Star Trek V: The Final Frontier / YMMV

Awesome Music: Jerry Goldsmith returns to the Enterprise and rises to the occasion again.
Best Known for the Fanservice:
- From the way tumblr and slashers tell it, the movie is just Kirk moving like he's going to kiss Spock (even does the usual clasping their arms beforehand thing), Spock telling him "Not in front of the Klingons," before Kirk looks embarrassed.
- Don't forget Uhura's fan dance.
  - In this case, it's more like fan disservice given that Nichols was in her mid fifties at the time.
- Then there's the triple-breasted dancing Cat Girl.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
- The infamous scene where Uhura does a naked fan dance. There are no complaints about her beautiful singing voice, though.
- Klaa destroying Pioneer 10 For the Evulz. It's never even mentioned that he'd have had to enter deep into the Earth system to find it.
- The entire movie could count as this to the franchise, as the "Search for God" plot is almost never referred to again after the fact.^note Star Trek: Strange New Worlds would be the first to break this streak 33 years after the film's release in 2022 by featuring Sybok as an important plot point.
Bizarro Episode: The movie is a textbook example; the plot ignores many of the rules and conventions of the setting, the entire premise comes out of nowhere, it has no impact on the ongoing plot of the films which kicks back in for the next one, and the events are never mentioned again. Removing it from continuity entirely would have no effect on anything else in the franchise. It's been noted as feeling a lot like Shatner wrote his own original sci-fi story, then simply changed the names to Star Trek characters.
Contested Sequel: It won three Golden Raspberry Awards, is widely considered the shining example of the Star Trek Movie Curse and at the very least the worst movie with the original Enterprise crew, with some going so far as to consider it the worst Star Trek movie overall, or even one of the worst films of all time. But it has some defenders (see Vindicated by History).
Epileptic Trees: Believe it or not, there's a small debate in the fandom about the species of the three-breasted cat girl stripper, particularly whether she's a Kzinti (as she was referred to as "Kzinrett", the word for female Kzinti in Larry Niven's Known Space novels) or a Draylaxian (who are mentioned in Star Trek: Enterprise as having three breasts).
Harsher in Hindsight:
- It's a bit uncomfortable in retrospect watching the scene in which Scotty hits his head on the bulkhead (after saying "I know this ship like the back of me hand!") knowing that James Doohan developed Alzheimer's disease towards the end of his life.
- Also the scene where Chekov and Sulu attempt to convince Uhura they are lost in a snowstorm, considering that, many years later, Walter Koenig's son would disappear in snow-covered Vancouver — and subsequently be found dead from his apparent suicide.
- Kirk tells McCoy and Spock "I've always known I'll die alone." It was originally harsher after Star Trek: Generations, in which Kirk died without either one around; but it's heartbreaking now that William Shatner has outlived both DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy. And then, in Star Trek Beyond, it's revealed that Spock has died, with the strong implication that he was the last surviving TOS crewmember.
- When Sybok offers to take away his pain, Kirk refuses—emphatically insisting that he needs his pain. The next movie shows that Kirk holding onto his pain (specifically, his son being killed by Klingons) makes him an ample scapegoat for the conspiracy and is a major obstacle that he must overcome.
- Spock losing his half-brother (however much they didn't see eye-to-eye) becomes worse when Star Trek: Discovery reveals that Spock also had an adopted sister he was estranged from, whom he also lost when she went on a one-way trip to the distant future shortly after the two reconciled. Poor guy can't catch a break when it comes to family.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The plan to fly to the center of the galaxy is even goofier after the franchise created an entire show about how long that kind of trip takes, though to be fair, TOS was wildly inconsistent about warp speed times. Notably in "That Which Survives," the Enterprise traveled a thousand light years in hours. And they traveled more than once to the edge of the galaxy, which is 20,000+ light years as well. Twenty thousand light years is in the same order of magnitude of Voyager returning to the Alpha Quadrant.
- Nearly three decades after the film's release, Alex Honnold completed the actual first free solo ascent of El Capitan, as seen in the Academy Award-winning documentary Free Solo.
- And as for that line about Spock being "well-versed in the classics", in Star Trek Beyond he not only knows but apparently likes the Beastie Boys, which Bones recognizes as "classical music".
- Given Kirk's increasing annoyance to Spock revealing family members that Kirk doesn't know about, a lot of fan artists have imagined his migraine reaction to Spock's adopted sister in Star Trek: Discovery.
Ho Yay:
- "Please, Captain. Not in front of the Klingons."
  Q: Who hates Klingons with a fiery passion?
  A: Every Yaoi Fangirl ever.
- Sulu and Chekov have a few Like an Old Married Couple moments such as when they're lost in the woods in the opening. Which is even funnier after George Takei came out in real life years later. (Of course, Walter Koenig and the rest of the cast had known Takei was gay since the 60s).
