Retro Re-View: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

To my memory, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the worst Star Trek movie I’d ever watched. Furthermore, while we’d owned a much-watched copy of Star Trek IV in the family when I was growing up, we never bothered to acquire a copy of Star Trek V, leaving my sole recollection of the movie to rely on what impression had been left on my nine-year-old brain on seeing the movie in the theater.

The rewatch with my kids changed my mind. Make no mistake, Star Trek V is still not one of the better Star Trek films. The pacing is odd, there are some serious holes in the plot, and some elements, such as Uhura’s dance sequence, just feel weird and out of place. This was Shatner’s first and last directorial attempt in a Star Trek movie, and the film wanders between trying for the humor of Star Trek IV, and the serious film questions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Maybe one of the most jarring things about Star Trek V is just how old and gray the cast is getting. Although obviously understandable in real world terms, where seven years separate Star Trek V from Star Trek II, inside the Star Trek universe, maybe a year has passed between these four films. There are moments where the film feels like a final Star Trek movie serving as a long epilogue for the previous three movies. The crew is back together, they have an Enterprise again, and they’re off doing adventures.

The plot itself revolves around a rogue Vulcan named Sybok, later revealed to be Spock’s half-brother, who has rejected logic in favor of pure emotion. Sybok has somehow found himself stranded on the “Planet of Peace”, a remote wasteland jointly governed by the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan governments which serves more as a dumping ground for the generally unwanted than as a symbol of galactic harmony.

Sybok manages to engineer a coup against the government, with the eventually revealed plan of commandeering a starship to take him to beyond the edge of the galaxy and meet the entity he believes to be god. Despite being in a bunch of large pieces after her shakedown cruise, the Enterprise is still the only available ship to respond (despite the Excelsior appearing in several starbase shots. There’s also a rogue Klingon captain with a Bird of Prey looking for glory chasing Kirk.

Act I of the story serves to set up all the characters, and spends a lot of time showing us what Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are doing for their shore leave. Act II sees the Enterprise embarking on a somewhat silly rescue of the embattled governors of the Peace Planet. This, of course, ends with Sybok taking over the ship and setting a course for the Edge of the Universe. Act III reveals the face of “God”, in which Sybok realizes that he’s made a terrible mistake, and the Enterprise must once again, deal with another false deity. You’d think that Kirk and Spock would be used to this by now.

Act III gives us one of the great lines of Star Trek, as Kirk stands before “God” who is demanding to be brought aboard the Enterprise. “What does God need with a starship?” Kirk asks. Why indeed, does a supposedly omnipotent deity need a starship for interstellar transportation?

Ultimately Sybok sacrifices himself to try and stop the deity he had sought, based solely on his emotional ideas. Sybok’s sacrifice is largely ineffective, however. Ultimately, this gets solved the old-fashioned way: with Klingon disruptor fire.

Thematically, Star Trek V serves as a bookend to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In ST:TMP, pure logic, in the forms of both V’Ger and Spock, is shown to require a balance of emotion to move forward and make intuitive leaps. In Star Trek V, pure emotion, as represented by Sybok, is shown to require a balance with logic lest emotional beings be led astray by charlatans and tricksters. Both also represent the franchise low points.

Truth be told, I’d still rather watch Star Trek V again than ST:TMP. That’s not to say that Star Trek V is a better movie, but it’s both shorter and slightly more entertaining, if only for its weirdness. Where else will you hear Kirk, Spock, and McCoy singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in a round?