195 - STAR TREK V THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989)

The Bloody Pit

Mark Maddox and I continue our journey through the first six Star Trek movies and now reach THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989). We have been both dreading and looking forward to revisiting this film. Thirty-five years later is it still as bad we remember? Are there hidden moments of quality buried in this bad idea given cinematic form? Join us as we pull this thing apart and inspect it’s sad remains.

We use Shatner’s own story of the production from his Movie Memories book to supplement the usual sources. It adds a lot to know the genesis of the film’s basic story and emphasizes just how easily a poor central concept can cripple a project. Also, aspiring writers can take note of this film as a solid example of bad scriptwriting on nearly every level. Neither of us find much to admire in STAR TREK V but there are a few good moments. Sadly, those few quality elements have to rest side by side with insults to nearly every regular character and simply awful dialog. The film’s humor mostly revolves around laughing ‘at’ the characters and never ‘with’ them. It undermines so many years of goodwill built up by the franchise for the sake of bad jokes, dumb ideas and idiotic coincidences that we can only be grateful it wasn’t the last film to feature the original cast. Row, row, row your boat indeed.

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