Why do you rank TFF highly?

[Grant]

At the risk of being a bit of a hypocrite...
I would say my first bad feeling about the movie was when Kirk fell off the mountain and the special effects were just Dreadful. And then after thinking about it, the notion that somebody in the 23rd century would free climb a mountain with no safety devices that would clearly be available hundreds of years from now is absurd. If they wanted to have Kirk fall and be rescued by Spock all they had to do was show that he has some sort of safety device that just happened to fail maybe as it brushed against The Rock as he fell. Then you could have him be rescued by Spock and have the entire conversation at the campfire and not have it be like Kirk was a suicidal idiot to be climbing the mountain with no safety measures. But that's the problem with the movie in general it's all kinds of awesome except when it's all kinds of stupid. And that's the job of the people editing the movie. The original cut of the movie was well over two hours they cut it down to an hour and 47 minutes. There was some serious non ridiculous parts that were cut from the movie when in fact they should have cut out a lot of the sillier stuff instead. One scene very brief at the end of the movie had McCoy and Spock talking about the creature and it's possible nature before Kirk walks up to them. They could have added those several seconds into the movie and left out any number of stupid bits of similar length. That's why I think it would be a fun project for somebody to have access to all the footage that was shot and try to make a movie that is more serious in tone than what ended up on the screen.

 

[Ovation]

There was some serious non ridiculous parts that were cut from the movie when in fact they should have cut out a lot of the sillier stuff instead.

I guess we all have Paramount wanting more “comedy” to thank for this outcome.

 

[Grant]

Yes and the problem is we're laughing at the characters in this movie a lot of the time as opposed to laughing with them as in Star Trek 4. They really wanted the movie to come in at about an hour and 45 and they also wanted laughs pretty much throughout. So a lot of the better scenes had snippets of dialogue trimmed that could be substituted for the more egregious comedy bits. And I'm not talking about the five deleted scenes that they included on the later releases of the movie. The scene with the ambassadors was awful and had to be trimmed and the scene with Spock pretending to be a little boy was very cringe-worthy. I'm talking about pieces of dialogue throughout the movie that were trimmed to keep the running time as it was.
Pretty much taking out about 7 Minutes of the movie and adding in maybe five in the movie would come in right at an hour and 45 but be a lot more serious and then with the addition of the better special effects you have a movie that on a scale of 1 to 10 definitely jumps up a couple of spaces at least.
The problem is people have come up with versions of the movie where they added improved special effects (which isn't hard) and have trimmed out several minutes of the worst material BUT they don't have access to the deleted footage and therefore the movie becomes too short and seems truncated.

 

[EnriqueH]

A few years ago (5-6?) I posted somewhere in this site that I met Shatner at a convention and I asked him point blank and he said there were no plans for a director’s cut.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I watched this again over the weekend and I really loved it. As with all the films, there are some weak points, but some make me cringe a bit such as:

1. Kirk’s freeclimb and fall. I see what they were trying to do but it’s just too out there.
2. Scotty’s dialog. It’s all flat and cliché filled. Honestly, there’s nothing he says that doesn’t feel like a Star Trek parody.
3. A couple of effects, mostly the “sliding the Enterprise across the screen to dodge the torpedo” bit.
4. Kirk reverting to 4 years old when Spock tells him about Sybok.

But for the most part, this is a wonderfully fun film that feels like a reunion with old friends. Here’s what resonated with me most:

1. The friendship between the leads.
2. Sybok is a well realized and sympathetic character. Luckenbill nails it. Sean Connery would have been Sean Connery in pointed ears. Luckinbill was Sybok.
3. Jerry Goldsmith scores his heart out.
4. Many of the model effects are actually quite good and very imaginative. The BoP flying into the screen, the Enterprise against the moon and the God beam across the bow are lovely. Compared to the really awful composite and puppet work ILM did for Indiana Jones and Last Crusade, Bran Ferren didn’t do too badly. I can see why Shatner and company went elsewhere, they just bit off a little more than they could chew.
5. From the entrance to the barrier all the way to meeting “God” there is a real sense of awe. Like something big was happening. This part of the film undeniably works for me. The shuttlecraft trip is at the heart of that.
6. This film has HEART. A big one. The last discussion about God being out there really lands and you know what? I totally choose to believe Kirk wanted Bones and Spock to think he meant his own dead brother before flipping it to Spock. It works and Kirk NOT having an actual brother makes less sense in context to me (“what brother? Where are you going with this, Jim?”). The films referred back to the series more than once and this film does as well, so I don’t see why it’s so hard to accept they remembered Kirk had a brother, even if they don’t name him.

