movie is really shot like a play. There are really moments in the film that work as if it was a stage play and you have to kind of suspend your disbelief a little bit, but the lighting really helps here. It's such a wonderfully lit movie.
It is a wonderfully lit movie. The bridge, for example. And the brig/Jeffries Tube scenes. The ship feels brand new, and modern. A bonus is that you can actually see what’s going on.
I love this movie, its just a silly movie, nothing more, entertaining and fun. It all runs more like a an episode than a movie, but its still a good vibe
I always thought V was a case of diminishing returns in a single movie. Great first act (ending with Spock refusing to shoot Sybok), good second act (ending when the Great Barrier is crossed) and absolutely terrible final act (whole rest of the rock monsterless movie).
Personally, I've always seen it along the lines of Superman III. It's got a lot of great individual elements to it. It just doesn't pull them together or use them to their full potential as well as it could. And thus in totality feels like less than the sum of its parts.
"I know I'm not going to die, Bones. This is Star Trek! How many times has Spock died and come back? How about you? Even Scotty has been resurrected twice! Frankly, I'm overdue."
3:12 literally just watched it for the first time ever this week. Lol. I thought it was all fine, enjoyed sybock, until they basically just killed the god imposter and ran away. That part kinda just wrapped everything up super fast. Like... We couldn't figure out how to end this big concept the whole movie has been building up to... So... He's an imposter, we blow him up, sybock gets killed to tie off that lose end, and the movie is over. The end.
Haha. THumbs up for the Prisoner reference.(Even if it was to the poorly received finale...not every episode could be the General). Since the episodes are all on youtube, how about a review of the 17 odd episodes of Patrick McGoohan's magnum opus?
Kelley's scene in the Observation Lounge where he relives letting his father die with dignity is one of the pearls in this otherwise tepid outing for the Enterprise crew. It breaks my heart every time that he did what was right in the moment, and has lived with knowing a cure was just around the corner since then. It's one of the most powerful scenes in any of the Trek films, and the finest piece of acting for Kelley. And it was in this crappy film!
I find this to be very much a more expensive version of a TOS episode...they go to check out something, which turns out to be something else, and oops the Klingons provide an extra threat.
Oh, and I just adore that when they come back to the Bridge, Kirk is still wearing his classic "Go Climb a Rock" Yosemite T-shirt! Still available after 400 years...
I've often wondered what might have been if only Shatner had been able to collaborate and accept feedback. The ingredients are there for something truly great with the right writing partner. I feel like there's a cautionary tale in that about hubris and all,. But maybe what makes it such an interesting mess is camp that comes from just throwing everything at the wall with the most Shatnerish intensity. As it is it contains some of my favourite scenes in the franchise, particularly the old married throuple the trio have become. Deforest Kelly does some of his best work.
I wholly agree with everything here, there are great points I never even considered before from how subtly or well the film executes them. But some of the subtext hurts me, personally even. When Sybok and McCoy shows us what "release the pain" actually means, behaviorally, the film's subtext of "therapy sucks" is hamfistedly punched through the script and screen. It's then emphasized in bold and 82pt font when Kirk says, "I NEED my pain" and is rewarded for it. He is seen as having integrity, while the rest of the crew who "went through therapy" were made vulnerable to the Sybok's and the cult's whims. When it has come to discussing my own therapy with my parents, my father (a devout evangelical Southern Baptist) threw this "I NEED my pain" quote at me, telling me how our pain makes us stronger keeps us from falling susceptible to cults, without any sense of irony whatsoever. I see this commentary in social media as well, even right here in these comments, making the scene a bizarre bulwark of anti-therapy. Often these folks are older, but not always - plenty of young (especially men) do not want to face their shadows. But I cannot let any consideration of this film pass without recognizing how it stands to these individuals, and how they use it to justify not being better for themselves much less for the rest of us. Is it as bad as "Birth of a Nation" was to racism? No, not at all. But it might be as bad as viewers missing the anti-toxic masculinity point entirely with "Fight Club", instead embracing it, starting fight clubs, getting ripped, and making mischief of their own.
I always wished Star Trek into Darkness made Cumberbatch Sybok instead of Kahn. A) Benny C would have made a good emotional Vulcan villain. B) it could have directly tied into the destruction of Vulcan. C) Spock having an estranged half brother is a good story hook that is under explored in ST 5.
I saw all 6 TOS films in the theater as they came out, having grown up watching trek reruns as a little kid. I wasn’t very impressed with Star Trek V, but I did appreciate little things, like Lawrence Luckenbill going all in on his role. You pointed out a few things I didn’t consider, and for that I really appreciate this video. Thank you.
I’ve always liked Star Trek V as kind of the shaggy dog of the TOS movies. Yes it’s a mess and looks cheap a lot of times but honestly I still always enjoy it and think it has a kind of clunky charm to it.
I recently watched this movie with my sibling who is seeing Star Trek for the first time. We both agree that this movie has a lot of potential it doesn't utilize. A Vulcan defying the Vulcan way. Trauma, how it defines us and how it can be used to manipulate us. Religious cults and how they target people who are hurting and mentally unwell. These are all great elements, plus the lovely scenes we get between the characters, but the movie blends them all together until none are explored to a satisfying conclusion.
There's a neat little misdirect about Sybok's character that I think rarely gets commented upon. He is portrayed a bit like a crackpot who claims to be hearing voices from God; "He calls to me." It allows the audience to make assumptions that he's mentally unwell and imagining voices in his head. But, he's not. It had already been established in the Original Series and The Motion Picture that Vulcans _can_ sometimes sense powerful intelligences across deep space. Spock did it in "The Immunity Syndrome" when he sensed the destruction of the Vulcan crew on the Intrepid, and again in TMP Spock sensed V'ger calling to him even though the Vulcans performing the Kolinar ritual presumably did not. Sybok wasn't crazy; at least not in that sense. The godlike being really was communicating with him telepathically. Giving him that benefit of the doubt, and considering that none of his actions were violent, I think he could be forgiven a lot for believing the way he does. There's still his megalomania to deal with and the possibility that his "conversions" weren't really healthy or entirely consensual, though.
As a child when The final frontier was first released in cinemas, I remember leaving at the end with a memory of it being an uplifting film. Years later with repeated viewings on a small screen I came to recognise some of its shortcomings (but from a nerdy perspective it was the contradictions that got to me rather than the plot: the Enterprise having about 70(?) decks, or it being able to travel half way across the galaxy in hours or a few days (if only Voyager had had some of that rocket fuel the Enterprise used, instead of the unbranded AAA batteries Captain Janeway presumably bought off of Quark in the pilot episode. Then Voyager would have been home before the coffee got cold)). But one of the things which has kept my memories of this film warm and positive is the score. Jerry Goldsmith was in my opinion a composer of such musical vision that if he had been born centuries earlier he would today be revered alongside Beethoven and Mozart. The music for this film is beyond compare and captures moods and imposes feeling far beyond what we just 'see' on screen. In my opinion it can stand as a symphony in its own right. It is this which I think helps gloss over some of the films shortcomings, and is the same reason why I like Insurrection. Perhaps not ironically the two films whose music I have no connection to are also Generations and Nemesis (I know Goldsmith composed the music for Nemesis but even he is allowed a misstep, and no quality of music could make that film enjoyable!) Just one last thought Steve, and I know that as I am not a part of your Patreon I have no right to make requests. One topic I do not recall you tackling specifically in a video would be how you feel the music affects (positively or negatively) how Star Trek is perceived and remembered in given situations. Jerry Goldsmith himself once said it was his job to manipulate peoples feelings.
Just don't make the case that "Into Darkness" isn't the steaming pile of shit that it is, and I'll be happy. Another fine Trek video, Mr. Shives. For what it's worth, while "The Final Frontier" is the worst of the TOS Films in my book, watching this has helped me reconcile the fact that while it's a bad movie, there are glimmers of good amidst the dreck to appreciate.
