History Film / StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier

* BadLiar: On shore leave, Sulu and Chekov try to extend their hike by saying they've been caught in a blizzard at Yosemite ... when Uhura reports "clear skies and seventy degrees" there. They give up the charade immediately.

* BigBadEnsemble: Sybok and Klaa are an unusual example in that Sybok isn't evil per se, and for the most part Klaa is more of an annoyance than anything else. "God" eventually turns out to be the film's GreaterScopeVillain, but doesn't show up until the very end.

* BigEgoHiddenDepths: Sybok. [[spoiler:Cruelly invoked by "God", who takes the form of Sybok and mocks, "What's the matter? Don't you ''like'' this face? I have so many, but this one suits ''you'' best."]]

** Kirk states in the opening that men like himself, Bones and Spock had no families. [[TrueCompanions He later admits]] [[Heartwarming/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier he was wrong.]]
** His premonition that he'll die alone (and is therefore safe while Spock and [=McCoy=] are there) is also mentioned again.

** It's still technically part of the canon, but the events have never been directly referenced in another canonical ''Star Trek'' work again. Rumor has it the writers are specifically told not to as a matter of course. Creator/GeneRoddenberry [[WordOfGod said he considered]][[invoked]] some elements of the movie "apocryphal, at best", but he apparently never told anyone which ones.[[note]]Some have contended the main one was TheReveal that Sarek had a child with a woman before Amanda Grayson, particularly since D.C. Fontana had gone out of her way to establish that Spock had ''no'' siblings whatsoever, in order to ensure that they weren't deluged with scripts where said siblings showed up. However, as the ''Vaka Rangi'' review notes, "nobody at Paramount cared about what D.C. Fontana wanted by this point."[[/note]] Creator/RonaldDMoore, who was working on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' at the time, has said that while the show's writers accepted the film as canon, they considered it [[OldShame such an embarrassment]] to the franchise as a whole that they agreed among themselves that they would never cite or reference its events on the show, to the extent that they heavily rewrote the ending of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E19TheNthDegree The Nth Degree]]" simply because they didn't want it to have anything in common with this film.

** The first time the film got so much as an indirect reference from '''any''' other canon ''Star Trek'' material didn't come until ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'', and even then didn't go any further than the Kelvin timeline's Spock looking at a photograph of the crew on this film's ''Enterprise''-A bridge.[[note]]It was likely only chosen because pictures from any of the other original cast films would have left casual moviegoers wondering who [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture Decker, Ilia]] or [[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Saavik]] were, why [[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock Spock was missing]], why the crew were [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome on the bridge of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey]], or [[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry why Sulu was missing]].[[/note]]

** The ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS1E09CrisisPoint Crisis Point]]" had a '''ton''' of references, both subtle and overt, to all the ''Star Trek'' films to have been released until that point... except for this one, which was the only film in the series to be completely ignored. However, the following season's "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS2E09WejDuj wej Duj]]" would finally make the franchise's first explicit on-screen reference to this film, after a whole ''thirty-two years''.

** Early in the film, Spock appears using [[JetPack Jet Boots]] to fly. Later in the film, when he, Kirk and [=McCoy=] need to travel up a long turbolift shaft he dons the same boots and uses them to fly the whole group up to the top of the shaft.

** The last line in ''Star Trek IV'' was Kirk saying, "Let's see what she's (the ''Enterprise-A'') got." Scotty's opening log in this movie says as he complains about the shape the new ship is in, "The captain said, 'Let's see what she's got', and we found out, now, didn't we!"

** Captain Klaa refers to Kirk as the "great renegade", echoing the Klingon Chancellors's beliefs that Kirk was escaping justice for his killing of Klingons in ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock''. The death of Kirk's son David at the hands of a Klingon, though not explicitly referenced, is also alluded to when Kirk is reminded that the Klingons don't like him and he responds, "Well, the feeling's mutual."

* DemotedToExtra: Shatner has handwaved criticisms from his co-stars in the past, dismissing it as actors' egos run amok (“[[SpearCarrier there was nothing to nick]]”), but scripting like this doesn't help his case much. Indeed, one section of the commentary has Shatner passive-aggressively blame his co-stars for the movie’s dodgy appearance (''"A disproportionate amount of money is spent on talent as against production..."''). Not only are the characters in the film betraying Captain Kirk, the actors in the film are sabotaging Bill Shatner. It’s worth noting that his original outline for the film had both [=McCoy=] '''and''' Spock turning against Kirk -- which would have left Kirk the only hero of the film. Both Creator/LeonardNimoy and Creator/DeForestKelley simply refused to participate in a storyline where Spock and Bones respectively would betray Kirk, for which most people who've seen the film have probably thanked them.

