Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

During the 1966–69 Star Trek television series, Shatner and Nimoy's lawyers drafted what Shatner termed a "favored nations clause", with the result that whatever Shatner received—e.g., a pay raise or script control—Nimoy also got and vice versa.[17] Nimoy had directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Shatner had previously directed plays and television episodes;[4] when he signed on for The Voyage Home following a pay dispute, Shatner was promised he could direct the next film.[18]

Shatner conceived his idea for the film's story before he was officially given the director's job. His inspiration was televangelists; "They [the televangelists] were repulsive, strangely horrifying, and yet I became absolutely fascinated," he recalled.[19] Shatner was intrigued that not only did these personalities convince others God was speaking directly to them, but they became wealthy by what Shatner considered false messages. The televangelists formed the basis for the character Zar, later Sybok. Shatner's first outline[20] was titled An Act of Love,[21] and many of its elements—the Yosemite vacation, the abduction of Klingon, human and Romulan hostages on the failed paradise planet—survived to the final film.[20] In Shatner's early draft, Kirk is overwhelmed by Zar's superior numbers of followers and Spock, McCoy and the rest of the Enterprise crew come to believe in Zar's divinity. Kirk feigns acceptance of Zar's beliefs to travel with him to the God planet, which to Shatner would be a desolate, fiery waste. When Kirk confronts "God", the image of the being transforms into that of Satan, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy split up in their escape. Kirk eludes capture but goes back to save his friends from being carried away to Hell.[22]

Shatner had presented his idea to studio head Frank Mancuso while filming The Voyage Home.[23] Mancuso liked Shatner's idea and agreed to hire a writer to draft a film treatment. Shatner wanted novelist Eric Van Lustbader, but negotiations between Lustbader and Paramount failed over the author's requested $1 million salary.[21][24] Shatner dictated the story himself and gave it to Paramount's production president Ned Tanen for input.[24]

Producer Harve Bennett was exhausted by his work on the previous three Star Trek films and wanted to move on, feeling that he was not part of the Star Trek "family" and that he had been mistreated by Nimoy.[25][26] When Shatner tried to convince Bennett to reconsider, the producer insisted on a meeting at his home. After several hours of discussion Bennett agreed to return.[4][25] Bennett disagreed with several elements of Shatner's story, feeling that because no one could assuredly answer the question of God's existence, the ending of the film would never be satisfying. Bennett also told Shatner that the film had the feeling of a tone poem rather than an adventure story.[27] The studio agreed with Bennett, reasoning that the subject matter could be too weighty or offensive to theatergoers.[28][29]

Shatner and Bennett began reworking the story. Concerned that knowing the renegade Sybok's motivation from the beginning of the story was anticlimactic, the team moved the revelation to later in the story. Shatner said that Bennett also suggested turning the God entity into an "evil alien pretending to be God for his own gain". Having satisfied themselves and Paramount with the adjustments, Shatner and Bennett approached Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan writer and director Nicholas Meyer to pen the script, but he was unavailable.[4][30] Bennett found a script by David Loughery and showed his work to Shatner, who agreed that he would be a good fit for the task of scripting Star Trek.[30]

Not everyone was happy with the story. Star Trek creator Roddenberry objected to the characters' search for God in general, and more particularly, the idea of a God as portrayed by Western religion. One of Roddenberry's employees suggested some of his employer's animosity towards the story stemmed back to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Roddenberry had wanted to approach that film with similar ideas that investigated the nature of God but was rejected by Paramount.[31] Roddenberry, Nimoy and Kelley all disagreed that Spock and McCoy would betray Kirk, which Loughery explained was done to give a conflict in which "one man stands alone" from the rest.[21][31]

Loughery stopped work on the script when the Writers Guild of America went on strike, and the production was further delayed when Nimoy began working on another project.[32] During this time, Shatner reconsidered elements of the Star Trek V story; he made Sybok's character softer and more sympathetic. When the writers' strike ended Loughery returned to work on the script while Shatner flew to the Himalayas for a job. When he returned, he felt betrayed by Loughery's revisions, which he felt transformed the search for God into the search for the mythical paradise Sha Ka Ree—a word play on "Sean Connery", whom they wanted for Sybok's role. Though Shatner convinced Bennett and Loughery to revise much of the script, Sha Ka Ree remained; it was changed to a place of ultimate knowledge of which Sybok had received visions.[33] The script was also rewritten to address Nimoy and Kelley's concerns.[21]

