DVD Review | Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Special Edition)
Written by: Kage Alan

I’m not sure Director/Actor William Shatner realizes it, but there is cause for celebration.  “Star Trek V” is no longer the least grossing film in the Trek universe.  No, that honor now goes to “Nemesis” and rightly so.  Besides, any film with the original cast, no matter how bad the reviews or word of mouth might have been during its theatrical release, is still gold.  While I remain excited about each new Trek movie as they come out, I honestly believe that no cast will ever be able to capture the hearts and imaginations like the original one did.

Taking place shortly after the conclusion of “Star Trek IV”, the crew is recalled from shore leave when a renegade Vulcan named Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill, “Cocktail”) takes prisoners on the Planet of Galactic Peace.  While the Romulans are strangely silent, the Klingons dispatch a Bird of Prey and Starfleet sends the Enterprise, which has a skeleton crew aboard and isn’t in the best shape.  Unfortunately, a botched rescue mission on the planet finds the Enterprise in Sybok’s hands.

It doesn’t take long before the ship is headed for the center of the galaxy where no ship has ever gone before and no probe has ever returned from.  Why?  Sybok believes God is there and has been calling to him for a very long time now.  It’s up to Kirk (Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and McCoy (DeForest Kelley) to find a way to stop him before the Klingons find them and before the studio cuts anymore out of their budget.

William Shatner mentions in his commentary that he set up many shots and scenes like he would if he were directing a television show instead of a film.  In that light, “Star Trek V” does tend to play more like an episode of Trek than as a motion picture.  While there are some very intriguing ideas present, the dialogue and handling of the crew borders on insulting; Sulu and Chekov getting lost, Uhura performing a striptease and Scotty banging his head on a beam (which I did laugh at), then being seduced by Uhura.  The special effects are sub par and the ending of the film just isn’t satisfying.  Shatner approached Paramount about spending a little bit of money to deliver the ending he had in mind (think how “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was enhanced in a good way) and was turned down.  That’s a pity because I think fans would have embraced some alterations.

Paramount has released “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” in a very nice looking Widescreen transfer.  Video quality is good enough to show the shortcomings in the effects while the audio quality allows for Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack to swell in all the right places.  As for extras, Paramount has once again loaded up a hefty 2-disc set.  Disc one contains text commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda full of fun facts and an audio commentary with William Shatner and his daughter, Liz.  This was where I really expected Shatner to make a case for his film and was completely let down.  Talk about a missed opportunity.  Making matters worse, the commentary is bland.  Perhaps I was expecting too much.

Disc 2 has several different areas to explore.  First up is “The Star Trek Universe” and contains the following featurettes: the wonderful “Herman Zimmerman: A Tribute” (19min), “Original Interview: William Shatner” (14 ½min), “Cosmic Thoughts” (13min), the fun “That Klingon Couple” (13min) with actors Spice Williams and Todd Bryant and, finally, “A Green Future?” (9 ½min).  From there, we move to “Production” and all the featurettes in that area; “Harve Bennett’s Pitch” (1 ¾min), easily the best look at this film in “The Journey” (29min), “Make-Up Tests” (9 ¾min), “Pre-Visualization Models” (1 ¾min), “Rockman in the Raw” (5 ½min) and a totally useless “Star Trek V Press Conference” (13 ¾min) that reveals NOTHING about the film.  Next up is “Archives”, which contains a “Production Gallery” (4min) and “Storyboards” section broken down into “Shakari”, “The Fate of God” and “Escape”.  There are 4 deleted scenes included that don’t really amount to anything, but are nice to see just the same, then an “Advertising” section with 2 theatrical trailers and some TV spots.

While there are still many detractors of this film, the special features really do offer some insight into what was planned for the feature and what eventually had to be cut.  I wish William Shatner had invited Leonard Nimoy to do the commentary with him because the two of them played off of each other extremely well in the last special edition.  Oh, well.  I can honestly say too that I am really looking forward to what Paramount is cooking up for the “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”.  Until then…

Film Rating: B+
DVD Special Features: N/A