* DistractedByTheSexy: In-universe, anyway; clearly someone failed to point out viewers might not see it the same. Uhura does her infamous nude fan dance to distract some {{mooks}} so the Starfleet team can capture them and steal their alien horses. (It was in the dark, they spotted her from a distance, and the planet has very few women, so it could be excusable in that context.)

-->'''Kirk:''' You did too. Sybok couldn't ''possibly'' be your brother because I happen to know for a fact you don't ''have'' a brother.

* EldritchAbomination: It's never stated precisely what [[spoiler:not-]]God is, but it's clearly an example of this trope.

* EveryoneKnowsMorse: Justified, as Starfleet is one part military, and Morse Code could be part of their training. Still it's clearly not used often as both Kirk and Spock are very rusty with it.

** Likewise, Sybok's plan to get a starship. It wouldn't have worked at all if not for Starfleet's incompetence. He even tries to call Chekov's bluff by inviting him to beam down, having apparently expected Starfleet would have sent a ship with functional transporters but not realized this would have ruined his plan in a flash. This one can be excused by his limited options: Sybok and everyone else is stuck on Nimbus III. There are ''no'' ships and only a few settlements. He'd likely been living on the planet for some time (given he's a TechnicalPacifist, he may have gone there when it was first made a "neutral planet" that was supposed to unite the Romulans, Klingons, and Federation), and he only started having his visions from "God" after he was already stuck there. So, since getting off the planet would be just as tricky as getting an advanced ship, he might as well kill two birds with one stone.
* ThePollyanna: You just get that vibe from Caithlin Dar. She's young, sweet-natured, and extremely naive. She contrasts her Federation and Klingon counterparts, who are older, more cynical, and really StoppedCaring.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: The three ambassadors on Nimbus III. The reasons for are noted in the novelization -- St. John Talbot severely screwed up while trying to negotiate an Andorian hostage situation, which rapidly turned into a massacre; Korrd fell out of favor with the Klingon High Command (Spock exposits only that much in the movie proper) after he advocated pursuing peace with the Federation; and Caithlin Dar couldn't get any better position than Nimbus III due to her facing [[FantasticRacism discrimination for having a human grandfather]].

[[caption-width-right:275:[[ArmorPiercingQuestion What does God need with a starship?]]]]
->''"Adventure and imagination will meet at [[TitleDrop the final frontier]]."''
-->-- The film's {{tagline}}.

''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' is the fifth movie in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' film series, released in 1989. They've [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture stared at V'Ger]], [[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan defeated Khan]], [[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock found Spock]], and [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome saved the whales]]. But can the ''Enterprise'' crew survive their greatest challenge yet? Creator/WilliamShatner! ... [[DramaticPause In!]] ... [[DirectedByCastMember The director's seat!]]

* ThePollyanna: You just get that vibe from Caithlin Dar. She's young, sweet-natured, and extremely naïve. She contrasts her Federation and Klingon counterparts, who are older, more cynical, and really StoppedCaring.

* TheAllegedCar: The "''[[FanNickname Lemonprise]]''"[[invoked]]. Kirk is nonplussed by his squeaky chair, dodgy transporters, and the defective Log transcriber (which keeps popping open with ridiculous ''SPRONNG!'' noises).

-->'''Korrd:''' Kirk, my junior officer has something he wants to say to you. [''Turns to Klaa and shouts the Klingon equivalent of "Get on with it!"'']
-->'''Klaa:''' [''Sheepishly''] I ... apologize.
-->[''Kirk looks absolutely stunned.'']
-->'''Korrd:''' [''Adds the Klingon equivalent of "And...?"'']
-->'''Klaa:''' [''Still sheepish''] The attack upon your vessel was not authorized by my government.

** Shatner wanted to depict an edgier future, so we got [[IronicName a desolate city named "Paradise"]], a malfunctioning ''Enterprise'', and the Star Trek universe's first ([[Series/StarTrekEnterprise but not last]], alas) fart joke. Wow.