While Roddenberry, Kelley and Nimoy gave their approval to the revised script, Paramount was concerned that the film would go over-budget as written and ordered cuts. Shatner's envisioned angels and demons at the film's climax were converted to rock monsters that the false god would animate from the earth. Shatner wanted six of the creatures, but was forced to accept just one.[34][35] Concerned that the franchise's momentum following The Voyage Home had disappeared,[21] Paramount rushed the film into production in late 1988 despite the writers' strike cutting into pre-production.[36]

Nilo Rodis, who had worked on two previous Star Trek features, was appointed the role of art director, and worked with Shatner to establish the film's visual design. Shatner sought a grittier and more realistic feel to the Star Trek universe, and so the two worked together to visualize the film from start to finish.[37] After Shatner explained the entire story in a day-long session, Rodis went home and sketched out each scene from the script. Shatner was pleased with the results, especially with Rodis' designs for Shatner's most expansive or dramatic shots.[38]

Rodis' input in developing the early character and costume designs was significant. Shatner praised his costume designs as being futuristic but plausible and in keeping with the continuity established in previous Star Trek films.[39] After being disappointed by the costume designers approached to realize Rodis' ideas, Shatner suggested that Rodis become the costume designer as well. Bennett hired Dodie Shepard as the costume supervisor; Shepard's role was to oversee the costume fabrication and keep track of the clothes during filming.[40] To save on costs, Shepard clothed extras with existing items from Western Costume's warehouses.[41] The constrained budget meant Shatner could not completely redesign the Starfleet uniforms, but Rodis created new brown field uniforms for the film's location scenes as well as the leisure clothes the crew wears during shore leave.[42]

Rodis and Shatner also drew up sketches of what the various aliens seen in the film would look like. Shatner picked Kenny Myers as the special-effects makeup artist. Myers discussed the sketches with Shatner and made casts of actors' faces using dental alginate.[43] These casts were used for close-up, high-quality "A" makeups, as well as less complicated masks for far-away and background characters.[44] Shatner hired Richard Snell as makeup supervisor, advising him to make each Klingon forehead distinct.[45]

Shatner hired Herman Zimmerman as production designer.[36] His decision was based on Zimmerman's work on the sets for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he felt that the designer could convey Shatner's futuristic yet grounded aesthetic.[46] Zimmerman was immediately put in charge of designing all-new sets for the bridges of Enterprise and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, elevator and access shafts, and Nimbus III interiors. At one point, he was building five sets at once.[47] Art department head Michael Okuda created LCARS backlit controls on the Klingon ship and Enterprise.[48] The corridors for the Enterprise were the same as those used in the Next Generation television series.[49] The bridge set alone cost $250,000.[50] The Nimbus III city of Paradise was one of the last locations to be designed and created, because its design relied on what exterior location and terrain was used. Zimmerman created a sketch of the town's layout over three days, drawing inspiration from a circular Moroccan fortress. Creation of the city cost $500,000 and took five weeks of construction in 100 °F (38 °C) heat.[51]

Tim Downs scouted possible areas for location filming. He looked for a location that could stand in for three different venues without the production having to move or change hotels: the film's opening scene; the God planet's establishing shots; and the Nimbus III Paradise City. Downs was familiar with the Mojave desert and thought that locations near Ridgecrest, California, would serve the production's needs, so he took photos based on sketches Rodis had provided of what the locations might look like. Downs also shot photos with filters and tried to accomplish dust effects with his car to replicate ideas for how some sequences would be shot.[52] When Downs returned with the photos, Shatner felt that the locations the scout found would be perfect for the film.[53]

A fiberglass model on location at Yosemite stood in for the real El Capitan, pictured here

