Could Star Trek V been saved?

[Mudd]

To the OP: No.

 

[tim0122]

Even McCoy was turning, so Scotty wouldn't be the other holdout, of all people.

I think you underestimate Scottish stubbornness.

 

[CoveTom]

Shatner's original concept had Kirk (of course) as basically the only one in the galaxy who managed to resist Sybok. Which is patently ridiculous, of course. Fortunately, Nimoy and Kelly pushed back on that and essentially refused to have their characters betray Kirk.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Having just rewatched Star Trek V for the first time in a while, I found it not terrible. But it was a mess with a lot of ideas and characters thrown in for a movie that felt like an okay episode of the show.

These days I look at STV as the big screen equivalent of a third season episode. It's got big ideas but nothing like the budget it needs to realize them. And it plays as unintentionally campy a lot of the time.

But there ARE good and even cinematic ideas present. Do you think the premise and ideas present in Final Frontier could've been salvaged into a solid Trek film?

I think if you were going to salvage STV, it had to be done at the script stage. Harve Bennett pointed out that "The Enterprise crew meets God" is an inherently flawed premise, because you know going in that it's not going to be the real God. Most of the humor is terribly forced and slapsticky. And I think 1989 was pretty late in the day for Spock to suddenly have a long-lost brother, especially since he'd mind melded with McCoy and put his Katra inside him three movies before.

But I think you could make a good movie out of the premise of the Enterprise being taken over by a mind-controlling religious fanatic who's taken hostages. Make it as Die Hard mashed up with Star Trek and give it a higher budget and I think it could work. Shatner was a good action director and the scene where Sybok shows Spock and McCoy their individual pains is good. But Sybok is a weak antagonist overall and I don't think the film's grand "statement" ("God is right here, in the human heart") amounts to much.