Entertainment Geekly’s ‘Star Trek’ series goes Full Shatner.
This week: The one where Kirk meets God, and He is Us.
Last week:Leonard Nimoys beautiful and joyful time-travel comedy.
Next week: The end of an era and the return of the great Nicholas Meyer.
Come to the campfire, listen to the old story.
Great space hero Kirk relaxes with funny man McCoy and funny man Spock.
Spock has funny flying boots.
Hero Kirk needs no such boots.
Hero Kirk climbs great mountain, hands so strong, no equipment required, such skills has Kirk.
See him from far away, with Hero head turned toward the mountain.
See him, in forgiving silhouette.
See how Hero Kirk looks suspiciously like a much younger man.
How appropriate, this: Hero Kirk, Space Captain of the Galaxy, climbing a mountain calledEl Capitan.
In a better world, we would call this movieStar Trek: El Capitan Rises.
He falls off but only because of distraction, by funny man Spock and those funny flying boots!
Fortunately, Hero Kirk saved by funny man Spock.
They start a fire together with funny man McCoy, sing old songs as old men do.
Old men all, heroes all, families none.
Was Hero Kirk scared when he climbed El Capitan?
Ive always known Ill die alone, says Hero Kirk, a hero.
Meanwhile, in space, trouble in Paradise City.
Romulans, Klingons, humans, all taken prisoner in strip club by Vulcan Jesus and his bad dummies.
Meanwhile, in space, Starfleet calls beloved Hero Kirk back to beloved shipEnterprise.
Hero Kirk, we need a hero, says Starfleet.
There must be other ships in the quadrant, says Hero Kirk.
None so heroic as you, El Capitan, says Starfleet.
says Hero Kirk, ascender of peaks, conqueror of night.
Fly, Kirk, fly!
He does, to Paradise City.
They need horses: What to do?
Trusty pal Uhura distracts with feminine wiles, performs fan dance for bad dummies.
To her prisoners, she declares: Ive always wanted to play to a captive audience.
(Fiftysomething Nichelle Nichols fan-dancing in space: Curious, you say?
Real-life fan-dancer Sally Rand much older when she fan-danced for Future President Johnson and the American astronauts in 1962.
Movies are ridiculous, history just so.)
Hero Kirk and funny pals ride horses into town.
Bad dummies see them, so Hero Kirk punches and shoots and throws and kicks.
Funny man Spock squeezes neck of horse.
whines the horse, unconscious.
Into strip club strolls Hero Kirk but he is attacked!
By an exotic dancer!
Who is a cat-lady, with three breasts, and a tail!
Hero Kirk throws her, tail and three breasts and all, onto a pool table made of water.
shrieks the cat-lady, dead.
I am a hero!
Another great success for great successful hero Kirk, climber of mountains, captain of space!
But oh, betrayed.
Humans and Romulans and Klingons, all working with Vulcan Jesus.
Doubly betrayed, for Vulcan Jesus is friend of funny man Spock.
Not just friend: Spock and Vulcan Jesus are brothers.
(Hero Kirk thought Spocks only brother was Hero Kirk.)
Vulcan Jesus takes overEnterprise.
AllEnterprisecrew now devoted to Vulcan Jesus.
Pal Sulu smiling and Pal Uhura smiling and Pal Chekov smiling.
Why are you afraid of me?
Im afraid ofnothing, says Hero Kirk.
(Elsewhere in space, Tough Klingon followsEnterprise.
I cant wait to fight Great Space Hero Kirk, he says.
Im gonna fight Hero Kirk so hard!)
But Vulcan Jesus has such power.
He takes away your pain.
In this universe, all pain somehow father-focused.
He shows funny man McCoy dying old father.
He shows funny man Spock the moment of his birth.
I killed my dad!
says funny man McCoy.
My dad never loved me, mumbles funny man Spock.
Hero Kirk, no time for such silliness.
I dont want my pain taken away, he tells Vulcan Jesus.
Hero Kirk not just strong; Hero Kirk so strongand alsoso weak.
Kirk is strongest and the weakest!
Kirk is all, all is Kirk!
I am a hero!
But even Hero Kirk nervous, when Vulcan Jesus reveals plan.
The Great Barrier at the Center of the Galaxy: Good shipEnterprisewill go through it.
No ship has ever gone into the Great Barrier!
Well never make it through the Great Barrier, says Hero Kirk.
But Vulcan Jesus has a response to that: Yuh huh!
Yuh huh, indeed.
And beyond the Great Barrier lies Planet Heaven, not to be confused with Paradise City.
Hmm, Heaven, says Hero Kirk.
Better check it out.
Down to the planet with funny man Spock and funny man McCoy and Vulcan Jesus.
The planet so empty, all mountains, fun to climb, no God around.
Where are you, God!
says God, appearing.
God wants a starship.
Funny man Spock intrigued.
Funny man McCoy declares himself born again.
Hero Kirk has a question.
Hero Kirk asks God, What does God need with a starship?
Ill show you Im God!
Then God fires God energy at Hero Kirk, bazzap!
Twist: God was the Devil all along!
Or perhaps the Devil left eons ago, and God went crazy!
Bring the ship closer, says God, That I might…joinwith it!
Hero Kirk not having that, no no.Enterpriseis his baby.
Vulcan Jesus punches God.
shrieks Vulcan Jesus, dead.
Hero Kirk calls theEnterprise.
Rescue the funny pals!
(Elsewhere in space, the tough Klingon says, Hero Kirk, here I come!
Were gonna fight so hard!
Im a tough Klingon!
Down on Planet Heaven, Hero Kirk climbs mountains, his abilities at climbing mountains thankfully well-established in prologue.