* {{Leitmotif}}: The Friendship Theme, introduced in "The Mountain".

** The first time the film was referenced, directly or indirectly by '''any''' other canon ''Star Trek'' material didn't come until ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'', and even then didn't go any further than the Kelvin timeline's Spock looking at a photograph of the crew on this film's ''Enterprise''-A bridge.[[note]]It was likely only chosen because pictures from any of the other original cast films would have left casual moviegoers wondering who [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture Decker, Ilia]] or [[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Saavik]] were, why [[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock Spock was missing]], why the crew were [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome on the bridge of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey]], or [[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry why Sulu was missing]].[[/note]]

** The ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS1E09CrisisPoint Crisis Point]]" had a '''ton''' of references, both subtle and overt, to all the ''Star Trek'' films to have been released until that point... except for this one, which was the only film in the series to be completely ignored.

[[TheOneWith The one where]] Spock’s never-before seen or mentioned Vulcan half-brother hijacks the ''Enterprise'' to look for {{God}}...(?)

* NotSoDifferent: For all his talk of rejecting the Vulcan way, Sybok essentially brainwashes people into suppressing their traumatic memories, denying them the chance to deal with their pain. Overall, how is this ''any'' different than Vulcans suppressing their emotions?!

* WalkIntoMordor: Its said that the Great Barrier surrounding the core of Milky Way Galaxy was extremely dangerous to enter as "no ship has ever entered and no probe has ever returned.", yet the ''Enterprise'' easily breaches it with virtually no trouble whatsoever.

[[caption-width-right:275:What does God need with a starship?]]

The film's impact was the exact opposite of the preceding entry in the series. Ultimately, ''The Final Frontier'' would perform way below expectations on the box office, to the point where, according to its producer, it was "nearly" a FranchiseKiller for the ''Star Trek'' film series.[[note]]It must be stressed, only for the ''film'' series. Meanwhile, on the small screen, ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]]

-->'''Website/TheAgonyBooth:''' ''Throughout the movie, Nimbus III is referred to periodically as “The Planet of Galactic Peace,” and every time someone says it, you can actually hear the [[SarcasmMode Quotes of Bitter Contempt]]. Peace! [[SpitefulSpit Ptooey.]]''

* HeroOfAnotherStory: St. John Talbot, Caithlin Dar, and even Sybok, as Creator/RogerEbert points out in [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-trek-v-the-final-frontier-1989 his review]].
-->Another irritation is the way in which we meet apparently major characters [...] who are introduced with fanfares of dialogue and then never developed or given anything to do. The entire movie seems crowded with loose ends, overlooked developments and forgotten characters, and there are little snatches of dialogue where some of these minor characters seem to be soldiering on in their original subplots as if unaware that they've been cut from the movie.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: As [[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Star_Trek_V__The_Final_Frontier_1989.aspx some]] pointed out, "Star Trek as a franchise had, up to this point, been entirely devoted to an optimistic future of interplanetary peace, technological advancement, and human brotherhood. ''Star Trek V'', on the other hand, is a deeply cynical movie," with the CrapsackWorld on which it begins, the unreliable technology, and the phony God that emerges at the ending as examples of this.

The film's impact was the exact opposite of the preceding film. Ultimately, ''The Final Frontier'' would perform way below expectations on the box office, to the point where, according to its producer, it was "nearly" a FranchiseKiller for the ''Star Trek'' film series.[[note]]It must be stressed, only for the ''film'' series. Meanwhile, on the small screen, ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]]

** It's still technically part of the canon, but the events have never been directly referenced in another canonical ''Star Trek'' work again. Rumor has it the writers are specifically told not to as a matter of course. Creator/GeneRoddenberry [[WordOfGod said he considered]][[invoked]] some elements of the movie "apocryphal, at best", but he apparently never told anyone which ones.[[note]]Some have contended the main one was TheReveal that Sarek had a child with a woman before Amanda Grayson, particularly since D.C. Fontana had gone out of her way to establish that Spock had ''no'' siblings whatsoever, in order to ensure that they weren't deluged with scripts where said siblings showed up. However, as the ''Vaka Rangi'' review notes, "nobody at Paramount cared about what D.C. Fontana wanted by this point."[[/note]] Ronald D. Moore, who was working on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' at the time, has said that while the show's writers accepted the film as canon, they considered it [[OldShame such an embarrassment]] to the franchise as a whole that they agreed among themselves that they would never cite it on the show, to the extent that they heavily rewrote the ending of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E19TheNthDegree The Nth Degree]]" simply because they didn't want it to have anything in common with this film.