Principal photography began in October 1988, in and around Los Angeles, California.[54][55] Shortly before the beginning of location shooting, Hollywood union truck drivers or teamsters went on strike[56] to protest pay cuts and overtime changes.[57] With deadlines looming, the production searched for non-union drivers, aware that the Teamsters might retaliate by sabotaging equipment or flying airplanes above the filming to ruin audio recordings. After one of the production's camera trucks exploded in the studio parking lot, the non-union drivers headed to Yosemite National Park under cover of darkness with a police escort.[56]

The film's Yosemite scenes were all shot on location.[4] Long shots of Kirk scaling the mountain were filmed with stunt doubles, while Shatner's closer shots had him on a fiberglass set positioned in front of the camera, with the real mountains visible in the background.[58] Aided by two trainers, Shatner had spent weeks at the Paramount lot, learning to climb a wooden replica.[59] Laszlo scouted out a tall peak on which the production created a rock face with safety net. The overhead shot gave the impression Kirk was climbing at a great height, while unnatural background features such as swimming pools were camouflaged. In the scene, Spock watches Kirk's ascent, levitates up behind him as a pest giving suggestions with the outcome that Kirk slips and Spock has to saves him using levitating boots.[58] Most of the shots framed Nimoy from the waist up; in these scenes the actor was supported by a crane that gave the appropriate "float" to achieve the effect. Bluescreen footage of Shatner falling was shot later at Paramount and composited, while stuntman Ken Bates set a record for the highest American descender fall by plummeting off El Capitan—with a wire support rig—for long shots.[60] In reviewing the dailies of the first two days of shooting, the production realized that a pine tree in the frame during Kirk and Spock's mountain dialogue ruined the illusion of height, while a shot of Shatner clinging to the face of El Capitan appeared muddy due to clouds obscuring the sun and ruining the depth of field. The scenes had to be reshot later.[61]

After the Yosemite shots, location shooting moved to desert locales. Nimbus III and its town, Paradise City, were recreated in the Mojave. The town was created as a haphazard collection of spaceship parts and futuristic scrap.[62] Shatner "cracked" during the filming in 110 °F (43 °C) heat, insulting the head electrician and ignoring Laszlo's request for additional setup time.[61] When a driver failed to appear and stranded Shatner and a skeleton crew, a park ranger came to the rescue and the production managed to film scenes of Sybok's followers before they lost daylight. Shatner called the resulting half-jogging pace of the dehydrated extras "the Sybok shuffle". The production spent three more weeks filming the rest of the desert scenes, finishing the last night scene shortly before sunrise and the trip back to Los Angeles.[63][64]

At Paramount, the crew filmed all the scenes that would take place on soundstages, including the Enterprise and Bird-of-Prey sets, the Paradise City interiors, and the campfire location. Production was smoother on set, and the crew shot scenes ahead of schedule. The crew fabricated a stand-in set for the God planet location, where additional scenes were filmed to combine with the location footage.[65] Spock's catching of Kirk as the captain falls off El Capitan was filmed against a set that replicated the forest floor and was rotated ninety degrees.[66]

Shatner scheduled the campfire scenes to be the last ones shot, after which the cast and crew had a small celebration before a traditional wrap party later.[67] The cast celebrated the end of filming in the last week of December 1988,[68] and gave a press conference on the set of the Enterprise bridge on December 28. Shatner returned to Paramount Studios a few days after principal photography had wrapped to organize the film's post-production schedule.[69] This included showing a rough cut of the film—minus the special effects—to studio personnel. Shatner recalled that the film received praise and left the screening "reveling" in its reception; it turned out to be a "momentary victory" once he saw the special effects.[67]

During the writers' strike, producer Ralph Winter confronted what writer Paul Mandell termed an "unenviable" effects situation. Industrial Light & Magic had provided the effects for the three previous Star Trek films, and Winter wanted them to work on The Final Frontier. However, all of the effects house's best technicians were busy working on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II. With a stretched budget and short timeframe, Winter had to look elsewhere.[58][70] To save time and money, he planned to create as many effects as he could either on stage, or through camera trickery. The producers solicited test footage from various effects houses to judge which was best able to create the film's main effects, including the planet Sha Ka Ree and the godlike being which resided there. Bran Ferren's effects company, Associates and Ferren, was chosen. Ferren had worked on films such as Altered States and Little Shop of Horrors.[58]

