Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – Great concept, Poor Execution

Star Trek V: The final Frontier – Kirk Falling face first

What was the original  concept?

The concept was at its heart a deeply personal story centred on Spock and based upon a series of novels by best-selling author Eric Van Lustbader, about an American feeling out-of-place in Japan. This idea was to be combined with a generally negative feeling based upon some televangelist William Shatner had seen on TV who had purported to be the one and only pair who could speak for God. 

You can immediately see where the story picked up from the televangelist, in Sybok’s character, although seemingly tempered from a role of a near false prophet to that of a misguided crusader, but the whole Spock aspect was more or less lost.

Assuming there hadn’t been a Writers Guild of America strike in 1988, which severely shortened pre-production and that they had managed to land the writer they wanted along with William Shatner’s underrated skill for getting the right shots, we really might have had something special.

So how could things have gone if all of the elements had come together properly?

We will never know for sure, but we can still imagine what could have been, and the best way I know to do that is with….