Definitely.
Star Trek V isn't that bad...
- Thread starter USS Artorius
- Start date
I think so, yeah.
They wanted Sean Connery, though was the part really intended for him in mind? Did he do a screen test? I know he was already doing the Indiana Jones movie... But Luckinbill's approach and style were what was needed. Could Connery have been similar? Connery might have made a really good not-god.
If they wanted Sean because of his BIG NAME, then... why? For 1978's "Superman", they wanted a BIG NAME, but nobody fit so the found Christopher Reeve and then used a BIG NAME for the main villain and put his BIG NAME in the opening credits first, even though it's pretty obvious Christopher was stealing the show, left and right. (Donner was perfectly chosen as director, with his vision for his era. Lester made some decent decisions for II, a couple iffy ones, but III- did I just digress again?)
So anyway, it gets even worse (the BIG NAMES, not my blabbling): The Star Wars prequels are simply loaded with BIG NAMES and half of their performances fall flat, based on scripts with characterization as compelling as that blade of grass next to the other blade of brown grass that is equally uncompelling. Christopher Lee was able to do more with "The Man with the Golden Gun" (which is not the James Bond franchise's highest point in that series),but the point remains that a BIG NAME just for the sake of a BIG NAME isn't going to be an insta-win. That reminds me, I wanna see Superman III again. It has the same level of comedy as Star Trek V... of course, they both suck in that regard...
Ditto.
Pretty much. They were aiming for "Epic", but it doesn't quite work.
Like this?
That surely wasn't the original intent?
Like Superman III, Star Trek V sinks a few points because of the over the top comedy, which was demanded of Shatner because it worked oh-so-well in Star Trek IV (despite it not always dating well...)
Ditto
That's because they basically did. Bennett and Loughery had cracked the story when the Writers Guild of America went on strike. After the strike ended, Loughery essentially had a month to write a complete script so shooting could begin in October 1988 for the June 1989 release.
Connery was their dream idea for Sybok, but he wouldn't have been available, and they never could have afforded him, either.
Connery in ST V? That would have been up there with Michael Caine in Jaws 4. Maybe not quite but you can almost imagine a phoned in performance, still Connery went on to do Highlander 2 so obviously open to a pay day regardless of the script.
BLASSHHHHHHHPHEMY! There are no phoned in Connery's! HA HA HA. I think his casting would certainly have helped the film's marketing and box office. The tone of the Sybok character would have been very different, as Sean and Luckinbill couldn't be furthest from each other in delivery. That said, I'm not sure if it would have worked, for the script. Probably more believable as a Vulcan though.
In general, I still love The Final Frontier even though the story is nonsensical and the budget meager. The actors were able to play off on each other, and you had a lot of funny moments. In some ways, it's "failures" allowed for Star Trek VI and its darker tone.
I've come to realize that TFF and TWOK are really the only movies from the origninal 10 that my opinion never changed on.
1. TMP I thought was "ok but too boring," and now I love it.
2. TSFS I thought was good, but kind of a let down after TWOK, and now I think it's absolutely essential and a perfect companion piece to TWOK.
3. I liked TVH when it premiered, but now I think it's pretty pedestrian and it's rewatch value is severely diminished.
4. I loved TUC when it premiered, but now I think it's very average...too sloppy and too rushed. Still good, but not "one of the best" for me.
5. I liked GEN quite a bit at first, but now I see that it's pretty flawed and very much a missed opportunity.
6. I thought FC was amazing at one point, but that has gone down a notch or two. Still awesome, but not the "crown jewel" that I once considered it.
7. I tolerated INS when it was newer, and now I think it's trash and a waste of time
8. I actually really liked NEM when it premiered, and spent some energy defending it. A recent re-watch was...a bit of a struggle, though.
TFF I loved when I first saw it, and I thought "Yeah, that was flawed, but it was a ton of fun and had its heart in the right place" and I genuinely enjoyed it, and I still feel exactly the same way 34 years later. TWOK is in the same boat...I haven't changed my love for it one bit over the years.
Just an interesting data point.
1. TMP I thought was "ok but too boring," and now I love it.
2. TSFS I thought was good, but kind of a let down after TWOK, and now I think it's absolutely essential and a perfect companion piece to TWOK.
3. I liked TVH when it premiered, but now I think it's pretty pedestrian and it's rewatch value is severely diminished.
4. I loved TUC when it premiered, but now I think it's very average...too sloppy and too rushed. Still good, but not "one of the best" for me.
