Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1989
Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure
Director:  William Shatner
Starring:  William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Laurence Luckinbill, David Warner
Rifftrax Year:  2006
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

The crew of the Enterprise are called back from shore leave to deal with a rogue Vulcan named Sybok, Spock's half brother, who has taken the human, Klingon, and Romulan ambassadors of Nimbus III hostage.  After a failed attempt to rescue the prisoners Kirk discovers that the ambassadors are working with Sybok and they seize control of the Enterprise.  Sybok intends to take the Enterprise to the mythological planet of Sha Ka Ree, which is where they will supposedly find God.

Star Trek V:  The Final Frontier is the long time whipping boy of the Star Trek film franchise, like Spock's Brain or just Wesley Crusher in general.  It's not a good movie by any means, but I find it a bit more frustrating than all-out bad.  There are certainly concepts here that would have made for a great Star Trek adventure, and there are scenes where you can see what star/director William Shatner was going for, but the execution just kills the entire thing.  If I were to compare it to episodes of the original series, I'd say it's more like the goofy, campy ones that are kinda fun to laugh at due to a silly execution to a potentially strong premise than the downright bad ones.  And hey, it has more going for it than your average episode of Star Trek:  Voyager.

It doesn't really excuse it from being a bad movie, though seasoned Star Trek fans might be more tolerant of it's crappyness than just a general moviegoer.  This movie has those characters they know and love, and while they're given some cringe-worthy scenes and dialogue (I refuse to believe that Spock doesn't know how to pronounce the word "marshmallow," marshmelon my ass), and they're still actors we like playing characters we love.  They're exaggerated for comic effect more often than normal here, what with Scotty ramming his head on a beam he supposedly was looking directly at and Sulu and Chekov getting lost and blaming a blizzard on a clear and sunny day, but I guess you can take what you can get?

But speaking of humor, is it just me or does it really overwhelm this entire production?  There's a running gag throughout the entire movie that the Enterprise is constantly malfunctioning but the Enterprise is brand new, christened in the previous movie.  Would Starfleet really put out a starship that is seemingly a deathtrap?  Or was it really cobbled together in a few days like it seemed in the last movie, all during that probe invasion by aliens that wanted to talk to whales?  No wonder the thing is falling apart.

But if I were to judge it based on the story, I kinda like it.  It's not well done and doesn't quite pay off, but it's an interesting idea at least.  Star Trek V demands to be a better movie, but it seems to have a hard time focusing itself.  Why does everything need to be funny?  Why does "God" need to be a villain without context?  Why does Shatner have to be the director?  What do the Klingons have to do with anything?  Why is there a cat-woman-stripper?  Why does Uhura strip naked at her comrades' insistence and wave feathers around?

There is no answer.  Or is it like the mountain that Kirk climbs at the beginning?  Are all of these things here "because they're there?"

The Trax

After his two successful solo debuts for Rifftrax, Mike now has the money to tap longtime Tom Servo operator Kevin Murphy to help him out with his third, which is the first multi-riffer Rifftrax.  Kevin would eventually become a Rifftrax mainstay, while our third regular riffer, Bill Corbett, wouldn't come riff with Mike until X-Men, while the three of them wouldn't unite as a trio until Independence Day.  But for now it's just good to hear Mike have someone to bounce off of.

This is also the first time they riffed a Razzie award winner for Worst Picture, something MST never got around to doing.  Further Worst Picture winners Rifftrax has tackled include Cocktail, Battlefield Earth, Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen, The Last Airbender, and The Twilight Saga:  Breaking Dawn Part 2.  There are a whole lot more in nominees though.

Star Trek V:  The Final Frontier seems to be something of a movie that fans of MST have wanted to see mocked for many years.  Way back when among the more well known fan MSTings were a pair of fan films that riffed on this movie and Highlander II:  The Quickening.  In these days post iRiffs and Incognito Cinema Warriors XP I'm not sure if these fan efforts are as well known or circulated anymore, but back then efforts like this were a rare thing.  But I suppose Rifftrax made that fan film obsolete very early on by unleashing MST alums Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy on this notoriously crappy Star Trek movie.  After all, it's hard to compete with the big dogs.

I am unsure if Mike and Kevin are Trek fans.  While they probably aren't they at the very least seem to have a passing knowledge of the more notorious details of it, like Spock's Brain.  While they seemingly don't hate it, they do have a bit of an interest in how clean cut it is and they desire to dirty it up.  The combination is a fairly brilliant one, because the movie is playing the straight man to their routine, and if any franchise can be a straight man it's Star Trek.  It's also of note that there are an awful lot of fart jokes in this riff, but the movie pretty much invited them to by making an uncharacteristic verbal fart joke of its own by pointing out that "bourbon and beans are an explosive combination."  Once the movie opens that can of worms, then all bets are off.

"Ugh!  Captain, we're approaching the plausibility barrier!  I cannot suspend disbelief for much longer!"

They have a lot of fun with these iconic characters that should be familiar to just about anyone, even those who dislike Star Trek.  Everyone knows Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Sulu, and most might also be familiar with McCoy, Uhura, and Chekov.  This group needs no introduction and Mike and Kevin just jump right in with their character traits, such as George Takei impressions, picking apart Chekov's accent, noting Uhura's embarrassing fan dance sequence, Scotty's technical jargon and how much weight he has gained since the original series, and played up (sexual) tension between Spock and McCoy.  That just leaves William Shatner's Captain Kirk, who is of course the biggest target of them all.  Shatner not only stars in this thing, but co-wrote and directed it, which of course leaves him wide open to ego riffs and imitations of his "acting style," so to speak (with a lot of whispers of "Spoooooock..." along the way).  And there are a lot of Priceline.com riffs, since he was their spokesperson at the time.  But that seems somewhat irrelevant now.

It has been a while since I've listened to this Rifftrax, but I think it has aged well over the years.  Those who have wanted to see this long since accused "worst" Star Trek movie (at least until Nemesis and Into Darkness happened) will get a kick out of this riff.  Those who don't like Star Trek will probably be amused at how it's lampooned.  The only real downside is that I think it slides a little bit in laughs about halfway through, but this is a pretty good one and a great introduction to Kevin on Rifftrax.

Good