The film's impact was the exact opposite of the preceeding film. Ultimately, ''The Final Frontier'' would perform way below expectations on the box office, to the point where, according to its producer, it was "nearly" a FranchiseKiller for the ''Star Trek'' film series.[[note]]It must be stressed, only for the ''film'' series. Meanwhile, on the small screen, ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]]

The film's impact was the exact opposite of the preceeding film. Ultimately, ''The Final Frontier'' would perform way below expectations on the box office, to the point where, according to its producer, it was "nearly" a FranchiseKiller for the ''Star Trek'' film series.[[note]]It must be stressed, only for the ''film'' series. Meanwhile, on the small screen ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]]

The reputation of the resulting movie was as different as night and day, when compared to the preceding film. ''The Voyage Home'' had been a hit that enjoyed great commercial success and reignited the faith in ''Star Trek'' as a franchise, causing the green-lighting of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''. ''The Final Frontier'', on the other hand, while beginning its theatrical run with the highest opening gross of any ''Star Trek'' film, quickly plummeted in its ticket sales, was received negatively both by fans and critics, had the ''shortest'' theatrical run of the ''Trek'' movies, and, according to its producer, "nearly killed" ''Star Trek'' as a film franchise.[[note]]As a ''film'' franchise, but not the entire thing; ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]] Although a sixth film was eventually greenlit by Paramount, ''The Final Frontier'' still had a severely negative knock-on effect, as the studio ended up drastically slashing its planned budget in response to the poor financial returns. In the end, Creator/NicholasMeyer ended up having to fight tooth and nail with the Paramount executives, calling in a huge personal favor, and even cutting a few corners to scrape together enough money to get the project off the ground.

Now, it should be noted that [[MisBlamed the movie's failings aren't all Shatner's fault]]. We can also thank ExecutiveMeddling for all the forced "humor", while the [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes 1988 WGA strike]] short-circuited the screenwriting and the infamous SpecialEffectFailure was due to [[Creator/IndustrialLightAndMagic ILM]] being too busy [[Film/GhostbustersII with]] [[Film/TheAbyss a]] [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartII few]] [[Film/{{Willow}} other]] [[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade projects]] to work on the film.

Still, the basic concept ''was'' Shatner's idea (although making Sybok Spock's brother was a Harve Bennett decision), and he knew about the studio's humor requirements before he even began work. Creator/GeneRoddenberry himself had expressed strong reservations about the pitch; [[ProperlyParanoid he had good reason to be concerned]], as he had previously written [[https://web.archive.org/web/20150915081330/http://www.well.com/~sjroby/godthing.html his own story]] about the crew meeting God and hated the result. (Though it should also be noted that Roddenberry's own counteroffered idea was, as it had been since the second movie, for the ''Enterprise'' crew to [[BeenThereShapedHistory go back in time and either stop or commit the]] [[WhoShotJFK JFK assassination]].) But Shatner persisted with the idea of [[UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny Kirk beating God]]. ''Franchise/StarTrek'' and religious topics have always been uneasy bedfellows; Roddenberry's well-documented atheism practically forced the series to always turn whatever "God" it ran into (the being in this movie as well as the [[RealityWarper Q Continuum]]) into {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s. ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' is the only series to pull it off, and Trekkies are divided on even that. Nevertheless, many [[FanonDiscontinuity fans prefer to ignore this entry entirely]] and simply go from the fourth movie directly to [[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry the sixth]]. ''Frontier'' is also the only one of the original films to have never been given a [[{{Recut}} Director's Cut]]; Shatner has always wanted to do it, but Creator/{{Paramount}} Pictures likewise refuses to let him.

This movie isn't a total write-off, though: ''Star Trek V'' also features plenty of CharacterDevelopment scenes between Kirk, Spock, and [=McCoy=] (the {{book ends}} with the three camping are quite enjoyable), a ''brilliant'' backstory scene involving [=McCoy=] and his father, and has a collection of well-imagined individual sequences such as ComingInHot with a shuttlecraft. Consensus is that while Shatner's storytelling abilities might be a bit on the weak side, he certainly had an eye for good setpieces. Josh Marsfelder at ''Vaka Rangi'', and his commenters, have much more to say about [[http://vakarangi.blogspot.com/2015/01/picture-yourself-in-boat-on-river-star.html what is right as well as wrong with The Final Frontier]].

