Star Trek V..... what the?

[cardinal biggles]

misskim86 said:
Ok what happened was that Lucas industrial light and magic that had made the effects for 2-4 were busy with Indiana Jones 3 so they had to hire some new company and they weren't as good as ILM.

Now about the movie, I really like it, sure it's not epic but it has amazing character scenes and I view the movie more as a Star Trek episode more than an epic movie and if you do that the movie really works. You can't tell me ST:V isn't like a classic TOS episode.

Well, it's not just that they were busy with Last Crusade, but that their "B-team" was working on Ghostbusters 2. So Paramount would have had to pay ILM rates for their third-stringers, though considering what we got from Bran Ferren, I think the third-stringers would have been preferable.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

^One never knows on that...

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

A beaker full of death said:
It's one of the better Trek movies and pretty much the only one to capture the feeling of the series. The plot, of course, is very Roddenberryesque.

I agree that TFF is the only movie to really capture the feel of the original series, which was one of the aims of Shatner who said he wanted it to feel like episode 80. The plot and ending is very much in the vain of Roddenberry, who was quite interested in the unmasking of false gods. The movie, while it failed in execution, did have some strong themes and tried to be about something bigger. It was about family and finding god for yourself.

 

[Sharr Khan]

A beaker full of death said:
It's one of the better Trek movies and pretty much the only one to capture the feeling of the series. The plot, of course, is very Roddenberryesque.
But if your hangup is that elevator floor continuity, then I guess the film ain't for you. Way to focus on the important stuff, people.

Ironically hear, GR hated it - He didn't like the idea of Sybok or that he'd be able to "break the bond between the big three" or something like that.

Look at my Avatar people. I actually liked Sybok alot, found him refreshing on many levels. One he was a good anti-Villian for a change.

Sharr

 

[Therin of Andor]

archeryguy1701 said:
He was the director, and I believe he was in charge of most of the script rewrite.

I'd recommend trying to get hold of a second hand copy of "Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account of the Making of ST V" by Lisabeth Shatner and William Shatner. If you can stand Ms Shatner telling you, with probably too much honesty, how Bill (ie. "my father...") blundered through his movie. Hilarious!

The pair also do the commentary on the DVD DE.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Just to add to my prior comments, this film has not aged well compared to the others, IMHO.

While some older effects can grow on you with time, these did not. Plus, to me, the goofy costumes the crew wore (the shapeless sweaters, etc) did nothing to make them look any younger. It is amazing how much better everything looks in ST VI just a few years later, with better makeup, costumes, lighting, and effects.

 

[trevanian]

cardinal biggles said:

Well, it's not just that they were busy with Last Crusade, but that their "B-team" was working on Ghostbusters 2. So Paramount would have had to pay ILM rates for their third-stringers, though considering what we got from Bran Ferren, I think the third-stringers would have been preferable.

I've had a few years to think about this third string notion, and it really doesn't wash. If Dennis Muren was on GB2, does that make him a second stringer? Furthermore, back in '82, when ILM was a lot smaller, they were still able to take on three major films at once, with TWOK being the last (and the smallest) of the three. So for TWOK they got third-stringers, cuz ET and POLTERGEIST got Muren and Edlund respectively? Don't think so.

I think ILM doesn't always WANT to do these movies (everybody seemed very burned out on FC, since Paramount kept asking for more iterations of every shot instead of just finalling them and moving on), and if the key players who know TREK don't participate, it makes communication problematic (which was already an issue on TFF.) ILM also managed to do some work on THE ABYSS, which came out just a month or two later than these other three movies, and that didn't rely on any third-string team either. Production probably figured they needed to cut corners.

Something to remember (and cringe over) ... is that TUC was cancelled at one point because the budget was too high. One of the producers reworked the budget (this was after Meyer cut the roundup of the regulars) and came up with a budget that left ILM out again -- using several smaller facilities -- in order to make Paramount see how seriously they were taking this. It was only at this point that Paramount gave in a little and the movie got fully greenlit. So you were THAT close to having another trek flick with non-ILM fx.

EDIT ADDON: oh yeah, I really love TFF, warts and all. TMP and TWOK and TFF are the movies I always rewatch.

 

[Maurice]

I dunno if I agree that ILM didn't want to do the films. It's not just a matter of manpower, it's what kind of effects you're doing. For instance, if you've only got so many motion control stages, the number of motion control shots per project may have more to do with what shows you do than the number of shows. That's just one example.

 

[Eagle]

I was in Brighton with my parents ( only 11 at the time ) visiting relatives when this movie opened here in the UK. Now when we past the cinema and I saw it advertised outside I asked - no begged my dad to take me to see it. He said no, it'll be on TV in a few years. Anyway, eventually I got to see it on rental and I found that I hated it so much that I was glad that I didn't embarrass my whole family but more so myself by seeing it in the cinema. I know my dad would've been cursing at the screen most of the way through. But a few years later I err, err OK I taped it off TV and found out that on my second and subsequent viewings it wasn't all that bad, but was always my least favourite Trek movie each time I put it up all against the others. The ending was what really did it for me - that's the centre of the galaxy ? Give me a break there's a bloody big black hole there for a start along with a sh*t load of gas and stars - I can accept ( more or less have to, because my astronomy knowledge confuses me otherwise ) that the barrier went around the centre of the galaxy as someone mentioned above but why was it completely black on the other side with 1 planet ? We should be seeing all those stars along with all the other features that are present at the centre of the galaxy. It should be a great spectacle from the images and artistic drawings that I found on Google - not a blue-green cloudy fart effect with lightening, but I know it's JUST A MOVIE albeit an inaccurate one, decks numbers and all .

