Romulan, you mean.
And really, Caithlin Dar's ears are really really low on the list of why this movie sucked.
And she was far from even a semi-major character.
And Star Trek V failed because...
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Romulan, you mean.
And really, Caithlin Dar's ears are really really low on the list of why this movie sucked.
And she was far from even a semi-major character.
I have to disagree, when it comes to the costumes of STAR TREK III. As I recall, the civvies you mention were meant to actually represent their countries of origin. Chekov's outfit was a misstep, however. I don't know all that much about Russia, but where that idea came from, I haven't a clue. In STAR TREK V, however, we are fortunate that Spock leaves his jacket on, for much of the time. Underneath was a shirt that was a purple nightmare - and seems like another intentional jab at Vulcans in this movie. Perhaps jealousy rearing its ugly head that Nimoy beat Shatner - the star of the show - to the Director's Chair AND that he'd done it so successfully.
My mistake! My brain was still under the effects of turkey. Thank you for the correction.
It's true this wasn't the major reason the movie sucked. But everyone had articulated all of those reasons earlier.
I didn't know how to categorize her character. She was one of the three hostages and, for a non-lead, had about as much of a speaking part as any other minor character.
So the minor point (sorry for the pun) I was trying to make is that they creative team couldn't even be bothered to give her ears. In other star trek movies, there were background aliens with more intensive make up that barely had any screen time. Here, a speaking part didn't even get a simple ear prosthetic.
Ok, it's a minor point. But I think it's representative about how this movie cut many corners. Starting with the script and working its way down
And that's a lot of words for a very minor issue. Sorry
Of course they could have given her pointed ears. They're cheap to do, and they had boxes lying around for Nimoy to use. The ear protectors were a costume choice, and making them specially would have been more expensive that just going for the ears. Maybe on a desert planet she was afraid of getting sand in them?
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Ear protectors vs pointed ears was a creative choice? Ugh! Another reason this movie sucked. Some seriously poor creative choices.
Like others said before me, I am a religious person and no, this movie does not offend me. It portrays a madman (Sybok) completely missing the point of spirituality and faith and getting fooled by a powerful alien into believing it is God.
The line at the end about God not "being out there but in the human heart" also did never strike me as anti-religion or anti-faith.
At least according to my believes, of course you can't find God sitting around on a planet in the physical universe, it's God, it's beyond the physical universe/multiverse/omniverse/whatever. However, again according to my personal believes, God works through the human heart/soul.
I would have been offended if that entity had really been God.
However it is a very terrible movie, very little is explained, nothing makes sense. Like Nimbus III, "Planet of Galactic Peace" seriously what was that supposed to be? And "Paradise City" with the "Paradise Lost" graffiti
. Somebody saw too much Mad Max or wanted a copy of Mos Eisley , eh?
Sybok was a poorly conceived villain and his "Galactic Army of Light" seemed like a commentary on those Youth Sects in the 60s/70s....10-20 years too late.
Then there were other painful bits, like Uhura doing a fan-dance at a time where she no longer would have sent men running after her while doing so/
And of course I could have lived without watching Kirk, Spock and McCoy on their stupid camping trips and ESPECIALLY without having to listen to them singing "Row your boat"
That whole movie is painful.
The line at the end about God not "being out there but in the human heart" also did never strike me as anti-religion or anti-faith.
At least according to my believes, of course you can't find God sitting around on a planet in the physical universe, it's God, it's beyond the physical universe/multiverse/omniverse/whatever. However, again according to my personal believes, God works through the human heart/soul.
I would have been offended if that entity had really been God.
However it is a very terrible movie, very little is explained, nothing makes sense. Like Nimbus III, "Planet of Galactic Peace" seriously what was that supposed to be? And "Paradise City" with the "Paradise Lost" graffiti
. Somebody saw too much Mad Max or wanted a copy of Mos Eisley , eh? Sybok was a poorly conceived villain and his "Galactic Army of Light" seemed like a commentary on those Youth Sects in the 60s/70s....10-20 years too late.
Then there were other painful bits, like Uhura doing a fan-dance at a time where she no longer would have sent men running after her while doing so/
And of course I could have lived without watching Kirk, Spock and McCoy on their stupid camping trips and ESPECIALLY without having to listen to them singing "Row your boat"
That whole movie is painful.
But I think most religions have the idea of holy places where you can go to commune with God, e.g. Moses going up the mountain to receive the commandments. Not necessarily "where God lives", but a place with good soul-phone reception
I actually found that interesting, and an idea worthy of further exploration. It's a comment on politics then and now that a worthless rock might become the subject of a territorial dispute (like the Senkaku Islands), and declared a "peace planet" as a feeble solution to the problem.
