[Music] Mission Log, a Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast, Star Trek 5, the Final Frontier, PogCrawl Special Edition Welcome in to another episode of Mission Log, a Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast, I'm John Champion and I'm Norman Lau. Each week on Mission Log, we take a trip through the galactic barrier seeking out the deeper morals, meanings, and messages at the center of an episode of Star Trek. Sometimes, we find out that the answers we seek were right in our hearts all along. This week, Star Trek 5, the Final Frontier, a special presentation for the greatest generation PogCrawl. You know this movie, it's the one where a happy Vulcan hijaxing enterprise were a joyride to find God and Captain Kirk throws cold water on the whole situation by asking just one simple question. Uh-uh. Excuse me. Hey, John, what do Adam and Ben need with our podcast? You know, Norman, now that you mention it, that is a very good question. I mean, they already have one. Is this one of those Tom Sawyer situations where they tricked us into recording an episode? Maybe something like that. Actually, if you've found us here, you're on a Podcrawl. As John mentioned, this is an idea cooked up by the greatest generation to share the love and introduce you to some great Star Trek podcasts, all while raising money for a very good cause, the National Center for Science Education. You can get all the details at Star TrekPodcrawl.com. So a big thanks to the greatest generation, the seventh rule, open Pike Knight and sci-fi sisters for leading us in with the first four Star Trek movies. After us, you'll get to hear women of warp and Star Trek, the next conversation, discussing the undiscovered country and generations respectively. Again, all of the information is available at Star TrekPodcrawl.com and we'll have links in the show notes. Most of all, make sure you follow that link to donate to NCSCE, the National Center for Science Education. And again, that link for everything is Star TrekPodcrawl.com. And stay tuned at the end of this episode for a word from women at warp about their coverage of Star Trek 6, the undiscovered country. Norman, my friend, would you please tell everybody where they can find us? We'd love to hear from you. Mission Log is a conversation about Star Trek. Find us on Facebook at Mission LogPod and Threads at Roddenberry Podcasts. The conversation always continues in the Mission Log Discord with near-daily live events and 24/7 chat about the topics you love. Get your invitation to our private server by joining patreon.com/missionlog. While you're at it, one of the most important ways to help the podcasts you love is to leave a five-star rating and a review at Apple or your favorite podcast platform. And always remember, your comments could be used on the show. And now here's John Champion revisiting trivia for Star Trek 5. Why? Because it's there. Now I'm just going to have that stuck in my head. Why is he doing the trivia? Because to do the trivia. All right, trivia. Now for Star Trek 5, right up front, we need to mention that Mission Log covered Star Trek 5 way back in episode 95. You can still find that coverage on our website, missionlogpodcast.com or wherever you find your favorite shows. We're going to bring you some of the highlights of that coverage along with a whole new discussion some 10 years and one lineup change later. So let's dig into it. As I said last time around and it's worth repeating here, victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. Not from JFK, although he popularized that. That is tailor made for Star Trek 5. This film is a case study in big ambition, big challenges and ultimately one might say polarizing results. In fact, this movie got a razzie honor, if you can call it such a thing. Yes, it won the 1990 razzie award for worst picture. However, it is worth noting that the razzies have a very long history of taking swings at genre films that later find cult audiences. So maybe just maybe we can chalk that up to history needing time to come around. Well, we'll find out. And let's talk about money as we do for motion pictures when it comes to Star Trek. The budget for the final frontier, it increased to $33 million, which was not a small amount of money at the time. And despite that, the box office, well, it brought in about $60 million. Not exactly the huge blockbuster that Paramount was hoping for. Now, you may notice something a little bit different about special effects. The effects here were not handled by the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic. Instead, they were done by Brian Farron's company, Associates and Farron. And those results, one might say, were mixed. Farron's team was working under tight constraints and lower resources than ILM typically had. And well, it shows. Now, this was Shatner's turn at the helm. Bill Shatner stepped up to direct following Mitter Nimoy's turn on the search for Spock and the voyage home. And thanks to the nature of their