Rant over, good day and thanks for listening .

 

[trevanian]

DS9Sega said:
I dunno if I agree that ILM didn't want to do the films. It's not just a matter of manpower, it's what kind of effects you're doing. For instance, if you've only got so many motion control stages, the number of motion control shots per project may have more to do with what shows you do than the number of shows. That's just one example.

Well, ILM sometimes handled overflow by going outside its own walls. On HUNT FOR THE RED OCTOBER, they rented and set up a whole separate facility for shooting the subs (and they only had like three months to do RED OCTOBER, so they were operating under a time crunch that was worse than Ferren faced on TFF.) On the first trek movie, Trumbull's group set up a whole separate facility to double what they could shoot, and so they just kept adding motion control systems.

Also, ILM got a coproducer credit on TVH and maybe SFS as well. Somebody told me it was a tax-related matter, but regardless, if that didn't hold through '89, it might have been enough to make them less eager to do the show, especially since they were in a position to pick and choose (something almost no vfx vendor is in a position to do.)

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Trekwatcher said:
Plus, to me, the goofy costumes the crew wore (the shapeless sweaters, etc) did nothing to make them look any younger.

Shatner, according to the making of book recommended by Therin, which I still have a copy of and throughly read back and forth when TFF came out, wanted to change the design of the uniforms completely for his movie. Budget constraints limited the production to reusing the Fletcher designs with the assault fatigues, and other costumes, being designed by production artist Nilo Rodis.

 

[Red Ranger]

People,

Have to agree with the OP and the other naysayers: This movie is terrible, one of the worst ST ones.

So much is just wrong. The FX; the rehashed use of the Klingons; the bad humor; Spock calling marshmellows "marshmelons;" the dreadful acting of the woman who portrayed the Romulan envoy to Nimbus III (think she was a "StarSearch" winner); oy, it's painful to watch!

At least TUC was an improvement, and it's also not one of my fave ST flicks.

Red Ranger

 

[Haggis and tatties]

STV for me has the best overall feel and warmth of the original TV show character wise, and even though its not a eye candy bursting epic, its a fun movie with some old friends.

 

[Timo]

A lot could be fixed in postproduction, to be sure. Never mind the substandard VFX: simple classic editing would do wonders, not only picking up the slack pacing of the first half, but also rearranging the scenes so that there is a proper buildup to the dramatic threat of the story, a balanced intersplicing of the R&R/character-building moments, and finally a true feel of urgency to the mission. Long scenes that come in unmanageable clumps now, causing us to writhe in our seats, might actually be enjoyable if cut differently. For me, every bit of Paradise City and Yosemite is worth the screen time, despite the sometimes clumsy humor - it's just packed all wrong.

This movie if any would benefit from a Special Edition. Perhaps an Audience's Cut?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Computer]

Oh and Red Ranger just reminded me about the Klingons.

I got the impression that the writers just said "It's Star Trek, we need to have Klingons in there" so they just threw in a couple Klingons that had absolutely no purpose and made it a "Trophy hunt" at no time did I feel a threat from them in this movie, they just seemed like annoying extras the writers threw in.

 

[Maurice]

Yes, it's especially annoying that they bothered with the Klingons at all, considering their budget got tightened. That part of the script is the first thing I'd have thrown out to save money on sets, costumes and cast.

 

[A beaker full of death]

It was a fine film. There were three embarrassing lines. The effects ranged from adequate to good. The phasers the commando team used were absolutely awesome.
I was greatly impressed by how well Shatner knew the characters and knew Star Trek.

 

[trevanian]

I'm with you on those hand phasers. I saw a really good replica at the only convention I've gone to as an adult (probably early 91) and it is the only prop-type collectibe I ever seriously considered buying (but it was 125 bucks!)

It really felt like a 9mm or .45 automatic, like you could hurt someone with it (even if just by hitting them in the head.)

 

[jayrath]

The script was a product of the previous writer's strike, and it shows. It needed at least a few more drafts.

On the other hand, a lot of what makes it so . . . difficult for me to sit through without squirming, is all the wretched forced humor. This was a directive handed down from the studio, a result of the positive response to comedy in TVH. There's no question but that the comedy was handled poorly.

And the the budget ran out, the SFX were lousy, and to make matters worse, Shatner was sabotaged on location by other unions who were in sympathy with the writers.

It is what it is, and there's still some mighty fine material in it: the whole sequence with McCoy and Spock recalling their central agonies, for example. Still, while I hate adding new digital imagery to any existing film, I'd be willing to make an exception for this one. I just wish a new script could be added, as well.

 

[archeryguy1701]

Computer said:
Oh and Red Ranger just reminded me about the Klingons.

I got the impression that the writers just said "It's Star Trek, we need to have Klingons in there" so they just threw in a couple Klingons that had absolutely no purpose and made it a "Trophy hunt" at no time did I feel a threat from them in this movie, they just seemed like annoying extras the writers threw in.

I agree that it felt like a "It's Trek, they have to be there!" inclussion. And, unfortunately, every single TOS Trek movie had he Klingons being bad in some sense:
I: pissing off a mysterious cloud
II: They're the big bad guys in the training sims
III: General chaos and mayhem
IV: "If you don't kill Kirk, my people will always hate you!"
V: Klaa wants to sit at the cool-kid table, and killing Kirk will do just the trick
VI: More general chaos and mayhem.