The Final Frontier is now twenty-five years old. It often gets panned for some deserved reasons, but it's not all bad. It's often cited as the worst of Trek films, but I'll TFF over any of the NextGen films and certainly over any JJtrek anytime and anywhere. At heart TFF has a worthy story and it's a shame it just wasn't better executed. There are some decent (and some not so decent) character moments in the film. It has energy and a fair dose of run-and-jump--one can't fault William Shatner's sense of energy. It also has a pretty fine soundtrack. If the f/x could have been more polished, the overdone humour toned down and the story massaged some it could have been a much better remembered outing. That said I still prefer TFF over TVH, GEN, FC, INS, NEM and the JJ offerings. Maybe I'll watch TFF as a nod to a noble albeit fumbled effort.
We're sure getting a lot of anniversary threads. I'm even seeing anniversary threads for episodes 15 years old.
I agree that it's not as bad as it's made out to be, but I have to vehemently disagree that it's better than GE, FC, Star Trek XI, or STID. It's got good character moments and great music, a good performance from Luckinbill, but it's got a seriously flawed story.
I always felt The Final Frontier was treated like a much worse movie than it was. I loved the character bits between the Big Three. In a lot of ways, the film felt the most like the old series than all of the other films. The biggest problems were the effects and the script. The story itself could have worked just fine, but they tried too hard to force a lot of humor that didn't belong due, I think, to the success of TVH.
That's what it was. Paramount told Shatner that they wanted funny, like from the previous movie. Shatner himself wanted a more serious, darker film. That is, if I remember the interviews correctly.
The humour in The Voyage Home was natural and organic - and flowed spontaneously from the characters in an enjoyable and endearing fashion. The perfect balance of comedy and drama. However, I do feel that movie created the "curse of da funnies" in most of the subsequent Trek films. It does indeed feel forced, contrived and somewhat laboured. Probably as a consequence of studio intervention as suggested.
Paramount should have just kept making movies about Kirk and crew going back in time to save more whales so they could keep milking the cash cow Seriously, fucking idiots. STVH did well at the box office because more non-trekkie geeks could relate to the story. It wasn't because of the humor (which would only work with people already familiar with the characters, not with the general audiences) I forgive ST-TFF because it had a great premise. It was about the story of finding out about ourselves. Isn't that what every religion claims to have? knowledge of where we came from and why we are here. TOS dealt with this premise several times (beings who self appointed themselves as our gods, which turned out to be sinister) ST-TFF simply was on-course for the same style of "TOS" storytelling. It's too bad that Paramount being the cheap fuckers they are (fuck you ) they stripped ST-V's budget practically to a shoestring, and forced in out of place comedy moments. But none of these are faults of the story itself, which was trying really hard. I think if someone redid all the FX like a "TOS Remastered" episode, just on that, the movie would improve like 5 times. Remove the dumb comedy bits that you can remove safely, and you actually have a decent movie.
I couldn't agree more with your points, unfortunately the film still is what it is and that's what I have to judge it on. I can't see Paramount going to the trouble and expense of re-doing special effects of what in many people's eyes is an unpopular and financially unsuccessful movie, like you said - tight fuckers. They were right in the middle of treating Trek like a hardworking undervalued employee...
I think TWOK hurt the chances of Trek ever getting a decent budget (with the high budget TMP doing only so-so, compared to the smashing success of TWOK). Paramount thought they could get away with doing things cheaper and cheaper. TVH cemented it because it was the most successful movie based on production budget vs box office profit. I'm looking at this site: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Trek If those #'s are right, what the hell did they spend $70mill on Insurrection?? That movie had the FX quality of a Playstation 2 game. I've seen some fan attempts at fixing ST:V. I'm decent with video and sound editing but really bad at designing CGI, which is what the movie would need the most (and good CGI, better than what the movie currently has)
I love Nichelle Nichols, but I could have done without her fan-dancing scene. Ditto for the infinite turbolift shaft. I did like the camping scenes with the big three, and Spock's "marshmellon" dispenser and rocket boots.
Correction, here: The budget of Star Trek V was actually quite a bit higher than Star Trek IV's ($33 million vs. $21 million). The fifth movie's visual FX budget (initially $4 million) was also slightly higher than the fourth movie's; Paramount insisted upon several cuts to planned sequences when initial projections surpassed this figure by two or three million dollars.
I'd amend that by saying that documentation I have pegs those numbers at $32 million and $22 million, but you've made the point I was going to make -- Star Trek V cost quite a bit more than any previous film in the series up to that point (except for the first film).
That is quite interesting. Why the heck did it end up looking so hokey then? I know ILM was out working on something else (I think it was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?) so they got the B-team to do the FX. But they payed them the same??
I think actors' salaries, especially Stewart's and Spiner's, were eating up a chunk of the budget at that point. I think Stewart's was around 12 mil or something.
TFF had SCOPE. Planet-hopping (especially when you're trying to deliver something less hokey than the SFS genesis set) is pricey. Paradise City is half-a-mil, and another quarter mil for a new bridge due to TNG negligence. TFF's vfx were done in NY by a company that didn't know from mocon spaceship shooting. Ralph Winter really didn't do the best job of advising on doing the vfx, and it shows. Regarding INS, the reshoots tacked 7mil or so onto the total, and the baku city cost a ton. VFX-wise they may have saved some bread up front, but with all the rush work at the end, I bet the overttime pushed that number way up as well.
maybe it's because I know nothing about them, but I've never been particularly bothered by the special effects in STV.
I do think some are a little too harsh on TFF's FX. There are certainly a few genuinely crappy shots - but overall, I think they stand up fairly well. Having said that, the work is somewhat inferior to that of ILM IMHO.
I seem to recall reading that Shatner asked Paramount if he could pay to have the FX all re-mastereda a few years back, as in, from his own pocket! And they refused.
They never really bothered me either, but I do wish they could have been done better, but what we got is not a dealbreaker for me to enjoy the film. Seriously? Out of his own pocket, and they still refused? Sometimes I wish Paramount would just get eaten by termites.