I love this stupid movie, weird humor, failed effects, off kilter line readings, truncated climax and all. It’s honestly the first Star Trek action movie in the franchise.

 

[dupersuper]

^Exactly.
All the way back (at least) to Merrick saying -- "not a spaceship but a 'STARSHIP', a very special ship and crew." -- they made that distinction.

I can understand "God" wanting a powerful/advanced ship, but why "a very special crew"? It was that special crew that thwarted him...

 

[Grant]

Actually I was just quoting Merrick's full statement. Where he indicated that a Starship was something special. Of course Sybok did not need a "special crew" but that just happened to be part of Merrick's quote.
And how did the special crew thwart him? He made it all the way to the planet and then decided to voluntarily release Kirk Spock and McCoy because he knew that once they were that far Kirk's curiosity wouldn't let him turn around

 

[Vger23]

Actually I was just quoting Merrick's full statement. Where he indicated that a Starship was something special. Of course Sybok did not need a "special crew" but that just happened to be part of Merrick's quote.
And how did the special crew thwart him? He made it all the way to the planet and then decided to voluntarily release Kirk Spock and McCoy because he knew that once they were that far Kirk's curiosity wouldn't let him turn around

And, at that point, it really wasn't a "special crew" anyway, aside from the department heads, as the ship was woefully undermanned.

I think this is one of the weaker plot points of the movie though, that they would send an undermanned and ill-equipped Enterprise-A into the Neutral Zone to deal with a hostage situation. I'm a TFF defender all the way...but it would seem to me that given that the Enterprise was in Earth orbit, there would have been absolutely no problem staffing the ship with a full crew, even with specialists in dealing with hostage / terrorism situations. I mean, how much sense does it make to send a starship on a rescue mission knowing full-well that it's transporter systems don't work? It would even have been better to send a fully functioning Oberth-class ship than a half-functioning Enterprise at that point, you'd think.

Starfleet Command....always a bunch of knuckleheads.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Yeah, a huge weakness in this story is that in order for Sybok to take over, there needs to be a skeleton crew. So Starfleet has to send an undermanned and defective Enterprise there because Bob needs Jim Kirk. Like you, I defend this film a great deal, but for movie which had 3 years of gestation time, the script came off as lazy in a few spots. The plotting shortcuts and the cliché-ridden dialog for some of the characters makes this feel almost like a first draft screenplay.

 

[Grant]

Yep. There was no need for the "skeleton crew" angle. If you brainwash the top staff then you can have them sleep gas most of the ship anyway. They established they could gas only certain sections previously. And what was the point of the whole ship being in bad shape? They could have stated it was only the transporter(s) being overhauled.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The condition of the Enterprise doesn't pay off in any meaningful way. All they used it for was the transporter being down, so yep, that could have just been an issue. Or just put some thought into a reason for using a shuttlecraft (which they got a LOT of mileage out of in this film).

Khan and Dr, Severin were able to take over a fully manned Enterprise. The Kelvans did fine getting through the barrier with 430 people walking around. They only reduced them after they got to the other side.

I mean, they didn't even wring any real jokes out of the premise....

But I love this movie all the same.

 

[Vger23]

The condition of the Enterprise doesn't pay off in any meaningful way. All they used it for was the transporter being down, so yep, that could have just been an issue. Or just put some thought into a reason for using a shuttlecraft (which they got a LOT of mileage out of in this film).

Khan and Dr, Severin were able to take over a fully manned Enterprise. The Kelvans did fine getting through the barrier with 430 people walking around. They only reduced them after they got to the other side.

I mean, they didn't even wring any real jokes out of the premise....

