What Does God Need With a Starship?

Our next film is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Released in 1989, this was the feature film directorial debut of William Shatner. He also helped to write the story. The film stars the same cast as the previous movies, with the addition of Laurence Luckinbill. 

The crew of the Enterprise begins this film on shore leave - a well-deserved rest after saving the Earth! While on leave, all are recalled to the Enterprise, which is having technical problems, to go and investigate a hostage situation on Nimbus III. Nimbus III had been a diplomatic attempt to bring together Romulans, Klingons, and the Federation into one central colony. The colonists who had moved there were not, shall we say, the cream of the crop, and the planet and it's capital - Paradise City - had quickly fallen into disrepair and corruption. The hostage situation arose when a gifted rogue Vulcan, Sybok (Luckinbill), took the three representatives (one from Romulus, one from Klingon, and one from the Federation) hostage in an effort to get attention for himself and his vision.

When the Enterprise arrives on scene, Kirk quickly makes a plan to surreptitiously rescue the representatives while Chekov - who styles himself Captain for this plot - seems to acquiesce to Sybok's demands. Kirk's plan seems to go well until he encounters the three representatives, who promptly hand him and his team over to Sybok. Sybok then tells them of his vision - he knows where God is. He believes that he knows where to find the central location of mythologies from around the cosmos - Sha Ka Ree (Vulcan), Eden, Qui'tu (Klingon), Vorta Vor (Romulan), etc. With this vision, and a talent for exposing people to their innermost pain and sadness and helping them to accept it and move on, Sybok had turned the whole of Paradise City to his way of thinking.

With his superior numbers over Kirk's away team, Sybok quickly takes over their runabout, and then hijacks the ship after tossing Kirk, Spock, and McCoy into the brig. There, Spock reveals that Sybok is his older half-brother - another son of Sarek. Meanwhile, on the bridge, Sybok converts all of the remaining crew members (with the exception of Scotty, who was working on the transporters and managed to get away after seeing the away team escorted from the runabout) to believe in him and his vision. They set course for Sha Ka Ree - in the center of the galaxy, a completely unreachable place because of a celestial body surrounding it called the Great Barrier.

En route to Sha Ka Ree, Scotty helps Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to escape from the brig. When they are finally caught by Sybok, he attempts to have Kirk, Spock, and McCoy share their pain with him as well. McCoy succumbs quickly, but not so much that he forgets his friends. Spock views his pain, and then tells Sybok he had dealt with it long before. Kirk refuses to go through with it at all, saying "I need my pain!" The three men stick together, deciding to be wary of Sybok's message and approach the Great Barrier carefully.

They successfully navigate through the Great Barrier and find a planet inside, mystical, blue, and shrouded in electrical clouds. The three men, along with Sybok, beam down to the planet's surface, as Kirk wanted to do the away mission by the book. After a long trek across mountains, the four men find a flat piece of land, where spires of rock shoot up from the ground, surrounding them. A floating blue entity greets them, showing them faces of several different gods from around the cosmos, finally settling on a generic human, Christian traditional God face, complete with white beard.

The men are in awe, until the "God" starts asking them to take him to their starship. Kirk questions his motives, and the "God" attacks him, striking him to the ground with blue lighting. Spock repeats Kirk's question - "What does God need with a starship?" and also gets struck down. McCoy expresses indignant doubt, and finally Sybok sees the truth of the matter - this "God" has been imprisoned here for millennia, and only wanted them to get out of his prison. Sybok approaches the entity, and asks him to share his pain, then enters into a suicidal wrestling match, so that the other three can get away, along with the Enterprise. The Enterprise escapes after destroying the entity.

While this movie has the worst reputation (debatably - some say Star Trek: Nemesis was the worst), I think it is largely undeserved.  Yes, it's true that this film glorifies Kirk a little bit more than usual, and Spock is generally more annoying than usual, but I don't think that Shatner directing this film makes it an automatic fail of a movie.  It may be that I came into the film not remembering the plot and thinking that it would be awful, and then was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I expected.  A low expectations makes for better viewing sort of situation.  But I truly think this film has its merits.

The dialogue, for example, is quite crisp.  I love the camping trip scenes at the beginning and end, and the interactions between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in them.  Particularly, I like McCoy's side comments ("God, I liked him better before he died!").  I also like the brief exchange between Spock and the Klingon representative.  The representative says, "I'm a foolish old man," - suggesting that he is incapable of having a commanding presence - and Spock replies, "Damn you, sir, you will try."  I think that is the most polite insult ever.

The best part of this movie for me, though, was the scenes dealing with the "God."  I found it fascinating that the four men were so captivated by the entity, and found myself wondering how I would have reacted in the same situation.  I found myself writing down in my notes, "If they don't look for a scientific explanation soon, I will be irritated."  This is Star Trek.  I expect them to look for the scientific first and then concede the possibility of the supernatural in a vague sort of way, if at all, as is their usual modus operandi.  I therefore could not have been more pleased with the dialogue that followed the title question.  The "God" asks, "You doubt me?" and Kirk replies innocently, "I seek proof!"  After the "God" attacks Spock and Kirk, McCoy bursts out with, "I doubt any god who inflicts pain for his own pleasure!"  It's just fascinating.  It made me question what I would believe in that situation, which I believe was the intent of the scene in the first place.

So, while the plot does wander a bit in the beginning, and this is the weird one with Uhura dancing naked, it's really not so bad of a film.  Give it another watch and let me know what you think.  Or just let me know what you think if you have a better memory than I.