Finding Faith and Fraud with Star Trek V (1989)
From Trektronic Netsite, November 14th, 1997[1]
Love it. Hate it. It’s Trek either way.
1989’s
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier has its share of controversy. Its canonicity has been questioned by some, its foray into religious beliefs and the perils of mass evangelism remain controversial, and its “smiling Spock” is seen as blasphemous by the more hard-core pro-Vulcan fandom, even despite the context.
Not exactly this…
Star Trek V was the product of a long and winding road whose origins begin all the way back in the original run of the TV Series. You see, Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy knew that the two of them ruled Trek. As such, they made a handshake deal that whatever the one of them got in pay or compensation, the other would get as well. They compared it to the “most favored nations” arrangements in diplomacy. So, when Nimoy scored director’s credits on Star Treks III and IV, he invoked the ancient charter to recommend that Shatner take up the director’s chair, a challenge Shatner jumped on with both feet[2].
This, of course, got old Bill to thinking. What should the movie be about? Well, this was the Golden Age of Televangelists, those charismatic TV preachers who manage to convince folks that the construction of the highway to heaven requires that the funding go through
them! “They [the televangelists] were repulsive, strangely horrifying, and yet I became absolutely fascinated,” Shatner recalled. To Shatner, they were gloriously effective con men able to convince others that God spoke through them, and in doing so became fabulously wealthy through the “donations” from their congregation. Thus, the main antagonist Zar, later Sybok, was born, a galactic televangelist.
Originally, Shatner planned to have Zar/Sybok convince the Enterprise crew save Kirk to follow him to a hidden realm where “God” awaited, only it wasn’t God, but Satan. While early in pre-production at Paramount he showed his ideas to his friend/rival Eddie Murphy, who liked the idea, and suggested he run it by Gene Roddenberry and get his thoughts. Roddenberry liked the “televangelist” angle, but he warned Shatner to “drop the God angle” since he’d pitched a similar idea on what became
Star Trek: The Motion[less] Picture and had been soundly rejected. “Go for some new sort of cult where they see Kirk or Spock as the messiah, or something,” said Roddenberry.
Immediately Shatner loved the idea, decided that Kirk should be the messianic figure, and asked Murphy if he’d play Sybok, the sleazy evangelist cult leader. Murphy laughed and said, “Ah, hell no,” and suggested that Spock should be the false messiah. “Man, he died in
Wrath of Khan giving his life for everyone and came back to life in
Search for Spock[3]. Think about it, Bill!”
Or so I’d assume, I have no idea how the actual conversation went.
Anyway, now the film treatment evolved into the story of a group of cultists kidnapping Spock as their messiah. Shatner wanted novelist Eric Van Lustbader to write the script, but Lustbader’s requested $1 million pay was a non-starter. Roddenberry suggested that they hand it to veteran Trek scribe D.C. Fontana, who was penning scripts for
The Next Generation at the time. She’d never done a feature length script, but she took a swing at it, delivering a workable screenplay about a group of Vulcans and Romulans led by the charismatic Sybok, who learns of Spock’s “resurrection” and declares him the mythical “Showa Ka’al”, a messianic figure from ancient scripts who was prophesized would unite the universe.
In her script, while Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are vacationing at Yosemite (a plot point retained from the original Shatner treatment), Spock is kidnapped and a Federation starship USS Mayflower is stolen by the cultists, many of whom are Star Fleet members. Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew reunite to chase down the Mayflower, which witnesses say contains the kidnapped Spock, and they chase them to the Klingon Neutral Zone, and a hidden planet therein, for the final showdown. Paramount thought the screenplay too weak and too “TV like”, so after some script doctoring by various studio writers, with an interruption due to the ’88 writer’s strike, we ultimately got the three-act structure of the final film. The Klingons were replaced by Romulans (who were returning to popularity following their appearance as the main antagonists in
The Next Generation) and the “cult” was now a Vulcan/Romulan one intending to peacefully reunite Vulcan and Romulus.
Image source Gazomg Trek Art
The film starts the same way as the earlier script in Yosemite, only this time the crew has no idea what happened to Spock (he just disappears!), and now Spock is rumored to have stolen the Mayflower himself! Kirk and the crew are appointed by Admiral Synor (Eddie Murphy as a Vulcan!) to pursue the Mayflower in the new USS Enterprise-A and recapture it peacefully, if possible, but that he must “destroy the Mayflower” if necessary. The Mayflower is heading towards the Romulan Neutral Zone and there is a real fear that the “rogue Federation officers” are planning to start a war. Thus, the Enterprise pursues the Mayflower, hoping to capture it and not have to destroy it, with Saavik (Kirstie Alley) returning to fill in as Science Officer for Spock.
