Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

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Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

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Re: Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

Post by Graham Kennedy »

My feeling has always been that it was one of the few films that really "got" the character appeal of Star Trek. Just having the big three camping out, joking with one another and having fun. The camaraderie really did feel like TOS, which few of the movies did.

That said, it was too much "the Kirk show". Shatner was famous back then for being very about "Kirk is the hero, nobody else matters", and ST V really puts that mindset on display.

The story is also pretty tepid. TMP was essentially a remake of The Changeling, but ST V is a remake of The Apple, an episode legendary as one of the worst. It's functional, but not really good in the way that 2 and 4 were. (I don't say 3 was bad, but much of 3 was dictated by the need to rewrite the end to 2, it's not really a freely developed story the way 2 and, to a lesser extent, 4 were).

And there are just too many silly touches.

Nimbus III is a good idea, but... digging holes in the desert as some sort of... what, farming? Huh?

Pool played in an actual pool. Yeah, little background joke, but it's silly.

A cat lady stripper. Would be fine, if she was well executed, today she'd be some CGI creation that looked great. But on this budget, just do a regular stripper.

"Be one with the horse!" Some of the humour in this film is good, but some is just painful.

The Uhura fan dance. Maybe 25 years ago, Nichelle, but sorry, you're 57 years old and this just doesn't work.

Spock neck-pinching a horse. Nothing wrong with this as such, but it just... it's goofy, in the middle of what's meant to be an exciting action sequence.

Spock's rocket boots and the "Turbolift shaft of infamy". Ye gods, this is dumb, dumb, dumb. It may be the dumbest scene in any Star Trek movie. And honestly, I think it represents Shatner's directing style. Nimoy himself said that Bill isn't some bad guy, despite the various things he's done, but he's very big on rushing in without thinking things through or listening to advice, and he can be very bull-headed about it. I have to think there were people around him who could - and tried to - point out the obvious problems with the scene, and he just wasn't listening to him. A lot of the bad things in the film feel like that, actually. Like somebody had an idea and just went with it, without too much thinking about how to make it work.

The whole idea that everybody hides some secret pain, which, okay, maybe that is so. But the idea that if somebody shows it to (and others!) you via mind rape, they will immediately earn your undying loyalty, because... reasons. Is it just straight mind-meld brainwashing? That could be interesting! By all means have Sybok be some Vulcan master, the most powerful telepath in Vulcan history, and one of Vulcan's greatest shames because of his behaviour. That's a potentially good take on what a rogue Vulcan could be, and why Vulcan's can't afford to have people doing that. But again, the way it's done is just baffling. Nobody ever says Sybok is doing anything but showing them their pain, so we're left to believe that this one thing in itself, simply remembering a bad memory that you didn't want to think about, is enough to over-write your entire personality. And that's plain ridiculous. And note, the original plan was that Bones and Spock would turn on Kirk after their mind-rape. Because Shatner literally wanted Kirk resolving everything himself, with everyone against him.

Getting to the centre of the galaxy in a few hours. No.

So there's this impenetrable barrier that's impossible to penetrate... then the ship just penetrated it anyway because... um, because they did. Because they weren't afraid of it...? But then how did the Klingons get through? Was it because Klingons don't fear? But then why didn't they get through ages ago? Incidentally the novelisation has Sybok creating some now form of shielding which gets them through, and the Klingons who are following scan it and copy it.

Scotty's head-bump. Again, a goofy comedy moment.

Uhura and Scotty suddenly in love with one another for no reason. A side effect of the conditioning? Who the hell knows.

Kirk just had to refer to "Klingon bastards" again, doubtless because Shatner knew "You Klingon bastards, you've killed my son" was one of his better moments as Kirk, so why not just say it again in his movie?

Frankly, it's a movie that wouldn't have been all that good even if it was a perfect version of itself. But it's drowning under the mass of elements that just don't make sense.
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Re: Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

Post by McAvoy »

Pretty much summed it up for me Graham.

Though a disgraced Vulcan master who was the most powerful telepathy in their history actually sounds like a good idea for a movie. I like the idea of a evil Vulcan who shows his emotions but is shunned from the rest of the galaxy.

I mean that alone you could have done that for a movie. Like a true villain for that movie. Maybe have a bunch of followers due to his charisma. Anti establishment perhaps?
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Re: Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

Post by Graham Kennedy »

McAvoy wrote:Pretty much summed it up for me Graham.

Though a disgraced Vulcan master who was the most powerful telepathy in their history actually sounds like a good idea for a movie. I like the idea of a evil Vulcan who shows his emotions but is shunned from the rest of the galaxy.

I mean that alone you could have done that for a movie. Like a true villain for that movie. Maybe have a bunch of followers due to his charisma. Anti establishment perhaps?
It really could be an interesting premise. One of the novels does something along those lines, with a Vulcan master from the pre-Surak days being reincarnated or something. Not even just telepathic, this guy can make people dissolve with his mind.

There's another novel that has a Vulcan who desperately wants to live an emotional life. He's constantly acting emotionally, putting himself in emotional situations, etc. But the trouble is, he's so indoctrinated, so trained in emotional suppression, that he can't keep it up. The emotions he tries to feel always end up slipping away from him, no matter how hard he tries.

There's all sorts of interesting things you could do with Vulcans, but the series and movies never really explored it much.
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Re: Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

Post by McAvoy »

That would be interesting, having a Vulcan so powerful he can dissolve people. That would be a legitimate threat to Kirk and the Enterprise.

Maybe his followers are Vulcan too and you could make it about how Vulcans suppressing their emotions was about preventing this sort of power from manifesting or something, if you want to change the lore of Vulcans.
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Re: Truth OR Myth? 'Star Trek V' - Was It Really That Bad?

Post by RK_Striker_JK_5 »

Yeah, Graham sums it up. I've always just passed Sybok and that little trip to see 'God' as a bad dream brought on by too much bourbon and beans.
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