Could Star Trek V been saved?
- Thread starter tim0122
- Start date
Can you provide examples?
Other than the Kirk-Martia fight, which was lampshaded as being a bit meta.
I think he was already wish fulfillment (action movie-hero-star) character in IV if not III, sure he did make some controversial decisions which had consequences but also with which all the viewers were supposed to, encouraged to if not pushed to agree with and cheer.
I hated TFF as a kid. So disappointed walking out of that movie theater. Did a rewatch a few years ago and found it kind of charming. Did a recut for fun a while back with the premise of: After the events of TVH, instead of producing TNG the studio rolled out a new show with our heroes in the Ent A with the events of TFF being a 2 part pilot. Cut some of the stuff I really hated, picked up the pacing. Fun project. Ha!
I'm sorry. I'm just enjoying the thought of Shatner being labeled as 1986's main action movie hero star when during the same year we had Top Gun, Highlander, Big Trouble in Little China and ALIENS. Nothing can compare to Shatner using a tiny disruptor to lock doctors in a room.
Hey, have you ever tried holding your breath for as long as he did while he was freeing the whales?
I hated those levels.Hey, have you ever tried holding your breath for as long as he did while he was freeing the whales?
It's important to remember that not all evangelists or evangelicals are the kind of money-seekers that Shatner thought he might convey. Most genuinely want to share their beliefs; it was only a certain kind that the movie makers were trying to indict. Star Trek V makes Sybok sympathetic enough that the idea that he is shilling does not work, but neither does the idea that his cause will bear out. Picking the supposed-to-be-surprising idea that Sybok believes his own cause comes off as upsetting rather than surprising for this reason, and given what was written in the script, I don't see how the actor could have played another way and been as effective.
It would be amazing if the movie had revealed that the "new screens" from the refit were of Sybok's doing. So they would not have been able to resist V'ger without his work, and ship could have entered this barrier for, say, around 10 years and not know it. It would give additional emotional weight to V'ger and Sybok as memorable Star Trek antagonists.
--I have no idea why this quote from an entirely other thread appeard when I went to add quotes to this one. However, since it is here for some reason, I'll add that inclduing some movie-era ships that already existed and supposedly carried voer into just before TNG, like a Miranda or Constellation in action might have helped increase interest. (Not a Galaxy-fmaily model for star Trek V) Imagine after being told that the experienced Captain crew needed to go over to the StarGazer or Saratoga or Valkyrie for one mission because the Enterprise was not ready. They find that new ship malfunctioning instead of the Enterprise, and the movie goes mostly as it does until Chekov or Scotty arrives with the Enterprise ready to go for the final fight. Given the large shuttle bays on both those classes of ship, the shuttle scenes work. Another movie mostly without the Enterprise might have been either hated by fans or a nice way to keep suspense until the end of what may have been the first mission the new crew has after returning to Earth with the Bird of Prey.
Because a number of other moments have suggested very subtly that McCoy is relgiousm that part makes sense. I like the fact that they did not go to far with talking about McCoy's beliefs, since in real life it would not be something mentioned as a plot point each time. There is also the matter of McCoy allowing his father to die before he cure came out. It would be hard for McCoy to accept that those things had happened "in God's time," but if he was struggling with that and did have deeply held religious views, he might have chose not to talk about that doubt, even when yelling at Sybok. That is a plot point that I think works for some and not others based on whether a viewer understands how religious people may choose deal with such things.
While some other TV evangelists may have been seeking money and attention, Pat Robertson, for one, did not act like someone who did not believe what he was saying. Like I said in my post above, Sybok believing what he was saying seems like it is supposed to come off like a surprise in the movie, but it does not to me.
There are only two ways the Sybok character could go, if Shatner's real goal was to make a statement about televangelists in general:
1. Either he's a scam artist, or
2. He's a 'true believer' whose faith/rationale is ambiguous at best. Neither scenario makes for any kind of compelling character that the audience can relate to. Shatner chose the second option, which then gives the story only two outcomes:
1. Sybok actually finds God! or
2. He is ultimately revealed to be wrong about his beliefs.
Obviously, only one of those options is going to logically work. But the audience already knows it's going to be option 2 from the start, so there's no real incentive for them to feel that Sybok's beliefs were right at any point in time. Sybok is simply not a good character.