It then jumps to the Mayflower where Spock is on the bridge talking to Sybok (Christopher Plummer, who’d played a similar role in
Dragnet a couple of years earlier), who is this smiling, charismatic, and totally sleazy Vulcan/Romulan hybrid. Here we learn about the cult and their assumption of Spock’s divinity based on his “resurrection”. Sybok is trying to use logic to convince Spock of the righteousness and holiness of his cause, and it’s obvious that the ragtag “crew” of the Mayflower is totally under his spell. We learn that Sybok, following his “problematic” (to quote Spock) interpretation of ancient scrolls, believes that this one planet in the neutral zone, Aeris (the name a cross between Ares and Eris), which sits in a direct line between Vulcan and Romulus, is the “holy mount” of the scrolls and the place where if Spock, as the Showa Ka’al, stands during the rising of the three suns, the “minds of all of the children of Ka’al” (Vulcans and Romulans) will “be as one” as though in a great galactic mind meld.
“In time, Showa Ka’al, you will come to understand your divinity,” he finally tells Spock.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk and Bones debate whether they should follow Synor’s “logical” order that the Mayflower be destroyed before it can breach the neutral zone and risk war. After Bones leaves, Kirk records a long (and some say boring and pointless) Captain’s Log as he debates the ethics of the situation. He returns to the bridge just as Sybok broadcasts to all subspace receivers that he has come with a “message to all”, promising that the “universal melding of the minds of Ka’al” is at hand and calls for “all of the children of Ka’al to join him” at Aeris.
And then, the shocker of shockers, Spock himself, openly smiling and glassy-eyed, proclaims himself the Showa Ka’al who has “died and returned to life on Genesis” and repeats Sybok’s invitation. Uhura soon reports that “large numbers” of ships from Vulcan and Romulus are heading towards Aeris and the neutral zone. An inbound message from Synor declares that the Romulan Star Command is at high alert and he repeats the need to destroy the Mayflower before it breaches the Neutral Zone.
As the Enterprise speeds towards the Mayflower, hiding in the Neutral Zone in a cloaked ship is Romulan Commander D’acia (Rene Auberjonois), who watches the Spock declaration. He then receives orders from the Romulan High Command to go to Aeris and assassinate Spock, thereby ending the cult and killing a powerful enemy all in one fell swoop. He must
not start a war with the Federation, however.
The Enterprise reaches the Mayflower just as it is about to cross into the Neutral Zone. Kirk goes into a long monolog to his crew as he debates whether to follow the orders or not. Saavik suggests that they “logically” need to destroy the ship in order to prevent a wider war, citing the “needs of the many” while Bones excoriates Kirk for even considering “murdering his friend in cold blood”. Finally, Kirk lets the ship pass on, unable to follow through on his orders.
They follow the ship to Aeris, where they are confronted by three Romulan Birds of Prey. Commander D’acia orders the Enterprise to leave the Neutral Zone, but Kirk refuses and promises to capture and remove the “pilgrims” peacefully and leave for Federation Space. D’acia gives Kirk “six hours”, but once the transmission ends, he dispatches a team of assassins to the surface of Aeris to “kill Spock the minute he ascends the hill”.
Kirk, Chekov, Bones, Uhura, and Saavik beam down with three Red Shirts to the surface while Sulu takes the bridge and Scotty stands by to beam up the away team when the time comes. Spock, Sybok, and the pilgrims beam down as well, and Sybok begins the ceremony, dressing Spock in elaborate robes. While the Romulans line up behind some crazy crystal-like rocks, Kirk and the crew confront Sybok. The Pilgrims go to confront them, but Spock holds up his hands and walks, smiling, to Jim. Chekov, meanwhile, notices the Romulans and leads the Red Shirts to confront them.
Meanwhile back on the Enterprise, Sulu receives notice that Star Fleet and Romulan vessels have started to amass along the Neutral Zone and that the Klingon fleet has been activated as well.
Back on Aeris, Spock talks to Jim as Sybok watches, assuring him that he’s “seen the truth”. He then gives Kirk a big hug…and surreptitiously palms Kirk’s communicator. As Spock ascends the hill, the Romulans take aim and are about to kill Spock when Chekov and the Red Shirts engage them. The Federation officers and Romulans fight it out as Spock, smiling, ascends the hill as the three suns rise and begins giving a great culminating speech, but then changes gear mid-speech, and tells everyone that they have been hoodwinked, that he is not the Showa Ka’al, and that Sybok has deluded them. When the suns alight behind him, the struggling Romulan fighting Chekov overpowers him and gets a clear shot on Spock. But the shot just misses after Spock withdraws the communicator he took from Kirk and has Scotty beam him up.