The reputation of the resulting movie was as different as night and day, when compared to the preceding film. ''The Voyage Home'' had been a hit that enjoyed great commercial success and reignited the faith in ''Star Trek'' as a franchise, causing the green-lighting of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''. ''The Final Frontier'', on the other hand, while beginning its theatrical run with the highest opening gross of any ''Star Trek'' film, quickly plummeted in its ticket sales, was received negatively both by fans and critics, had the ''shortest'' theatrical run of the ''Trek'' movies, and, according to its producer, "nearly killed" ''Star Trek'' as a film franchise.[[note]]As a ''film'' franchise, but not the entire thing; ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]] Although a sixth film was, in spite of everything, greenlit by Paramount, ''The Final Frontier'' still had a severely negative knock-on effect, as the studio ended up drastically slashing its planned budget in response to the poor financial returns. In the end, Creator/NicholasMeyer ended up having to fight tooth and nail with the Paramount executives, calling in a huge personal favor, and even cutting a few corners to scrape together enough money to get the project off the ground.

The reputation of the resulting movie was as different as night and day, when compared to the preceding film. ''The Voyage Home'' had been a hit that enjoyed great commercial success and reignited the faith in ''Star Trek'' as a franchise, causing the green-lighting of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''. ''The Final Frontier'', on the other hand, while beginning its theatrical run with the highest opening gross of any ''Star Trek'' film, quickly plummeted in its ticket sales, was received negatively both by fans and critics, had the ''shortest'' theatrical run of the ''Trek'' movies, and, according to its producer, "nearly killed" ''Star Trek'' as a film franchise.[[note]]As a ''film'' franchise, but not the entire thing; ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]] Although a sixth film was, in spite of everything, greenlit by Paramount, ''The Final Frontier'' still had a severely negative knock-on effect, as the Paramount executives ended up drastically slashing its planned budget in response to the poor financial returns. In the end, Creator/NicholasMeyer ended up having to fight tooth and nail with the the executives, calling in a huge personal favor, and even cutting a few corners to scrape together enough money to get the project off the ground.

The reputation of the resulting movie was as different as night and day, when compared to the preceding film. ''The Voyage Home'' had been a hit that enjoyed great commercial success and reignited the faith in ''Star Trek'' as a franchise, causing the green-lighting of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]''. ''The Final Frontier'', on the other hand, while beginning its theatrical run with the highest opening gross of any ''Star Trek'' film, quickly plummeted in its ticket sales, was received negatively both by fans and critics, had the ''shortest'' theatrical run of the ''Trek'' movies, and, according to its producer, "nearly killed" ''Star Trek'' as a film franchise.[[note]]As a ''film'' franchise, but not the entire thing; ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was about to come back for a third season and had already proven to be a winner among most viewers and [[GrowingTheBeard get even better]].[[/note]]

** Kirk's autobiography says it's an [[RecursiveCanon in-universe movie]] made on Magna Roma, and gives credit to the trio (him, Bones and Spock) being spot on, but nothing else.

** Kirk's autobiography says it's an [[RecursiveCanon in-universe movie]] made on Magna Roma.

* PrecisionFStrike: For all that the movie gets wrong, it pulls one of the best of these in the franchise's history. One of the only times that Spock gets [[TranquilFury genuinely angry]] (even if only momentarily), it also goes to show the depth of his feelings toward Kirk. (And one of the few times that he uses a "[[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome colorful metaphor]]" correctly.)
-->'''Spock:''' General, I require your assistance.
-->'''General Korrd:''' My assistance?
-->'''Spock:''' You ''are'' his superior officer.
-->'''Korrd:''' I am a foolish old man.
-->'''Spock:''' ''Damn'' you, sir. You '''will''' try.
** [=McCoy=] on his greatest pain: "Not long after, they found a cure. A goddamn cure!"

** (Website/SFDebris' [[https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/film5.php review of this]] observes that George Takei's expression at that moment looks much more like "I'd rather be looking at ''your'' ass, Pavel.")