Well... I like that Checkov got a hero moment? The Scotty pratfall was entertaining, McCoy's back story moment was genuinely affecting. For me it's mainly fragments, I guess
23:19 I remember my friend saying, “I wish Sybok had been in the movie theater with me to share *my* pain.” 😂
Similar experience with my friend. Except he said "I paid 5 bucks to see this."
I've seen better film on teeth.
@@johnschulz66275 bucks! Where did he go to the outdoor Rialto. Tickets were probably like 9 bucks back then.
@@robsaxan It was 1989 average ticket price was $3.99.
@@johnschulz6627 i was a teenager that went to a lot of movies in 1989. I would have loved to have run into $3.99 tickets. After school jobs don't pay much.
Trek Trivia: Laurence Luckinbill, who plays Sybok, is the husband of Lucy Arnaz, daughter of Lucille Ball, whose studio, Desilu, produced STTOS.
He's such an incredible actor; amazing he didn't have a more prominent career.
Fascinating
Trek Trivia: Laurence Luckinbill, who plays Sybok... had his own tv show pilot called "The Delphi Man" about an agent with a perfect memory.
Luckinbill does a decent job - its ugh just so weird.
Lucielle Ball also championed for the show against her own studio board. Unfortunately, the board was right: Trek and “Mission: Impossible” so consistently went over budget that Desilu Studios eventually had to be sold.
V is fun. It’s dumb but it’s fun. And “why does God need a starship?” is a quintessential Kirk moment.
God: Because *lightning bolt*, that's why.
Spock: That doesn't seem like a strong argument.
God: DO YOU WANT SOME THEN!?
For people who dislike the implications to the canon, imagine it's a story Scotty told over a round of Guinan's Finest in Ten Forward to a throng of ensigns off-screen in "Relics."
It certainly has that vibe.
and McCoy's follow on was priceless
@@m_hub3957 a fantastic response. that whole scene was tight
@@GSBarlev “and I was nailing Uhura!”
“Sure you were Monty”
I am surprised you did not highlight the scene where McCoy confronts his guilt over his father’s death. I think it is one of the best and most insightful McCoy scenes in the franchise.
At the live commentary event I mentioned in my post, Shatner talked about how Kelley didn't want to do the scene. He said Kelley claimed his character would never do that. So ironic that it's one the best pieces of acting in all of Star Trek.
@@jrock32379 I'd love to have heard his perspective. Because my interpretation of the character is that McCoy-unlike, say, Crusher-would see the morality in allowing a patient a dignified death.
I think it’s not set up well enough for a good payoff. His father is invented and dies off screen in this movie. I get what they’re doing, but when has McCoy _ever_ spoken about his father?
@@enginerdy I admit, it felt out of left field when I first saw the movie, like they needed something for Bones to be grappling with. But now, it feels like one of the better parts of the film. I don't think he would necessarily share something buried this deep in his heart, even with his friends. I also thinks it provides an interesting lens to view his personality.
It's well done, but I think it gets the character of McCoy totally wrong.
"I need my pain!" is the best Kirk moment and one of the most meaningful scenes in all of Trek, and I will die on that hill.
While I'm not a defender of this film, this particular scene does feel somewhat like a first draft of the climax of "Tapestry".
I dunno. "Excuse me? What does God need with a starship" is kind of up there. All this trouble and danger to get to this place, following Sybok on his loopy crusade, and he's the first one to stop and ask the basic question why the creator of life, the universe, and everything would need the help of mortals. XD
For a runner up I'd nominate Spock's "Damn you sir. You WILL try" to the Klingon general. It's subtle and a little understated. But with only a few words Spock made it clear he was on his last nerve and wasn't messing around.
That scene was pretty good to me, and the most stand out from the movie (other than the “why does God need a starship” scene). “My pain makes me who I am” has been a point of several works (Chaim Potok’s The Chosen was another one that was important to me growing up).
The rest of it ranged for me between “average” and “meh.” The scene with Scotty getting knocked out by walking into a beam for a cheap laugh was just ridiculous.
@@steampunker7 Yeah, that "damn you sir, you will try" was, I think, a subtle indication that the emotion Spock was currently suppressing with logic in that moment, was blind fury at the idea of losing his friend.
And I personally think the film has a TON of good lines, given how often that "what does god need with a starship?" line is quoted in pop culture, I'd say it definitely qualifies. But I think also the "Well wutaya standin' around for?!? Do you not know a jailbreak when ya see one?!" from Scotty was great. I remember having a genuine laugh out loud when I saw the film in the theaters when it came out at that line.
"I need my pain" is also good. "It appears we are too heavy" in Spock's deadpan voice as they all cling to each other on the rocket boots, followed by "Must've been all those marshmellons" is a good one. The comedy bit with Uhura and Chekov, having to make static noises was hilarious (they were a really good comedy duo, given they had one of the best scenes from ST 4, when asking for the nuclear wessels, and talking to the various people on the street)
I personally don't agree with the idea that this is a BAD film. Because it's really not. It's not a GREAT film, not at all, but it's a good film. It's solidly told, the structure fits well, it's nowhere near the weirdest or goofiest plot from a Star Trek story that's out there. The villain was good, and one that I enjoyed. Like Steve said, he's not a violent, bloodthirsty revenge hound. He's just a deluded cult leader, who believes he is correct about his religion, and, in a way he's proven correct. The barrier WAS an illusion, and there WAS a powerful being at the center of the galaxy.
It's a good film. Not great, not terrible. And I think it says a lot about our opinion on products that we consider anything that isn't fantastic to be "bad", when the reality is most entertainment is just that...average. And average is just fine. It's an enjoyable time.
I liked when McCoy relived his pain too.
Sybok: That's not the worst of it is there?
McCoy: No
Sybok: Tell it!
McCoy: No!
McCoy: Not long after, they discovered a cure, a goddamned cure!
Sybok: So if you hadn't killed him, he'd still be alive?
McCoy: No!--I loved my father, I released him!
Sybok: Release this pain, release it!--this pain has poisoned your soul...
A 45 minute video about how an old movie isn't good, exactly, just not as bad as you remember? This is the kind of video essay I live for
Yeah, I always thought I was in the minority in thinking that this was still better than Nemesis. Steve and I... disagree about Generations but as it was my first Trek movie in theaters, I have some nostalgic feelings about it.
@@thunderbirdcalls Your comment makes me appreciate even more that my first in-theatre Trek movie was First Contact!
@@thing_under_the_stairs Then have pity on me. My first movie was Nemesis.
@@Bastion90 I am so, so sorry, my friend.
@@thunderbirdcallsThe JJ films are better than Nemesis 😂
One of the things I like about 5 is that Sybok is the antagonist but he's not the kind of villain that every movie seems to have today. He doesn't stay 'evil' until the bitter end, he admits he's wrong when faced with the truth of the moment.
Thanks for saying this - that was my take as well.
Really, I'd say Sybok's the antagonist, but NOT a villain.
If all his plan was to get a Starship to get his people off "Temu Arrakis" it would be a more interesting movie. Throw a Romulan ship in the mix and a three way standoff, you don't even need the god plot.
@madmen2288 true but the god plot waa a script idea gene rodenberry
"Jim, you don't ask the almighty for his I.D!" is one of my all time favourite Bones quotes
So many of history’s tragedies would have been stopped by doing exactly that 😄
Why not?
On the other hand, you’d have to ascertain the trustworthiness of whatever entity issued such ID, so …
Nimoy: When I directed Star Trek IV, I got a magnificent performance out of Bill because I respect him so much.
Shatner: And when I directed Star Trek V, I got a magnificent performance out of me because I respect me so much.