But God chases, firing God-rays out of eyes.
Then theres a Klingon ship, oh no!
Klingons fire Klingon Rays at God.
declares God, dead.
Hero Kirk turns to Klingon ship.
So its me you want, you Klingon bastards!
He chooses own death, dying alone, waving fists at oblivion.
God needs a starship; Kirk needs only Kirk.
A transporter sound, and he is onboard the Klingon ship.
Tough Klingon says, Hero Kirk, youre cool by me.
And look at that: Funny man Spock is on the Klingon Ship!
Funny man Spock says, Hello, Hero Kirk, you are my Captain and a hero!
Spocks brother is dead, but he doesnt mind, because Kirk with him.
Years earlier, Hero Kirks son died, but he didnt mind, because funny man Spock with him.
Hero Kirk tries to hug his Spock.
They throw a party for Hero Kirk and all his pals, old and new.
See Pal Uhura and Pal Scotty, getting cozy!
See Pal Sulu and Pal Chekov, chasing Strong Hot Klingon Lady.
declares Pal Chekov, while Pal Sulu smiles at him, a smile that speaks volumes to deaf ears.
At window, seeing space, Hero Kirk talks to funny man Spock and funny man McCoy.
Cosmic thoughts, gentlemen?
We were speculating, admits funny man McCoy.
Is God really out there?
(We were speculating, funny man McCoy shouldve said, How many Gods are there??)
Maybe, says Hero Kirk, space hero.
Oh, Hero Kirk only kidding.
Hes pointing at heart, because perhaps God is in the human heart, beat beat, punch punch.
Perhaps Hero Kirk the real God all along.
What a day its been.
Hero Kirk and funny pals, back to camp in time for campfire.
Sing songs all night.
Merrily, merrily merrily, merrily, they sing.
Life is but a dream.
In dreams, we are hero and creator.
In dreams, we act and direct.
In dreams, we are Kirk and Shatner, both.
We want to believe our dreams are grand things.
Perhaps, just perhaps, our dreams look an awful lot likeThe Final Frontier.
To be clear: This fifthStar Trekfilm?
The shoddy Big Ideas arent even half-baked.
(Dont believe in organized religion!
says a movie about God existing.)
The film backs away from that, and from everything.
Fake God is just an alien, imprisoned by ?
using his powers of ?
Gone is the grandeur ofWrath of Khan; gone, also, the whimsy ofVoyage Home.
In directorial terms, William Shatner goes for John Ford and Ingmar Bergman and Harold Lloyd.
(Key phrase being: goes for.)
He loves mountains and rock formations.
Onscreen they look flat, maybe less grand than they should.
At the risk of getting psychological, this movie begins with Kirkconqueringnature.
And Shatner films nature like a man who owns a lot of it.
But with theEnterprisesegments, Shatner doesnt have a particularly coherent vision.
There are a lot of shots like this, with nothing particularly in focus.
Leonard, you imagine Bill saying, Stand slightly behind that souvenir helm!
But there are also shadowy visuals, shot almost like confessionals, with characters lurking.
Shatner loves gags, and gags, and gags.
Spock and McCoy are interchangeable straight men for the comedy stylings of Captain Kirk.
(Director Shatner advised Actor Shatner to go big, huge, enormous.)
At one point, they go Full Three Stooges, and Kirk stands on Spocks shoulders.
This is simultaneously one of the dumbest and most stunningly revelatory moments inStar Trekhistory.
See Nimoy, looking up at Shatner, annoyed.
See Shatner, standing on somebody elses shoulders.
There were big plans for the final conflict on the God Planet.
Shatner wanted angels, demons, rock-monsters.
Actually, his plans sound a little bit like everything that happens in Darren AronofskysNoah.
They meet God, he isnt God, they shoot Fake Alien God, the end!
God help me Fake Alien God help me but I enjoyThe Final Frontier.
It helps to remember just how goofyStar Trekalways could be.
We hail the great episodes of the original series, which tend to be serious or tribble-coded as silly.
Wait, I take that back.
Today, all major movie franchises in general are sexless.
It comes with the PG-13.
(Deadpoolhas about as much sex asThe Rocky Horror Picture Show.)
And with sexlessness comes a rabbinical self-seriousness.
Motion pictures are sensual experiences, but today, we helplessly reduce franchises into nodes of content.
Trekgot there first, the way it got everywhere first.
Nimoy loved these characters for their humanity.
Maybe, in the end, it’s possible for you to appreciate the intrinsic paradox of this movie.
Filmed as a vanity project, it seems to constantly undercut its stars vanity.
Here is a movie about how awesome Captain Kirk is hes a mountaineer!
hes a rhetorical mastermind!
hes afraid of nothing!
his weakness is his strength!
you could say that this is an ego movie, an attempt to make Kirk look bigger than ever.
Kirk dies inGenerations, but Shatner wasnt finished with the character.
He created a series of novels, set afterGenerations, where Kirk gets resurrected.
But the books feel veryFinal Frontier-y.
Like, ifFinal Frontieris theHobbit,the nine books that comprise the so-called Shatner-verse form the freakingSilmarillion.
On that planet, Kirk falls in pure love with an eternally young babe named Teilani.
He tries to retire, but he keeps getting called back into action.
First, he has to fight his own alternate-universe self.
(He actually seems to transform INTO The Great Barrier anotherFinal Frontiercallback.)
In Shatners vision, Kirk outlasts everyone: Another son dead, another lover left behind.
Maybe Kirk only dies alone because theres nobody left.
Maybe thats how God will go out, too.
Maybe God will watchThe Final Frontier.
I think Shell like it.
THE WHOLE MOVIE IN A NUTSHELL:
