SUMMARY: RUNNING TIME: Approx. 105 Min.
This 1989 sequel is directed (and co-written) by William Shatner. Set shortly after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the new U.S.S. Enterprise-A’s shakedown cruise has been a dismal failure. Forced to cope with the ship’s various malfunctions (including a disabled transporter), Captain Kirk’s short-handed crew is sent on a covert deep space mission to the remote planet, Nimbus III, to rescue three abducted diplomats, including one Klingon and one Romulan.
An enigmatic Vulcan renegade named Sybok and his brainwashed cult hijack the Enterprise for a vision quest to the center of the universe seeking out ‘God,’ or whom he calls ‘Sha Kaa Ree.’ Meanwhile, a Klingon warship is in hot pursuit, as its commander seeks high-profile glory taking down the despised Kirk.
Captain James T. Kirk: William Shatner
Captain Spock: Leonard Nimoy
Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy: DeForest Kelley
Sybok: Laurence Luckinbill
Commander Hikaru Sulu: George Takei
Sarek (voice cameo): Mark Lenard
Commander Nyota Uhura: Nichelle Nichols
Commander Pavel Chekov: Walter Koenig
Captain Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott: James Doohan
St. John Talbot: David Warner
General Korrd: Charles Cooper
Captain Klaa: Todd Bryant
Vixis: Spice Williams-Crosby
Caitlin Dar: Cynthia Gouw
‘God’ (voice): George Murdoch
David McCoy: Bill Quinn
Starfleet Admiral: Harve Bennett
REVIEW:
The underwhelming Enterprise-A is an ironically apt metaphor for this cinematic misfire, as nothing quite works right. Foregoing Industrial Light & Magic’s expertise, the film’s much-maligned special effects will impress no one. Despite its sizable budget, Final Frontier is easily the cheapest-looking Trek film ever made.
Still, William Shatner deserves some credit for energizing his big-screen directorial debut with action-adventure, old-school Trek banter, and fresh outdoor locales – not to mention, Hiroshima’s briefly-heard jazz fusion gem entitled “The Moon’s a Window to Heaven.” Such assets keep in mind that Shatner and Treks II-V producer Harve Bennett had more than three years and at least a $25-33 million budgetary playpen to conjure up something good after The Voyage Home.
Structured more like an Original Series TV episode, the sole pivotal moments stem from painful glimpses into Spock and McCoy’s private lives. DeForest Kelley, in the film’s best scene, pulls off McCoy’s heartbreaking secret with class. As for Leonard Nimoy, it’s disappointing (yet hardly surprising) that he merely phones it in – bringing to mind Harrison Ford’s apathetic take on Han Solo in Return of the Jedi. Clearly, Nimoy’s quality control efforts in directing/producing Treks III, IV, and VI is an element that Final Frontier sorely lacks. The same applies to the absence of classy director-screenwriter Nicholas Meyer.
That’s where Final Frontier’s biggest gaffe falls upon Shatner for peddling such a misguided storyline. Desperately trying to streamline Shatner’s visionary ambitions, the dubious compromises Bennett and Paramount made with Shatner result in a horribly clunky script (i.e. awkward bits of comic relief and plenty of bad science – i.e. ‘The Great Barrier’ ). Hence, the storyline’s composite of thematic retreads constitutes a fatal dose of unnecessary déjà vu.
Note: Case in point: all first six Trek films insist upon showing the Enterprise departing Earth at some point – couldn’t Shatner & Bennett have bothered to change things up and actually move the crew’s shore leave to another planet? It wouldn’t have been hard for Paramount’s special effects team to digitally alter Yosemite National Park’s sky to some other color, throw in some weird-looking fake plants, and call it a different world. Just a thought …
Nearly everything is weakly recycled – i.e. composer Jerry Goldsmith lifts his own work from 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: The Next Generation to makeshift Final Frontier’s main theme. Trekkers will have seen most other gimmicks of Final Frontier before, too: a broken-down Enterprise; Kirk’s ship hijacked for the umpteenth time; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy setting aside personal squabbles to save the day; and, from any worn-out dramatic playbook, even the long-lost brother cliché.
Imagine this: the lackluster Final Frontier is a watered-down compromise from what Shatner first sought, according to his memoir, Star Trek: Movie Memories. His initial aim was supposedly mocking corrupted televangelism, which somehow meant incorporating a Kirk-escapes-Hell-like climax after the Enterprise crew searches for God. Unsurprisingly, Paramount Pictures nixed Shatner’s most bizarre twists for Final Frontier from being filmed.
Shatner’s memoir also alludes to Gene Roddenberry’s controversial (and unproduced) Trek script, The God Thing, that Paramount had earlier vetoed in the mid-seventies. Shatner’s far tamer Final Frontier tries treading similar religious turf, but the generally negative reaction from fans and critics speaks for itself. Despite some warm sentiments, the movie’s biggest cop-out (re: God’s true location) only reiterates Final Frontier’s cliché-fest.
If the film’s reluctant Federation/Klingon/Romulan alliance had been cleverly re-configured, Final Frontier might have been an ideal prelude to 1991’s far darker Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Instead, its faulty basic premise: Captain Kirk confronts ‘God’ with the question: “What does ‘God’ need with a starship?” starts fizzling out right after the main credits.
Final Frontier isn’t an unrepentant cure for insomnia like The Motion Picture, but, given what little this movie offers viewers, it’s no loss that Paramount won’t pursue a possible ‘Director’s Cut.’
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 3½ Stars
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