@@kunserndsittizen2655
I see you've been to enough Star Trek conventions to know how to spell Melllvar.
Excellent analysis. Trek v5 is pretty enjoyable. And you brilliantly bring up much of the best of it. Thank you.
Welshy!!
Say nuclear wessels.
You must be talking about Nimoy's one man play about Vincent Van Spock.
Hey! Shatner's complaint that if he had had the budget, he would have had a stupid fight scene with rock monsters was a set up for a truly great pay off!
Years later,
in a different movie,
when the captain had to fight a rock monster in Galaxy Quest.
Galaxy Quest is like a bad Trek movie but where the most of the characters are fully aware of how nuts everything is; and I love it for being that.
I mean, Kirk did kind of die under rocks, so maybe it's best that he didn't fight rock monsters.
Galaxy Quest is the Spaceballs of Star Trek in every possible way. Highly recommend both.
most of the budget went towards his hairpieces
Steve's next essay: Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie ;p
We also attended the Shatner led screening at GalaxyCon. Bill started talking about it during his panel earlier in the day, and hesitantly told us that he wasn't sure what emotional impact seeing it after all these years was going to have. He still has a ton of regrets and anger about how he was treated by the studio and Harve Bennett (cutting a huge portion of the budget when already in production!) and he said he sees this film as a major failure of his life. In recent years Bill has been more vulnerable in public, so we had no idea whether this was a good thing for him.
During the screening, he was describing what he was trying to do compared to what showed up on screen. As the movie rolled without stopping it was necessarily brief, but his self disappointment was evident from the beginning. He never tore down his cast, although he said they were surprisingly resistant to him as a director. The one scene he loved was doing the landing on ShaKaRi, with the sunrise coming from behind Trona Pinnacles. And just after that scene he said, "This is where I ran out of budget".
We the audience could clearly see his struggles and disappointments. The Treksperts were saying all the time, "We see your vision. We understand. You did what you could." We were all participating in a giant therapy session as he poured out his emotions. He was an artist who wanted to make something great, and he painfully, publicly failed.
At the close, we stood up and applauded. A lot because the movie really was not as bad as it's been portrayed, but also to thank him for being so open and letting us see him in what must have been a tremendously vulnerable state. He quickly left the stage. As we were leaving, a bunch of us approached the Treksperts and begged them to give him a message: He tried, he did the best he could, and that's all we could ask.
Okay, this is a wonderful and redeeming story. Someday some AI production package might even make it possible to upscale some aspects of the movie. It might make it possible to redeem the movie and maybe make it bigger and better...though maybe in hindsight the paring down may have made it less worse overall, if too spare for what it could have been.
Amazing account - Thank you!
He publically succeeded, despite any Philistines who can't appreciate it.
When I moved to California I went out of my way to visit the Trona Pinnacles just so I could say I visited ShaKaRi.
Intriguing.
Kirk: “There aren’t any more never-before-mentioned siblings of yours running around out there right now, are there?”
Spock: “Not right NOW…”
Sure you don't have a hidden sister out there somewhere that Star Fleet has erased from existance? LOL. Hmmm, No?
@RodneyThomasJTD vulcans and secrets that only come out when they become entangled in a life or death scenario, name a more iconic duo.
Does adoption count?
The camping scene and the "what does God need with a starship" scene are some of the best Trek ever. Just the bonding between the main three throughout the film make it great.
Thank you. I think that line was one of the best EVER. Plus, Steve is off, here. Enterprise meeting God, or at least someone claiming to be God, was RODDENBERRY'S idea. NOT Shatner's. Why blame him? Enterprise meeting God was the premise of the pilot for Star Trek: Phase II. Which we know became ST: The Motion Picture, and the God part taken out, due to some worries over religious groups, or something.... I'm just a retired Hollywood guy.
@@CaptainHavfun-lp4ok There was a big ordeal. Roddenberry had the idea for the pilot of Phase 2. Shatner claims his idea is his own and that he totally didn't steal it from Roddenberry. It was quite a big ordeal back in the day. Also I actually used the whole "What does God need with a starship?" line in a sermon back in the day when I had to fill in and preach at a church.
@@fatenabu1 Then the SHAT is lying. I'm a member of the academies, and have friends that used to party at Lucille Ball's house. I have a lot of friends who have worked on several generations of Trek. I don't like Gene. But, the God concept was HIS idea. My friend used to be Shatner's agent...
@@CaptainHavfun-lp4ok Yea the crew meeting a being claiming to be God was a Gene thing. It was for phase 2 and Shatner may have some how forgot about it or something but yea, in TOS the crew encountered god like things all the time. Even in TNG, which was out at the time Q is a god like thing. Maybe even really being God according to the heart transplant episode of TNG. So yea it is a Gene thing and Shatner is lying. The way Shatner says it, he got the idea for it by seeing a Christian televangelist and got the idea to turn a televangelist into a Trek villain or something along those lines. Then it became they go and try to find God but find the literal devil instead. Which then became Star Trek V. I have no idea how true any of that is though.
I would say though that yes it was a Gene thing :)
One of my favorite Spock lines is when he says to the Klingon general: "Damn you, sir, you will try." I like the contempt that Nimoy summons up there.
Spock certainly polished up his “colorful metaphors” since the previous movie :)
This is the single best line of the film. It easily beats Kirk's starship question (which lampshades the stupid plot).
I actually have fond memories of when this movie came out. It was at the height of my convention days. Mark Lenard, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan were regulars at the convention and often talked friends of theirs into coming to visit with us. The year after this came out we had our usual crowd plus Spice Williams and Todd Bryant (Vixis and Klaa respectively) as guests. I remember them being quite cool with the fans. Yvonne Craig was also a guest around then. Her story about the time she ran over Vincent Price's foot was great.
During one of his visits Mr. Doohan pretty well summed up a number of his fellow cast members' feelings towards Shatner. On the convention floor Doohan was almost always in Scotty mode because, as he said, he knew who people were there for. At a panel he was asked about his relation ship with Shatner and he answered as Scotty would, "I'd walk through fire for Jim Kirk. It's the other fella I cannae stand."
I had a photo taken with Shatner at a ST convention a few years ago. I wasn't expecting much, but in that brief interlude, he was very kind and we even exchanged a few words. He didn't have to do that.
This movie asks the most important question in all of Star Trek and frankly in all of humanity. What does god need with a starship? Everyone under recruitment should ask themselves - Why does god need MY help? Why does god need an army? Why can't this thing that created the universe manage the slightest little details without some human's help? Is this really just some human's want, masquerading as god's will? Are you praising the lord or passing the loot?
Well there is the obvious answer of free will and god giving the people the opportunity to do good and bad things since without freedom of will and choice their would be no humans but puppets.
But I think that's besides the right point you wanna make that by no means faith should dictate you to go against others since "If god has a problem with some, god can manages this on his own."
Dude… this is some strong insight! I’m going to start using “praising the lord or passing the loot”.
Or, what could possibly be the necessity of ‘praising the Lord and passing the ammunition’, to borrow the line from the song, particularly when he is said to be “the God of peace”?
God made man in his image, this is why man is so insecure and in need of validation.
Why does God need MY money just so his representatives can fly around on private jets?
33:44 Shatner probably ended up understated because as director he had tired himself out. Instead of sitting around stewing between takes like an actor, a director has a bunch of stuff to do. So unless the AD was in charge when he was on the call sheet, he was pretty busy.
I don't even think Spock never mentioning Sybok before is unreasonable. Not only is Spock in general a closed-off individual who tends not to share much in the first place, but we're directly shown in this movie that Sybok is the source of his most deeply-rooted pain. Why would he mention Sybok before?
Before „Journey to Babel“ he didn‘t even mention his father, the ambassador!
Don't forget the sister he was ordered never to talk about.