Bran Ferren was chosen to develop the film's optical effects after Industrial Light & Magic's best teams proved too expensive

Associates and Ferren had three months to complete the effects work—around half the usual industry timeframe. Shatner insisted on viewing much test footage before he proceeded with each shot, requesting time-consuming changes if he did not like an effect.[58] Ferren promoted a "low-tech" approach to realizing complicated effects, but his cost estimates were too expensive and interfered with the scope of other live-action sequences.[8] Winter recalled that the production had budgeted $4 million for the film's effects, slightly more than The Voyage Home. "The first pass", he said, "with all the things [Shatner] wanted, was [$5 or $6] million". Combined with Ferren's figures, the film's budget climbed to $33 million. The studio called a meeting with executives and began cutting out effects shots.[71]

To reduce the optical effects workload, Ferren rejected bluescreen compositing, opting instead for rear projection. This cheaper process, he reasoned, would save time, and would make sense for elements such as the Enterprise's bridge viewer, where compositing would lack the softness of a real transmitted image.[72] Designer Lynda Weinman used a Mac II to create the animatics cut into the film during production, which were eventually replaced by the film's finished effects.[73]

The rock monster climax of the film was ultimately dropped due to difficulties during filming.[21][74] The monster, dubbed the Rockman, was a large latex rubber suit that breathed fire on command. Effects personnel smoked cigarettes and blew smoke into the suit's tubing,[75] loading it with smoke that it would slowly emit, obscuring some obvious rubber parts. On the last day of location shooting, the Rockman began suffering mechanical problems; the suit stopped breathing fire, and the desert wind dissipated the smoke. The result, Shatner wrote, was that "our guy in the silly rubber suit ultimately just looked like ... well, a guy in a silly rubber suit." With no time to return to the location, Shatner was forced to get wide shots and hope that the setting could be reproduced in the studio, but admitted that it was likely not going to work for the film.[76]

Once back at the studio for non-location filming, Shatner and Ferren met to discuss how to replace the Rockman. The agreed-upon idea was an "amorphous blob of light and energy" that would rise up and chase after Kirk, shape-shifting while in pursuit.[66] The visuals took weeks before they were ready to be shown after the completion of principal photography. When Shatner saw the effects, however, he was extremely disappointed with the low quality. Bennett and Shatner attempted to get money to reshoot the final scenes of the film, but Paramount turned them down.[67]

ILM delivered the main Enterprise model, which was built by Magicam in 1978 for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, to Associates and Ferren.[36] However, scenes which included the Enterprise in the Earth-orbiting Spacedock platform, as well as the Spacedock itself, were taken directly from ILM's previous work in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.[21][74] The Enterprise model had been damaged when it was loaned out for touring purposes, meaning the 30,000 panels on the model had to be repainted by hand. While production wrapped, Ferren continued work on the miniatures and other optical effects at his New Jersey studio. The opticals were completed in Manhattan before being sent west;[77] for example, bluescreen footage of the motion controlled miniatures was filmed in Hoboken, New Jersey. In New York, the blue screen was replaced by a moving starfield—a single finished shot of a ship moving through space required as many as fifty pieces of film. The Great Barrier effects were created using chemicals, which were dropped into a large water tank to create swirls and other reactions. The "God column", in which the false god appeared, was created by a rapidly rotating cylinder through which light was shone; the result appeared on film as a column of light. Ferren used a beam splitter to project actor George Murdock's head into the cylinder, giving the appearance that the false god resided within the column.[78]

Days after filming was completed, Shatner returned to Paramount to supervise the film's edit, soundscape creation and score, and integration of optical effects. Editor Peter E. Berger had already assembled rough cuts of various sequences,[79] and with only weeks before the film's scheduled completion, the production team set about the task of salvaging the film's ending through editing. The false god's screen time was reduced, and Ferren's "god blob" effect was replaced with a closeup of the actor's face, along with shots of lightning and smoke. At the time, Shatner felt that the edits "pulled a rabbit out of a hat", solving many of the film's problems.[80]

