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What you did or didn't like about TFF....

Mysterion said:
:lol:


Why Are They Putting Seatbelts In Theatres This Summer?
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So people won't leave before the movie is over.
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Yes, I laughed.

I tried to get through the movie, but I didn't make it. The absurd rock climbing scene and then the subsequent falling off the mountain with Spock and his jet boots zooming behind Kirk had me laughing. I didn't find myself caring about what was happening in the movie and it felt too Star Wars for me, especially the bar scene in the beginning. Even the sped up effects of the Klingon ship firing at the satellite reminded me of SW. Noooo, I want to keep those fandoms entirely separate. :lol: Maybe I'll give it another go.
 
I was initially rather disappointed with TFF coming off the "high" from TVH and the conclusion to that II-III-IV "trilogy" but after re-watching TFF a few times since, the film has actually kind of grown on me. There are some cringeworthy moments that I still wince at (Uhura's dancing) and the special FX were extremely diminished from the previous films (WTF happened, anyway?) and looked more reminiscent of the first movie rather than the previous three movies. I also thought it was wierd that it was so easy for Sybock to gain such a "cult-like" following among so much of the crew seemingly so easy. I'm glad, though, that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (and Scotty?) didn't get taken in fully by Sybock. TFF had some good dialogue/scenes between the Kirk/Spock/McCoy "trio" that elevated the movie beyond some of its noticeable flaws. Spock had, perhaps, more action scenes in this movie than he had had during any of the previous movies. Jerry Goldsmith's score was excellent as well, particularly the music composed for when they had to get back to the Enterprise via shuttlecraft, as well as the confrontation with "God" at the end of the movie.
Not as bad as I initially felt it was but definitely one of the weaker ones along with INS and probably the weakest entry in the TOS series.
 
I'll admit I really like TFF. It's just fun to me. And more power to Nichelle Nichols for the fan dance scene. When I'm in my 50s or 60s, I hope I have that good of a figure!
 
butlerd said:
I also thought it was wierd that it was so easy for Sybock to gain such a "cult-like" following among so much of the crew seemingly so easy. I'm glad, though, that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (and Scotty?) didn't get taken in fully by Sybock.
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That's really the most offensive thing about the movie. It really crapped on the supporting characters, Uhura and Sulu in particular, making them look like weak-minded, easily manipulated idiots who'll get brainwashed easily into betraying the captain and crew. As underused as they were in the show, at least they were always portrayed as professional, loyal and dependable. And the rest of their contributions are: Sulu - mucking about on a holiday with Chekov and reluctant to get back, and Uhura - doing a naked fan dance to distract some yahoos, and sexually harassing a terrified Scotty. :rolleyes: Add the portrayal of Scotty as a silly old man bumping his head into doorways, and it almost seems like Shatner wanted to screw over all the cast members he had contentious relationships with. :p

Granted, he also screwed himself with his awful acting in most of the movie, and the silly comic scenes at the start that seem like a parody of the cheesiest Kirk/Spock/McCoy comedy moments from TOS.
 
Peach Wookiee said:
I'll admit I really like TFF. It's just fun to me.
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I'm right there with ya, PW! Just watched it the other night, and I have to say the only thing I truly find offensive was Kirk's (Shatner's) line to Spock about knowing for a fact he didn't have a brother- it was just so over-the-top childish. Kirk wouldn't talk like that even with a quart of Romulan Ale in him.:vulcan:
 
A bad movie starts with a bad story, and I just think there was no way to save this movie from the start.

That said, I enjoyed the human moments, even some of the low comedy. Glad McCoy had more moments.

But overall, the cast looked tired, even more so than in ST VI, which I loved.
 
DevilEyes said:
That's really the most offensive thing about the movie. It really crapped on the supporting characters, Uhura and Sulu in particular, making them look like weak-minded, easily manipulated idiots who'll get brainwashed easily into betraying the captain and crew. As underused as they were in the show, at least they were always portrayed as professional, loyal and dependable.
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Except in Catspaw, where Sulu is brainwashed into an automoton pretty easily. But, bad episode.