There are plenty of crazy cults around right now. We tend not to hear about them unless a lot of people die (or are molested).
But I think most religions have the idea of holy places where you can go to commune with God, e.g. Moses going up the mountain to receive the commandments. Not necessarily "where God lives", but a place with good soul-phone reception
But was that the implication? I thought Sha Ka Ree was supposed to be literal Vulcan Heaven? i.e. The place God was supposed to live?
But they just sort of shoved it into the beginning of the movie, without much explanation to how it came to be or how it descended into its present state of anarchy.
That would have definitely been a better movie than what The Final Frontier was.
Of course you are right, however I was mainly thinking that the "Galactic Army of Peace" right down to the name was most akin in their trappings to the fringe religions that flourished (in the Western World) especially in the counter culture if the 1960s/70s.
After doing a bit of research I'm surprised how many of those groups are still going relatively strong on an international level.
They seem less like....the movements we tend to associate with the term "fringe religion" or "cult" in the 1980s. 90s or today.
The movie did seem a bit vague or confused on the issue, and I don't recall anyone calling Sybok out on it. Another thing that would have been in that missing middle act!But was that the implication? I thought Sha Ka Ree was supposed to be literal Vulcan Heaven? i.e. The place God was supposed to live?But I think most religions have the idea of holy places where you can go to commune with God, e.g. Moses going up the mountain to receive the commandments. Not necessarily "where God lives", but a place with good soul-phone reception
I don't think any explanation was needed. It was easy to imagine how Nimbus III became a "failed state".
I like to imagine TFF as being a sequel to a TOS episode that never was:
Klingons and Federation come to the brink of war over this hunk of worthless rock, but Kirk saves the day by having it declared international territory and calling it the Planet of Peace. The episode ends with Kirk looking thoughtfully into the distance, wondering aloud about the possibility of universal peace and love, now that this first step has been made. Cut to...
No one else?
Yeah Chekov's outfit is so bad that after the Enterprise warps away from spacedock he suddenly loses the pilgrim collar he was wearing and the pink t-shirt he was wearing underneath his suit suddenly becomes black. Although he does keep the suit.
It's almost like they realized after shooting a few scenes they went "Man...Chekov really does look like a sissy" and they tried to correct it a little.
One of the things FF does very well, is exploring the bonds of friendship and loyalty between these three old men, who have basically become family after spending so long together. So, yeah, the camping scenes are great bookends to the story.
I don't dislike him... he can be a competent actor.I take it you don't like Shatner. It's ok. He probably doesn't like you either.
But I figured out a long time ago that actors aren't their characters. Actually, I think I solidified that belief back in 1978 when I met James Doohan and asked him a question about a technical aspect of the Enterprise. He was kind enough to try to answer my question, but he wasn't Scotty. And even at the age of 11, I was actually fine with that.
And I don't have issues with actors who essentially play themselves in their roles... most of the time they are cast for parts to do just that. But I do have issues when actors try to change great characters into something that more closely resembles themselves. And I pointed out that in the area of long running TV series, many lead actors morph their characters into being screen versions of themselves as they gain more creative control over series. I brought up Alan Alda and Tom Selleck as examples, but lets not forget someone a little closer to home... Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy is a case where neither the producers or writers were quite sure where they were going with the character and Nimoy was intellectually curious enough to inject a ton of strong ideas into Spock and Vulcan culture. The difference being that Spock was still a character unique from Nimoy, even though Nimoy had invested a ton of time and energy in it. And because Nimoy was the origin of much of what Spock was, he played Spock in a way that made you believe that he was actually just playing himself (hence his need to write I Am Not Spock). Nimoy is awesome, a creative genius, the origin of what makes Spock Spock... but he is not Spock, nor was he playing himself as the character throughout most of Trek.
Shatner isn't that creative. In the absence of writing and directing from others, he can't just pull together a character (or characters) on his own. When given control of Trek he substitutes himself for the character of Kirk and shallow caricatures for the other characters. Why? He isn't doing it on purpose to hurt other people's work (after all, Trek is a collaborative work of art), he just doesn't have the range to do what he saw others doing (he really believed that he was as good as Nimoy in all these areas). Does Shatner know or understand Kirk? No... but he didn't think that was all that important anyways because people were lining up to see him.
Even if you go back and try to find the origin of the Kirk cliché of having a woman in every episode, you'll find that Shatner fanned that idea as much as anyone. Shatner wanted Kirk to be like that, and pushed for it throughout TOS (and got it more or less in season three). And because Shatner had so much more influence in Phase II (specially with the absence of Nimoy), he pushed for this even harder. Take, for example, Shatner's idea for the pilot In Thy Image...Roddenberry: Received a call from Bill Shatner in which he made the following comments on the second draft script:This is the type of thing that Captain Shatner would do, but not Captain Kirk. And the thing is, all of this type of stuff came out unfiltered in TFF.
