Star Trek History: Making The Final Frontier

1986 was a good year for fans of the sci-fi series Star Trek. The feature film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was like a cosmic alignment of stars-everything fell into place. The film came in under budget, proceeded to gross $133 million worldwide, and was a critical success. Star Trek was riding high; series creator Gene Roddenberry even launched a new television series, The Next Generation, in 1987.

The previous two Star Trek features had been directed by Leonard Nimoy, who doubled as cast member Spock. Now Captain Kirk (William Shatner) wanted his turn at the director's chair. Since Nimoy and Shatner's contracts had the equivalent of a "favored nations" clause, whatever one actor got, the other also received-which meant equivalent salaries, script supervision, and in this case, directing responsibilities.

Before Shatner was officially given the job of director, he had already begun working on a story for his epic picture. Inspired by what he saw as charismatic false prophets in the televangelists of the time, Shatner crafted a story where a renegade Vulcan-originally called Zar-sought to steal the Starship Enterprise in his pursuit of God, convincing the crew to follow him through mind powers.

Paramount was happy with the premise, so Shatner worked with producer Harve Bennett and writer David Loughery to develop a script. Problem was, series costars Nimoy and DeForest Kelley (Leonard McCoy) weren't happy with the way their characters were portrayed. As written, only Kirk remained steadfast in the wake of Zar's mind melds. The Enterprise reaches the planet where God resides. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Zar beam down and discover "God" is actually an imposter, who sends satanic gargoyles after them. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy split up, but Kirk cannot leave his friends and turns back. Kirk and Spock reunite and save McCoy from being carted off to hell.

This ending did not sit well with Nimoy or Kelley, who felt that their characters would not betray their friend Kirk. Kelley's quibbles were an issue, but not so much as Nimoy-who thanks to the "favored nations" clause could veto the script. The project was sidelined because of a Writers Guild strike, while Shatner and Nimoy worked on other projects. When pre-production resumed Bennett and Loughery worked on the script to please Nimoy, although Shatner felt the changes undermined his story. Zar became Sybok, who was written as Spock's half-brother. The God planet became a mythological cosmic Eden called Sha Ka Ree, a play on Sean Connery (whom Shatner had wanted to play Sybok before the actor became unavailable.)

Paramount moved Star Trek V: The Final Frontier into production in late 1988 despite the preproduction difficulties. Unfortunately the problems continued to multiply. Shatner hired production designer Herman Zimmerman, and used art director Nilo Rodis to storyboard the film's sequences and develop the look and feel of the movie. Rodis ended up become the film's costume designer after Shatner could not find someone else suitable and saw all the work the artist had done already in developing characters.

The looming problem was the film's special effects. Since Star Trek II, Industrial Light & Magic-one of the world's best effects houses-had handled the Star Trek film's effects. With The Final Frontier due to come out in summer 1989, however, ILM's best effects teams were working on other effects-laden summer blockbusters. The production was forced to look elsewhere to realize Shatner's grand vision, and settled on Bran Ferren of Ferren & Associates. Ferren emphasized using low-tech approaches to realize complicated effects, but even his cost estimates were millions over the $30 million price tag Paramount budgeted The Final Frontier. Many of Shatner's more complicated shots were simply removed, and his climactic group of gargoyles was reduced to just one "Rockman" suit, which could shoot flame and emitted smoke.

Regardless, the production spent weeks location shooting in Yosemite National Park and the Mojave desert before returning to Paramount for the rest of photography on soundstages. Aside from a few hiccups, most elements went smoothly, but the climax continued to face difficulties. Shooting in the desert at night, the Rockman's fire-breathing apparatus failed to work, and its smoke-blown into the suit's tubes by effects workers smoking cigarettes-dissapated in the high winds, leaving the rubbery monster exposed and looking a lot like a rubbery monster. With time running out to shoot, Shatner was forced to abandon the rock monster idea; a plan to replace the creatures with a mass of energy dubbed the "God blob" looked even worse.

While the film's climax and effects were in serious trouble, other parts of the production continued on. Jerry Goldsmith, composer of The Motion Picture's score, returned for The Final Frontier. Utilizing his Klingon theme from the previous picture, he also wrote a "friendship theme" for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and lots of clanking and ethereal music to match Shatner's epic vision. Mark Mangini, sound designer for The Voyage Home, returned to lend a hand at creating the film's unique soundscapes, including the intimate closeness of Sybok's mind melds. (For more information on The Final Frontier's music, see "Making Movie Music: The Original Star Trek films".)

As deadlines loomed, Shatner and Bennett worked at rectifying the film's problems. After Paramount refused to give them any more money to reshoot the climax, they devised a new ending that involved the revealed imposter god attacking Kirk. Cornered, Kirk is saved by the Klingons, with Spock as their gunner. Early test audiences took issue with parts of the film, leading Bennett to trim more footage in editing and shoot a new scene aboard the Klingon ship to make plot points clearer.

The Final Frontier was released to North American theaters on June 9, 1989, among the busiest blockbuster summer seen at the time-sequels such as Indiana Jones as well as expected hits like Batman were crowding the cineplexes. The Final Frontier had less marketing force behind it, and a Star Trek film had never appeared during the summer season. Despite this, the movie made $17.4 million in its opening week-it was the best opening for a Star Trek film at the time. However the film quickly dropped from the top spot in its next week and lasted for only ten weeks in theaters, the shortest run of any Star Trek film.

Critical consensus was mixed to negative. The film's special effects were almost universally derided, and Shatner's direction was considered weak during non-action scenes. The film's humor-added at the bequest of studio execs who wanted a lighter film like The Voyage Home-was seen as detracting greatly from the film.

Now, The Final Frontier is largely regarded as a horrible movie by fans and non-fans alike, but giving all the blame to Shatner as is common might be erroneous. Ultimately, The Final Frontier was a victim of a host of problems, from excessive box office competition, technical difficulties, and tragedies of circumstance. It is tempting to speculate what might have been had Shatner been a more experienced director or Paramount had supported the original, darker vision for the film.

While The Final Frontier made a respectable $70 million worldwide, this was far less than The Voyage Home's cume and much less than the expectations of studio and industry heads. Paramount decided on one more (cheaper) feature to send the Star Trek original series cast on its way, in what became The Undiscovered Country.

References
*Dillard, J.M. (1994). Star Trek: "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - A History in Pictures (ISBN 0671511491).
*Lee, Nora (December 1986). "The Fourth Trek: Leonard Nimoy Recollects" [American Cinematographer v67no12].
*Reeves-Stevens, Judith and Garfield (1995). The Art of Star Trek (ISBN 0671898043).
*Shatner, William; Kris Kreski (1994). Star Trek Movie Memories (ISBN 0060176172).
*Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Special Collectors Edition DVD [Special Features and Commentary]

Read more Star Trek History and related stories from David Fuchs: "Making 'The Voyage Home'" / "Making 'The Search for Spock'" / "Making 'The Wrath of Khan'" / "Making 'The Motion Picture'" / "Creating the Klingons"