When nothing happened with Spock atop the hill as the three suns aligned, Sybok’s delusions are made manifest. After Spock beams away, Saavik and Uhuru talk to the Pilgrims, helping convince them to beam up and leave. Kirk has a long, heartfelt talk to the devastated Sybok and they all beam up together. The Enterprise and Mayflower return to Federation Space and D’acia’s ships cloak and fly away.
Later, on the bridge, Spock admits to have pretended to go along with Sybok, who was deluded and dangerous. “It was the only logical approach”. Admiral Synor admonishes Kirk for his “sentimentality”, but expresses his gratitude that the situation was peacefully resolved. The crew flies back towards Earth as Kirk gives a final Log Entry and the movie ends.
Star Trek V did very well at the box office, earning nearly $70 million against its $36 million budget. Honestly any Trek film that wasn’t complete trash would have done about as well. The film did garner controversy, though. Televangelists caught on that they were the butt of the joke and decried the film as a “screed against people of faith”. The Church of Scientology for some reason (religion plus sci-fi?) assumed that
they were the target of Shatner’s vision (they weren’t as best as I can tell) and launched a lawsuit that got thrown out of court.
It was controversial with some fans as well, with “smiling Spock” seen as sacrilege despite the fact that he was clearly faking it and playing along with Sybok, a logical deception given his choices. Many were upset that after the trailers and the film teased a massive three-way battle with the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, the standoff ended peacefully, which felt like a betrayal of a promise. Some fans just couldn’t accept Eddie Murphy as a Vulcan and felt that he should have stuck with being a “whale nerd” while others defended Murphy’s performance and thought that he deserved a bigger role, feeling that he was “screwed by Shatner” in revenge for upstaging him in the earlier film (both Murphy and Shatner deny this, Murphy pointing to his busy schedule as necessitating the smaller role). Many despised the way Shatner’s Kirk took over the screen, in particular hating the many monologs[4], and felt that the rest of the crew got marginalized. The fan name “Star Trek V: The Ultimate Ego” has circulated the Cons. This film is generally seen as the final proof of the then-burgeoning “Even-Odd Rule” in Trek films.
But others appreciated its more cerebral and philosophical take on the Trek-verse, which was seen as more in keeping with the original series compared to the action-heavy or comedy-heavy Treks II-IV. Some liked how they solved the crisis through words, not fists. Roddenberry admitted to it being one of his favorites.
And yet in hindsight, the biggest thing that you can say about Trek V is that there’s not much to say about it. Despite the Fan Hate for Shatner’s direction, the cast and crew said that he was kind to them and helped shield them from the Paramount execs[5] with even George Takei (who maintains a…complicated relationship with Shatner) defending him as a director. Despite the monologs and “boring cerebral stuff” about faith and religion, the film is, like
The Search for Spock, mostly just “meh” in many opinions. Almost nobody calls it their favorite Trek film, but few will call it their least favorite. Most can admit that Rene Auberjonois as the calculating Commander D’acia was a delight, and that he needed more screen time.
But whatever your personal take on the film, it remains an interesting installment in the franchise. A film that explores weighty issues in a uniquely Star Trek way. Less action-heavy than others, less comedic than its predecessor, it still “feels” like a Trek movie, and in the end that’s all that one can ask.
[1] Imagine this in a long, scrolling 1990s basic HTML format, eye-bleeding silver comic sans over a background of stars, interrupted by occasional banner ads or little thumbnail cartoon images of the Enterprise, all loading slowly through your 2.28K modem, like the Gods of the Internet intended. Annoying “beepatronic” background music optional.
[2] Sorry, all, I know a lot of you wanted to butterfly Shatner’s directorial debut, but honestly, I’d be hard pressed to do so without also butterflying Nimoy’s movies. Besides, the idea of trying to think like Shatner in the director’s chair has a sick appeal to me as a
hack writer.
[3] Idea stolen fair and square from
SFDebris relayed courtesy of
@theg*ddam*hoi2fan and
@Ogrebear.
[4] Needless to say, “Fan Cuts” have propagated around the internet that remove or cut back the monologs.
[5] True in our timeline too, apparently.