@@labeled1 I literally do not care about any concepts introduced in Discovery.
What was a bit puzzling about this movie for me, is Spock died and was resurrected and it never comes up in conversation in a movie about faith
Well, McCoy alludes to it during the first campfire scene and Kirk alludes to it right before the second one. So it does technically come up in conversation, just not in a theological context and maybe that's because Spock's resurrection is given such a (for Star Trek) mechanistic and scientific veneer: Spock downloads a copy of his software into McCoy's hard or wetware, intending it to be transferred into a presumably non-living medium stored on Vulcan. His body is reanimated, rejuvenated and/or regenerated--cloned, really--by the Star Trek science of Project Genesis. A Vulcan adept uses Vulcan telepathy to write Spock's software onto his new hard or wetware. God really never enters the equation.
It JUST occurred to me: in "Return to Tomorrow," Spock suggests that Vulcans are descendants of Sargon's people. Season One of Star Trek: Picard establishes that Vulcans are not indigenous to Vulcan. Sargon, Hanoch and Thalassa MAY this have been katrically stored, only with more powerful software copied onto more advanced storage media. Accidental continuity is my favorite kind of continuity--see also Carol Marcus and the "little blond lab technician" Gary Mitchell aimed at Kirk.
"We don't talk about the Black Mountain."
"Or the Space Koala 🐨"
Kirk: "Hey Spock! Tell your brother about when you met God when you died!"
Spock: "I just blacked out and woke back up on the planet, there was nothing!"
Sybok: "Well shit."
*crew all laughs, freezeframe, 80's sitcom music and credits roll*
@@BrianRRenfro Directed by Gerren Keith
Because the film was about the awesomeness of Kirk and to hell with basically everyone else. One of the drafts for the film included Spock and McCoy also "betraying" Kirk. Nimoy and Kelley outright refused to follow along with that because it is so utterly out of character for them.
Steve, one thing you didn't mention which I think fans didn't appreciate at the time: Star Trek V is the only TOS-era movie with all the original main cast in all their original main roles on the Enterprise for the entire length of the movie.
TMP starts with no Spock. TWOK starts with no Chekov. TSFS (obvs) starts with no Spock, again. TVH starts with no Enterprise. And TUC starts with no Sulu.
Not to mention, in TWOK, Kirk was an Admiral and not part of the crew at first.
@@OpinionsNoOneCaresAboutAnd Spock was captain of the Enterprise.
It's also the only movie with the Kirk/Spock/Bones dynamic, which was such a key part of the TOS show.
Fascinating.
@@LordAzrael707🤔 I don't know about the only one, but it certainly has the most of it. It's certainly very true to the series, much like Insurrection was to TNG.
The stand-out moment for me is McCoy's time with his father. A superb performance from Deforest Kelly.
Maybe you have to have grown up in Northern California to feel this way, but I find it fitting that a story about the search for "god's country" begins and ends in Yosemite Valley.
isn't that the region that Lee Marvin declared was "God's Country" in "Paint Your Wagon"?
David Paulides might feel the opposite way.
I have always thought that the opening credits scene with Kirk climbing El Capitan with a beautiful
Jerry Goldsmith score and no dialogue was the most descriptive Insight into Kirks character in the whole franchise.
This movie screams for a directors cut special addition with Shatner overseeing new FX and editing the same way Robert Wise got to finally
put out his true vision of STTMP.
I'd say yes to a director's cut but no to letting Shatner hold the reigns. I know that film is his baby. I know that, warts and all, he did the best he could with it. But...well, sometimes there's a reason a creative talent needs someone to stand behind them with a rolled up newspaper to bap them on the head once in a while and say "NO! Bad!"
Trim out or rework a couple of lines of dialog, maybe use some CGI to slightly de-age the cast and clean up the space scenes, put in the rest of Spock's "pain" scene and...fine. Put the rock monster at the end. Then move it chronologically to be the first film in the series instead of the fifth.
It doesn't fix everything. But it does make the film flow better into its series better.
I think Star Trek fans are owed a special edition where the effects are redone and in the way William Shatner originally wanted them to be done. Although I don’t think he should have complete control he should be part of the creative process as far as the new effects.
@@vernonlemoignan1392 And, speaking as a Trek fan myself, I'd rather have a good story and coherent narrative. Bill's a fine performer and actor and we wouldn't have Captain Kirk without him. But given the first draft he turned in, I don't think his ego needs any further indulging or excusing. Keep in mind, his original pitch for this film was Kirk literally looking for God and finding the devil. And this was the version they were able to talk him him down to.
Sometimes too much creative control ISN'T a good thing.
"I don't want my shitty Star Trek taken away. I need my shitty Star Trek" is the most Steve Shives thing I think I've ever heard in all my years listening to you. I love it. 😂
I agree. The shitty Star Trek not only makes the good Star Trek stand out, it provides much more fodder for fun discussions and reviews. While Voyager certainly has shitty episodes, it's killed at least two Trek podcasts (Trekabout and The Pensky Podcast) because so many of its episodes are "meh." Good episodes are fun to watch and review, and bad episodes are fun to review as well. The blah episodes are not.
Cleaning up those old space probes might be a vital safety issue considering V-GER. After that I'd be ordering all old probes either recovered or destroyed.
- The seemingly inert space probe somehow dodged the Klingons' opening volleys
- When it was finally destroyed, it let loose a blood-curdling scream.
*Pinoneer 10 had it coming.*
It's quite possible that scene was a minor call out to ST: TMP. Only Kirk knows for sure!
@@nixon2tube I'm sure it was William Shatner's revenge for Star Trek The Motion Picture, which is far worse than Star Trek V.
@@davidawimsett Wow. Just .... WOW.
38:50
Kudos to Steve for not going for the obvious "perhaps the real God was the Klingon friends we made along the way."
When he does the comment response video, I hope he pairs your comment with mine
Well now that's MY tagline for this movie.
I saw it as part of my surprise birthday as a kid. I enjoyed it . It was a popcorn movie. But the novelization is phenomenal. As a novel it is a great Star Trek novel. The novel captures the Sybok sharing pain thing really well. Film was the wrong medium for the story.
Bit of a hot take here, I genuinely enjoy the entire camping scenes, and just the characters living their lives. It’s pretty fun to see them not on duty, and being themselves. I agree, it’s a bit forced, but it’s some silly fun for me!
The part that always bothered me about the camping scenes, was with the characters calling marshmallows, marshmellons...I always found that very strange.
@@Christie_1701 Just Spock. Remember that he had never encountered them before, and apparently camping was not a logical endeavor on Vulcan.
I had the privilege to attend a screening of Star Trek V at GalaxyCon San Jose this year. It was hosted by the Inglorious Treksperts Podcast with William Shatner providing live commentary. It was a lot better than I remembered from when I was younger and Shatner’s insights gave me new appreciation for the movie. Also, I partnered with Cynthia Gouw for a Star Trek trivia contest. It was a great time.
Sounds like a great time. 🥂🖖🏼
Oh, I'm so jealous. There were a few deleted scenes that she was phenomenal in. Honestly, should have been the breakout character of the film.
That's cool.
We didn't have so much success with it. A friend of mine arranged a showing of it at an Alamo Drafthouse in northern Virginia about a decade ago. At the time, folks were pretty sure it was the first time it had played in a theater since release. We had a big crowd and everything, but we couldn't get anyone involved in the film, especially Shatner, to give us the time of day, except for Spice Williams if I remember right. I can't remember if she filmed an intro message or maybe just responded by email. But I think she was the only person who responded at all. (edit: I was wrong. It was Linda Howard, who played the cat woman who actually responded).
Still, we changed a lot of hearts that night. A lot of folks who'd long dismissed the film came out of the theater with a much more positive vibe.