Shatner's cut ran slightly over two hours (not including end credits or the opticals),[81] which Paramount thought was too long. Their target runtime was one hour forty-five minutes, which would guarantee twice-nightly theatrical screenings. Bennett was handed the task of shortening the film's running time, despite Shatner's view that nothing could possibly be removed. Shatner was horrified by Bennett's edit, and the two haggled over what parts to restore or cut.[82]

In early test screenings, the film received negative reviews. Of the first test audience, only a small portion considered the film "excellent", a rating that most other Star Trek films had enjoyed.[83] Segments of the film were re-edited for the theatrical release.[84] Five minutes of footage was excised to improve the film's pacing, and an additional scene was included on the Bird-of-Prey to make the circumstances of Kirk's rescue clearer.[83] The second screening, with the final effects and sound in place, received much better reviews.[85]

Music critic Jeff Bond wrote that Shatner made "at least two wise decisions" in making The Final Frontier; beyond choosing Luckinbill as Sybok, he hired Jerry Goldsmith to compose the film's score. Goldsmith had written the Academy Award-nominated score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the new Trek film was an opportunity to craft music with a similar level of ambition while adding action and character—two elements largely missing from The Motion Picture.[86] Goldsmith did not want to accentuate the film's comedy with music, feeling it would "[take] drama to the point of silliness". He focused on the God planet as his most difficult task.[87]

Goldsmith's main theme begins with the traditional opening notes from Alexander Courage's original television series theme; an ascending string and electronic bridge leads to a rendition of the march from The Motion Picture. According to Jeff Bond, Goldsmith's use of The Motion Picture's march led to some confusion among Star Trek: The Next Generation fans, as they were unfamiliar with the music's origins.[86] Another theme from The Motion Picture to make a return appearance is the Klingon theme from the 1979 film's opening scene. Here, the theme is treated in what Bond termed a "Prokofiev-like style as opposed to the avant-garde counterpoint" as seen in The Motion Picture. Goldsmith also added a crying ram's horn.[88]

The breadth of The Final Frontier's locations led Goldsmith to eschew the two-themed approach of The Motion Picture in favor of leitmotifs, recurring music used for locations and characters. Sybok is introduced with a synthesized motif in the opening scene of the film, while when Kirk and Spock discuss him en route to Nimbus III it is rendered in a more mysterious fashion. The motif also appears in the action cue as Kirk and company land on Nimbus III and try to free the hostages.[86] When Sybok boards the Enterprise, a new four-note motif played by low brass highlights the character's obsession. The Sybok theme from then on is used in either a benevolent sense or a more percussive, dark rendition. Arriving at Sha Ka Ree, the planet's five-note theme bears resemblance to Goldsmith's unicorn theme from Legend; "the two melodies represent very similar ideas: lost innocence and the tragic impossibility of recapturing paradise," writes Bond. The music features cellos conveying a pious quality, while the appearance of "God" begins with string glissandos but turns to a dark rendition of Sybok's theme as its true nature is exposed.[88] As the creature attacks Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the more aggressive Sybok theme takes on an attacking rhythm. When Spock appeals to the Klingons for help, the theme takes on a sensitive character before returning to a powerful sequence as the ship destroys the god-creature.[89]

The original soundtrack for the film was originally released by Epic Records, and included nine score tracks (mostly out of film order) and the song "The Moon Is a Window to Heaven" by Hiroshima. On Tuesday November 30, 2010, La-La Land Records reissued the soundtrack in a two-CD edition featuring the film's complete score on the first disc and the original soundtrack album and some alternate cues on the second disc.[90]

Mark Mangini served as The Final Frontier's sound designer; he had previously worked on The Voyage Home. Because Mangini was concerned about creating continuity within Star Trek's sounds, he decided to reuse some effects rather than create new and different-sounding ones—as such, the Bird-of-Prey's cloak effect, beaming sounds, and the Enterprise engines sound similar to that of past movies. Mangini collaborated with Shatner to work out how the completely new effects would sound. For Sybok's mind melds, Shatner wanted the sounds of beating hearts and breathing.[91]

Mangini was also responsible for the film's foley and dialogue replacement; foley editors created background audio in sync with actions on screen to enrich the soundscape. The sound of Klingons walking, for example, was conveyed with chains and leather for a "rough" sound.[92]