Star Trek V - The Dream Theory

^ Well, to get (excessively) technical, he's not identified by name in ST VI.

And even so, just because Klaa appeared in the "dream" doesn't mean there wasn't a real Klaa. (See "Tommy Westphall")

 

Wasn't this theory put forward before ... elsewhere? This is strangely familiar to me.

 

I'm sure several fans have independently developed this idea. I did something similar myself years ago though I didn't bother posting my thoughts.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

its on imdb Trek V board, I posted it there

 

Agree, I think it works as a dream with the Yosemite campfire bookend scenes.

 

Amazing. I love this. It's now in my personal canon.

2 small problems though:
1. Does anyone dream in 3rd person omniscient? I don't think so. The scenes Kirk isn't present for need to be explained.
2. Less of a problem, more of an inconsistency: STar Trek is always careful of not showing external shots during dream sequences, fantasies, or Holodeck episodes. This movie would violate that rule of thumb.

But, yeah, this is an amazing theory and I love it.

 

Oh, I've had plenty of dreams where I was a detached observer watching a scene from outside, or where I was seeing through the eyes of someone other than myself. And it's not uncommon in such dreams to shift from being someone else to being myself, or from being outside a dream character's POV to within it.

Of course, dreams are in no way linear, consistent narratives following a three-act structure. They're stream-of-consciousness weirdness that transform from moment to moment. Like being in a hallway one moment and outdoors the next without noticing the transition, or seeing a lawnmower one moment and finding it to be a model helicopter shortly thereafter, again with no noticeable transition. (Both of which I've actually experienced in a dream.)

I'm reminded of my thoughts on the original Total Recall, which I posted about on my blog a while back. The relevant quote:

 

I, too, have a fair number of dreams in which I'm not any kind of participant, not even a watcher, and a few in which the viewpoint was that of a friend. A couple nights ago I had a dream best described as ``watching this bizarre forgotten movie from decades ago''; it, of course, felt perfectly natural at the time.

 

Overall I think the dream idea is excellent, because the makers of ST V did not take the subject seriously. The "surreal dream" fix is right precisely because the movie is filled with things that are so wrong.

Some people say that many second season episodes of Lost in Space were just dreams that Penny Robinson had, or fiction she wrote. They don't say that because the episodes were brilliant works of science fiction.

I wholeheartedly endorse these ideas as well.

 

Holy crap. What you've described makes perfect sense. It makes the film make perfect sense.

Well of course not. That's not what Shatner intended, and I don't think that's what the OP is suggesting. This is just a thought experiment, and a damn good one at that.

*EDIT* Actually, reading the OP's last line of his post, it does sound like that's what he's suggesting. I'm pretty sure this was NOT Shatner's intention. However, if he had any foresight, he could have totally gotten away with explaining the movie away as a dream.

Shatner: "Deck 78? Of course the Enterprise doesn't have 78 decks. That was a subtle clue that this was all fake, like that unicorn dream Harrison Ford had in Blade Runner!"

 

I don't think the scenes where Kirk wasn't present would be a problem as a person dosnt always dream about themselves in the action.

however the opening with the bald guy and sybok, and the sybok siege occur before Kirk beds down for the night which create a problem...however there can be an explanation. the entire opening was still set in Kirks dream - the opening is very dreamlike, Kirks ascent and fall from the mountain (falling is a very common dream) he is also saved by his best friend Spock (wearing jetboots) another symbolic dream image, the Scotty & Uhura out of nowhere romance, the 'Paradise Lost' siege with weird cat creature is like something from a dream etc.....which would make everything which occurs before they bed down at the campsite the first ‘level’ of the dream - the bed down and what occurred after would be a ‘dream within a dream.’ The only problem with having Kirk dreaming before he falls asleep at the campsite is Kirk falling from El Capitan would be 'the kick' and have shouldve woken him out of his dream!

unless...we have the opening with Sybok and the bald guy and the mountain climb etc as Kirks dream within a dream...he falls (the kick) is woken up into the normal first stage dream at the campsite...then they bed down and fall asleep and everything that occurs after (including being 'woken' by the shuttle) is a dream within a dream until at the end when they around the campfire again its just a dream (with a marsh 'melon' as his totem)
Of course the most rational explanation is the opening, the climb, and the siege were all real world that kirk knew about beforehand (or maybe checked out on his 23rd century smart phone at the campsite) then incorporated that stuff into his bourbon/marsh melon fuelled dream.

 

I love this theory; very, very well thought out. But as others have written, it's just a theory, not what Shatner or the franchise intended/presented.

I kinda like the "STV as Kirk's dying thoughts on Veridian III" aspect though. Play this out and you get TVH followed immediately by TUC, then GEN, then TFF as the true, if surreal, goodbye from the original cast. Not sure how I feel about this.

 

How about a compromise explanation? The film is a dream in which the dreamer relived events that actually happened, but in a distorted way, interpolating fantasy images like the gravity boots, the "center of the galaxy" being 20 minutes away, the 78 decks, being harmlessly knocked down by a photon torpedo, etc. Sort of a variation of the Literary Agent Hypothesis, that the story you're seeing is a fictionalized and embellished account of an actual event.

 

Maybe someone could do a re-edit as an Inception style dream reality movie:
-open the movie with the rock climb/campfire and put the Sybok opening and various other scenes AFTER Kirk beds down.
-insert a brief scene of Kirk staring at one of those blue unicorns with a curious expression.
-include some Inception style "BRRRRAAAWWWs!!" on the score at various points.
-let Shatner have his devil/rockmen end in CGI (see GalaxyQuest/Hulk 2003/Noah)

yes thatd be cool (besides VI feels more of a sequel to IV than V does)
also this:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=8673958#post8673958

 

A few nights ago I dreamt a Doctor Who episode, as if it were pumped directly into my brain. That's what happens when you watch all of Watch's Saturday marathon. It was the first time I dreamt like that and was very strange.

I still hate the idea STV was a dream, though.

 

Lol. This is the most brilliant thing I've read about Trek V in a long time. Bravo.

 

This dream explanation does 'explain' many of the off-the-wall things that happened in the film.

In regards to Uhura, it does explain the sudden romance with Scotty. And, the desert scene probably hints that Kirk, being that this is a hypothetical dream, had some thoughts about her 'in that way' all those years. (Of course, he's probably had those dreams before during the 5 year mission...haha)

 

I'm sold. Now, if someone does an edit with Hans Zimmer's Inception music I might actually watch this movie again.

 

Excellent! Very interesting observations and conclusions.

I just like to know how the image of Klingons using a 20th Century NASA space probe (Pioneer?) for target practice fits in.

Must have something to do with the V'ger story from TMP (Klingons being defeated by a probe) but I'm not a psychologist to be able to tell.

Bob