5. I liked GEN quite a bit at first, but now I see that it's pretty flawed and very much a missed opportunity.
6. I thought FC was amazing at one point, but that has gone down a notch or two. Still awesome, but not the "crown jewel" that I once considered it.
7. I tolerated INS when it was newer, and now I think it's trash and a waste of time
8. I actually really liked NEM when it premiered, and spent some energy defending it. A recent re-watch was...a bit of a struggle, though.
TFF I loved when I first saw it, and I thought "Yeah, that was flawed, but it was a ton of fun and had its heart in the right place" and I genuinely enjoyed it, and I still feel exactly the same way 34 years later. TWOK is in the same boat...I haven't changed my love for it one bit over the years.
Just an interesting data point.
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The funny thing is, I read the novelization which came out a week or two before the film, and thought it was great. Then I saw the film. It was awful. I got a headache watching it. First Trek film I only saw once in a theatre. It was like a TV movie version of the book. Worse, because I was expecting better quality than TNG, which had been on for 2 seasons by then. The effects and humor were like a student film. We were SO far from TMP at that point. I was shocked when they announced one more film. I figured TOS was dead in '89.
Gene Roddenberry had tried to pitch an "Enterprise meets God who turns out to be the Devil" story to Paramount. I dare say Shatner made it work, if not perfectly, at least quite well and without purposely antagonizing people's religious feelings.
“I handed them a script and they turned it down,” Roddenberry stated. “It was too controversial. It talked about concepts like, ‘Who is God?’ [In it] the Enterprise meets God in space; God is a life form, and I wanted to suggest that there may have been, at one time in the human beginning, an alien entity that early man believed was God, and kept those legends. But I also wanted to suggest that it might have been as much the Devil as it was God. After all, what kind of god would throw humans out of Paradise for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. One of the Vulcans on board, in a very logical way, says, ‘If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He’s got so many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He’s a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.’ Not surprisingly, that didn’t sent [sic] the Paramount executives off crying with glee. But I think good science fiction, historically, has been used that way–to question everything.”
- Lost Voyages of Trek and the Next Generation, by Bill Planer (Cinemaker Press, 1992)
Edit: The script was going to be published as the novel Star Trek: the God-Thing by Pocket Books in 1992, but writer Michael Jan Friedman never finished the work. Thanks Daddy Todd for the correction.
“I handed them a script and they turned it down,” Roddenberry stated. “It was too controversial. It talked about concepts like, ‘Who is God?’ [In it] the Enterprise meets God in space; God is a life form, and I wanted to suggest that there may have been, at one time in the human beginning, an alien entity that early man believed was God, and kept those legends. But I also wanted to suggest that it might have been as much the Devil as it was God. After all, what kind of god would throw humans out of Paradise for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. One of the Vulcans on board, in a very logical way, says, ‘If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He’s got so many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He’s a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.’ Not surprisingly, that didn’t sent [sic] the Paramount executives off crying with glee. But I think good science fiction, historically, has been used that way–to question everything.”
- Lost Voyages of Trek and the Next Generation, by Bill Planer (Cinemaker Press, 1992)
Edit: The script was going to be published as the novel Star Trek: the God-Thing by Pocket Books in 1992, but writer Michael Jan Friedman never finished the work. Thanks Daddy Todd for the correction.
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As critic Mark Kermode said, STV is the one you know Shatner directed because it opens with bloated, 58-year-old Captain Kirk, looking like he'd have trouble running a couple of laps around the track, free-climbing El Capitan, and end with him squaring up to God.
I can't help but enjoy it though.
I can't help but enjoy it though.
There's a lot of stuff I'll weather in terms of criticism aimed at the film, but I never really appreciate people using it as a platform to bash William Shatner.
By all accounts, even his biggest critics amongst the cast are on record in many places saying that they actually really enjoyed and respected him as a director.
More of a gentle ribbing than a bashing. A little mean-spirited in the wording perhaps but there's nothing in that quote I think anyone could really argue.
That said,
this is true, and I think he's underrated in that regard. James Doohan said something like, "Bill always wanted to be the director and when he was, he wasn't that bad."
I didn't necessarily mean you, or what you said...I just meant it's a generally common phenomenon at times.
I actually agree that one of the most absolutely ridiculous things in the entire franchise is the idea that any member of any crew from any series as they were portrayed could free-climb El Cap. After watching the "Free Solo" documentary....I became even more convinced of the insanity of that conceit!
No, the novel version was never completed nor published.
