@Social Justice Sally said:

Why did they portray the 'God' as a male?

A female God would have NEVER survived The Shat's charms.

I'm sure he just wanted to run out for some marshmelons

And sing Row ,row,row your boat.

@Nexus71 said:

And sing Row ,row,row your boat.

You know, the campfire scenes and Bones' scene with his dying father were really great parts of the movie. Shatner did an okay job with framing, but he was saddled with an overall terrible screenplay and a criminal budget for the special effects. But when you put those three actors together and focus on just their relationships, those scenes work. They can draw on a long history of great character interactions. This is what I miss so much about the original TOS cast: they had charisma in spades and actors that knew their roles inside and out. It's too bad that the very best of them (Kelley, Nimoy, and Doohan) have passed.

Gets a lot of hate this film but for some reason (probably those outlined by @AlienFanatic above) I prefer it to VI which seems to get hailed as one of the best by a lot of fans. Not that VI is terrible, it's just that this film had more soul, which was increasingly what the TOS films seemed to be defined by.

Well in honesty I am actually not that dismissive of ST V and think it's rather ahead of it's time dealing with religious extremist/terrorists ,dangerous cults and phony idols.also think ST V apart from the budget manages to get some of the best acting in the entire franchise out of the cast .In particular McCoy and the treatment of his father's death was a risque subject ( assisted suicide),Kirk(his speech about needing his pain and Spock's reaction to his own birth.And despite other cast members hating Shatner he actually gives them more screen time than in any of the other Trek movies .Also I think in many ways ST V is the closest thing to a TOS episode we ever got (you could say TMP but apart from it's main subject a lot of changes to the original set up and ideas to me always felt a little bloated),Plus it is one of the very few times that we the viewer get to see the crew of Enterprise on their time off and to me the whole campfire set up was just the set up what to me feels like a family holiday homemovie and still manages to ask profound and sometimes controversial questions.I sure love this movie a whole lot better than 3 of the 4 Next Gen movies.

@Nexus71 said:

Also I think in many ways ST V is the closest thing to a TOS episode we ever got (you could say TMP but apart from it's main subject a lot of changes to the original set up and ideas to me always felt a little bloated)

I have to agree with you on this. TMP was an interesting film and most fans were just glad that Star Trek had come back after so many years in limbo (animated series notwithstanding). But while Robert Wise is an amazing director, he didn't really KNOW Trek and all of the characters felt stiff and wooden. There was little of the warmth that finally blossomed after Trek II and especially IV. I think that the success of IV, notably that it gave every member of the bridge crew an important role to play and gave each actor time to shine, heavily influenced their continued importance in V. That's why I think that IV, V, and VI have the best character moments in all of the Trek movies (including the TNG movies, aside from some brilliant work by Stewart); they really let the actors act.

Well a large part of the issues I have with 3 out of the 4 TNG movies (or at least two of them ) is that the cast of TNG and Picard in particular act very differently in the movies compared to their series counterparts.And that problem stems largely from the fact that the producers of the movies made the TNG movies into action movies and these actors were not in any way suited to play action heroes (and Picard in particular who in the series is this wise,cultured,thoughtful and experienced captain who would rather make use of all the opportunities to resolve a crisis through negotiations while his movie counterpart is acting like Han Solo or Indiana Jones).And that wouldn't be so bad if he didn't start to do things for which he had previously lectured others on the series.This becomes painfully obvious in ST IX Insurrection at which point Picard basically becomes a racist hypocrite.

@AlienFanatic said:

You know, the campfire scenes and Bones' scene with his dying father were really great parts of the movie. Shatner did an okay job with framing, but he was saddled with an overall terrible screenplay and a criminal budget for the special effects. But when you put those three actors together and focus on just their relationships, those scenes work. They can draw on a long history of great character interactions. This is what I miss so much about the original TOS cast: they had charisma in spades and actors that knew their roles inside and out. It's too bad that the very best of them (Kelley, Nimoy, and Doohan) have passed.

100% agree with that.

@Nexus71 said:

And despite other cast members hating Shatner he actually gives them more screen time than in any of the other Trek movies .

After all the years of them moaning about Shatner's ego I hope their own egos didn't stop them from thanking the director.

@GusGorman said:

@Nexus71 said:

And despite other cast members hating Shatner he actually gives them more screen time than in any of the other Trek movies .

After all the years of them moaning about Shatner's ego I hope their own egos didn't stop them from thanking the director.

While the characters did have a lot of screen time, it wasn't exactly quality screen time.

Sulu and Chekhov were idiots. Their efforts at trying to convince Uhura they were in a windstorm was cringe inducingly bad. Scotty had to endure Three Stooges level slapstick.

On the plus side, Uhura, did get to have some warm moments with the other minor characters. I wasn't sure what to think of her strip tease, though. She's very beautiful, but I felt that scene cheapened her charcter.

Gearing myself up for a rewatch of this classic. I agree that this is the one that feels most like a TOS episode. It's not driven by special effects or action, but rather it's the story of a challenging situation that Kirk & crew must solve with intelligence, humanity and even humor.

I also think Shatner as director worked the small budget to the film's advantage. This is the Trek movie that has the most interesting directing style. Shat seemed to borrow a lot of ideas from the early film noir directors (film noir itself being a result of low budget constraints forcing innovation). If you notice, there are lots of surreal shadows that fill the screen in tense moments like the birth of Spock and the pivotal scene where the 3 main characters explore their pain. There are also some very prominent visual symbols that keep reappearing: a lantern, a propeller, and other old maritime objects. Shatner put a ton of thought into the scene compositions to invoke a sort of surreal poetry that takes us beyond the story.

I also think this was well written with some great dialogue. The existential theme is evident in the story, as with the powerful symbolism of man "killing" god. And what about the great opening line that could've been written by Camus himself:

"I can't believe you'd kill me for a field of empty holes." "It's all I have."

This film is truly firing on all thrusters.