That, to me, is the problem Star Trek V that I don't see a fix for, other than rewriting the the movie to focus differently on other aspects of the story, and let Sybok's goals be in the background. Sybok either has to be a sympathetic madman, or the audience is being asked to be accepting of things they just likely would never accept. Most anything else about the movie is either already good (including the acutal acting for Sybok, or could be fixed with editing, effects, or changes to staging of the action sequences. There is a weakness to the firefight to escape the planet on the Bird of Prey, but I'm not sure how that could ahve been fixed.
But the movie's inherent problem actually has little to do with Sybok, despite him not being that good of a character. The flaw is that the movie is written and structured specifically to make Kirk look strong and everyone else look weak. Sybok was just the plot device to make that happen. Even though there was nothing wrong with Luckinbill's acting (and I wouldn't even go so far as to say he played Sybok as 'mad'), he's still just a character that the audience isn't going to relate to or feel sympathy for, other than perhaps pity because they already know he's wrong. But that wasn't really Sybok's purpose to begin with.
I don't know either William Shatner or Patrick Stewart personally. However, from all the interviews I've seen over the years, my feeling is that Shatner is perfectly happy with James T. Kirk as a character. Yes, when given the opportunity, he'd like to make himself as front and center as possible, but he's never been particularly interested in fundamentally changing who the character is.
Patrick Stewart, on the other hand, seems to have disliked the character of Jean-Luc Picard from day one. From the very beginning of TNG, he has been trying to change who and what Picard is. From the famous "more fighting and fucking" plea he made to the TNG writers to the insistence that Picard and Riker's roles in First Contact be flipped so that he could be the action guy on the ship, he has constantly fought against the character as it is beloved by fans and which really put him on the map. It baffles me.
I don't think I agree, but on the other hand, you may be right, though fans of Walker Texas Ranger, Power Rangers, even TJ Hooker and many others, tolerated a hero(es) that was(were) overpowered compared to everyone else and cheered for it.
To put it another way, if Star Trek V is trying to make Kirk into a flawless, overpowered, unstoppable character, it fails. The audience is not going to have the thought that if Kirk could do al this then Shatner would be able to. Star Trek Movie Memories does not really say that, and making Kirk heroic arguably should have been Shatner's goal because Kirk is the main character for most of the era in which the original series and movies is set.
If the goal was that Kirk is so much better than every other character, he does not come off that way to me in the movie, especially with incidents like falling needlessly of a cliff, getting trapped in the brig, and getting captured by the ambassadors. If all the characters are strong, and Kirk is even stronger, then that makes Kirk look better than if everyone else is weak. But Star Trek V does not really do that either; everyone is kind of being taken on a ride from one event to the next without much ability to stop things until the sudden escape from the planet at the end.
The thing that is designed to make Kirk look strong and the others look weak is that, in Shatner's original plan, Kirk was literally the only one -- apparently in the entire galaxy, but certainly on Nimbus III and the Enterprise -- who could resist Sybok's "share your pain" sorta-mind-control stuff. In the finished film, Spock and kinda McCoy resist as well, but that was only because Nimoy and Kelley refused to play it as originally written. Even still, the rest of the crew gives in.
Ok. Now I see the point that you and a couple others are making. In that case, from that perspective, answering the question of whether this movie could be saved, it could be said the Star Trek V was already saved...by Kelley and Nimoy, and also by several others who steered the movie into more of being an adventure and less of just being about the religious leader.
If what we got is the film being "saved", then...ouch.
Just a random thought: There were a few things TFF did do right. I was re-watching a few scenes and they actually did a really good job of creating the illusion that Kirk was high up on the mountain. The shots filmed in the nearby parking lot with a fake wall actually hold up very well. Additionally, although Ferren's effects are generally lousy, I like the use of rear projection for the main viewscreen and the shuttle viewports, rather than the traditional blue screen effects. It makes it more realistic.
Also, at random: When all the people are listing their culture's name for this place they've supposedly just found, St. John Talbot says "Eden." Uhm... no. In Judeo-Christian theology, Eden is not the place where you go to find God. It's not Heaven. And it's not at the center of the galaxy. It's a specific place on Earth where creation of mankind is supposed to have happened. Referring to Sha Ka Rhee as Eden makes no sense.
Also, at random: When all the people are listing their culture's name for this place they've supposedly just found, St. John Talbot says "Eden." Uhm... no. In Judeo-Christian theology, Eden is not the place where you go to find God. It's not Heaven. And it's not at the center of the galaxy. It's a specific place on Earth where creation of mankind is supposed to have happened. Referring to Sha Ka Rhee as Eden makes no sense.
In Judaism, the Garden of Eden is sometimes used in reference to Paradise in the afterlife.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/ar...y to be exiled after disobeying God’s command.
