Summer 1989 - Why are they putting seatbelts in theatres this summer? Summer 2021 - Whats a theatre? and whats a star trek movie?
All they needed to do to fix the fact that it took such a short time to get to the center of the Galaxy was add a very brief special effect of the ship entering a wormhole and then exiting the wormhole in the vicinity of the galactic center. And that could actually be done if the movie was to be recut and all they'd need to do is add a voice over lines such as "entering Wormhole to galactic center" Sure it's a cheap cop out but explains the problem away and they could also throw in a couple of lines about how sybok spent years coming up with a variation on Starship shielding that could survive the Great Barrier.
Can you imagine how bad that wormhole would look when they couldn't even get a straightforward shot of the Enterprise looking even vaguely acceptable bar maybe 2, 3 second shots in the entire movie? I mean, the great barrier shot. It was basically a cutout of the Enterprise being shrunk without any perspective, lighting or anything behind what looked like some green liquid being tipped into a glass. It was embarrassing, superman 4 level bad.
The novelization actually did do that to an extent. The novel explained on how Sybok came up with a way to penetrate the Great Barrier, for whatever reason it didn't show up on screen. Unfortunately nothing about how they got their so fast. But, I highly recommend the novel to any fan of TFF. JM Dillard did a great job with the novel. At least some of the plot holes in the movie were explained. And she also included what the pain was that J'Onn (the character Sybok first encounters on Nimbus III, who IIRC was originally supposed to be a Romulan), and that of Sulu, Uhura and Chekov. And some more detail is provided on Spock and McCoy. Like any novel, it gives you more background, but it was well written and actually makes you appreciate the film more.
Eye for an eye: old testament solutions that feel good but accomplish nothing. Stable wormholes were a ways away...
Sybok possessed one of the most lauded Vulcan intellects according to Spock. It’s entirely possible he could have spent his life coming up with a way to create a wormhole using controlled antimatter imbalance (see also TMP). You’d just need to figure out how to get the Klingons through as well.
Leopards don't change its spots. A wise man, Damian, once told me that. A promotional poster, to emphasize the rollercoaster ride of the viewers' perspective in seeing that movie. I personally felt that promotion was more appropriate for the other movie Paramount was distributing.... INDIANA JONES and the LAST CRUSADE.
Although the wormhole gimmick could or could not help the movie; the one element which would still hurt the movie is the lack of struggle of the Enterprise getting and going to the center of the galaxy. Climbing a space Mount Everest should've been the goal where the journey builds and breakdown our heroes and antagonists. Creating, restoring and encouraging "faith" should've been the heart of the story.
The plot device should never be the reason they get there but the cause; strip out all of the tropes and what did Shatner have? Those actors had shown time and time again if they have something interesting to memorize on their plates they can produce magic. The previous movie... FILM, did just that. The characters' internal journey needed a lot more for TFF to work.
When a classic Trek movie comes down to the utilization of the day players then you know you're in for a bad ride.
The joke at the time was that the belts were there to stop people walking out. V suffered from impressive competition: Indy 3, Batman, Licence to Kill and, ah, Ghostbusters 2. Plus non-SF stuff like Dead Poets Society. But even without that it might have struggled. With that opposition it didn't have a chance.