William Shatner Talks About What Went Wrong With STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER and His Regrets
Star Trek icon William Shatner made his feature film directorial debut with 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The movie was kind of a mess and wasn’t really well received by fans.
The story follows the crew of the USS Enterprise as they embark on a mission to rescue hostages held by a renegade Vulcan named Sybok. Sybok, claiming to be on a spiritual quest, seeks the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree, rumored to be the birthplace of creation itself. Along the way, Captain Kirk and his crew confront personal demons, including Spock's half-brother, whose influence challenges their beliefs and loyalty. While on their journey, they discover the true nature of Sybok's mission and confront the powerful entity lurking on Sha Ka Ree.
As for the reviews, some praised the film for its exploration of philosophical themes and character development, while others criticized it for its story, uneven pacing, and disappointing visual effects. During an interview with THR, Shatner opened up about the film, what went wrong with it, and his regrets.
“I wish that I’d had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, ‘Star Trek goes in search of God,’ and management said, ‘Well, who’s God? We’ll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can’t do God.’ And then somebody said, ‘What about an alien who thinks they’re God?’ Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I’m asked, ‘What do you regret the most?,’ I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn’t make the decisions I would’ve made.”
Throughout production the script went through multiple rewrites, the 1988 WGA strike cut into pre-production, and there were budget cuts on the visual effects. Yeah, this was one of those troubled Hollywood productions. Shatner takes full responsibility for its failure, and goes on to explain:
“It is on me. [In the finale,] I wanted granite [rock creatures] to explode out of the mountain. The special effects guy said, ‘I can build you a suit that’s on fire and smoke comes out.’ I said, ‘Great, how much will that cost?’ They said, ‘$250,000 a suit.’ Can you make 10 suits? He said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s $2.5 million. You’ve got a $30 million budget. You sure you want to spend [it on that]? Those are the practical decisions. Well, wait a minute, what about one suit? And I’ll photograph it everywhere [to look like 10].”
Yeah, The Final Frontier wasn’t the best Star Trek movie, but it’s not horrible. I actually liked the concept behind it, it just wasn’t executed as well as it could’ve been. What did you think of the movie?