What, exactly, is wrong with ST V?

[StarshipTitanic]

It seems that every time I watch the movie, I enjoy it slightly more. While it doesn't feel like a TOS movie, I think it accurately captures the feel of a TOS episode.

Sorry for the rather concise post, but this struck me just after rewatching it with the Okuda text commentary.

[FedRebel]

What's wrong with ST5?

Kirk is the only "experienced" captian in starfleet so SF sends him to rescue some hostages with a ship that barely works and doesn't even have a skeleton crew aboard so a hand full of terrorists armed with BB guns are able to seize control of the ship without ANY resistance.

[Uraniun235]

Star Trek 5 suffers from some significant flaws, although none so grievous as to warrant it being labeled "worst Trek movie ever" - at worst, it's merely mediocre.

The VFX are rather under-par, largely because they were unable to get ILM for this movie and the effects house they went to sucked. IIRC, prior to ST5 they had never done motion-control model photography before, and it shows.

Production quality is a mixed bag. While Shatner had the good taste to insist on much more pistol-style phasers (with removable magazine and all), the bridge set was done in a rather cheap fashion, opting for an unimaginitive layout combined with bland touchpad Okudagrams. Also, the direct use of TNG Enterprise corridors is somewhat jarring.

There are certain plausibility issues with the plot - Kirk is the only qualified starship commander from here to Nimbus III? And if it was his experience they wanted, why not put him on another starship? Not that his brilliance was even needed though - if he'd had a starship with working transporters and a full security detail, the operation should have been simple enough for any starship commander to handle.

(I'm going to digress for a moment here and touch on two things that come to mind. First is the ST5 novelization, which suggested that the reason Scotty didn't call for Security was because the Enterprise was so dangerously short-handed, the security men that went down to Nimbus III were the total security complement of the Enterprise at the time - see "won't be installed until Tuesday" syndrome. This actually works when combined with the canon fact that Starfleet was willing to send Enterprise on this mission with less than a skeleton crew, but if this was what Shatner and co. intended, they really should have made it clearer.

Second - the competence of Starfleet officers in TNG is often derided around here, often for good reasons, but if something so simple as the Nimbus III operation seemingly required Kirk's experience (as Admiral Bob put it), one has to wonder just how competent the rest of Starfleet is. This may well be why Kirk was regarded as a tactical mastermind - Starfleet's command officers may have already been shot through with incompetency by the 23rd century, and Kirk's competence shone among the rest. In my opinion, there are hints to this effect in TOS, most notably in Court Martial where the base commander was utterly horrified at the idea that Kirk would take the charges on the nose rather than help sweep them under the rug.

End digression.)

Other plausibility issues include that silly Voyager probe incident with the Klingons, and the whole "go to the center of the galaxy" plot point (and Shatner originally wanted it to be the 'center of the universe'!).

Finally, the script suffered from a number of problems, including the studio's insistence that someone be brought in to lighten up the story with humor... humor that tended to fall flat. There were other problems as well.

Despite all this, I do think even ST5 has some really nice moments to share with the audience, and I find it enjoyable to dig it out every now and again.

[Firefox]

79 decks, with deck 1 at the bottom. That portion of the movie would benefit from the turboshaft scene's omission simply for being a contrived scene, in my view.

[StarshipTitanic]

And if it was his experience they wanted, why not put him on another starship?

This was my third biggest annoyance, after the strange Scotty-Uhura romance and any bad humor moment. The stock footage from the opening showed that the Excelsior was in Spacedock with the Enterprise. I always found the strange Nazi, Roman, Indian, or whatever carbon-copy of some Earth culture in TOS to be more intrusive, though.

I think that STV was carried by the strong characterizations everyone managed to do (except the above-mentioned romance). They seemed to get all the little things right, like when Kirk was stiff around the Klingons at the victory party in the end, "I miss my old chair," and McCoy watching Kirk rock climb.

[Vicious]

While no where near the quality of ST2: TWOK or even ST4:TVH, ST5 has some decent bits. It's not an entirely unenjoyable film, and I extract a certain amount of pleasure from the fact that God turned out to just be a pompous prick.

[SecondToDie]

The thing that annoyed me the most about ST5 was that the Enterprise was able to get to the center of the galaxy in only a few days. It was going to take Voyager 75 years to travel 75,000 light-years from the Delta Quadrant to Earth, so it should have taken the Enterprise a few decades to reach the center of the galaxy.

Also, Sybok was able to take over the Enterprise way too easily.

But ST5 was, in my opinion, a much better movie than Nemesis.

[Darth Wong]

ST5 might have redeemed its inability to emotionally grab the audience if it presented something truly spectacular when we finally get to see "God". But that was the biggest problem with the movie; all of that buildup and anticipation ... for a villain that would barely rate a regular TV episode. They beat him with a goddamned photon torpedo, for fuck's sake.

[mr friendly guy]

Killing the almighty was the only redeeming feature of that movie.