contracts, whatever one got, the other got to. And it was kind of mentioned that Shatner's agreement for doing Star Trek 4 is that he would get to direct Star Trek 5. Now, despite the production's many problems, Shatner showed remarkable energy and he kept the cast in good spirits. And D Kelly said that after seeing what Shatner endured, he had zero desire to direct a Trek movie himself. And George Duques, not only Shatner's biggest fan, admitted that he was impressed by Bill's effort. Now, we do need to talk about some of Gene Rottenberry's involvement and concerns here. At the time, Gene was a consultant. He was no longer an active producer on the Star Trek movies. That ever since Star Trek 2, when Harv Bennett took over the franchise. So Gene wasn't exactly thrilled with the film's direction. And he even lobbied to delay production while getting input from sci-fi legends like Isaac Hasmoff and Arthur C. Clarke. And in one letter to Clark, Gene made it clear that he was not a fan of the movie's religious themes, calling it a quote, God superstition that had caused pain and conflict throughout history. Now, we have covered in the years since a good deal of the Star Trek 5 memos on another Rottenberry podcast called the Trek Files. And in fact, if you go over to the Trekfiles.com, that'll take you to our page at memory alpha. I want to point you specifically to season 11 episode 20. There is a memo from Gene to Harv Bennett and Bill Shatner outlining many of his concerns. I'll just pick out a few before there was Cybok. There was Tsar writing his unicorn to find God. There was the scale of the galaxy. They kept talking about the center of the universe. Gene had to raise his hand and say, no, no, no, we've only explored a portion of our own galaxy. Nobody is going to the quote center of the universe. There was also Gene's objection to Kirk being the sole hero of the piece. There's objection to Spock and the rest of the crew as mutineers. There is objection to our crew being taken in by a charismatic religious figure. So some of that stuff obviously made it into the final. Some stuff did not again, check out that full memo and Norman and I might be referring to a bit more of that in today's discussion. Let's see. Cybok, I think it is well known at this point that Cybok was almost played by Sean Connery. At least that was the first choice to play that role. But Mr. Connery was busy doing Indiana Jones. So that opened up the door from Lawrence Luckenbill. We'll talk a little bit more about him in a moment, but he was Shatner's choice after Bill saw him playing Lyndon B. Johnson in a TV movie. I have a question for us, John. Of course. I would be remiss not asking this, but it's my understanding that Shakari is some type of abbreviation for Sean Connery. You are so right. I'm glad that you brought it up. Yep. That is a nice little bit of trivia. Oh, now we have to mention here. I love this that, of course, we have the marshmallow scene or the marshmelon scene. There's that cool little prop that Spock has. And yet you could get that one. If you were a kid in 1989 and he saved up enough craft mail-ins, you could get the marshmallow dispenser toy that you always wanted. All right. Let's meet some of our featured guest players for this movie. Well, I mentioned him a moment ago. That was at Lawrence Luckenbill playing Cybok. And yes, indeed he was cast because Shatner saw him playing LBJ in a movie and he was so impressed with his performance in that role. Shatner offered the role of Cybok and Luckenbill jumped at it immediately. Now, Luckenbill has been a guest on the Trek Files and you may or may not know this, that he is married to Lucy Arnaz. Yes, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. And in fact, as we all know, Lucille Ball's company, Desilu, that was instrumental in producing the original Star Trek series. And let's also meet David Warner, probably not a new face or name to our genre-loving audience. Well, David Warner, please, St. John Talbot. And he actually did not audition for this role. He agreed to participate after Bill Shatner assured him that his character would survive the film. So there's a good little bit of a carrot to dangle in front of an actor. Yeah, you'll live. You'll make it. Warner is a versatile actor known for his roles in Tron and Titanic and the Omen. I happen to love him in time after time written by beloved Trek writer Nick Meyer, Trek writer and director Nick Meyer. He later appeared in Star Trek 6, the undiscovered country as Gorcon. And in the TNG episodes, Chain of Command, Part 1 and 2 as Gull Madrid. Then there's Charles Cooper, please, Cord. Charles Cooper was initially considered for the role of the God entity in this film. However, after seeing his performance, Shatner decided to cast him as a Klingon diplomat, Cord, instead George Murdoch was then cast as the God entity. And Cooper had a prolific career in TV and film with appearances in series like the Twilight Zone and Perry Mason and the X-Files. Then there's