hey rockman didn't look too bad!

[Saul]

Rockman couldn't harm the film. He looks scary.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

He looks cool.

 

[Guartho]

The problem with the Rockman is that from a narrative standpoint he's an anticlimax. I mean, the Enterprise blows up this God thing that zaps Kirk and Spock and Sybok sacrifices himself to, so you go from the big powerful looking thing to one or more gargoyles to chase Kirk around until the Klingons save him?

I guess I should've finished the novelization. I thought "god" summoned up his rock-man army after torturing the crew a bit and then they wanted to avenge his death after Sybock attacks him.

 

[Data Holmes]

It's a rock monster. It doesn't HAVE any vulnerable spots!

You know, to this day I think that that was a bit of a nod to shatner...

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

Well for what its worth, I am not impressed by the rockman nor do I think it would have improved Star Trek 5. Star Trek 2 though 6 never had the aesthetics or verisimilitude of TMP so I never cared for the sequels.

Since I grew up watching TOS in syndication in the early 1970s I prefer the rock creature from the Season 3 Episode "The Savage Curtain" to the rockman for Star Trek 5. Here is a picture of TOS rock creature courtesy of www.trekcore.com.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[Kryton]

Yeah, but the Excalbians were just big lumps of pumice with immense telepathic powers. It didn't seem to me like there was ever any possibility he was going to get up and move around (though the images of Surak, Lincoln, Green, Zora, Kahless, and KHAAAAAAAAAN were, I believe, supposed to have been other Excalbians participating in the morality play).

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Looks just fine. Very much in the spirit of a Classic Star Trek effect. Would have worked just fine in the movie. Yet another bullshit Shatner canard bites the dust!

 

[CobraCommander]

I don't think that having an Army of Hell would have made ST V succeed. It would have been cool to have the Enterprise face Hell itself. Unfortunately it would have enflamed the Christian Fundamentalists into saying that Star Trek is the work of the devil. The "false Sha-Ka-Ree" was good enough, IMO. Basically Kirk gets to defeat another false god, just like he did countless other times in TOS. STV isn't the greatest film by a long shot but it is fun to watch.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

It's a rock monster. It doesn't HAVE any vulnerable spots!

Yes it does, you kick it in the stones.........(Groan)

 

[Stag]

It's a rock monster. It doesn't HAVE any vulnerable spots!

Yes it does, you kick it in the stones.........(Groan)

 

[RoJoHen]

I think it would have been fine in TOS, but not in the movies.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Man-in-suit! Man-in-suit!

Looks pretty cheesy, really.

 

[trevanian]

It's a rock monster. It doesn't HAVE any vulnerable spots!

Yes it does, you kick it in the stones.........(Groan)

They actually DO that in CAST A DEADLY SPELL, when Fred Ward is menaced by a gargoyle come to life from statuary.

 

[Kirby]

A rock lobster would have been better. The B-52s could have done the theme song.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

LOL, Kirby!

 

[Myasishchev]

Yeah, but the Excalbians were just big lumps of pumice with immense telepathic powers. It didn't seem to me like there was ever any possibility he was going to get up and move around (though the images of Surak, Lincoln, Green, Zora, Kahless, and KHAAAAAAAAAN were, I believe, supposed to have been other Excalbians participating in the morality play).

I guess Star Trek V turns out to be the Excalbians graduating from experimenting with good and evil to exploring the ugly bags of mostly water's belief in God.

Bah, I still like TFF. It's the most anti-religion major motion picture ever made until the far more subtle allegory of the Truman Show. In TFF, God gets shot in the face. And it's awesome.

Anyway, from the article below the clip:

Personally I think the reason it got axed was a possible lawsuit from Marvel comics, because the creature depicted is very Ben Grimm, isn't he? This is the kind of suit that might have brought The Thing a new level of interest in the Fantastic Four movies.

I strongly doubt it. To paraphrase Judge Seeborg's decision arising from MKR Group's ill-advised attempt to sue Capcom for similarities between Dawn of the Dead and Dead Rising, the few similarities Marvel could have alleged are driven by the wholly unprotectable concept of dude made out of rock.

 

[trevanian]

Bah, I still like TFF. It's the most anti-religion major motion picture ever made until the far more subtle allegory of the Truman Show.

I love TFF, but I gotta say, THE RAPTURE does the antiGod thing even better. Mimi Rogers basically tells God that he ain't worth shit, that she'd rather remain in purgatory for eternity than acknowledge the worth of some deity who ordered her to kill her daughter. It has a slow act 2, but is definitely worth it for the end sequences (and if you are so inclined, early on for Ms Rogers other assets.)

 

[Kirk1980]

"What does God need with a starship....

.....

or a rockman? Seriously?"

 

[Nardpuncher]

The problem with the Rockman is that from a narrative standpoint he's an anticlimax. I mean, the Enterprise blows up this God thing that zaps Kirk and Spock and Sybok sacrifices himself to, so you go from the big powerful looking thing to one or more gargoyles to chase Kirk around until the Klingons save him? Think of it from an audience POV. You blow up the glowing God and then there's a rock guy chasing Kirk. What does one have to do with the other? Sure, if you change the script to reveal that THIS is the true form of the God-pretender, or that a bunch of them together created the image of God as a ruse, then you've got some reason for them, but as is they're pointless tack-ons. At least the glowing head chasing Kirk is clearly the same entity, stupid looking as it is.

Well said!
If the main antagonist has been stopped then this Rockman is just something to shoot phasers at before the audience goes home. Though it did look a heck of a lot better than I'd heard the last 15 years or so!
Sort of like the idea that at the end of TMP the three Klingon ships were supposed to reemerge from V'Ger and attack the Enterprise...it may have looked sort of neat, but the story was over.

 

[Ziz]

A rock lobster would have been better. The B-52s could have done the theme song.

Hell, the movies take place in outer space. Why not just have a bunch of rock....

...stars.