We were there! I was surprised that there were not more in the audience, this was a truly rare experience. I felt so bad for Bill, he really wanted to make a good work of art, and he's so disappointed. I hope he feels better after that therapy session.
@@GSBarlev She's so cool! She was so warm and genuine. We got to choose team names, and we went with the Star Trek Cyn-icks (we thought it was clever) and we won! Evan Evagora (Elnor on Picard) was playing as well and he gave me a big hug after the game. Dude is super chill.
"Don't you have miniatures to paint?"
I don't need to be called-out like that.
Star Trek V is the most TOS Star Trek movie ever. I don't know why it gets so much hate. I assume because it was sandwiched between Whales and Chang - two of the highlights.
I've been telling friends from Star Wars/TNG fandom this for ages. It feels the most authentic to TOS to me. I love it for its comparative goof. It still feels better, to me, than either Insurrection or Nemesis
@JSRLPadre I don't remember much about V but there's no way it's worse than those two
I saw it right after I saw the original pilot. This is very similar. Instead of the Edge of the Galaxy, it's the center. Instead of the crew acting weird and having unusual powers, it's a stranger. And, instead of a climactic fight with said crew members, it's a fight with the entity causing all the trouble. I just kept thinking how similar this was to that and, while it's not my favorite, it's fun! I honestly think NEMESIS is waaaaaaaay worse, lol. And while I ADORE the vibe of The Motion Picture that could totally come off as boring, if you're in the wrong mood. At least this is pretty consistent throughout, tonally.
@@joshuaabe4832 I mean, if that’s the case, I would argue it’s TMP. Literally searching for knowledge and seeking out new life, not to mention V’ger is basically Nomad from The Changeling.
I've always liked it. It's not my favorite that's four, and it's not my second favorite that's six, but it's perfectly serviceable. It's not the worst certainly, that's nemesis. Is this joke dragging on way to long without getting to the point? No, that's Star Trek the Motion Picture...
I find a villain's confusing motivations to be the weakest link in most bad movies. But as Steve said, Sybok is actually a pretty good but flawed guy.
When I saw STV in the theater, there was an incredibly strong thunderstorm raging right when KSM and Sybok are fighting GOD. It was such an amazing effect hearing and even feeling these deafening blasts of thunder inside the theater, seemingly as part of the climax of the movie!
I've always liked Star Trek V. It has some of the most iconic scenes and lines in the franchise for me ("What does God need with a space ship anyway?" and Spock killing God with a Klingon Bird-Of-Prey). I've also always liked how it's this mysterious voyage with an unknown destination.
Also the opening with Spock and the hover boots and all 3 of them hanging out around a campfire as friends.
When "what does God need with a space ship?" turned into a meme, my kids wanted to see this movie. I had skipped it during our Classic Trek films marathon and they absolutely loved 2, 3, 4, and 6, and even respected what The Motion Picture was attempting.
When I showed them 5, they were initially stunned by how different it was from the others. Then they came around and enjoyed it as a film that is bad enough that it becomes good again.
That was actually the only decent line in the movie.
I still contend the best of the Star Trek films is " Star Trek the Motion Picture" and is in fact one of the best sci-fi films of all time. To this day I will stand by that.
NCC-1701 was the star of The Motion Picture
@@witnesstothestupid Thank you. Some idiot above said he thought TFF was Shatner's revenge for TMP.
There are absolutely some goofy moments in this movie, which is SO on brand for Star Trek, and none of them take you fully out of the movie. (I.e. okay, so they fly past “deck 72” and the numbers are out of order, call it a movie gaff).
A handful of major elements that make this movie excellent: the Trio camping and bonding, Lawrence Luckenbill’s captivating performance as Sybok, the sense of mystery heading down to Sha-Ka-Ri, the scene in which McCoy’s and Spock’s inner pains are revealed and Kirk’s powerful refusal, and of course the magnificent score by our man Jerry Goldsmith
This movie's existence is justified if only for Fall On Your Sword's Shatner of the Mount, which started playing in my head the moment in your summary Captain Kirk was climbing a mountain.
I was half expecting Steve to say "where Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain, why is he climbing a mountain?" at 7:24 🤣
@@Xpndable Exact same reaction. It's just what follows next in my brain, like how if someone declares "Let's get down to business!" then Huns must be defeated soon.
A plot where they find “God” is a very TOS idea. It’s not off-brand at all. TOS was rife with plots where they find “gods”, even gods from earth’s antiquity.
There is a difference between finding some Greek god and finding "the God". Look at Stargate, the show is all about just about every god ever being an alien, but not "the God". They even state as much in one episode.
@@boriszakharin3189 Is there a difference? Yahweh, “the God” for the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is just a Canaanite sub-god, son of El, and part of another pantheon.
But by “the god” do you mean the progenitor of all gods (Chaos) or the last surviving god (still TBD - I’m betting on the Highlander)?
I love the soundtrack particularly. The opening music during the rock-climbing scene just stirs me every time I hear it. It's not my favorite movie, but it's got a lot of good moments in it for sure.
Star Trek V was my first introduction to live action Star Trek - possibly my frist introduction to Star Trek as a whole (I can't quite remember if I'd seen TAS on a Saturday morning at that point). I remember it being available in my local video rental store. I used to rent it for a week at a time and watch it over and over again. Eventually, when it moved of the rental shelves and in to the bargin bin, I begged my mother to buy it. And she did. I loved the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. And as someone who grew up in a christain household the line 'What does god need with a starship' stuck with me. So it has a lot of sentimental value and formative memories for me. It may have it's problems, but I like it.
It's insane that 10 weeks used to be considered a short run. Now most movies are lucky if they get that because studios can't wait to start losing money by dropping them on streaming. Sometimes in the middle of their theatrical run.
You had first run theaters, second run theatres, dollar show theatres, VHS and finally cable. VHS was about 6 months after release and cable was one year or so. Even mediocre movies played for about a month at that time.
When I was younger I remember newspaper ads that proclaimed, "Raiders of The Lost Ark - 110th week!!". That's of course more than TWO YEARS! VCRs existed back then but not everybody had one as they were too expensive. The only way to see some of these big popular films was to go to the cinema.
@@tulinfirenze1990 I also remember seeing a movie at the second run theater and then randomly 3 or 4 months later it was back.
@@tulinfirenze1990 And even if you did have vcr and rented a copy of raiders of the lost arc or recorded it off TV the quality was actually pretty low and you were most likely watching it on a 19 inch television too lol.
ST5 really grew on me over the years. As you say, not a 'great' film, but the character moments are amazing. Loved Sybok and the campfire scene. But that scene where he tries to take Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's "pain" makes it all worth it. Kirk's rejection of it all is a genuinely important message: we're shaped by our experiences. They make us who we are, for better or worse. Our scars tell a story.
But for me, McCoy's flashback absolutely slays me, with that utterly heartbreaking moment with his father, especially his breakdown afterward, learning they found a cure not long after. Jesus christ, DeForest Kelley was probably the best actor in the cast and that, for my money, was his best performance ever.
In the episode "Disaster" when Picard is trying to find a song to keep some childrens' morale up after the ship is struck by a quantum filament, the kids suggest a few songs that they've learned in school before eventually landing on Frère Jacques. One of the titles suggested is "The Laughing Vulcan and his Dog" and I've always wondered if that was a subtle jab at this movie, with Sybok and Farmer J'onn.
🤔
And don't forget, dog is god spelled backward! (with appologies to Zap comics)
According to Lisabeth Shatner's book on the making of the movie, Gene Roddenberry himself suggested making Sybok Spock's brother. He also suggested giving Sybok mind control over the crew. His ideas/memos were taken more seriously here than in the movies directed by Meyer and Nimoy. Meyer having infamously stated: "Maybe if he gives back some of the money he's made off my movies, then I'll care what he has to say." Shatner showed more respect. I believe that after the film was released and considered a disappointment, Roddenberry did an about face and distanced himself from it.