- It's also the movie with the most lampshades that Kirk/Spock are co-dependent, the most obvious being when Kirk is climbing the mountain and tells Spock he could be literally doing anything else in Yosemite instead of hanging around him.
- The book brings up Kirk's actual brother when it's said that he lost a brother once, and has Kirk clarify that with all the grief he still feels for Sam, the breakdown over Spock was much worse.
- When Spock refuses to go with Sybok, saying he's sticking with his Captain, Kirk gives Sybok a hilariously smug look.
Magnificent Bastard: Sybok is Spock's long-lost half-brother, who was banished from Vulcan for embracing his emotions. Sybok gets visions from a being that he believes is God and travels to the planet Nimbus III. Sybok can mind-control people by using mind melds, allowing him to form a cult. Sybok and his cult kidnap Federation, Romulan and Klingon diplomats and hold them hostage. Sybok demands a Federation vessel go to Nimbus and parlay for their freedom. Sybok captures Kirk and a landing party when they try to rescue the diplomats and hijacks the Enterprise. Sybok has the Enterprise go to a barrier in the Centre of the Galaxy, correctly believing the barrier is an illusion. Crossing the barrier, the Enterprise arrives at the planet Sha Ka Ree and investigates Sybok's claims. When this God turns out to be false, an evil being who wants to escape Sha Ka Ree and cause havoc and reveals its true nature by torturing Kirk and his crew, Sybok turns against this false God and uses his mind control powers against him, so Kirk and his friends can escape, at the cost of his own life.
Mis-blamed:
- Granted, Shatner can be cited as the cause of much of the mess that is this movie, but he's treated as an out-and-out scapegoat in some quarters even though there were several other factors such as Executive Meddling, the WGA strike, and Industrial Light & Magic being too busy that year.
- It goes the other way sometimes too, with fans placing the blame solely on Paramount Pictures and excusing Shatner. This applies in part to the film's money problems as well: while the budget cuts did hurt the film immensely, they seemed to have trouble prioritising what they did have, such as the million-dollar self-lighting cigarette that ended up being cut, the cat-stripper costume (complete with animatronic tail!) and the rock monster costumes that didn't work properly and endangered their wearers. Indeed, out of the six Trek films with the original cast, The Final Frontier actually had the second highest budget, with only Star Trek: The Motion Picture being more expensive.
Moment of Awesome: As ridiculous as this movie is overall, there are two shining moments in Spock's conversation with Klaa, which, courtesy of Leonard Nimoy's peerless acting talent, are considered to be two of Spock's best lines in the whole franchise.
Narm: When "God" chases Kirk near the end, it wails "Yyyyyyyyyyooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" It's supposed to be haunting and scary, but sounds like an elderly ghost from Scooby-Doo trying to scare someone and failing.
- SF Debris likened it to Yosemite Sam screaming "Oh I hate that rabbit!"
Narm Charm: Sybok's last words before attacking the false God: "I couldn't help but notice your pain! ...It runs deep! Share it with me!" Only he could take such a corny line and make it sound badass.
Never Live It Down:
- Sarek's disappointment in his "so human" son from the moment of his birth, despite Spock looking just as Vulcan as you could want.
- Not to mention Sarek willingly married and had a child with a human. What did he think was going to happen?!
Nightmare Fuel:
- The book has Sulu's pain, and it's him as a child, his home town being set on fire by pirates and his guilt at not being able to save an adult who was kind to him.
- When Klaa shoots at the Pioneer 10 space probe, some brief noise almost makes it sound like the probe is screaming before it gets blown up.
Padding: A whole movie of it. You can easily skip from the fourth film to the sixth and lose nothing, and if anything, it actually makes the story flow better.
The Problem with Licensed Games: Nintendo Entertainment System games based on movies have never had the best of reputations anyway, but it takes a special kind of bad for Paramount to have refused to release the game at all, even if only a limited run to recoup some of the development costs.
Sequelitis: In keeping with the odd-numbered films of the franchise, it is widely regarded as one of the lesser entries owing to its script, campiness, and poor special effects.
So Bad, It's Good: Some consider it to be more enjoyable than Star Trek: Insurrection, but for all of the wrong reasons.
So Unfunny, It's Funny: Related to the above, while the comedy portion of the film has been far less well received than in the previous installment, some find the humor so forced and cartoonish it ends up funny again.
Special Effect Failure:
- Nearly every special effect in the movie. The phaser and transporter effects (handled by the same team that produced the corresponding effects on Star Trek: The Next Generation) are decent, as is the Stock Footage of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey from the two previous films, but most of the effects would be barely passable for a movie made in the 1950s, never mind 1989.
- ILM was busy (this was the summer of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II and the pseudopod in The Abyss), as were most of the other choices planned (one of them being Apogee Productions again). Shatner sought out another special effects creator who showed a few amazing demonstrations in person, and then delivered complete and utter crap, to the point that it necessitated further emergency script rewrites to accommodate how completely unusable the shots were.
