By Guest Sci-Fi Loser Alan Trehern

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
I love the feeling you get when jumping off a really awesome trilogy and just hoping right back into the action. Thankfully, we watched all of these movies consecutively, not having to wait 2 years for the next one to premiere (suck it late 80s!). In any case, STV picks up months after the events of STIV. The U.S.S. Enterprise-A is still in the beta stages, and the crew is on shore leave on Earth. Meanwhile, however, on a planet called Nimbus III, a renegade Vulcan named Sybok (half-brother of Spock) has planned to steal a Federation cruiser to cross the Great Barrier (my idea!) to a place where creation began: Sha Ka Ree. The overall movie is really good (if your disc isn’t scratched to hell) because the storyline and direction came straight from Kirk (i.e. it was directed by William Shatner). He attempts to revolve the story around seeking God and Eden, or the perfection and divine in all of us, while at the same time, giving us more laser-gun and riproaring (I think that’s one word) action than we’ve seen in this series.

Interestingly, we also see the inner workings of Dr. McCoy, who plays a fairly large role in this movie, hating Spock because of his lack of passion for humanity, and hating Jim Kirk because of his complete disregard for his own life. Probably being my favorite character of the Enterprise trifecta (Kirk, Spock, McCoy), McCoy comes from a troubled past, which is revealed to us in the form of a personal realization. He comes face to face with his greatest fear, which happened to be a moment in Time. His father, ill with an incurable disease, lays crying out for pain to a grieving McCoy. All the knowledge he has amassed as a doctor and he has nothing to alleviate his father’s agony, lest one thing. McCoy Sr. asks for his son to kill him, setting him free, and McCoy reluctantly obeys. Not a week later, a cure is found, and McCoy is haunted by his father’s ghost, which he carries willingly for the rest of his life. Intense.

I can’t say this is the best of the series, but you have to watch it if you’ve gotten this far. And just think: this storyline was given life by William Shatner, which mean it’s only a few more years until that mythical “Shatnerverse” experiences its Big Bang. More on that later…

For now, here are Ben’s Notes on the film:
Brilliant. I don’t know how this franchise could have produced a movie so bad (Star Trek IV) and then followed it up with something so awesome. I really liked this one a lot; so much so that it competes with ST2: The Wrath of Khan for my favorite in the series. The themes explored in this movie came across as particularly heartfelt and poignant to me, and the idea of searching for a higher meaning in life is something we can all relate to. Shatner was surprisingly as competent behind the camera as he is in front of it, and the cast turned in some solid performances. All this contributed to not making the movie TOO cheesy, instead giving it a personal, quiet humility that places it highly in my rankings of Star Trek lore.

Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country
What is “The Undiscovered Country”? This question crossed my mind as I slipped the last and final voyage of our heroes into our modern DVD player, not knowing how emotionally attached I would become to the adventures and evolution of these characters and their 23rd century world.

As we soon find out, the undiscovered country is the future…intergalactic peace seems almost within reach when a travesty occurs in the Klingon sector. Their empire stands on the verge of extinction, so they are forced to lower their defenses and allow help from outside nations (i.e. the United Federation of Planets). I didn’t realize this at the time, but after further research (e.g. the Disc 2 documentaries) this movie parallels our world and its strive to change. Star Trek was created in a cold war world, and Kirk and his crew had always considered the Klingons the enemies, just as the Soviets had been enemies of the U.S. for decades. The universe of our heroes was changing, just as ours was during the fall of the Berlin and the U.S.S.R., and many of Americans and crewmembers of the Enterprise feared what this future may hold.

I won’t go into details of the storyline, cause I think this is a movie you should see, especially after you experience the entire series in order. Captain Kirk, who breaks character in this film, has a perpetual hatred for the Klingons, blaming them for the death of his son (see Star Trek III). This racism, however wrong, can be seen in everyone present. People have trouble dealing with change; many respond with disgust, while only the strong can embrace it and learn to live with it. Kirk learns this through the movie.

Jim Kirk and his crew then open the doorway to the young generations to come; even though they are relics of a war soon to be over, they have set the groundwork for others to live peacefully and without fear in this…undiscovered country.

Ben’s Notes
I didn’t even see that connection with the Klingons and the Russians, but that makes perfect sense now. Director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II) returned for this film, tackling some heavier subject matter and doing it with style. Kirk and McCoy imprisoned in a working camp was a personal highlight for me, and this movie places pretty well with the others in this series, keeping a lighthearted tone when needed and trading back and forth with serious issues. A nice addition to the franchise, and a sad ending to the original crew of the most famous spaceship the Federation has ever known.