Sybok was played to perfection by Laurence Luckinbill in Star Trek V.
In his new cultural history of the Star Trek franchise, Phasers on Stun! (Plume, May 2022), Ryan Britt argues Sean Connery would have made a better Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier than did the actor who played Sybok, Laurence Luckinbill. Director and star William Shatner wanted Connery for th part, but the legendary James Bond star passed.
“Connery playing Sybok would have saved The Final Frontier,” Britt boldly asserts. “[O]n a gonzo, mass-appeal scale, the hyperbolic silliness of Sean Connery’s star power would have ben a slam dunk precisely because it would have won over a mainstream audience” (page 180). Britt goes on to say that “because the thing with Spock’s lunatic brother is played entirely straight, the movie doesn’t work” (page 181).
Full disclosure: I really enjoy Ryan Britt’s writing. I favorably reviewed his first book, Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (Plume, 2015) for The Sci-Fi Christian, and I plan to favorably review Phasers on Stun! for the very website you’re reading right now. And in 2016, Britt was kind enough to interview me via Google doc for an Inverse feature about Star Trek and religion.
But to argue Sean Connery as Sybok could and would have saved The Final Frontier and that Laurence Luckinbill sabotaged it, is about as mad an assertion as Sybok’s assertion that Sha Ka Ree exists.
Granted, it’s hard to rebut a hypothetical. But I think the “mainstream audience” of 1989 would have been so distracted by Connery’s star power, the movie would have become even more of a mess than most people—not just fans—think it already is.
More to the point, how can we actively wish we’d gotten a sub-par performance from the actor playing the chief antagonist in a Star Trek movie? To denigrate Laurence Luckinbill for taking his role as Sybok seriously and playing it “entirely straight” is to reject arguably the strongest element in The Final Frontier, not its weakest, and certainly not the reason “the movie doesn’t work.”
Now that “The Serene Squall,” episode seven of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, has made it clear Sybok will soon be back in play, Britt’s criticisms of how the character was portrayed take on greater relevance. So let’s examine five key moments in the performance Laurence Luckinbill turned in as Sybok, and see whether we’d really want The Final Frontier to have lacked them.
Spock and Sybok, together again
Sybok and Spock’s awkward family reunion doesn’t happen until nearly 44 minutes into The Final Frontier. Laurence Luckinbill’s performance makes the moment well worth the wait.
As Luckinbill grasps Leonard Nimoy’s shoulders, he flashes a wide, warm grin that could melt a glacier on Rura Penthe. After Nimoy pulls away, Luckinbill says, “It’s me, it’s Sybok” with an almost jovial shake of his head and a tone of voice that all but adds “your old pal” in front of his character’s name. And his big laugh when Spock accuses Sybok of 17 Neutral Zone Treaty violations is convincing and contagious.
To perfectly cap this scene, Luckinbill delivers Sybok’s next line with a blend of disarming charm and disturbing braggadocio: “I’m not through violating Neutral Zone Treaty. In fact, I’m just getting started. And for my next violation, I intend to steal something—something very big!”
Luckinbill’s choices in this scene make it clear that calling Sybok “charismatic” is a wild understatement. Were he not taking hostages and stealing starships on his quest to find God, you might almost find yourself willing to throw back some Saurian brandy with him.
Sybok shows his bedside manner to Bones
The sequence in which Sybok causes McCoy to relive euthanizing his sick and suffering father is arguably one of the heaviest moments in any Star Trek movie. DeForest Kelley carries it off beautifully.
But don’t overlook the brief but intense and intelligent contributions Laurence Luckinbill makes to it. The camera angle and blocking almost completely obscure Sybok’s face as he talks a newly retraumatized McCoy through the reasons Bones made the choice he did, but Luckinbill’s voice lends the moment all the urgency it needs. “Release this pain. Release it!” he barks. As McCoy rests his head on Sybok’s chest, Luckinbill closes his eyes, leans his head back, and almost murmurs, “This pain has poisoned your soul for a long time.” It’s unnervingly tender.
The very next moment belies Sybok’s supposed concern for McCoy, however. “Now you’ve taken the first step,” says Sybok, cradling McCoy’s face. “The other steps—we’ll take together.” But Luckinbill turns away from and turns his back on Bones while speaking those last three words. What kind of “togetherness” is that?
