Star Trek V: The Final Frontier has been hailed by fans and critics alike as the worst film in the franchise, and seems to have been doomed to fail from the start for several key reasons. The Final Frontier was the fifth film in the Star Trek franchise overall and also the penultimate film starring the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series. Captain Kirk actor William Shatner directed the film, making his directorial debut for Star Trek after Spock actor Leonard Nimoy's success in directing the previous two films.
The plot of The Final Frontier revolved around the film's main antagonist, Sybok, a rogue Vulcan who was also revealed to be Spock's half-brother. After staging a coup on Nimbus III and capturing three Federation diplomats, Sybok commandeered the Enterprise when the ship was sent to stop him and used it to reach Sha Ka Ree, a planet at the center of the galaxy that he believed was the place where "God" resided. Sybok manipulated the Enterprise crew into helping him get to Sha Ka Ree by compelling them to share their deepest pain and subsequently healing it through a mind-meld. However, when the ship arrived at Sha Ka Ree, "God" was revealed to actually be a very powerful and dangerous alien entity who attempted to steal the Enterprise to escape its captivity on the planet. Horrified by his mistake, Sybok helped the Enterprise crew defeat the entity by sacrificing himself to prevent its escape.
Although The Final Frontier established some interesting additions to the Star Trek canon, it was heavily disliked by fans and critics, and it bombed at the box office. To this day, The Final Frontier is generally the most disliked film in the Star Trek franchise. Numerous script and production issues, coupled with an already unhappy fanbase and behind-the-scenes conflicts with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry all contributed to The Final Frontier going down in history as the worst Star Trek film.
Conflicts With Gene Roddenberry
Despite being Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry lost creative control over the Star Trek movies that came after Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Roddenberry was given the title of Executive Consultant on all subsequent Star Trek films until his death in 1991, but this was only as a courtesy since the scriptwriting and creative decision were being handled by other people. Unhappy about being ousted from power, Roddenberry condemned all the subsequent movies in the franchise, but The Final Frontier was the film that he hated the most. Roddenberry even went so far as to attempt to bring legal proceedings against William Shatner, although none of it was ever taken to court.
Roddenberry's biggest problem with The Final Frontier was the story, which he perceived as having been stolen from him by Shatner. Roddenberry's original idea for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a script called The God Thing, which was ultimately rejected by Paramount. The Final Frontier's storyline bears a number of similarities to Roddenberry's original script for The God Thing, and Roddenberry was under the impression that Shatner had taken his idea without permission and managed to repackage it so that it would be more interesting to Paramount. Shatner admitted later that he might have taken accidental inspiration from The God Thing, as he'd heard about the script when Roddenberry was originally working on it. Accidental or not, Roddenberry was arguably justified in his anger about having his ideas seemingly stolen and derided The Final Frontier as "apocryphal" when it was released.
Script Issues
When it came to scripting The Final Frontier, William Shatner had planned to hire thriller and fantasy writer Eric Van Lustbader to write the screenplay. Shatner even met with Lustbader and talked over ideas, and the author apparently seemed interested, but things fell apart with contract negotiations and novel rights. In the end, Lustbader wasn't included in the project, which Shatner has said made him feel like The Final Frontier was "going downhill" before it even got off the ground.
The script was eventually co-written by Shatner, producer Harve Bennet, and writer David Loughery. However, issues arose when Paramount told the writing team that they wanted The Final Frontier to have the same level of humor as its predecessor, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The Voyage Home is considered one of the more successful Star Trek films, partially because of its comedic elements. Of course, a directive to be funny almost always means that whatever humor is included is going to feel forced, which is exactly what ended up happening with The Final Frontier. When watching the film, much of the dialogue feels forced and awkward, and the comedic elements verge on corny and ridiculous rather than funny, especially in the opening scenes depicting the crew on shore leave in Yosemite National Park.
Production Issues
Several production issues contributed to The Final Frontier being especially poorly received at the box office. The Writer's Guild Strike of 1988 caused the film's pre-production and shooting schedule to be severely curtailed, which resulted in a rushed and stressful shoot. Additionally, Industrial Light and Magic, the company that had historically done the special effects for the Star Trek movies, was unavailable to work on The Final Frontier due to being busy with other projects. The producers hired a lesser-known special effects company, Associates and Ferren, but the company's work ended up creating effects that were shoddy and in some cases entirely unfinished. The result was a noticeably less polished look to the movie.
Additionally, some involved with The Final Frontier have blamed the film's poor performance on the intense box office competition it faced with other movies releasing around the same time. The summer of 1989 was a big one for blockbuster movies, with the release of films including Tim Burton's Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Compared to those classics, a film like The Final Frontier that had already faced numerous problems didn't stand a chance of making as much of a splash at the box office. In the end, The Final Frontier only garnered $63 million worldwide, a significantly smaller number than its two predecessors The Voyage Home and The Wrath of Khan, which grossed $133 million and $97 million respectively.
Fan Reaction
The Final Frontier was not only a commercial failure but also heavily criticized among fans. The film's ratings remain low even to this day, and many fans have derided the humor and other strange elements of the film. Some of the fans' criticism at the time of the film's release however has been attributed to dissatisfaction with another piece of the Star Trek franchise. The second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was airing at the same time The Final Frontier premiered, and the early seasons of TNG were famously unpopular among fans. It is very possible that this general disappointment with the franchise contributed to the overwhelmingly negative reaction to The Final Frontier, although it is also true that what with the script and production issues, many of the criticisms leveled at the film were arguably warranted.
Ultimately, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier did not end up being the most commercially unsuccessful Star Trek film. That distinction went to Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002, a movie that did so poorly at the box office that it effectively put the franchise on hold for 7 years until J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot film in 2009. However, The Final Frontier's ratings from critics and fans continue to be worse than Nemesis's, which is arguably a better metric to measure a movie's success, especially one that has been out for decades. In the end, because of everything that went wrong with the film, it is likely that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier will always be considered the worst film in the franchise.