Cynthia Gao as Caitlyn Darr. Cynthia, who is the Romulan ambassador in this film, she was a model and a television news reporter before transitioning into acting. And after this role in Star Trek 5, she returned to journalism and became a successful TV host and producer. Then there's our Klingons, Todd Bryant and Spice Williams. Todd Bryant plays Captain Claw and he was offered the role of Captain Claw while playing Ping Pong at a beach party. He performed his audition twice, once in English and once in Klingon, per Shatner's request. And Bryant is also a stunt performer and coordinator with credits in films like The Goonies, Predator 2 and Scorpion King. Finally, Spice Williams as Vixis. Now she originally thought that she was auditioning to play Captain Kirk's girlfriend. She found it enjoyable to play a villain in the film. And she also is a stuntwoman and actress with a background in martial arts and bodybuilding. And she has performed stunts in numerous films and TV shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seinfeld and Spider-Man. Hope you have some leftover marshmelons, it's time to climb that mountain, again. On the dusty backwater planet Nimbus 3, a jovial Vulcan named Sybak is stirring up trouble with a mysterious ability to connect with people's pain. He's rallying locals and scheming to get his hands on a starship. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the quadrant, a Klingon bird of prey and its captain is eager to blow things up for fun and profit. Where's our crew? Enjoying some downtime? Kirk, Spock and McCoy are camping in the woods, complete with awkward singing and marshmelons or marshmallows. Scotty is tinkering with the perpetually malfunctioning Enterprise A and Ahura is trying to, shall we say, bond with Scotty. But when representatives of the Federation, Romulan Empire and Klingon Empire are taken hostage on Nimbus 3 Starfleet since the Enterprise to save the day, whether they're ready or not. The rescue is a trap. Sybak lures the Enterprise right to him and uses his mind meddling powers to turn people to his cause. He's all charm and manipulation exploiting pain to gain followers. Even the Klingon Romulan and Federation reps are swayed. Before Kirk can say daring escape, Sybak hijacks the ship, sets course with a mythical shakari, the supposed home of God, and leaves the crew wondering what they signed up for. As the Enterprise hurdles toward the Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy, Sybak's powers start to affect the crew. He dredges up McCoy's most painful memory, his father's death, and Spock's lifelong rejection by Sarek. But when it's Kirk's turn, he shuts it down. His pain fuels him, and he is not about to let anyone mess with that. Spock and McCoy back Kirk, but Sybak remains in control determined to meet the almighty. Breaking through the Great Barrier, the Enterprise finds a desolate planet. Sybak, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to investigate what they find is not God, but a giant glowing face with major attitude. This God demands the Enterprise for his cosmic crusade, but Kirk isn't buying it. He asks the now iconic question, what does God need with a starship? The not so divine being gets hostile and Sybak realizing his mistake sacrifices himself to buy time. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy try to escape, but just as the transporter locks onto McCoy and Spock, that pesky Klingon bird of prey shows up and disables it again. Kirk is stranded facing the wrath of God until Spock intervenes. When the Klingon ambassador aboard the bird of prey, Spock persuades the Klingon captain to fire on the entity. Ending the standoff, Kirk is rescued just in the nick of time. With Sybak gone and the crisis averted, Kirk reflects on lost friendship and family. He tells Spock he lost a brother, but gained him back. Sentiment McCoy shares as they all realize the bond they share. As for God, maybe that's less about celestial beings and more about the goodness within us. Surely he resumes and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy head back to the woods for more camaraderie, marshmelons, and row, row, row your boat. The end. That was a wonderful recap, John, and I do love that we're just going to jump right into it. I get a little giddy talking about Star Trek V. I'm sure that I'm the only one or not, but I think the reason why, because Star Trek V starts off with return of Jerry Goldsmith's The Motion Picture theme. You know, I was really, I had forgotten that. And then when I watched it this time around, I kept thinking like, well, it is my favorite Star Trek film theme, Hands Down. I think it is produced beautifully. It is recorded beautifully. It is epic. And I kind of wondered, well, was that on purpose to maybe a thematically unify one and five? I also wondered, was it just convenient because we already have the rights to it. It's sitting here. Let's use it. And I also wondered, was it because next generation was wildly popular at the time? So that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Okay. All of those are fair. Right now, but it's just so good. You know, well, I felt the same way. I always felt that you had that wonderful overture in The Motion Picture, then it starts off with that really bombastic opening kind of like kettle drum rhythm. And then you felt that kind of very powerful theatrical opening to this movie. But also you feel that when you watch the next generation. So yeah, why can't it work across the board? Because it does. Yeah. Yeah. In my opinion. I will say, and I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not. But I much prefer The Motion Picture version over the next generation version. The one for the next gen is a little too like upbeat, a little too light. It's I don't know if they did that because they felt like all this TV needs to be kind of faster and brighter. But I love, love, love, love the arrangement for The Motion Picture. Yes. And sometimes, you know, for for TV, you can't afford like the full piece orchestra, like the 60 piece orchestra. Sometimes you have to do something a little bit more budget friendly. Right. Yeah. So it could have been all of those. Hey, on Nimbus 3, it is so funny. Like Shatner finally gets to indulge himself. And we got we got horses because because Shatner, but they are space horses. Let's point that out. They're blue. And you know, they're horses from space. They had a horn, not quite a unicorn horn. I quite yes, did horn, but they did have that. So, you know, compromise is being made exactly exactly. I do have to wonder like in our perfected, I'm not perfected, but better future of Star Trek. How did things get so bad on Nimbus 3? Like even the Federation is like, yeah, we don't come here. We're not going to mess with this place. In my head, Cannon, I'm thinking that at one point in time, it was kind of like a prospecting type of colonized planet. Yeah, then with things developing their way, they did between these three empires. It's almost like they just forgot about it. Yeah. You know, and it became more of like, please don't take this the wrong way Australians, but kind of like how Australia was formed as a penal colony. Oh, okay. And then you just send people there and then not our problem anymore. So we're not going to deal with it. Yeah. I mean, but you hope that in this better future, people go there and they, they at least try to help out. I mean, these people don't have anything. And I kept thinking, this is how you get on my key. If you want on my key, this is how you get on my key is you abandon these people. You know, that's how something like this starts. Yeah. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. We were talking a little bit offline about what is Cybox's actual power. And this may be something that, that we revisit in the discussion, because first of all, I was asking myself, is he actually experiencing people's pain when he takes it from them? Is he leaving people in a state where maybe the memory of the pain is still there? But it just doesn't bother them anymore. I was trying to parse exactly how it works. Not that, not that we need to know, but I think part of the question that comes from that is, is Cybox aware and is Cybox exerting some level of control? Or is this a sort of like what he does? And maybe there's nothing malevolent about it. It just kind of happens. And he is dedicated to his own philosophy of emotion over logic. That is just a little bit of a preface to say that I think that that's part of what makes Cybox very interesting to watch here is that he's not a mustache twirling bad guy. He is probably just a guy who happens to be this way and happens to affect people this way and isn't setting out to do anything particularly wrong. He's just sort of taken in by his own ideas. Well, what I love about Cybox and the introduction when, you know, I believe the character's name is ran the alien. He looks up and he says, you're a Vulcan like in awe of seeing a Vulcan. And I love that at this stage of Star Trek in the fandom that the Vulcan mysticism and mystery is still there. Like because we just spent like a couple of movies watching Spock die, get resurrected, and then kind of reform himself into Spock through the katra and the transmission of the katra, you know, amounts of Leia, all of that. There's something that's alien otherworldly about the Vulcan still, you know, and I think that that plays into the shorthand of why Cybox can do what he does. He's Vulcan. Yeah. And all the things that we've just seen Spock go through, I think it leaves credibility that a Vulcan is still this mysticism unexplored that allows us to be able to kind of buy into Cybox showing up and doing what he does. And I love that he has this bigger-than-life personality, this huge laugh. I mean, we've kind of pointed it out on mission log before that if Spock is ever smiling or laughing, you know that there's trouble, you know there's a problem here. But in this case, we turn that on his head and you go, wow, this guy, there's something going on here. And just the image of him being out there in the desert and in this big laugh, it made me think of that very famous drawing, The Laughing Christ, which was very popular in the 70s, if anybody remembers that. And Bones calls him the a passionate Vulcan, which I thought was very apt. But yeah, this is such a cool idea for all of us who've been playing the, you know, Star Trek home game for decades by the time this movie came out. It was very interesting to see this change in the way that our Vulcans are presented. Moving over to Yosemite, I think those scenes look really good. And I love that we get a glimpse of kind of the lost art of matte painting, you know, at the very top of that scene, beautiful matte painting. And I love in the behind the scenes stuff, depending on how you watched your copy of Star Trek 5, you know, they built this false wall that they literally put into a parking lot at Yosemite is they couldn't shoot in the park itself. But that was so cool. I mean, everything about the whole Yosemite sequence is gold for me. Yeah. I mean, I, for me, I think it's one of the best scenes in any Star Trek movie. Okay. And I think that Teforris is, if this is probably some of his finest work, I think in a Star Trek movie, this scene or this campground scene, some of the other scenes later on, especially with the issue with his father, we're going to talk about that later. But I just feel like there's something that I found very familiar and comforting, like in a comfort food kind of way watching this scene unfold. I might, depending on where this conversation goes, I might push back a little bit against that. So stay tuned. We'll see. I've got mad love for Kirk's space sneakers while he's climbing. I think those are great. But seriously, why is he climbing alone and with no safety equipment? I mean, look, I know that he's Captain Kirk. I know that he's a rebel. I know he can do anything, but seriously, he should know better. You don't go up there alone and without safety equipment. Okay. I have a point or two to talk about that myself later on, you know, because I think this is a lot of this stuff that's happening in the opening sequence for me is metaphorical. It kind of lays the foundation of certain threads that may be pulled later on in the story. I know that some people have some issue with Chekhov and Sulu being lost in a force. I find that kind of humor hilarious because remember, these guys, they're sitting at a desk all day long, 24/7. They're in space looking at instrumentation. Everything is fed to them from a data standpoint. Now, all of a sudden, they're like in the woods, they don't have their equipment with them, and they sure they made a wrong term. They're like, okay, how do we get back to the road? I kind of find that just, I don't know, a little bit wholesome because sometimes not everything needs to be figured out by an iPhone. Did you, did you watch the deleted scenes and that shot of Chekhov and Sulu, they're actually at Mount Rushmore? Yeah. Yeah. I had completely forgotten that, but because it's not in the final cut of the movie, but it is in the deleted scenes, which is very cool. I do wonder when we get back to Nimbus 3 in that bar, by the way, very quiet bar. I thought of all of the maybe peculiar choices that Shatner made as a director here. He's trying to have this Star Wars cantina-ish scene with all these aliens, and the camera follows us in the very first time, and I was like, somebody needs to turn up the music. You have this, probably not a cation, but some type of cat lady dancing, all the thing about it. It's very quiet. It seems very, very out of place, but at some point in the future, at some point between now, 2024, because it hasn't happened yet, or 2025 actually, hasn't happened yet, but at some point between now and the 23rd century, somebody will decide to flood a pool table with water just to change the game up, and that's what we have here on Nimbus 3. I may have done something similar to that in my youth by accidentally spilling a pitcher. Okay. All right. At a bar somewhere in Norman, that's water polo. Oh, all right. Yes. Thank you. That's how it works. Don't forget to tip your waitress. Thank you. I mentioned in the trivia the special effects not being by ILM, and yet I still took a note here in my observations how stroke, why do these effects look so bad? Without fail, they look bad, because it either looks like toys, photograph by amateurs, like if I got a model that I made when I was 13, and I took a phone, maybe even not a good phone, and just photographed it while holding it, it either looks like that, or it looks like kind of flat cutouts, like literally a picture of a model from a better movie, and they photograph that. It's not good. Well, I was watching this really interesting documentary on another science fiction show, and this show had some of the special effects remastered, and one of the key ingredients for shooting miniatures is understanding how to light miniatures, and how to light them in space and having kind of like a single point of light, where the ship passes, and when you don't have that, as you can tell in this movie, everything's flooded with light, and that's not how space works, or the lighting in space works, so you ruin the illusion, and everything becomes very two-dimensional. Yeah, it's just, I kept looking for a great stand-out effect, and there were just shots of the Enterprise saying, "Oh, wait a minute. In 1979, you did it perfectly. Why have we devolved now 10 years later? Why is it not working anymore?" But it's just the team that you get, right? I love the irony of the word lost, graffitied next to the cutout of the word paradise. Yes. That's the archway of Paradise City. It's just wonderfully ironic. Yeah. Hey, while they're down there, and I have a lot of these kind of like in-universe questions about how the story unfolds, but so we're on the Enterprise. We're watching the hostage tape, but there's blocking in the hostage tape, and I kept wondering, why is everybody walking around? Why is she taking a step down the stairs, and they can loop around, and then the camera follows Seibach, as he's walking forward, like, "This is a hostage tape. Why the choreography?" I know, that was funny. I was watching Caitlyn Darr, Cynthia Gao's character. You go down the stairs, then back up the stairs. If you turn around, look at the camera, I'm like, "What? This is not a pageant." Something should have clued you in, Starfleet, that this was being staged. I think that Kirk's go-climmerock t-shirt, and his formal command jacket is peak cosplay material. Oh, absolutely. Not to nitpick too much, and I don't know. I don't know how smart Seibach really is, but wouldn't he have noticed that Captain Chekhov was wearing the Commander's rank pen on his lapel? Okay, to be fair, Seibach may just not pay attention at all. That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking. Although you could technically have Chekhov, he is in the position of Captain, even if his rank is not Captain. So maybe Seibach's like, "Wait a minute, I see your rank, but oh no, I won't bring it up because in this moment you were in that role." And I loved how he kind of accomplished that. It's like very clever, Captain. I love the Assault Commando uniforms. They are so cool. And I love the chunky Star Trek Five phaser, the one that Cooley pulls out when he gets dehorsed and takes out the spotlight. All of that stuff, I love. We don't get to see enough of that in Starfleet action scenes. This is the first time I think we have seen them without the big maroon jacket like Star Trek to the rather though. Or just doing action scenes in their Monster Maroons. Yeah, because they decided to change it up for Star Trek Three. They're in their civilian clothes, Star Trek Four. They're kind of still in those civilian clothes and then they got a blend in to 1986, San Francisco. And at some point, Chekhov's like in his Little Lord, Fort LeRoy outfit. It's just not the worst color of any costume ever. It's not good. Yeah, so it's nice to see a little return to the formality here. As we're nitpicking, okay, we got all 78 decks of the Enterprise in this movie. I cannot let that go. I know it's been brought up a million times by a million other people before me. I think somewhere in this very office, we have, we had a bunch of those. We had like 10 of them at one point. And I think I kept whatever the highest number it was that I could find was like 58 or something. Zimmerman himself said like, yeah, the Enterprise is 23 decks. And that's going from the bottom of the secondary hall all the way up through the neck, all the way up through the primary hall. Come on, folks. Come on. How do we feel about forcing a relationship between Scotty and Ahura? I remember when I was younger, I was like, you know, I don't really dig that. Yeah. But then after working, you know, in an environment for 20 plus years, certain feelings change. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I feel that why couldn't it happen? Yeah. I felt knowing that we're toward the end of our time with these characters here. I just felt like, well, there wasn't a lot of pressure to make that happen or make it not happen. I just kind of accepted it. I was like, yeah, okay, why not? They work together. They've known each other forever. Sure. I have a little romance there that this story, this story's got to wrap itself up anyway. And I'm not super concerned about it. I have a theory. Yeah. We were introduced to Krug in Star Trek 3, Christopher Lloyd. Yeah. Wonderful representation of kind of like the sinister, intelligent Klingon. Yeah. And then we have Claw, who becomes like this archetype of what we've called in the past, the head-butting muscle bound Klingon. Yeah. Right. All they do is drink head-butt things and fight. Yeah. Right. I think that this is that Klingon model because we have Kord, who is this throwback to what the Klingons used to