[lPeregrine]

I think the biggest thing wrong with STV is that it was released while Star Trek was still good. Yeah, it's got its plot problems, and was average at best, but it's still better than the more recent stuff. It seems like most of the hatred for the movie was formed long before we really got to see what "bad Star Trek" looked like. Within the context of what we've seen now, STV doesn't even deserve mentioning.

[Srynerson]

Killing the almighty was the only redeeming feature of that movie.

As they say, "If you meet the Buddha on a planet in the center of the galaxy, kill him."

On topic, ST:V was not the worst of the films IMHO (hello, Nemesis), but it does suffer from a number of problems. Others have already mentioned most of them (e.g., travel time, understaffing, etc.), but I would add the contrived nature of the Nimbus III outpost to the list. Even allowing for the fact that the three powers were not sincere about resolving their differences, it seems extremely unlikely that they would put their ambassadors in a dive bar with no staff. I mean in real life, high-level UN officials might not accomplish anything, but they do get to stay in nice hotels.

[StarshipTitanic]

The Romulan ambassador creeped me out with her extreme enthusiasm for Nimbus III. And what neutral zone was it located in? Okuda's commentary seemed to indicate it was in the Romulan Neutral Zone, but we know there's a Klingon Neutral Zone, too.

And where were the Klingon and Romulan settlers?

[Uraniun235]

We know the Romulans and Klingons share a border, and that the Federation has borders with each of those powers. Maybe there's an intersection point?

[Bounty]

But that was the biggest problem with the movie; all of that buildup and anticipation ... for a villain that would barely rate a regular TV episode. They beat him with a goddamned photon torpedo, for fuck's sake.

If it's any concolation, there was supposed to be a visually impressive introduction of "God" with flying cherubs turning into devils in a special effects spectacle - including the infamous rockmen - but the money ran out. IIRC at one point Shatner offered to complete the movie with his own funding, but Paramount refused.

[Patrick Degan]

And where were the Klingon and Romulan settlers?

The budget wouldn't run that far.

[Dennis Toy]

The VFX are rather under-par, largely because they were unable to get ILM for this movie and the effects house they went to sucked. IIRC, prior to ST5 they had never done motion-control model photography before, and it shows

they did use Motion Control in ST Before STV.

[Bounty]

The VFX are rather under-par, largely because they were unable to get ILM for this movie and the effects house they went to sucked. IIRC, prior to ST5 they had never done motion-control model photography before, and it shows

they did use Motion Control in ST Before STV.

I think he's talking about this particular special effects company, rather the the Trek movies.

[Uraniun235]

Okay, so the effects house they went to just plain sucked.

[Bounty]

Okay, so the effects house they went to just plain sucked.

The single best effects shot of the movie was the Spacedock scene - stock footage from Star Trek IV

(for comparison : this is the best the new company could do )

[Isolder74]

BTW the prode shone is the Poineer 10 not Voyager

[Uraniun235]

Okay, so the effects house they went to just plain sucked.

The single best effects shot of the movie was the Spacedock scene - stock footage from Star Trek IV

(for comparison : this is the best the new company could do )

Well... to be fair, someone here once posted (and I think they could well be right) that one of the greatest images in all of Trek is seeing the Enterprise sail off into the unknown that is the Barrier. Granted, the execution wasn't as good as it could have been, but that's still a pretty nifty sight.

[DocHorror]

It has a few problems, but isn't the worst of the Trek Movies, the characters are still strong and the banter is good. Plot wise its a bit of a rehash of 'The Way to Eden' - where a bunch of space hippies sieze the Enterprise and take it to what they believe to be the legendary Eden. (I watched that episode the other day and if you where to cut the singing out it wouldn't be an awful episode. I like the way they call Kirk Herbert all the time, but I ramble...)

The effects of STV plain suck, mainly due to the afore mentioned VFX company. Plus STV was filmed during a writers (i think) strike in Hollywood, which didn't do it any favours.

Shatners original vision of the film, barring a few exceptions, was pretty impressive and could have been a geat film as opposed to a mediocre one.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

SFX, and some issues with the sillyness of Kirk being the only competent captain in the fleet, going to shithole world in a ship with no crew where ambassadors of all three Trek superpowers are staying at a dive bar and then getting defeated by about 12 space hippies and taken to God.

Still, it isn't that bad. Rather fun, if you let your brain turn off and enjoy the banter. My chart runs like this:

1. The Wrath Of Khan
2. The Undiscovered Country
3. The Voyage Home
4. First Contact
5. Nemesis
6. The Starch For Spock
7. STV
8. The Motion Picture
9. Insurrection

[Bounty]

Generations didn't even make the list

For me, it's

TWoK
FC
TUC
TVH
TMP
TSfS
INS
GEN
TFF
NEM

[Firefox]

While I thought no Trek film could dig deeper than TFF, Nemesis went a long way to prove me wrong. When taking into account the issues Shatner and his production had to go through, especially with the strike at the time, I can forgive the terrible visuals, at least, and understand why they couldn't go as far as they wanted as far as storyline was concerned.

With that in mind:

-ST2
-ST6
-ST8
-ST3
-ST4
-ST1
-ST7
-ST9
-ST5
-ST10