Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Caithlin Dar. Her hair is happy to meet you.

Back to Tatooine, er, Nimbus III. Sybok's mighty army homeless people and one horse prepare to launch their assault on Mos Eisley, er, Paradise City. We cut to a hooded figure walking into an alien cantina of sorts, right as a group of weirdos discussing the Kessel Run make their exit. A cat-lady with three breasts (on loan from Total Recall) dances on the bar while the mighty spacemen of the future play a variant of pool that looks exactly like pool if the table was also the victim of a recent monsoon. The hooded figure walks into the back room and pulls back her hood to reveal yet another set of pointy ears. It's Caithlin Dar, our Romulan hottie, and she's there to make first contact with the grungy Human (St. John Talbot) and drunk Klingon (Gen. Korrd) at the table.

Fact Slightly Interesting Enough To Keep Me Going Here: David Warner, who plays Talbot here, came back for a much more substantial role as Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI.

It's the Planet of the Drunk Ex-Frat Boys!

Talbot smokes (they still smoke in the Trek universe?), Korrd burps, and Dar wishes she could go back to making cheesy 80's glam rock videos. She spouts out some dull exposition about the three governments trying to get along, but nobody else on or off screen cares. Alarms go off, Sybok's revolution begins, and Talbot skeedaddles to make a quick cry for help (I always get a kick out of Korrd going right for the free booze in the chaos). It appears that Sybok's horse has a tiny horn on its head, thus making it a space unicorn. With a fat mind-controlling elf riding it. Man, I do love me some Trek right now. Sybok captures the trio, glad that he got all three races — he in fact crows that this is the only place "in the galaxy" where this can happen — and that their governments will "stop at nothing" to get them back.

Pause. Excuse me? If you'll pardon a few spoilers, Sybok's grand plan involves obtaining one starship to take him to the center of the galaxy where he thinks God is for some reason. So why does he need all three major Trek factions up in arms over a political kidnapping to make this happen? He makes it sound as if the combination of the three races is crucial in his scheme, while in reality he only needs one side to send one ship to help. Actually, if all three governments had responded in force (none of them really do), Sybok would be overwhelmed with more ships, soldiers and weapons than he could overcome with his Free Pain seminar. I'm thinking this is an incredibly dumb plan, and it gets more implausible as we continue. Unpause.

Starbase (above Earth). We come back to the brand-new Enterprise-A, last seen doing the warp boogie in Star Trek IV. Yet according to Scotty's voiceover log, the ship was half-heartedly slapped together, and even many of the doors don't work right. Important Plot Point: the new Enterprise is crap. That's a fun bone to throw to your starving Trek fanatics. I'd also like you to note that in the Enterprise's establishing shot, we fly by the Excelsior, also in the Starbase (this is important for later). Scotty is screwing a few things into a console on the bridge, as Uhura strolls in. The entire cast is showing their age, to be sure, but Doohan honestly looks like a plump New Jersey auto mechanic trying to look spiffy at a Christmas party with a white turtleneck and black vest. Some of his engineering crew are resting their feet up on the broken consoles, so we can assume that unions and teamsters still exist in this futuristic utopia.

It's springtime in the meadow of my nightmares Sulu & Chekov. Enjoy this scene, it's pretty much the last for them for the rest of the movie. "Do you know 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'?"

There are many things to make you uncomfortable in Star Trek V, but here's a doozy. This scene establishes a never-before-seen budding romance between Uhura and Scotty, culminating in some face-stroking and tender words. Millions of Trekkies everywhere cry out and are silenced.

A Red Alert goes off (sort of), and Starfleet orders the Enterprise to recall the senior crew. We're also informed that this broken ship has no more than a skeleton crew, a fact which will certainly have no bearing on the rest of the film. Sulu and Chekov, great pilots and navigators they, are shown lost in the woods somewhere. Sulu, wearing a terrycloth bathrobe, fakes a "blizzard" when they're recalled, but Uhura sees through their clever ruse by watching the Weather Channel and sends down the Enterprise's minivan to pick them up.

Before we get off Earth entirely, we must endure the Campfire Scene between Spock, McCoy and Kirk. To sum it up so the voices in my head stop screaming: Spock eats alcoholic beans, Kirk makes a fart joke ("Bourbon and beans: an explosive combination"), McCoy is completely smashed, Kirk states that he's invincible as long as he's not alone (d'oh on that, says Star Trek Generations), Spock makes "marsh melons", and… shudder… I can't… I can't do this. Hold me. Please.

For, they begin to sing "Row row row your boat" in a round. Shatner and Nimoy briefly attempted to prove their singing prowess back in the late 60's to disastrous effects, and Kelly isn't much better. To provide you with a clear level of the pain involved in watching beloved Trek idols caterwaul a children's tune while looking like hungover rednecks is beyond what any person should bear. Spock tries to dissect the meaning of the song. Fortunately, Uhura arrives by shuttle and cancels their play date (Important Plot Point: the transporters aren't working so well). Crimes are afoot, my dear Watson!

Because no Star Trek film is complete without a Klingon threat, we change locales to outer space, where one of the Pioneer probes is blown to itty bits by a Klingon punk rocker named Klaa. Klaa and his woman are flying free and bored, the Klingon high command apparently done issuing orders for the year. Klaa wants some action, or bloodworm stew, or whatever other gross alien trait the scriptwriters kept giving this boring race long after they became a bumpy joke. Blowing up the probe isn't very satisfying, so Klaa is all giddy and giggles to hear about the Nimbus III hostage situation. He takes off in that direction, eager to engage a Federation starship. Nobody seems to think that he's being impulsive here, and this is consistent with how I've seen Klingons act elsewhere — they just sort of do their own thing, growl about their honor, and get into fights about everything including who gets the used chewing gum found under the captain's seat. How this civilization attained starflight is as bewildering to me as it is to Trek writers, I'm sure.