I don’t know whether William Shatner directed Laurence Luckinbill to turn in that instant, or whether Luckinbill made the choice himself. But it’s a subtle and significant way to convey Sybok’s self-centeredness, the egoism that drives him and keeps his “pain sharing” from serving a truly therapeutic function. As Kirk angrily reminds Bones, Dammit, “You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand!”
Sybok briefly questions his own sanity
Just before Sybok leaves Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in the observation lounge, he tells Kirk he’s received a vision from God. “He waits for us on the other side,” he says.
Laurence Luckinbill delivers these lines with a chilling matter-of-factness. A lesser actor might have played up this moment of revelation, but Luckinbill simply states it as though its truth is undeniable—which, of course, it is for Sybok at this point. It’s one reason Sybok is so dangerous. (And it’s this uncritical reflection and confidence that “God is on one’s side” can make adherents of any faith dangerous, one of the real-world lessons The Final Frontier offers for our consideration.)
But Luckinbill does not play Sybok as dangerous and deluded, not in this or any other moment. And when Kirk tells Sybok, “You are mad,” Luckinbill allows at least a full five seconds of honest doubt and uncertainty to flicker across his face. And when he asks, “Am I?”, it is not a scoffing, rhetorical question, but a genuine inquiry.
Only for a moment, however. “We’ll see,” says Sybok, and the character’s normal, self-assured smile returns. Luckinbill saves this pivotal scene—the first mention of God (other than in casual swearing) in a movie about a quest for God—from the melodrama it could have become, and uses it to lay groundwork for Sybok’s eventual reversal in the film’s impending climax.
Sybok is eager to please the God Thing
George Murdock as the glowing face of the most stereotypical, unimaginative image of God that Western civilization has to offer—the bearded old man in the sky—is the lowest of The Final Frontier’s several low points. (Although Uhura’s fan dance on Nimbus III comes close.)
To his credit, Laurence Luckinbill acts the heck out of Sybok finally seeing face to face (with apologies to St. Paul). He walks toward “God” unsteadily, with arms outstretched, as though a child taking first steps toward a parent.
And he responds to each of “God’s” questions about the Enterprise’s journey through the Galactic Barrier (the inner one, not the outer one) with childlike earnesty and eagerness to please. He pours out wide-eyed adoration: “We sought only your infinite wisdom!” And he quickly and enthusiastically volunteers the Enterprise to be the entity’s “chariot”—thus setting up William Shatner to deliver The Final Frontier’s most famous line, and as fine a bit of iconoclasm as James T. Kirk has ever done.
In this scene, Luckinbill plays Sybok as completely entranced by and absorbed in his vision of “God.” The affection Sybok feels toward this “God Thing” (apologies this time to Gene Roddenberry himself) and his desire to make it happy add to the pathos of Sybok’s now almost-upon-us fate.
Sybok invites “God” to share “God’s” pain
After “God” does some mighty smiting with lightning bolts from his eyes and disowns the notion of Sha Ka Ree, it shows itself to be a “God” Sybok has created in his own image. (You’ll remember, way back in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Will Decker says we all do.)
In these moments as “God,” Laurence Luckinbill finally gets to do the villainous scene-chewing he could have done but did not do as Sybok. All the more remarkable, “God” still speaks with George Murdock’s voice, even while wearing Sybok’s face, which means Luckinbill manages to convey all of the entity’s disdain for “these puny things”—Kirk, Spock, and McCoy—with broad facial work alone.
Realizing too late and repenting of his arrogance, Sybok gives our heroes the chance to get away by sacrificing himself in the only fitting way. “I couldn’t help but notice your pain,” he tells “God.” “It runs deep. Share it with me!” Not unlike Lazarus in “The Alternative Factor,” Sybok wrestles with this other version of himself, finally using the Vulcan mental powers he’s used throughout the movie to manipulate others for a noble end.
I will never argue The Final Frontier is a perfect Star Trek movie. I’d even agree with Ryan Britt that, in the final analysis, the film doesn’t really quite work. But Laurence Luckinbill is not to blame.
His nuanced, detailed, and thoughtful performance of Sybok is the best thing about the film, and the impression he made in the role is surely a major reason Strange New Worlds is taking the gamble of bringing Sybok back to the fore.