But I love this movie all the same.

Right! If they wanted to disable the transporter to make the rescue harder...they simply could have had the BoP damage the Enterprise before she warped out of Nimbus III orbit. Otherwise, it just comes off as a "played for gags" tool, but not quite as fun as what Empire Strikes Back did with the Falcon.

It's one of those things where I wish they had more time to refine some of the story ideas for this movie. I love it warts and all, but it could actually have been truly brilliant if they had the time and wherewithal to iron out some of the issues and really tighten the script up.

 

[Grant]

Yeah Spock said sybok was a brilliant person so all they had to do was say he had built a very small beaming Shield over Paradise City that prevented beaming into the city for the initial rescue attempt

 

[freethinker]

Sybok had a foolproof plan to get a starship there and it worked. The only problem is that the god that was sending him his visions was a false god.

 

[Henoch]

Right! If they wanted to disable the transporter to make the rescue harder...they simply could have had the BoP damage the Enterprise before she warped out of Nimbus III orbit. Otherwise, it just comes off as a "played for gags" tool, but not quite as fun as what Empire Strikes Back did with the Falcon.

I just realized that the Enterprise WAS the comic relief character of the movie, even more so than poor Scotty.

 

[AresB]

I just realized that the Enterprise WAS the comic relief character of the movie, even more so than poor Scotty.

The ship was used to show the progress of time in the movie. In the beginning everything was in poor shape, doors didn't open, displays blinked, etc. But over the film those problems occurred less. The new ship grew to fill the shoes of the Enterprise.

 

[Grant]

I don't agree with that scenario at all. It was nothing but an attempt to get some cheap laughs. Right down to the log recording device which wasn't even actually physically connected to the ship

 

[suarezguy]

I guess we all have Paramount wanting more “comedy” to thank for this outcome.

The story without comedy doesn't really seem *that* much different and really not better, without comedy it probably would have been, as Shatner wanted, mostly just Only The Great Hero Kirk resists temptation and manages to defeats the God-Devil. With a story as big as going to the center of the galaxy to try to meet God, and beating the Devil, it's either an expensive epic or you've got to not take it really serious and/or actually focus more on other material.

OTOH, I was also thinking, from the same year 1989, although Indiana Jones didn't meet God, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade did involve him seeking magical Christian artifact that did work without being controversied-off the screen, and it was taken pretty seriously though the film was still an action-comedy, having religious subject matter without really focusing much on it (as did Raiders and, though controversial otherwise, ToD).

And on the other (third) hand, what if Paramount had completely rejected Shatner's story idea and, with or without him making the film, had pushed for STV to be another comedy really like TVH (though presumably without time travel again), could that have been better than the mix of big epic dramatic story and goofy comic relief?

 

[STEPhon IT]

I'll tell you what's hard to believe somebody sensing from the first opening scene of the movie that there was something wrong.
That comes off to me as...
' I'm so smart I knew from the opening scene....."

I thought the opening scenes of the movie where Kirk climbed the mountain was a wonderful foreshadow of illustrating what a giant feat the search for God and going through the Great Barrier could be? The teaser was fine also, displaying a Vulcan who was as unique as Spock, that was obviously a clue of his relations to him. When I saw the movie for the 1st time, my Dad and my brother were amused about the notion from some small portions of Trekdom concerning V about Sybok having emotions was completely off-model and not Vulcan; on the contrary Vulcans lack emotions not because they don't have any but learned to suppress them. During first 2 seasons of TOS Spock had some wonderful moments of expressing his emotions, it was the special trait I welcomed when it resurfaced in TMP, TWOK, TVH, and TUC.

 

[Maurice]

4. Many of the model effects are actually quite good and very imaginative. The BoP flying into the screen, the Enterprise against the moon and the God beam across the bow are lovely.

All the fast moving ship stuff looks terrible (including Pioneer) because it's shot stop motion with no blur and staccato AF.

The ship against the moon, is nice, but really simple as there's very little movement.

I think the planet look and the God beam are fine. The phaser beams look good.

The twiggy lightning bolts and photon torpedo effects look like ass though.