Standard "approaching Enterprise" montage. We've seen this a million times before.

But we haven't seen the new Enterprise shuttle bay. Unlike the vast expanse of the shuttle bay in The Motion Picture, which could easily house all of Trek's 5,000,000 episodes and Shatner's spare toupees, this shuttle bay is a little… lacking. It's basically a two-car garage, where only tiny shuttles the size of a compact car can park. It's so underwhelming that a pair of Starfleet whiteshirts have to bring over a wooden staircase (!) so Kirk and company can step down from their vehicle. Star Trek V — they spared all expense in bringing you the best.

Okay. I will.

More Enterprise-is-broken references, as Kirk and Kirk's flannel shirt retake the bridge. Shatner's daughter Lisabeth makes a cameo as his beehive-stricken yeoman (she also wrote an unintentionally hilarious making-of book called "Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account of the Making of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"). As a call comes in from Starfleet, Kirk decides that this would be the best time to start changing his clothes, which is all the more creepy since his daughter is helping him dress. He's wearing a shirt with the inscription "Go climb a rock" on it. Even though they're still near Earth, the call is all fuzzy and we're reminded for the umpteenth time that the Enterprise is a heap of broken machines and dreams.

Starfleet (also known as "Bob" for this scene) tells Kirk about the Nimbus III situation. "The planet of galactic peace?" Kirk asks, to remind the viewers at home of this oh-so-ironic surname. Kirk asks if there are other ships that can deal with this, but Bob states that they're all inexperienced and only Kirk's Ego is sufficient for a piddly hostage crisis. A few thoughts: (1) Doesn't Bob have hostage negotiation teams in the 23rd century? I never quite understood why Starfleet was about generalists who did a little of everything, but shied away from specialists. Also, (2) if the Enterprise is "a disaster", why couldn't Bob just move Kirk over to a ship that worked… oh, like the Excelsior we just saw a few scenes ago? Argh!

McCoy and Spock do not approve. Of anything.

Nevertheless, Kirk doesn't put up much of a fight at this insane order, or even request that Starfleet give him more crew or materials or a working toilet. It's like if a major hostage crisis broke out today, and the President called up a trusted battleship captain to go handle it, even though the captain's ship was in dry-dock, had four large holes in its side, was crewed by monkeys fresh out of Annapolis, and lacked even a functional rowboat to get anyone to shore. Kirk gives a short but pointless motivational speech, and McCoy does his usual "island of common sense in a sea of stupidity" rant. "If you ask me — and you haven't — this is a terrible idea. We're bound to bump into the Klingons!" he says. Well, of course you are. Klingons are to Star Trek films like T.J. was to Hooker. Nobody in any of these scenes seems unduly concerned about a Romulan response, however.

Kirk sits down and does a hurt puppy dog expression. "I miss my old chair," he whines, and Spock raises a sympathetic eyebrow. Aww.

Back to Klaa's Family Dreamtime Happy Hour Experience. Klaa's incredibly ugly "first mate" tells them about the Enterprise leaving for Nimbus III. Because Starfleet doesn't use encoded frequencies or anything. Klaa goes all orgasmic at the thought of beating Kirk. Dude, even Christopher Lloyd couldn't best him with 1.21 jigawatts of awesomeness, so what chance do you, your crazy hair and your bare chest have?

Kirk tries to make a Captain's Log, but even this little device — unconnected to the malfunctioning ship — goes berserk and lights up its "System Failure" feature. This light takes up a fourth of the device and has no other purpose in life, so I guess it's fortunate we got to see it in action. Should any of them be concerned they're now gallivanting about at faster-than-light speeds in a vehicle that can't open doors properly? I keep expecting Chekov to suddenly swear and report that three decks, including laundry services, are now floating in upper Pluto orbit.

Exposition in the form of a slide show starts on the main screen. Korrd is pulled up for the benefit of Kirk to mention how brilliant he used to be, but the other two main hostages are skipped over in favor of the informative hostage tape. Dar mentions that they "willingly surrendered to the forces of the Galactic Army of Light." Gah. Sybok? Seriously? That's the sort of name an eight-year-old boy might give to his toy collection. Sybok demands a Federation starship — again, why not Klingon or Romulan? — and the camera does a close-up on Spock in a meaningful manner. "You look like you've just seen a ghost!" Kirk says, giving Spock the obvious opening line of "Vulcans do not believe in the incorporeal spirits of the deceased, you nitwit." He doesn't say that, of course, because that line belongs in a much better movie; instead, he goes with "Perhaps I have, Captain… perhaps I have."

SPACE GHOST! AHHHH! EXIT THE THEATER IN AN ORDERLY FASHION!

Spock likes to jiggle the wheel after a hard day's work and go "WHEEE!"

Scene change to darkened quarters, where Spock is mulling about in the shadows. This is one of those weird TV/movie techniques where a conversation continues unabated with no real breaks in what's being said, even though the location changes and time's obviously passed. Does that make sense? I imagine that after Spock's "perhaps I have" line, he just abruptly got up, went away, and Kirk and McCoy decided to follow after a short bathroom break or something. They're in a room with all sorts of navy-type nautical stuff, including a giant wooden steering wheel overlooking a window. I know this is supposed to be decorative, but if the ship is in this bad of shape, I wouldn't put it past the filmmakers to have this wheel be the auxiliary control for the Enterprise. Can't you just see Kirk spinning it wildly while he laughs like a loon, the Enterprise flying about in loops?

Spock engages in a batch of half-truths about Sybok, telling Kirk (and us) about how smart Sybok is and how he rejected Vulcan logic for Hippie feelings. This was Bad, apparently. Well, enough of that important information! It's time to go back to the bridge!