With the arrival of the newest Star Trek film, I thought it was a good time for me to write an article with a Star Trek theme. Of all of the Trek films to date, the one that stands out in my mind as my favorite is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Of course, an article on my love of STII might be lots of fun to write, but it isn’t exactly in keeping with the motto of this site, imagined by our editor and creator The Matt Gamble: “Watching what nobody else does…” or something.

No. For my Star Trek article, I thought I’d spend a bit of my time reflecting on what I feel is the most under-appreciated of all of the Star Trek films — Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

ST5 was much ballyhooed upon its release. The first ST feature to be directed by William Shatner, it was to be a departure from the excesses of the fourth film and a return to Star Trek‘s roots. Aware of its pedigree, ST5 has lots of fun poking fun at the characters and situations so familiar to fans of the original series. However, along with much self-referential humor, ST5 relishes Star Trek‘s status as a 60′s-era Wagon Train in outer space and employs themes of the western genre like brotherhood, bravery, and loyalty in order to tell a poignant and thought-provoking story with familiar Trek characters and situations.

ST5‘s premise is a simple one: a charismatic loner with prophet-like intentions has kidnapped three galactic diplomats and is holding them hostage on a failed, run-down contrivance of a planet within the Neutral Zone. Enter Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest on board the freshly minted U.S.S. Enterprise mark 3. Yanked on board during shore leave, and with a skeleton crew, Kirk must guide his ship into Neutral Zone territory to rescue the captured diplomats. However, where this premise leads us is anywhere but simple when Kirk and company discover that the three kidnapped diplomats are no longer being held against their will, but are willing participants in a plan hatched by none other than Sybok (brilliantly played by Lawrence Luckinbill), Spock’s long lost half brother and Vulcan philosopher who has abandoned his race’s strict adherence to logic in exchange for emotion. The crew are taken hostage themselves and are forced to join Sybok on his quest for the mythical Sha-ka-ri — a godly planet residing within the galactic core.

A key to what makes ST5 so interesting and likable is Sybok. He is by far the most interesting Vulcan character in the ST universe outside of Spock himself. Sybok, having come to emotion in a way similar to the way a person acquires a second language, is a ware of the abstract constructs that emotional language is made of. He is able to twist them to his own purposes and manipulate those whose lives depend on them, like the crew of the Enterprise and the motley band of subprime mortals that accompanies him on his quest for Sha-Ka-Ri. Sybok, while twisting the internal emotional landscapes of his captives, hopes that his trickery will benefit them in the long run — he truly believes that he is destined to unite mankind with God, who, in a SF spin on the evil trickster of Descarte’s Meditations on First Philosophy, is actually an evil force eternally marooned on a planet at the remote center of the galaxy.

Sure, ST5 didn’t have Christopher Lloyd playing the coolest Klingon in the history of Star Trek like ST3 did. Sure, it didn’t have all of the daring, drama, and excitement of ST2. Likewise, ST5 is not without its faults. At times the film-makers struggle with bridging the gap between the film’s comedic elements and the more dramatic moments of the film; the Abbott and Costello antics of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are badly contrasted with moments where real drama is attempted. The film gives Sulu and Chekhov short shrift, as the moments of their conversion to Sybok’s cult are not featured on screen as those of Spock and McCoy. At times the film’s irreverence borders on absurdity, particularly when Spock attempts the Vulcan nerve pinch on the nape of a stallion. And lastly, the idea that a malignant intelligence living on a translucent blue planet at the center of the galaxy in need of a starship is, admittedly, preposterous, even if it is put to good use by the writers.

But what ST5 did have was a return to Star Trek‘s roots as a work of speculative fiction; with its (God in Outer Space!) premise, its dissection of the minds of the central and most beloved characters of the ST universe, and its reflections on the human (and Vulcan, for that matter…) condition, ST5 is a solid SF film that ought to be remembered as a film as worthy of entry into the Star Trek feature canon as any of the preceding or subsequent ST films.