Anyway, yes, it IS the most TOS like. And it's my favorite. 👍🖖❤️
Everything I'd heard up until now was that Meyer was decent. If that quote is true, he's a real dick.
I can at least accept Michael as Spock's sister for the same reason I Sybok accept as Spock's brother. Given the fact that Kirk didn't know who Spock's parents were until they were introduced, there's nothing unexpected about Kirk not knowing about his brother until he had them locked in the brig while taking control of the ship. The real world precident for my acceptance of Spock's unknown family members is the fact that I'm that private with my own personal information too.
They made Mikey his sister??? LMAO... thank god I checked out of Discovery after 3 episodes LOL Her character wrecked the entire show.
I'm not a fan of retroactive siblings and offsprings. I can see the Hand of the Writer on the screen and it ruins my suspension of disbelief. Just because something happens in real life doesn't mean it's gonna make a good plot point. To me it just screams lack of ideas, lack of creativity, and taking shortcuts to gain sympathy for the character.
@@madquest8 They also changed Spock to be developmentally disabled and Vulcans to be unable to provide proper special education for people with these kinds of learning disabilities. So Michael had to tutor Spock or he would not have been able to get through kindergarten. He was going to be discarded from all education before she helped him get through it.
It's a nice story and representation for people with these problems, but the problem I have is that Spock is canonically supposed to have been an unusually gifted child for whom learning was easier. Not a kid with a learning disability. At least he is still supposed to be super intelligent, just suffering from some severe mental disabilities and neurodivergent. I think he is supposed to be severely autistic and dyslexic now among other problems, per Discovery and Strange New Worlds. TBH they didn't really say what he had, just described his experiences much like the scenes in Game of Thrones. Because we all know Vulcan is at a medieval level as far as psychology and education technology.
@@rifter0x0000 to be fair, I have known neurodivergent people who struggled in school for a while until something clicked then it was off to the races. I don't think the storyline contradicts him being a bit of a savant.
@@madquest8 I didn't like Michael's character the first few episodes either; but I feel like she got better and less insufferable overtime.
Whatever its flaws, “What does God need with a starship?” Is the best line in all of Star Trek.
Is he your brother?
No.
Okay.
Do you have a sisters?
No.
Sure she won't turn up in a later show?
Nope, definitely not.
Nope, He's definitely not sure that she won't turn up in another show. 😆
I've heard that paradise city has green grass and the girls are quite attractive.
I'm hoping someone will take me down there sometime😊
Oh, won’t you please take me down~🎵
I just downloaded this video to listen to at work tomorrow, but I just want to drop here that this movie spawned my favorite trilogy of Star Trek books. They were written by Greg Cox (whom I actually just got in touch with about said books!) and it's a Q trilogy. The creature in this film, as established in these novels, is actually an evil Q that the Continuum banished to the center of the galaxy. That's why the Great Barrier was there. Not to keep us out but to keep it in! I will sing the praises of these books until I die. I hope I've piqued at least one person's interest reading this!
Maybe give the name of the trilogy? I've never read a star trek book and it would help me order it.
@@skehleben7699 sorry. The main title is "The Q Continuum" and each book has a different subtitle.
I do adore this movie, it probably has one of the best Chekov scenes when he's pretending to be captain as he tries and inevitably fails to distract Sybok from the raid being conducted which leads to Sybok's best line: "No! It wasn't bloodshed i wanted!" as he runs off
I've long been a fan of V. I know it's not anyone's favorite, but it's got the best Kirk/Spock/McCoy moments in it and a FANTASTIC antagonist, Sybok. Plus, “what does God need with a starship" is the most baller move Kirk has ever done.
I had written Star Trek off when I heard Spock utter that most despicable, vile, disgusting line of dialog every put out by Hollywood in Star Trek II... it took 3 and 4 to redeem it for me.
@@gnericgnome4214 What line is that?
@@TightPantsJack The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one. Thank God they spent the next two movies proving what murderous garbage that is.
@@gnericgnome4214It's not murderous garbage when used in the context of the film. Vulcans embrace logic, arguably to a fault, but alongside a code of ethics so that the logic isn't used in ways that are unnecessarily destructive which logic alone can certainly rationalize without having a full perspective which no one will ever have. From the Vulcan standpoint this isn't the majority choosing to sacrifice an unwilling minority in order to save themselves but the minority being selfless and courageous enough to make that decision themselves, which is what Spock did.
@@crosana01 bs. it's flat-out socialism. it asserts that the value of Vulcan life is additive. Well, maybe it is, but the value of human life is not additive. Selflessness is not a virtue.
You talked about the lack of money, but didn't mention that this & TMP are the only TOS movies that ILM didn't do the effects for, & the difference is OBVIOUS!
I'd personally argue that TMP has some of the best VFX of any of the TOS films but there are some notable deficiencies that were because of the accelerated production timeline instead of issues of skill or technology at the time. Many of the people who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey worked on TMP, which is why the models look so good. Unfortunately, they were given half the time they wanted to finish the effects, there was VXF and editing work going on until the day of the premier with some shots that were simply not finished. This is one of many reasons the Director's Edition is the version that people should watch.
As for the worst looking of the TOS films, I would say it's Search for Spock but it had the smallest budget of them all, $16 million, half that of even The Final Frontier. Even that movie has some great model work but lots of other visual aspects really look the budget.
@EdwardM104 The worst thing about Search for Spock was Doc Brown chewing up the scenery while hamming it up as the captain of a Bird of Prey. I hated all of his scenes in ST III. That was a terrible casting decision.
@@pike100 Back to the Future was released the year AFTER this movie. I wonder if your opinion would change if you had seen this movie first.
As a kid, i found the way the angry "god" says "yeeeouuuuuuuuu" when its chasing kirk to be legitimately terrifying
I love your retelling style.
I only got into Trek within the last decade or so, with a quest to watch all the main series and movie content in order. I embarked on Star Trek V with a sort of knowing dread and morbid curiosity, and I remember my overall impression being "I can see why a bigger fan could be offended, but to me it just falls a little flat."
Definitely better than Generations.
My parents separated around the time TNG first aired. There wasn't much to do at my dad's. I was 10 or 11 and so bored I thought i would literally expire. I'm 47 now, and I still think of Wesley Crusher as an old friend who got me through a hard time. We had matching sweaters. I am smiling fondly RIGHT NOW.
Thanks to you, I'm now aware this is mildly hilarious.
"What does god need with a starship?" was my dad's favorite scene. He rarely quoted movies, but he would always quote that when it was coming up or happening. Sometimes he'd even randomly quote it. He knew how silly it was, but loved it because of that.
I agree with you about continuity…for the most part. It genuinely _does not bother me_ when things are changed or retroactively introduced, as long as they’re not franchise-defining changes (with a few exceptions). Though I do kinda enjoy it and find it fun when writers show that they’ve paid attention and give an intelligent, considered reason for something in a line or two. I think it’s fun to see the clever ways that can be done. But neither side will ever be able to convince the other to see it their way on that argument. So here’s _my_ reasoning as to why the people who hate on Sybok or Michael being introduced with no word of them before are…kinda ridiculous.
As far as I remember, Sulu does not ever, not once _EVER_ mention having parents. (If he does, just go with me on this, because you’ll get my point. If not him, then I’m fairly sure at least one member of the crew is this way, and even if not, the hypothetical still makes the point.) As I remember, he never even made mention of “My mother used to sing me to sleep with that song” or “My father taught me to do this when I was ten years old”. Nothing even _that_ small, let alone anything more pronounced like actually _meeting_ his parents. If we look just at the actual _words spoken_ of The Original Series, with no outside knowledge of how life and reality work, we would have no reason to believe Sulu even _had_ parents. Yet if they were to make something today that involved TOS in some way, and they came out and said “And this is _____ Sulu, father of Hikaru Sulu!”, would you be surprised by that? Would you be astonished and go “WHUHHHHHH? Sulu has a DAAAAAAAD?????”? ………..? So why would a sibling be any different, just because we’d never heard of them? And _especially_ with Spock, who’s a _very_ private person, sharing even with his crew only things that are relevant to the current situation?