- Ironically, the Rock Monsters that were originally going to be chasing Kirk rather than the disembodied head of not-God were tossed out because the one suit they made looked "like crap," according to many. Seen here, while they don't look all that great, we can see that they actually looked varying degrees of better than most of the effects used in the film.
- Most of the effects problems were apparently to do with the motion control photography being done at 16 frames per second (fps) instead of the usual 24 fps as a cost-saving measure. Notably, the static shots of the Enterprise and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey are generally okay (if a bit flatly lit), but whenever they move they do it in a stuttery, jerky fashion that looks like something out of an old Ray Harryhausen flick.
- On the topic of the Enterprise, the model representing it was vandalized during the film's production by employees of Universal Studios Florida. It being a decade old at this point also meant that its internal lighting system also died out while production was underway. Basically, the fact that Bran Ferren (the man behind the effects) has never been allowed near another movie to this day (the company was absorbed into Disney Imagineering in 1993) says it all.
- Sha Ka Ree as seen from space is clearly a star, not a planet.^note On top of that, the planet's surface is clearly the same location used for Nimbus III, except tinted purple. Not surprisingly, this fails to produce the hoped-for effect of an ethereal paradise. Even the titular planet in the infamous TOS episode "The Way to Eden" looked far more like a tropical paradise than Sha-Ka-Ree does.
- The Great Barrier is represented using an old-school FX tool called a cloud tank (essentially a large tank of water which other liquids can be injected into, creating surreal swirling patterns), but the results aren't particularly awe-inspiring, especially considering that the nebula from the second film was created using the exact same method seven years earlier and looked far, far better.
- The streak effect used when the Enterprise hits warp speed isn't bad per se, but it's noticeably different than how the equivalent effect looks in the films handled by ILM, creating a bit of a visual continuity error. The transporter effect is much closer to ILM's but still a little less natural-looking.
- The shots of Klaa's Bird-of-prey traveling at warp speed looks exactly like what it is; a model in front of a green screen. This was below the standard of the warp-travel effect they were using on The Next Generation.
Strangled by the Red String: When did Uhura ever show romantic interest in Scotty? Granted, it probably wouldn't have been out of place in TOS or one of the earlier films, but the attraction between the two comes out of absolutely nowhere, and is never referenced again.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Sybok could have been used to explore what Vulcans would be like if they reject Surak's teachings without being a slimy-by-default Romulan, leading to questions about whether Surak's teachings were necessary. Instead this is barely touched upon — Sybok could have just as easily been any other type of alien with psychic powers (or, given that the plot is that he is receiving psychic messages from God, even a human with borrowed psychic powers) and all it would change is his connection to Spock. Speaking of Spock, there's a brief contrasting moment where Sybok is happy to see his brother again and Spock is visibly uncomfortable because he doesn't want to show emotions and his duty as a Starfleet officer; this could have been another exploration of Surak's teachings which is never elaborated on.
- David Warner is utterly wasted as St. John Talbot. Thankfully, he's given a more substantial part in the next film.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- You'd think that with Sybok's powers to show people their deepest pains and release them, it'd be a good opportunity to show more of the backstory of the main characters, right? Unfortunately, that only ends up being the case for McCoy. Sybok doesn't get to use his powers on Kirk or Scotty at all, Spock's pain is something we already knew, and the Epiphany Therapy for Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura happens off-screen.
Took the Bad Film Seriously:
- Laurence Luckinbill as Sybok, as seen on his official demo reel from the film. He gives a pretty decent performance and one suspects that he would have provided a truly memorable villain, if his character had been given a less ridiculous motivation and plot.
- DeForest Kelley. Despite the film's generally hokey story and writing, a sizable contingent of fans consider this one of his best performances as Bones. Especially when he relives taking his terminally-ill father off life support, and then reveals that a cure was discovered soon after.
  McCoy: Not long after, they found a cure. A GODDAMN CURE!
Unintentional Period Piece: As with the following film's Iran-Contra allusions, the hostage situation on Nimbus III and the "Send in the marines!" mentality of Starfleet is very evocative of Reaganite foreign policy.
Vindicated by History: To a very slight degree. For about a decade or so after its release it tended to appear alongside Howard the Duck, Jaws: The Revenge, and later Batman & Robin on "Worst Films of All-Time" lists and wasn't much better-regarded among Star Trek fans. Most people nowadays tend to see it as just a mediocre sci-fi flick (or a decent two-hour television episode), with the likes of Battlefield Earth attracting more Bile Fascination from casual viewers and Trek fans turning their ire toward Star Trek: Nemesis, Star Trek: Insurrection, or Star Trek Into Darkness instead. It has a few heartwarming character moments that elevate it slightly as well, and Kirk’s speech about needing his pain (whether he’s right or not, the novel version interprets it as more torturing himself) is one of his iconic moments.
Watch It for the Meme: Sybok's "I couldn't help but notice your pain" (said when he encounters "God") found its way into a 2Pac song.

YMMV / Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

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