Lower Decks

Last week I wrote about one of the least popular Star Trek movies, the first one, in fact, ‘The Motion Picture.’ Now, I’m not exactly hip to the current rankings as the Next Generation flicks go, but I’m going to venture a guess and assume that this week’s topic still manages to cover the only other entry of the film franchise to have consistently less respect, and that would be ‘Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.’

Coming on the heels of the “trilogy” (the new Paramount Blu-rays are all but codifying this status at last by releasing a separate collection of ‘Wrath of Khan,’ ‘Search for Spock’ and ‘Voyage Home’ along with a set that includes each of the original six Kirk movies), the fifth film is as much an outsider as the first one, perhaps moreso, because it breaks the apparent cardinal sin the films would establish from a TV series that did anything but: sustain a storytelling continuity.

That’s not it, of course. The actual filmmaking from director William Shatner is a little more loose, a little less serious, than Star Trek had seen (a little more “Don’t call me Tiny,” a little less “Klingon bastards, you killed my son”), a bigger attempt to create a movie sense of a Star Trek universe, in many ways the only film of six to drop our heroes into the middle of some action that doesn’t even concern them (a whole planet of outcasts long past the delusion of fomenting peace between implacable foes), instead concerning them with a still wider-reaching plot to…meet God.

In many ways, ‘The Final Frontier’ is an instant failure not because of the three films its existence seems to mock, but for the film I unconsciously calls to mind, ‘The Motion Picture.’ Like the first film, the fifth film deals exclusively with a plot that alienates the main characters as they confront a subject that’s far bigger than themselves, with a resolution that turns everything they thought they knew on its head, and a supporting character who both has close ties to our crew as well as a disassociation that’s hard to get around. While ‘The Final Frontier’ in its one faint praise is often cited as the movie that actually lets Kirk, Bones and Spock actually get along like the old friends they are, they’re saddled with Spock’s previously unknown half-brother Sybok, who like Decker before him opens up uncomfortable ground (and like Kirk before him makes Spock look less idyllic as a Vulcan who can’t put personal differences aside, despite the audience’s clear nagging suspicion that maybe he should, even if it can’t muster proper sympathy for the interloper).

The quest for God is a difficult subject to handle, especially for a scientific, empirical entity like Star Trek. In ‘The Motion Picture,’ God turns out to be us, and in ‘The Final Frontier,’ despite possessing similar awesome capabilities as the probe called V’Ger, God once again turns out to be entirely fallible, perhaps even more imp than benign deity. For the second film, it proves difficult if not entirely impossible for the audience to accept that Star Trek should even be considering this material in the first place. In ‘The Voyage Home,’ with another probe within its own unknowable story, there’s considerably more buffeting to grease acceptance along, warm friends and whales to help pass the time.

In ‘The Final Frontier,’ the Enterprise itself, as in the first film, is a source of discomfort, because it’s simply not functioning properly, too new and untested (in ‘Generations,’ another ill-considered Trek, another Enterprise is once again less than ship-shape). Aside from a few strained jokes from Scotty, it seems to point to a general lack of cohesion that permeates the story an audience just can’t get around. Like the crew letting Sybok work his psychological games on it, a vulnerable ship isn’t the first thing the viewer is willing to accept.

Maybe the film isn’t perfect no matter how I spin it, but there’s always been more dramatic worth to it than I’ve heard from fans. Spock’s arc within it, though he doesn’t have any satisfactory resolution to it, is an element I’ve found to be consistently underestimated. I don’t know if it’s that Sybok was never and never would again be referenced, or that it adds still more complication with the Sarek relationship we already know to have been imperfect, or that fans simply prefer their Vulcans to be more uniformly logical (the arc in ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ would certainly support that), but I value the dynamic found within. Too often Star Trek can appear insular, as if all the perceptions of important attitudes and events can and must revolve only around the characters we follow on a regular basis. The so-called paradise of Nimbus III, where humans, Klingons and Romulans gather to discuss peace (unsuccessfully) is a perfect example, and stark contrast to the Khitomer talks of ‘The Undiscovered Country,’ whose only obstacle is Kirk being framed for murder (with Nimbus, who would even have believed even a conspiracy between the same three races could occur?), and Sybok still moreso, because he recognizes an opportunity when he sees one, and few Star Trek villains (or anti-hero, as I’d call him) bother with such nuances (Khan was never one for nuance, no matter how much respect he earns from his two appearances).

Nimbus is also a symbol of age and decay, two other things Star Trek usually shies away from, which ‘The Motion Picture’ also hinted at (how else to account for our three favorites officers ending up in positions far from the happy times they previously shared on the Enterprise bridge, together?), and ‘Wrath of Khan’ only played at as middle age morass. In 1989, Kirk was no longer the only Star Trek captain, but at that time, he was still the only movie star. ‘The Final Frontier’ was staking a claim at defining anew what the franchise could be, without limits a TV series would still be constrained to, and so it had to present a grand vision that in the early days of ‘The Next Generation’ might still be the definitive mark. On the heels of a trilogy that reached as far as Star Trek could go at the time, the fifth film reached still further.

As a film made in the 1980s, ‘The Final Frontier’ dates fairly easily back to that period, more than the three previous films, but it also had a more expansive vision, and that’s as much why it doesn’t seem to hold up now as to why it was so disappointing at the time. Left to its own devices, Star Trek found itself back at square one, as perhaps something that did not fit so well, in its most probing extreme, on the big screen, at least not in its original confines. In ten films, it may best be felt that the franchise originated on the small screen the second time it tried for epic scale. Like the first time, it failed when it asked too much of its audience. And with so many parallels to find, that audience was already primed to see it fail.

In the four Next Generation films, it would become increasingly common to hear the complaint that the stories seemed like they were merely extended episodes. It couldn’t have been difficult, because the cast still looked much as it had on TV. Age had at least given Kirk’s crew a new look (most pronounced, not surprisingly, starting with the successful second film). As a dramatic cinema experience, however, Star Trek always found ways to make an argument. And in ‘The Final Frontier,’ Spock gets another chance when he confronts his brother for the first time, and achieves it with a simple “no.” That’s all an old friend really needs sometimes. And that’s the moment I remember best from the film.

It may be remembered as a failure, but the fifth film is worth revisiting as a reminder that Star Trek didn’t become big screen material overnight. With J.J. Abrams’ project unveiling new trailers all the time, audiences are becoming familiar with a bold new vision that makes the final departure between the franchise’s two key mediums, but Kirk has been sailing the final frontier for forty years. He’s been ready.

There’s a greater point I’ve been trying to make, talking these past few weeks about some unappreciated Star Treks, but strangely it’s going to culminate with another franchise. But that can wait until next time.