Star Trek V Is the Most Star Trek of the Star Trek Movies

For those who hate nü-Trek, the recent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” must have been a particularly hard watch. Not only does the episode continue the series’ recent trend of jumping genres—this time setting a daytime soap opera on the Enterprise—but it also brings back one of the most hated characters in the franchise: Sybok, Spock’s emotional half-brother. Even though it wasn’t the real Sybok, just a twin manifested to adhere to soap opera tropes, the mere presence of Sybok was enough to irritate fans.

Why? Because Sybok has only had one other appearance, when he served as the main antagonist for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier a.k.a. “the one where Kirk fights God” a.k.a. “the one that Shatner made.” Fans may disagree about the merits of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, they may differ on the merits of Picard becoming an action star in the Next Generation movies, and they may have diverging thoughts about all the running around in the 2009 movie. But they’re all agreed that, until Star Trek Into Darkness came around, The Final Frontier was the worst Trek movie. Which is a shame, because, like it or not, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the most purely Star Trek of all the movies.

A Flawed Frontier

To be clear, The Final Frontier isn’t a great movie, especially when wedged between Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The former plays like a celebration of the Enterprise crew, with much of the pleasure coming from the way Chekov and Uhura, Bones and Scotty, and Spock and Kirk interact. The latter takes the Cold War allegory that birthed the franchise to its furthest end, with Kirk having to make peace with the Klingons as they adopt their version of glasnost.

What does The Final Frontier give us? The mystical, edenic planet of Sha Ka Ree, named such because Shatner wanted Sean Connery to play Sybok, and hoped the honor would sway him to sign on. When Connery passed, Shatner chose Laurence Luckinbill instead, whom he happened to catch playing Lyndon Johnson on TV.

The Final Frontier sees Kirk, Spock, and McCoy forced to end their camping trip when the newly-minted Enterprise-A is called to rescue delegates from the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire. They’ve been kidnapped by Sybok, who took them in hopes of getting aboard a starship he could capture and fly to Sha Ka Ree. Once aboard, Sybok uses his self-help, mind-healing techniques to make converts of much of the crew, including Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov, and takes command of the Enterprise.

Sybok flies the Enterprise to the Great Barrier, the pathway to Sha Ka Ree, with a Klingon Bird of Prey in pursuit. They are greeted by a being that presents himself as God. But when Kirk reasons, “What does God need with a starship?” the being’s ruse is made plain. It’s just another entity seeking power, and that’s something that Kirk can defeat. Defeat it he does, with some help from some Klingons who have been swayed by Spock’s diplomatic ability. And though Sybok dies in the process in the battle, the Enterprise escapes, allowing Kirk, Spock, and Bones to resume their camping trip.

The film is filled with groaners. The opening, in which Kirk climbs up El Capitan (all while wearing a shirt that says “Go Climb a Rock”) feels like Shatner grandstanding. The sudden romantic relationship between Scotty and Uhura comes out of nowhere. The introduction of Sybok makes Michael Burnham’s addition feel earned, and the movie has nothing to say about faith or televangelists, the film’s thematic subjects.

Sharing Our Pain

Why is The Final Frontier about televangelists? Because they annoyed William Shatner and Shatner got to make the movie. And because he and Leonard Nimoy had a “favored nations” clause that meant that anything offered to one must also be offered to the other. So when Nimoy got to helm Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, one of his conditions for returning to the role, and then again with The Voyage Home, Paramount also had to give Shatner a chance to make a movie.

And so, we got a rambling movie with odd characterizations, half-developed themes, and way too much focus on Kirk. Which is exactly like most episodes of Star Trek.

60 years after Star Trek first went on the air, we tend to only remember the best episodes of The Original Series: “Balance of Terror, ” “Amok Time,” “City on the Edge of Forever.” These are perfect pieces of sci-fi, stories that combine big ideas and star-spanning adventure, making the most of their charismatic cast. These episodes deserve all the praise we heap upon them.

But they’re standouts for a reason. In between, we had goofy episodes like “Shore Leave” and “Who Mourns for Adonais?” We had the clunky backdoor pilot “Assignment: Earth” or the ham-fisted racial allegory of “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” We had “Spock’s Brain.”

Strength from the Sharing

More often than not, Star Trek episodes were exactly what you’d expect from a weekly network television show with a limited budget. The plots weren’t airtight, the characterizations were off, and the ideas were only half-baked. Star Trek always tried for something profound, but often it was just entertaining.

Which brings us back to Star Trek V. Of course, the problems stand out because it’s a feature film made by a major studio, and it comes off the franchise’s biggest box office hit in The Voyage Home. Expectations were higher than they were for, say, “Way to Eden.” But the product on screen was much the same: goofy, shoddy, and thoroughly entertaining.

Which is, of course, the most important thing to remember about The Final Frontier. For all the movie gets wrong, it is still fun to watch. Shatner’s always a delight on screen and his chemistry with Nimoy and DeForest Kelly remains strong. James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols may be reduced to playing doddering love birds, but they sell their parts. And who doesn’t want to watch Kirk tell off some alien pretending to be god?

At the very least, we Trekkies can complain about the pain it causes us, at least we can share our pain. And we do indeed gain strength from the sharing, just like Sybok (the original version) taught us.