So yeah. That’s my thought as to why the hate on Sybok and Michael “suddenly existing” is ridiculous. If someone never explicitly _told you_ that they had parents, for like five years, would you be astonished to suddenly learn that they had a mother and a father? Why would a sibling be any different?
Years ago me and my friends were talking about Star Trek 5 and discussing how silly the whole thing was and I just said it one point "What if 'God' is just a future version of Wesley Crusher that the travelers got tired of and used there powers to dump him there in the distance past and trapped there." We all had a good laugh about it and it's something I still think about every now and then to give myself a little chuckle and a smile.
I think one of the non-canon Star Trek novels wrote the God-being as a rogue Scytherian (the entity that gave Barclay superintelligence in "The Nth Degree").
Your dedication to making sure everyone understands that the REAL worst Star Trek movie is Nemesis warms my Nemesis-hating heart. Final Frontier doesn't hold a candle, doesn't hold a patch to the badness of Nemesis. I enjoyed whole sections of Final Frontier, whereas I've got two scenes of Nemesis I was actually entertained by, and if you asked me if I wanted to rescue them from a fire I'd ask if any other films were burning.
Frankly, and this is admittedly a dissenting view, “Generations” and “Nemesis” are far better than any of the Abrams films. I tried watching one of those films on television one time, and it just wasn’t “Star Trek” despite being given the title. Abrams nearly destroyed the franchise. However, that damage is finally being repaired with “Picard” and some of the fan-based series available here on UA-cam.
In addition to Nemesis, I also disliked Insurrection more than I disliked Star Trek V.
This movie will always be a guilty pleasure for me. My dad introduced it to me when I was a kid. I liked it back then and still like it today, in spite of all the flaws.
I remember thinking the "Scotty bumps his head" gag was the best part of the movie. That tells you something
There's a Star Trek:NextGen episode where a kid mentions a kid's song "The Laughing Vulcan" which seems like a playful reference to this movie.
I feel like if they trimmed it down and it was one of the tv episodes, it would of worked a lot better.
I'm a big fan of this movie. I don't pretend it's good but I don't get why anyone would ever hate it. One thing you didn't mention that I like is how on several occasions the heroes work together with the villains for the common good. First when they have to manouver the shuttle to the Enterprise which is under threat from Klingons, then after they breach the barrier because why not, we're already here and these guys aren't that bad at all, and finally right at the end with the Klingons. There's nodoby really evil in this movie (except the god monster), which is a very Star Trek thing. Sybok himself isn't really that much of a villain, he only has different goals than the heroes, and not only does he never hurt anyone, he actually seems to care about the destitute people he encounters, he helps them, and they join him out of their own free will. I like that too.
It’s got some very thought provoking elements, along with some weak points. Given the budget and time constraints on production, Shatner did a very efficient job directing.
No mention of Jerry Goldsmith's return to big-screen Trek? "A Busy Man" may be one of the best cues he ever composed.
Agreed "A busy man" is amazing. Another of my Jerry Goldsmith favs is "The dream" from Total Recall.
Originally Spock was supposed to be brain washed with the others and join team Sybok but Nimoy refused, insisting that Spock would never turn against Kirk so they had to come up with another reason for him not to shot Sybok.
"Your brother Sam came back to life??" I always think of that during that scene too, I guess Kirk forgot about his less important one-episode bio brother.
Hi Steve! Never bothered to comment before, but "Have any trouble finding the place?" was gold.
I just realized…”God” was Palpatine who had come back somehow. Glowy blue, shooting lightning…it makes sense to me (at least as much as anything written into the film).
I don't think Palpatine ever screamed "YOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU!"
I admit some form of musical Stockholm Syndrome here, but I absolutely adore the soundtrack for this movie. Most tracks are recognizable and bouncy, full of action potential (you can close your eyes and imagine what's happening, just like most of A New Hope), and contains bits and pieces of what would become the Next Generation theme, and the Klingon theme.
And that's not to mention Goldsmiths sweeping, haunting score for The Motion Picture and First Contact, and the same goes for McCarthy's score for Generations, and much more.
The TV show Frazier would have been so much weaker without a brother who was never mentioned in Cheers.
*"I doubt any God who inflicts pain for his own pleasure."* is one of the most subversive lines in the history of the franchise. It was a lifeline of sanity for a young man who grew up nearly drowning in unquestioning religious certitude. (It was like TNG's "Who Watches the Watchers" in a single masterfully delivered line by the late great DeForest Kelley.)
Indeed, something many religious people, or countries, still don’t understand today.
That was my favorite line from the first time I saw it as a kid. The idea that "God" should be held to moral standards is really powerful.
@@oliviastratton2169 ABSOLUTELY!
Amen
Sybok's pain dialogue was sampled by Tupac for the song 'Pain' for the Above The Rim soundtrack, so this film does have some big fans due to I think the whole pain and salvation messiah aspect.
I don't hate the flick, but don't love it either. It looks like the budget was blown in the first 15 minutes. (Except for the opening credits, which literally look like they were thrown together the day before release. ) The opening climbing scene, with some brilliant Jerry Goldsmith music is something I come back to watch every so often. I also love the character dynamic of the triumvirate, even in a clunky movie.
Laurence Luckinbill was great as Sybok, and with a better script, could have really added something even more special.
(I am always baffled at the continuity error of his hair being cut differently when they are on Sha Ka Ree, which I assume was a reshoot.)
Still, I give it a watch every several years. Partly to see if I feel any different, but mostly just to enjoy the few moments of that film that I actually enjoy. I'm just glad this wasn't the original cast's final film. Credit to Shatner for taking responsibility for his part in it. I just feel he was in way over his head.
I have recently rewatched Final Frontier, and I'm here to tell you that it's a better movie than everyone remembers. As a director, Shatner really gives people time to have their moments on screen and that is really wonderful to see. There are portions of the movie that are not good. It needed better effects. It probably could have used a rewrite but the core elements of Star Trek are there and when it succeeds it really succeeds.
Also one little note, I worked in theater for a few years, and this movie is really shot like a play. There are really moments in the film that work as if it was a stage play and you have to kind of suspend your disbelief a little bit, but the lighting really helps here. It's such a wonderfully lit movie.
It is a wonderfully lit movie. The bridge, for example. And the brig/Jeffries Tube scenes. The ship feels brand new, and modern. A bonus is that you can actually see what’s going on.
I love this movie, its just a silly movie, nothing more, entertaining and fun. It all runs more like a an episode than a movie, but its still a good vibe
It is hardly silly; it is profound.
This one was a keeper and well worth taking a pause in my mini painting! Also BIG bonus points for the Prisoner reference!
I always thought V was a case of diminishing returns in a single movie. Great first act (ending with Spock refusing to shoot Sybok), good second act (ending when the Great Barrier is crossed) and absolutely terrible final act (whole rest of the rock monsterless movie).
Personally, I've always seen it along the lines of Superman III. It's got a lot of great individual elements to it. It just doesn't pull them together or use them to their full potential as well as it could. And thus in totality feels like less than the sum of its parts.
You're right
Star Trek v is not as bad as we thought it was
It's worse!!!
"I know I'm not going to die, Bones. This is Star Trek! How many times has Spock died and come back? How about you? Even Scotty has been resurrected twice! Frankly, I'm overdue."
