Well perhaps if the budget had been a bit larger, perhaps if Industrial Light & Magic had taken care of the special effects, and perhaps if some judicious pruning would have been done to the story line, then perhaps this film wouldn't have ended up being such a terrible stinker.
The most obvious and glaring weakness in this film is the fact that the central characters; Kirk, Spock, and Bones seem to be so grossly out of character with where they left off in Voyage Home. Spock is no longer trying to reconcile his katra has he was in the last film, and there is virtually no back and forth chemistry between Spock and Bones as there was in the previous film. In fact, it is never even mentioned in the film that Spock has been recently raised from the dead, and Spock himself no longer displays any of the peculiar eccentricities that he did in The Voyage Home. Are you sure that it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?
Meanwhile, Kirk seems to be completely indifferent to the fact that he is once again commanding the Enterprise, and when the Klingons make their appearance, Kirk displays none of the passionate anger towards the them regarding the murder of his son David, which he does in the later film, The Undiscovered Country. Also, in this installment Captain Kirk does not appear to posses any of the great leadership or problem solving skills which he displays in earlier films. In this film Kirk has his ship hijacked away from him, he cannot break out of the brig, and he nearly plummets to his death from the face of El Capitan in Yosemite. This is not really the same Kirk who put on his antique glasses and hacked into the bridge of the USS Reliant in The Search For Spock.
Rather than coming across as a worthy sequel to The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier has more the feel of a television episode of Star Trek The Next Generation in which the lead characters have been swapped out with characters from the original series. However, it appears that someone forgot to let the actors see the script until just before filming, and for the most part they are just reciting empty lines without any emotion as they stare blank face at the camera. Holly disappointment, this is not at all in keeping with the great character development and acting we saw in the previous three films. (Not counting 1979's Star Trek The Motion Picture.)
After the disjointed acting and character portrayal, it is the overarching story line that really throws a bucket of cold water on everything. It's a film about terrorism! No, it's a film about religion! No, it's a film about pop psychology and cults. No it's a film about false prophets and con artists. The film tries to cover all of these topics, but it does a terrible job of weaving all these ideas together, and instead of producing a film that is thought provoking or insightful, we end up with a film that is shallow and sometimes painful to watch.
In fact, the story line of The Final Frontier is so disjointed and extremely weak, that perhaps this is the reason that the main actors are unable to dial in their characters and to deliver a satisfying performance.
The other thing that has to be addressed is the television level special effects that are found in this film. There are no sweeping vista views of orbiting space stations, most of the aliens are simply actors with dusty rags wrapped around their heads, and when Spock points a makeshift rifle at his brother Sybok, it is clear that the rifle prop looks to have been constructed from household pipe fittings from a local hardware store. Again, this film has the look and feel of television episode, and not a major Star Trek movie.
Following the huge success of The Voyage Home a few years earlier, the studio execs really should have been on hand to make sure that this film was better than it was.
The most obvious and glaring weakness in this film is the fact that the central characters; Kirk, Spock, and Bones seem to be so grossly out of character with where they left off in Voyage Home. Spock is no longer trying to reconcile his katra has he was in the last film, and there is virtually no back and forth chemistry between Spock and Bones as there was in the previous film. In fact, it is never even mentioned in the film that Spock has been recently raised from the dead, and Spock himself no longer displays any of the peculiar eccentricities that he did in The Voyage Home. Are you sure that it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?
Meanwhile, Kirk seems to be completely indifferent to the fact that he is once again commanding the Enterprise, and when the Klingons make their appearance, Kirk displays none of the passionate anger towards the them regarding the murder of his son David, which he does in the later film, The Undiscovered Country. Also, in this installment Captain Kirk does not appear to posses any of the great leadership or problem solving skills which he displays in earlier films. In this film Kirk has his ship hijacked away from him, he cannot break out of the brig, and he nearly plummets to his death from the face of El Capitan in Yosemite. This is not really the same Kirk who put on his antique glasses and hacked into the bridge of the USS Reliant in The Search For Spock.
Rather than coming across as a worthy sequel to The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier has more the feel of a television episode of Star Trek The Next Generation in which the lead characters have been swapped out with characters from the original series. However, it appears that someone forgot to let the actors see the script until just before filming, and for the most part they are just reciting empty lines without any emotion as they stare blank face at the camera. Holly disappointment, this is not at all in keeping with the great character development and acting we saw in the previous three films. (Not counting 1979's Star Trek The Motion Picture.)
After the disjointed acting and character portrayal, it is the overarching story line that really throws a bucket of cold water on everything. It's a film about terrorism! No, it's a film about religion! No, it's a film about pop psychology and cults. No it's a film about false prophets and con artists. The film tries to cover all of these topics, but it does a terrible job of weaving all these ideas together, and instead of producing a film that is thought provoking or insightful, we end up with a film that is shallow and sometimes painful to watch.
In fact, the story line of The Final Frontier is so disjointed and extremely weak, that perhaps this is the reason that the main actors are unable to dial in their characters and to deliver a satisfying performance.
The other thing that has to be addressed is the television level special effects that are found in this film. There are no sweeping vista views of orbiting space stations, most of the aliens are simply actors with dusty rags wrapped around their heads, and when Spock points a makeshift rifle at his brother Sybok, it is clear that the rifle prop looks to have been constructed from household pipe fittings from a local hardware store. Again, this film has the look and feel of television episode, and not a major Star Trek movie.
Following the huge success of The Voyage Home a few years earlier, the studio execs really should have been on hand to make sure that this film was better than it was.