I have been a huge fan of the original crew of the Enterprise since I was eight years old. I watched all the movies and appreciated each one for what they retained from the old series and for further developing the characters (and the Star Trek universe, in general). Even in "The Undiscovered Country" I thought the aging of the characters was well handled and the story worthy of a theatrical release. However, having said that, "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" is easily the worst of the series featuring the original crew. I agree with many that the camaraderie of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is well handled, but the overall script, the direction -- by William Shatner -- and the special effects are not worthy of anything more than a television episode. This is a "buddy movie" and, at times, almost unrecognizable as a Star Trek movie. The action sequences are not sustained and therefore, build little or no tension. The dialogue is weak though it does provide for a few laughs, both intended and not-intended. The Klingon's seem thrown in as an afterthought. The whole "Sha-Ka-Ree" concept is just silly and Laurence Luckinbill, a fine actor in everything else I've ever seen him in, boarders on the absurd in this movie. The scene where Sybok conjures up images of Spock's pain and McCoy's pain shatters the image of the characters as we've known them. Spock would never be party to such stupidity and McCoy, trying to save his father is full of insipid, redundant dialogue and totally wastes DeForest Kelley's acting abilities. The whole scene is wasted and really shows us nothing new and nothing we want to see from these characters. I understand that Shatner didn't have the luxury of working with ILM for the special effects and that the budget for this movie was tight, but that doesn't allow for such a bad story. In some respects, I think this story does fit in with the old series, but the movies, including "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" are all much better quality than this. It's a shame that most of the other characters have so few lines and so little to do with most of this movie. The focus on Kirk, McCoy and Spock is nice, but way over used. The old crew really seems to be out of character. I liked the old Klingon General and the sultry Romulan in the bar. I liked some of the humor and the idea that Spock has a half-brother, but that's about it. If this was a TV episode, I'd be able to accept a lot of the faults. As a movie, this is just bad, uninspired film making. It's a shame too, because I want this movie to be good. Even if it was the level of "Star Trek III" I would be happy, but this movie makes all the other movies in this series seem like works of Shakespeare.
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