Suggest that we have an interesting dramatic opportunity if Kirk makes love to the "Ilia" machine and we actually see at least the beginnings of this on camera. He feels that it is not only a valid extension of what the story already has him doing but has the considerable opportunity for humor and helps reinforce the whole change in her.
Shatner doesn't see this as a problem because from his point of view TFF was how Star Trek had always been, and I can't fault him for that. That is what he saw looking at Trek. And I can't fault people who call TFF the most TOS-like Trek film... after all, to them (just like to Shatner) there is no difference between the characters of TOS and caricatures they saw in TFF.
So no, I don't dislike Shatner... and in a way, I can't blame him for making a Star Trek movie that shows us exactly what he sees when he looks at Trek.
Shatner is what he is... and he is fine with that, so why shouldn't I be. But Any one thinking that Shatner playing Shatner isn't what has been going on for years now is only fooling themselves. Even though Shatner didn't make WatchMojo's Top 10 Typecast Actors list, he was an honorable mention (Typecast as: Himself).
Shatner is good for Shatner... I just don't think he is good for Trek.
I'm not going to stand here and defend Shatner to the death (or to the pain) the guy has shown himself to be a self serving diva beyond a doubt and many times he's been his own worst enemy when it comes to his public perception, so I understand why some people dislike him intensely. Personally though I think people need to give the guy a break at times. He does have some very good qualities and has shown a willingness to make fun of his shortcomings, and personally I think there are plenty of entertainers who are far biggers jerks than Shatner, they just hide it better. But some people, including ST fans just seem to despise him so much they will never give him credit for anything.
But let's not canonize Leonard Nimoy as some kind of amazing creative genius and all around great guy. Yes he is very creative in some ways, he added things to the Spock character that made it better and he did a good directing TSFS and TVH and he seems to not have the knack for pissing off his fellow cast members with his behaviors like Shatner did.
But he also is guilty of doing the thing that I absolutely HATE the most when actors do it, and that is when he or she gets the role of a lifetime and as a result earns great fame, fortune and power as a result and all they do is sit around and bitch about being typecast as that character and how they're not appreciated as a whole artist. I know people go into acting for different reasons but I believe that the vast people of actors do want to "Make it big" in the industry, regardless of their feelings towards the art of acting. Well Nimoy did make it big, something that 99 point I don't know how many decimal points of actors in the industry will never experience, so the man was EXTREMELY fortunate and beat some damn long odds.
Yet all he could do for the better part of a decade was sit around and piss and moan that people only saw him as Spock and didn't appreciate his other roles, or little plays he did, or his shitty poetry and music. To me this is like someone getting $100 million tax free and all they can do is cry about how it wasn't $150 million. He was a constant pain in the ass to the Paramount suits about how he hated the role and didn't want to come back. Then he would come back, then he wanted out for good, then he wanted to be brought back and direct and so on and so on until he either seemed to mellow out in the late 80's or realized that Spock was his meal ticket so he'd better embrace it and for someone who hated the role and wanted out 40+ years ago he sure has kept finding ways to come back on screen as Spock. He was a jerk to Paramount, yet seemed to have no problem cashing the paychecks they wrote him. I cannot stand that about actors and I will say Nimoy is hardly the only one who is guilty of being giving so much and acting like he's gotten screwed over at every turn.
Compare this to Mark Hamill. He pretty much knew he was going to be Luke Skywalker forever and never got another big role, but I've never once heard him complain about it, he's said openly he's fortunate for all it gave him and he's found other ways to work in the industry and doesn't seem to feel the need to say "I'M MORE THAN SOME JEDI KNIGHT DAMNIT, LOOK AT ALL THIS OTHER STUFF I'VE DONE!!!!!!" The only thing I've ever heard him say, which was done as a joke, was after Star Wars hit it big he said "It's kind of depressing knowing when you're 20 years old what the first line in every obituary written about you is going to be."
Shatner has issues, no question. But he's rarely complained about being just known as Kirk, always seemed to embrace the role and what it gave him and he's done plenty of other things without ever seeming to have the need to make everyone see that he's so much more than just James Tiberius Kirk.
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So, Kirk is telling Spock a campfire story about Spock betraying him and refusing to defend the Enterprise against a brother he never told anyone about? Doesn't work for me.
Some have suggested that everything between the camping scenes is a beans & bourbon-induced dream....
If this had been implied in the film, I would have liked it many times better. Unfortunately, this idea that the in-between parts are a beans & bourbon-induced dream itself may as well be one.
That would be the "Dallas" themed TFF Director's Cut
Although ironically, "TFF-as Kirk's dream" works far better at explaining the illogic of this film.
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