I FINALLY realized why the Enterprise-A was a clunker in TFF.

The ship needed a skeleton crew for it to be more plausible that Sybok's band could take it over. For the ship's overall functions ... well, the transporter has to be down to make it plausible to get all of Sybok's followers aboard, but that's about it, really.

I wonder if I'm more sympathetic to the new-Enterprise-has-bugs thing because I've been doing a lot of IIS development lately and good lord THESE ARE TWO IDENTICAL SERVERS RUNNING IDENTICAL CODE WHY ARE THEY NOT WORKING REMOTELY THE SAME (ahem) sorry. I mean that as I age I'm growing more sympathetic to the notion that a complicated system will have nonlinearly complicated and weird behavior as it's put together.

 

But you want to eliminate the transporters have atmospheric conditions on Nimbus III prevent transporter use or the hostages are being held to far underground. You don't want there use later have the BoP fire a disrupter as the Shuttle is landing which disables the Transporters.

But Starfleet messed this one up, they sent a barely fuctional starship on a rescue mission when there were other ships available.

 

Let me make it clear there is distinct tongue in cheek element to my original post and it was probably just done to add some lame comedy to a lame film....But at the same time I can't completely dismiss the possibility completely that Shatner made some conscious effort on some level to degrade the Enterprise's role so as not dimish his role.

Look at it. it TMP the ship is given massive screen time and is strong and heroic in that it stands to up an attack from V'ger and helps solve the mystery. In TWOK it goes toe to toe with the Reliant, usually being the more damaged ship, yet ends up victorious at the end and heroically soars away just before Genesis explodes (Even though it was Spock's actions that made that possible). In III it puts one over on all of starfleet, even making the shiny new Excelsior look foolish, transports the guys to save Spock and even gets the drop on a BOP before it all fails yet it still serves one last noble purpose in taking out 6 Klingons and making it easier to save Spock in it's last act. In TVH it plays no real role. In TUC it's the ship chosen for this historic peace opportunity and manages to, with Excelsior, save the Khithomer conference from being destroyed.

So in those 4 films the Enterprise had a major role that featured it as a strong and valiant ship. Yet in TFF, the ONE film that just happened to be directed by Shatner, it's reduced to comic relief and is basically just a transport that has no moment of glory.

I don't know William Shatner or his mind. But there has been enough evidence in the past to show he can't stand anything that detracts from his magnificance on screen. He made every member of the Enterprise crew except himself look weak to some degree in TFF.....Would he feel threatened by a character that isn't even alive if it had a heroic moment that detracted from his awesomeness? I don't know, but I can't say it isn't possible and since he got to call the shots on this film....it seems a little fishy to me.

 

On the other hand, as a rule, one single example in isolation doesn't reliably demonstrate anything, because without further examples, there's no way to tell if there's actually a cause and effect or just a coincidental convergence. TFF was also the one film that happened to be just after TVH, and as I've said, the success of that film's comedy guaranteed that the next film would be under pressure to take a comedy approach as well. And comedy is about things going wrong. If Shatner's attitudes had an influence, I think it's just his rather broad and slapsticky approach to humor. Honestly, I find it pretty preposterous to suggest that even his ego would be so enormous that he'd feel threatened by an inanimate object. It's far more likely that he just thought it was funny to show the crew struggling with broken-down technology.

But he made Kirk look weak at times too. Kirk fell off the cliff and needed Spock to rescue him. He was easily overpowered by Sybok. He failed to break out of the brig (that Spock designed) and needed Scotty to rescue him. He was helpless before the God entity and needed Spock and the Klingons to rescue him. If anything, Spock's the one who comes off as the indispensable man and the unbeatable force.

Not to mention that what was arguably Kirk's greatest moment of strength in the film -- resisting Sybok's brainwashing -- came from owning his weaknesses, from embracing the truth of his pain and his past mistakes rather than trying to hide from them.

 

I hate when any discussion about the shortcomings of Star Trek V becomes a hate-bashing on William Shatner. Give me a break.

The Enterprise-A was malfunctioning for two very basic reasons:

1. To "even the odds" and create a situation where Sybok's takeover of the ship appeared more plausible.

2. To add comedic elements to the story.

So many people bang on Shatner for the mis-placed comedy. Shatner's original treatment was much darker and more serious before studio medling and Loughery/Bennett watered many of his concepts down.

 

^Yeah. People want to read petty personal motives and hidden agendas into production decisions because they want real life to be as dramatic as fiction. But usually the explanation is more simple and pedestrian.

 

Shatner also made sure that each actor/character had a chance to shine during the film; the only instance in which he could be accused of even trying to humiliate of any of them would be Scotty's head injury--but even that followed the engineer breaking the Big 3 out of the brig and giving them perfect directions--from memory--from the bowels of engineering to the ship's forward observation lounge, where they could send an emergency message.

--Sran

 

I've said on multiple occasions that the cast of Trek V come across at times simply as themselves rather than their characters. They are overly chummy and they kind of use the bridge like their own private hangout. It was like a late-middle-aged version of JJ Trek in a way. The only difference is that the crew could have been construed as earning the right to let their hair down (although I didn't like it). I blame Shatner for that since he was the director and his weakness is that he usually just plays himself and doesn't allow himself to completely disappear into the role. And definitely Trek V's Kirk is much more Shatner than Kirk, right from the opening cliff scene onward.

 

^There definitely moments when it seemed like Shatner was merely wearing Kirk's uniform instead of actually playing him, but TFF had its share of great character moments. Shatner's dialogue during the campfire scene and his exchange with Sybok in the forward observation lounge were some of Kirk's defining moments. Now, whenever I hear him say, "I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" I immediately think of, "Let's get the hell out of here," at the end of "City on the Edge of Forever."

--Sran

 

In superhero movies, I like it every time their gadgets or superpowers fail and they have to resort to the abilities of mere mortals. Similar to that, I like that aspect about The Final Frontier.

 

Is Sybok featured in STAR TREK literature, at all? Or does the franchise just pretend that characters never existed? This would add a whole other dimension to the Sarek character, for instance. And Sybok's influence on a young Spock, during the time that they were raised together seems to offer some insight into Spock's inner-workings, as well ...

 

Gene wasn't in the Navy. We was a bomber pilot in the United States Army Air Forces.

 

^True, but didn't bombers crew have a bond with their plane?

 

Good point. It doesn't feel like the scene was created with the idea of undermining Scotty, just that it had a gratuitous bit of slapstick tacked on as an afterthought to add "humor" to what was otherwise a straightforward scene.

Honestly, I feel the same thing about Doohan in "Relics" and Nimoy in the Abrams movies. They weren't really playing their characters, just being themselves.

 

Good point, Christopher.

 

I'd say that having the helmsman and navigator get lost in the woods also had a humiliating effect. Whether that was Shatner's intention or not, I don't know, but that's how it played.

 

^I still say it was a misguided effort on the studio's part to echo the out-of-their-depth humor of TVH. Which does make the characters look incompetent when it's transposed to their own native environment.

 

I agree Christopher. Trying to attribute personal spite to the writing (and people forget they Shatner didn't write the screenplay) by saying he wanted to "humiliate" the characters is foolishness. These scenes were simply poorly written attempts at good natured humor.

 

I agree except for one thing: In feature films, the director has complete control over the writing process. The feature industry treats screenwriters merely as hired contractors whose job is to turn the director's ideas into dialogue and stage directions. So, regardless of the official writing credits, the final script represents the director's wishes more than anyone else's.

 

True enough. Even doubly-so since Shatner co-wrote the story.