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Dom Robinson reviews
Paramount
- Cert:
- Cat.no: PHE 8024
- Running time: 102 minutes
- Year: 1989
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 15 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: English, German
- Subtitles: 15 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.20:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Theatrical Trailer, Teaser Trailer
Director:
- William Shatner
(Groom Lake, Star Trek 5: Final Frontier, TV: Tek War, TJ Hooker)
Producer:
- Harve Bennett
Screenplay:
- David Loughery
Music:
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
- Captain James T. Kirk: William Shatner
Spock: Leonard Nimoy
Bones: DeForest Kelley
Scotty: James Doohan
Chekov: Walter Koenig
Uhura: Nichelle Nichols
Sulu: George Takei
John Talbot: David Warner
Sybok: Laurence Luckinbill
Korrd: Charles Cooper
Caithlin Dar: Cynthia Gouw
The Final Frontier, was the subtitle of Star Trek 5,which insinuates it’ll be the last one in the series, but we know that therewill be at least ten by now once the sequel to Star Trek: Insurrectionis released, but why does this entry into the series get such a bum deal?
Probably because it has a dull storyline in which renegade Vulcan Sybok(Laurence Luckinbill) takes over Nimbus III, the Planet of GalacticPeace and taking hostages John Talbot (David Warner), Klingon counsilKorrd (Charles Cooper) and Caithlin Dar (Cynthia Gouw) andonce he gets his hands on the Starship Enterprise, he takes that over tooand pilots it towards the centre of the universe, heading towards the GreatBarrier, which will cause big trub if it happens, especially when they meetGod. Not sure if he’s accompanied by The Devil and Bob though…
As usual the Klingons turn up and cause bother for no reason other than toeek out the running time. Couple that with Shatner’s leaden direction, in hismovie-directorial debut, some overbearing one-liners and the fact that thecast all look way too old given that they were only meant to tour the universefor five years in the beginning and it really is a clunker.
Things don’t improve from there either with a widescreen image that is notonly non-anamorphic, but isn’t quite in the correct 2.35:1 widescreen Panavisionratio as stated on the sleeve. It’s approx 2.20:1, has occasional print flecksand doesn’t look particularly lively, although space scenes are still good.The average bitrate is 7.88Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.
The soundtrack has been remastered to Dolby Digital 5.1 and excels where itcounts, but it’s not used as often as in other Trek movies because it simplydoesn’t have as much action or entertainment. DD5.1 is available in Englishonly as the Germans get Dolby Surround.
There’s are just 15 chapters to the film, with subtitles in 15 languages:English (and hard of hearing), Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic,Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish and Turkish. The menus are static and silent and aside from that,the only extras are a Theatrical Trailer (2½mins) and aTeaser Trailer (1½mins), both non-anamorphic and, respectively,in 2.35:1 and 16:9.
How long until we get some proper Special Edition DVDs, similar to MGM’s James Bond series?
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.