18. What Does God Need With A Spaceship? (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, 1989)
Easily the worst of the Trek movies. William Shatner’s ego-fest isn’t the worst film ever made (at least it's in focus), but it has few redeeming features.
One of them is the slightly cheeky tone it takes to the film’s true evil, a godlike alien seemingly made of pure energy that calls various characters (including Spock’s previously unknown half-brother Sybok) to a planet beyond “the great barrier”, in a cordoned-off section of the galaxy.
Kirk doesn’t buy it for a minute and incurs the wrath of the powerful entity, leading to a chase scene and his rescue by Spock – at the controls of a Klingon Bird Of Prey. It's silly but oddly satisfying.
Trek Trivia: The cheap-looking finale isn’t all William Shatner’s fault. He couldn’t get top-notch effects as ILM were busy on Ghostbusters II and Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. The FX ended up being so rubbish, the scenes were cut instead of bodged in.
Shatner asked for more money to restore them on the DVD release, but a bad review-stung Paramount said no.
17. Brand New Enterprise (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986)
Following the destruction of the original Enterprise, the team needed a new ship.
In keeping with the comedy nature of the film, the scene features the crew bantering about what they’ll end up on (“We’ll get a freighter,” snarks McCoy, before Sulu counters with his bet for Excelsior and Scotty admonishes, “Why in God's name would you want that bucket of bolts?”)
While it does seem odd that no one in a supposedly professional, galaxy-exploring fleet thinks to tell one of its most celebrated crews what ship they’ll be commanding ahead of time, there’s nothing quite like the geeky rush of joy in the view sweeping over Excelsior to find the newly minted Enterprise-A sitting in space dock.
Trek Trivia: This is the least amount of time a version of the Enterprise gets on film (in case you were keeping track). The old, destroyed ship appears in stock footage and the new one is glimpsed for all of 40 seconds.
Next: The Borg Queen's Entrance, Enterprise Launches
Comments
mattburgess
May 4th 2009, 16:33
Star Trek Generations, and the Enterprise-D is moments from being destroyed by a vastly inferior klingon warbird. But thanks to a nifty little trick by Data, they force the warbird to drop its own shields, and in one brilliant, heart stopping, breath taking moment, Commander Riker gives the order: "Fire!" A single, fateful photon torpedo later, and the warbird is a complete wreck. Brilliant! (Never mind the fact that Riker has previously asked for a spread of torpedos)
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jhr01
May 5th 2009, 21:42
6. “This Far. No Further!” (Star Trek Generations, 1994) The scene involving Patrick Steward and Alfie Woodward's Lily Sloane is from First Contact, not Star Trek's Generations! Shame on you Total Film!!!!
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jwhite
May 7th 2009, 21:26
Argh! My bad. I'm turning in my phaser and heading to the Agony Booth for a sesh. Error fixed!
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Juliette
May 8th 2009, 19:53
Brilliant article, thanks! Though I think Spock's death has to be No 1 for me, and I also have a soft spot for Chekov's 'Now would be a good time!' in Star Trek IV
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stewart
May 10th 2009, 18:08
A really good article, thanks! Personally I thought your number 3 was probably the number 1 - Kirk destroying that which he coveted above all else - and of course the exchange between Kirk & Bones that followed. I felt that Star Trek III was the best of the lot - despite the critics harangueing it no end, and largely because of the scenes from that filn that you included in this article!
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