Uhura resurrected me twice last night... It was wonderful
3:12 literally just watched it for the first time ever this week. Lol. I thought it was all fine, enjoyed sybock, until they basically just killed the god imposter and ran away. That part kinda just wrapped everything up super fast. Like... We couldn't figure out how to end this big concept the whole movie has been building up to... So... He's an imposter, we blow him up, sybock gets killed to tie off that lose end, and the movie is over. The end.
Haha. THumbs up for the Prisoner reference.(Even if it was to the poorly received finale...not every episode could be the General). Since the episodes are all on youtube, how about a review of the 17 odd episodes of Patrick McGoohan's magnum opus?
Kelley's scene in the Observation Lounge where he relives letting his father die with dignity is one of the pearls in this otherwise tepid outing for the Enterprise crew. It breaks my heart every time that he did what was right in the moment, and has lived with knowing a cure was just around the corner since then. It's one of the most powerful scenes in any of the Trek films, and the finest piece of acting for Kelley.
And it was in this crappy film!
I find this to be very much a more expensive version of a TOS episode...they go to check out something, which turns out to be something else, and oops the Klingons provide an extra threat.
Oh, and I just adore that when they come back to the Bridge, Kirk is still wearing his classic "Go Climb a Rock" Yosemite T-shirt! Still available after 400 years...
Listen, it's got a bunch of good one-liners. I'm glad it exists.
This is the PERFECT description for this movie.
I've often wondered what might have been if only Shatner had been able to collaborate and accept feedback. The ingredients are there for something truly great with the right writing partner. I feel like there's a cautionary tale in that about hubris and all,. But maybe what makes it such an interesting mess is camp that comes from just throwing everything at the wall with the most Shatnerish intensity. As it is it contains some of my favourite scenes in the franchise, particularly the old married throuple the trio have become. Deforest Kelly does some of his best work.
My favorite scene is Uhuru dancing. My only favorite scene in this movie.
I wholly agree with everything here, there are great points I never even considered before from how subtly or well the film executes them. But some of the subtext hurts me, personally even.
When Sybok and McCoy shows us what "release the pain" actually means, behaviorally, the film's subtext of "therapy sucks" is hamfistedly punched through the script and screen. It's then emphasized in bold and 82pt font when Kirk says, "I NEED my pain" and is rewarded for it. He is seen as having integrity, while the rest of the crew who "went through therapy" were made vulnerable to the Sybok's and the cult's whims.
When it has come to discussing my own therapy with my parents, my father (a devout evangelical Southern Baptist) threw this "I NEED my pain" quote at me, telling me how our pain makes us stronger keeps us from falling susceptible to cults, without any sense of irony whatsoever. I see this commentary in social media as well, even right here in these comments, making the scene a bizarre bulwark of anti-therapy. Often these folks are older, but not always - plenty of young (especially men) do not want to face their shadows. But I cannot let any consideration of this film pass without recognizing how it stands to these individuals, and how they use it to justify not being better for themselves much less for the rest of us. Is it as bad as "Birth of a Nation" was to racism? No, not at all. But it might be as bad as viewers missing the anti-toxic masculinity point entirely with "Fight Club", instead embracing it, starting fight clubs, getting ripped, and making mischief of their own.
I always wished Star Trek into Darkness made Cumberbatch Sybok instead of Kahn. A) Benny C would have made a good emotional Vulcan villain. B) it could have directly tied into the destruction of Vulcan. C) Spock having an estranged half brother is a good story hook that is under explored in ST 5.
I saw all 6 TOS films in the theater as they came out, having grown up watching trek reruns as a little kid. I wasn’t very impressed with Star Trek V, but I did appreciate little things, like Lawrence Luckenbill going all in on his role. You pointed out a few things I didn’t consider, and for that I really appreciate this video. Thank you.
For those upset with notion that Kirk fought some form of the Judeo-Christian god, he also fought Apollo in TOS
Fighting Gods was right up there with fighting computers for him, and they were often one in the same.
@@Stray7Consistent rules of _Trek:_ if you want to philosophize with God, call in Kirk. If you want to *kill* God, phone a Klingon.
And Trelane. And Gary Mitchell. etc. etc. etc.
And the Klingons also have prior experience with this.
Fighting Apollo isn't even close to fighting God.
I saw V as a kid and have continued to unironically love it, warts and all, since. Thanks for the even handed (and amusing) assessment. LLAP :)
I’ve always liked Star Trek V as kind of the shaggy dog of the TOS movies. Yes it’s a mess and looks cheap a lot of times but honestly I still always enjoy it and think it has a kind of clunky charm to it.
I recently watched this movie with my sibling who is seeing Star Trek for the first time. We both agree that this movie has a lot of potential it doesn't utilize. A Vulcan defying the Vulcan way. Trauma, how it defines us and how it can be used to manipulate us. Religious cults and how they target people who are hurting and mentally unwell. These are all great elements, plus the lovely scenes we get between the characters, but the movie blends them all together until none are explored to a satisfying conclusion.
There's a neat little misdirect about Sybok's character that I think rarely gets commented upon. He is portrayed a bit like a crackpot who claims to be hearing voices from God; "He calls to me." It allows the audience to make assumptions that he's mentally unwell and imagining voices in his head.
But, he's not. It had already been established in the Original Series and The Motion Picture that Vulcans _can_ sometimes sense powerful intelligences across deep space. Spock did it in "The Immunity Syndrome" when he sensed the destruction of the Vulcan crew on the Intrepid, and again in TMP Spock sensed V'ger calling to him even though the Vulcans performing the Kolinar ritual presumably did not.
Sybok wasn't crazy; at least not in that sense. The godlike being really was communicating with him telepathically. Giving him that benefit of the doubt, and considering that none of his actions were violent, I think he could be forgiven a lot for believing the way he does. There's still his megalomania to deal with and the possibility that his "conversions" weren't really healthy or entirely consensual, though.
As a child when The final frontier was first released in cinemas, I remember leaving at the end with a memory of it being an uplifting film. Years later with repeated viewings on a small screen I came to recognise some of its shortcomings (but from a nerdy perspective it was the contradictions that got to me rather than the plot: the Enterprise having about 70(?) decks, or it being able to travel half way across the galaxy in hours or a few days (if only Voyager had had some of that rocket fuel the Enterprise used, instead of the unbranded AAA batteries Captain Janeway presumably bought off of Quark in the pilot episode. Then Voyager would have been home before the coffee got cold)).
But one of the things which has kept my memories of this film warm and positive is the score. Jerry Goldsmith was in my opinion a composer of such musical vision that if he had been born centuries earlier he would today be revered alongside Beethoven and Mozart. The music for this film is beyond compare and captures moods and imposes feeling far beyond what we just 'see' on screen. In my opinion it can stand as a symphony in its own right.
It is this which I think helps gloss over some of the films shortcomings, and is the same reason why I like Insurrection. Perhaps not ironically the two films whose music I have no connection to are also Generations and Nemesis (I know Goldsmith composed the music for Nemesis but even he is allowed a misstep, and no quality of music could make that film enjoyable!)
Just one last thought Steve, and I know that as I am not a part of your Patreon I have no right to make requests.
One topic I do not recall you tackling specifically in a video would be how you feel the music affects (positively or negatively) how Star Trek is perceived and remembered in given situations. Jerry Goldsmith himself once said it was his job to manipulate peoples feelings.
Just don't make the case that "Into Darkness" isn't the steaming pile of shit that it is, and I'll be happy.
Another fine Trek video, Mr. Shives. For what it's worth, while "The Final Frontier" is the worst of the TOS Films in my book, watching this has helped me reconcile the fact that while it's a bad movie, there are glimmers of good amidst the dreck to appreciate.
Well...
I like that Checkov got a hero moment?
The Scotty pratfall was entertaining, McCoy's back story moment was genuinely affecting. For me it's mainly fragments, I guess