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Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier
Year Of Release
1989
Director
William Shatner
Producer
Gene Roddenberry, Harve Bennett, Ralph Winter, Brooke Breton
Writer
Gene Roddenberry, Harve Bennett, William Shatner, David Loughery
Cast
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei, James Doohan and Lawrence Luckinbill
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Year Of Release
1989
Director
William Shatner
Producer
Gene Roddenberry, Harve Bennett, Ralph Winter, Brooke Breton
Writer
Gene Roddenberry, Harve Bennett, William Shatner, David Loughery
Cast
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei, James Doohan and Lawrence Luckinbill
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A man called Sybok believes he is summoned by God, and hijacks the brand-new (and problem-ridden) Enterprise-A to take it through the Great Barrier, at the centre of the Milky Way, beyond which he believes his maker waits for him. Meanwhile, an ambitious young Klingon captain, seeking vengeance for the deaths of the Klingon crewmen at Genesis, sets his sights on Kirk.
This time around, the audience is treated to a more action and peril orientated movie.
There's a great villain and a ghost from the past for the Enterprise's crew to deal with, and there are certain elements of expansion for certain characters too.
It makes for a more rounded plot throughout and the acting involved, especially between Spock and Kirk, is all the more realistic and at times has humour laced throughout rather than just there for the sake of it.
What does let it down though is that some of the ideas involved in the plot, particularly the ending, are so farfetched that they border unbelievable. The film does go toward the feeling of the original movie and TV series. It's definitely leaning toward the outlandish feel of The Motion Picture… it’s just that it went over the line between fantasy and reality just a little too much.
Having Shatner at the helm of this one really shows too. Shatner may be an awesome Captain… but he’s not really cut out for directing a large scale Trek movie. His direction works in the smaller scenes, but as things get progressively larger during the running time, his skills as a Director begin to show their limits.
The acting involved throughout though is at its best. Lawrence Luckinbill deserves special mention for his role as Sybok. He's not a baddy as such, it's just that his demented and doughy-eyed persona and personal neediness putting everyone around him at risk makes him stand out among the cast.
The effects in this one are used with a little more panache than the predecessors, especially toward the end with some of the sparkly shiny lighting effects once used in The Motion Picture, but they do work with the subject at hand.
This time around, the audience is treated to a more action and peril orientated movie.
There's a great villain and a ghost from the past for the Enterprise's crew to deal with, and there are certain elements of expansion for certain characters too.
It makes for a more rounded plot throughout and the acting involved, especially between Spock and Kirk, is all the more realistic and at times has humour laced throughout rather than just there for the sake of it.
What does let it down though is that some of the ideas involved in the plot, particularly the ending, are so farfetched that they border unbelievable. The film does go toward the feeling of the original movie and TV series. It's definitely leaning toward the outlandish feel of The Motion Picture… it’s just that it went over the line between fantasy and reality just a little too much.
Having Shatner at the helm of this one really shows too. Shatner may be an awesome Captain… but he’s not really cut out for directing a large scale Trek movie. His direction works in the smaller scenes, but as things get progressively larger during the running time, his skills as a Director begin to show their limits.
The acting involved throughout though is at its best. Lawrence Luckinbill deserves special mention for his role as Sybok. He's not a baddy as such, it's just that his demented and doughy-eyed persona and personal neediness putting everyone around him at risk makes him stand out among the cast.
The effects in this one are used with a little more panache than the predecessors, especially toward the end with some of the sparkly shiny lighting effects once used in The Motion Picture, but they do work with the subject at hand.
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All in all, not the perfect Trek movie, but certainly enjoyable and has that element of the TV series going on and has some nicely placed backstory going on too.
It could have been more exciting though if Shatner had just a little more talent behind the camera.
My rating: 76%
All in all, not the perfect Trek movie, but certainly enjoyable and has that element of the TV series going on and has some nicely placed backstory going on too.
It could have been more exciting though if Shatner had just a little more talent behind the camera.
My rating: 76%