As for what I liked about The Final Frontier...Goldsmith's score, which, thankfully, can be enjoyed independently of the film. Bones' flashback and the mountain climbing scene are truly the only enjoyable moments in the movie, although the fact that the ship is falling apart the entire time makes for a good metaphor for the whole.

I've heard a few people mention the film was well-photographed, but I don't know what they are talking about. Outside of the rock climbing scene over the credits, I'm at a loss to remember anything memorable. Perhaps the cheap, re-used sets from Star Trek: The Next Generation don't help things any.
 
^
Quite, but it wasn't the first nor the last Trek film to cheaply reuse sets (damn it though, Nicholas Meyer raises that to an artform in his two films I'd probably argue).

I like that TFF, damn it, at its heart, wants to be the classic Star Trek story. It's botched even at basic concept level - long before budget and studio concerns entered the picture it's sort of wrongheaded - but it's shades of "This Side of Paradise" with every other episode where Kirk confronted and dethroned a God figure. It doesn't combine, mesh or deal with any of those at all well and as indicated I think it's flawed from birth, but the general notion of doing that sort of classic Trek tale as a film isn't too bad a one (I once said if someone gave me the Trek film franchise I'd just do "This Side of Paradise", I love that episode dearly, so you'd better keep me away from it, really.)

Also the camaraderie between the trio, I like that.

Uh.

Um.

Okay 'Go climb a rock' was cute.
 
For anyone wondering why the effects were so bad (except for the side-by-side of the Enterprise and the BoP at the end), ILM did not do them. They were done by Bran Ferren and Associates (attorneys at law, according to my best friend), who were responsible for the 'ball point pen scratches on the emulsion standing in for good glow effect surrounding the possessed jetliner on the streets of Boston' effect in 'Second Sight'. Boy, did those guys suck.
 
I don't think I have as many problems with this movie as most. And most of my issues with it are visual: bad FX, bad production design. The bridge looks way too bright & boring here. I prefer the much darker color scheme used in The Undiscovered Country.

However, I love the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate and I think this is the only movie to truly take advantage of that. (The Motion Picture has almost no character moments at all. While McCoy has some great scenes in The Wrath of Khan & The Voyage Home, those films mostly just focus on the Kirk/Spock friendship. Spock was dead throughout most of The Search for Spock. And Kirk spent most of The Undiscovered Country imprisoned in Rura Penthe with McCoy.) What I love about The Final Frontier is that's it's usually all 3 of them in every scene!

Also, "What does God need with a starship?" It's such a classic moment of Kirk hutzpah!:cool: (When I die, it will probably be a very great temptation for me to quote this line.)
 
DevilEyes said:
Add the portrayal of Scotty as a silly old man bumping his head into doorways, and it almost seems like Shatner wanted to screw over all the cast members he had contentious relationships with. :p
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I think you're really grasping at straws here...
 
FormerLurker said:
For anyone wondering why the effects were so bad (except for the side-by-side of the Enterprise and the BoP at the end), ILM did not do them. They were done by Bran Ferren and Associates (attorneys at law, according to my best friend), who were responsible for the 'ball point pen scratches on the emulsion standing in for good glow effect surrounding the possessed jetliner on the streets of Boston' effect in 'Second Sight'. Boy, did those guys suck.
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To be more than fair, Ferren also saved ALTERED STATES with his wizardry, and he only subcontracted out the TREK miniature and compositing work, so you can spread the blame around a bit.
 
trevanian said:
FormerLurker said:
For anyone wondering why the effects were so bad (except for the side-by-side of the Enterprise and the BoP at the end), ILM did not do them. They were done by Bran Ferren and Associates (attorneys at law, according to my best friend), who were responsible for the 'ball point pen scratches on the emulsion standing in for good glow effect surrounding the possessed jetliner on the streets of Boston' effect in 'Second Sight'. Boy, did those guys suck.
Click to expand...

To be more than fair, Ferren also saved ALTERED STATES with his wizardry, and he only subcontracted out the TREK miniature and compositing work, so you can spread the blame around a bit.
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To quote Dick Martin, I did not know that. I wonder if good effects people he had for the earlier work were out of town for several months? At least the TFF stuff looks like they tried.
 
FormerLurker said:
trevanian said:
FormerLurker said:
For anyone wondering why the effects were so bad (except for the side-by-side of the Enterprise and the BoP at the end), ILM did not do them. They were done by Bran Ferren and Associates (attorneys at law, according to my best friend), who were responsible for the 'ball point pen scratches on the emulsion standing in for good glow effect surrounding the possessed jetliner on the streets of Boston' effect in 'Second Sight'. Boy, did those guys suck.
Click to expand...

To be more than fair, Ferren also saved ALTERED STATES with his wizardry, and he only subcontracted out the TREK miniature and compositing work, so you can spread the blame around a bit.
Click to expand...

To quote Dick Martin, I did not know that. I wonder if good effects people he had for the earlier work were out of town for several months? At least the TFF stuff looks like they tried.
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Ferren hadn't done anything with miniatures that I know of pre-TREK, so he (and the model people he used) had a huge learning curve on how to matte motion-blurred spaceships properly (hence why there is no naturalistic motion blur on most shots), and they only had 3 months to do the vfx, since the custom equipment, including a new special mocon camera they needed didn't arrive until 1989 - less than 6 months before the movie hit theaters.

ALTERED STATES was mostly just Ferren and a few others on their own for the better part of a year trying to save the tank explosion scene and then the final hallway scene. And they weren't just saving it a frame at a time -- more like a pixel at a time, with analog computer tech.

I've always thought the AS stuff showed how a really good transporter effect would look -- ironic, since Ferren's group didn't even do the beamouts for TFF, they farmed them out to Pete Kuran's VCE, which did them on TWOK and TUC as well.

If they wanted to save money on TFF, Paramount should have gone with DreamQuest or the Skotak Bros ... oops, James Cameron was smart enough to have them all working on HIS movie that year, along with ILM. Shoot, Apogee or Peter Donen's company could have done fine with TFF, their SPACEBALLS stuff is mostly better than what we got.
 
Likes:
Wow, this won't be easy, as even the interesting ideas in TFF failed somewhat in execution. But I liked the ideas of Nimbus III as a diplomatic experiment gone wrong and an emotionally rebellious Vulcan. David Warner was great, but the film failed even there by not giving him more to do.

Dislikes:
Pretty much everything else. I remember sitting in the theater thinking "God, let this be the last movie if all we'll get from now on is lame self-parody." In fact, when TUC came out I bought the novelization and read it before seeing the movie, just to make sure it wouldn't make me embarrassed to be a Trek guy.
 
Likes:
There are some good scenes between Spock, McCoy, and Kirk
DeForrest is great in the hospital flashback scene
Some of it did actually make me laugh
Sybok was OK, but Sean Connery would have been better
The landing party jackets, and new phasers
'Captain' Chekov
'Damn you sir! You will try!' Spock showing some emotion

Dislikes:
Uhura's dance
Chekov and Sulu being played for idiots, mostly. And Scotty
The poor SFX
That was an awfully fast trip to the centre of the galaxy, wasn't it?
Kirk forgetting that he already had another brother, Sam Kirk
Sybok being pulled out of the writers asses
Scohura- wha? When did that happen?
 
This was probably already done:

Likes:
It ended

Dislikes:

It didn't end sooner.

Anyway, seriously, I didn't really think it was that bad of a movie. It could have used some refining and some better effects. But, the overall concept wasn't bad, per se.

Hey, it was better than nothing. :techman:
 
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