be, probably a throwback to say, you know, Kord, or Kang, you know, or Koloth. Yeah. And Kord here is his eyes are always bloodshot. Like, he's seen better days, you know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I hope that when you and I are put out the pastures, John, that we fair, you know, better than Kord in our podcast days. But yeah, it just, it felt like, okay, you have these two muscle bound, beautiful sculpted bodies. Yeah. But they're not quite where I want Klingons to be anymore. Yeah. I'm glad in six we get a return to great Klingons, but it was, yeah, just, I don't know. Yeah. Didn't really quite work for work for me. But it is funny, though, like, for as many times as we've railed about the monoculture, not really working for Star Trek species, the longer you get to know them, like, here we meet the muscle bound, bro. Yeah. And that's, I think that's all right. Like, if that's all we're going to get of him, then that that's okay. You know, these scenes in the, what do we call that? Do we call it like a lounge? Do we call it a meeting room where they have the ship's wheel? By the way, inspired. I love having that ship's wheel in there and having this kind of casual space. But the scenes that take place there, McCoy and his father, my God, just really intensely beautifully played. It doesn't always work when you get a reveal of a tragic backstory for somebody. I feel like McCoy needed to have some of these moments revealed in his life and like it's been too long. It's been 20 plus years at this point that we've known the character. Good to finally get something of this depth out of him. The Spock thing we already knew, but they played it out like that. And I wondered though, so Kirk and Spock are actually seeing this happen in McCoy's head, just like Kirk is seeing this happen in Spock's head. So is this another level of like the psychic connection that that Seibach has, which is pretty deep, like there's way more than anything we've gotten out of Vulcan before. So it's pretty intense. Well, I mean, the way that that Spock described Seibach and like he was one of the most brilliant, most gifted, most talented Vulcans, probably he's ever known. So and then he went into exile and he probably tried to hone whatever mystical powers that he was able to harness like throughout the course of, you know, his experiences in order for him to be able to persuade people to his cause. And I think that's something that either we can understand that and kind of wave that off and say, okay, that makes more sense. Or in today's way of storytelling, everything has to be kind of parsed out so that you know exactly which power he uses at what time and the distance of how that resonates with his mysticism, you know, in the course of does it work at 30 feet? Does it work at 60 feet? Like that's not this era of movie making. It's just a little bit more hand-waving. It happens, you know, and the way that I see it is, yeah, Kirk and Spock and McCoy, they're all in this, this mental projection aura that Seibach has. And we're watching that happen like in real time. It's just, it's a cool idea in universe. Well, cool. It's also tragic and weird and invasive, but you know, in universe, the idea that there is a reason for this happening. But just as a filming tool, just to have the character participating in their own memory, but then other people watching that happen, it's pretty fascinating. And you know, the one thing interesting about Spock is that maybe it was more, maybe more is more impactful to him because he was reset emotionally in a certain way at the beginning of Star Trek 4. And that whole kind of like that tug of war between is Spock going to be more Vulcan or more human. You know, like when Kirk says that's the human thing to do to save Chekov, he learns a specific lesson. And now it's being re-exposed again, that shame, that humanity, you know, with Seibach in a new Spock Contra. Yeah. Right. You know, I don't know how it's going to affect him this time. Yeah. And I love that scene. And it's kind of like in that same room where they're starting to approach the Great Barrier and Kirk, you know, he responds to the whole is life a dream that whole thing will roll your boat. And then it looks down the camera pans down the giant wooden ship steering wheel and it says on a plaque to bolt the go where no man has gone before. And there's this wonderful music cue. I just love that. It's like really framed well, kind of like it's that one of those Star Trek wholesome moments. And like, okay, that was great. Let's go back to the headbudding Klingons. Yeah. Right. It's a bit on the nose, but let me tell you, I'm here for it. Okay. So at that point, they've arrived at Shakaori. And now everybody seems to be kind of themselves again. So then Seibach just released everybody from a psychic hold is that with intent or not? Or does it wear off? Because everybody's cool again. Everybody's just sort of fine. And I wondered all those people who mute need on the enterprise. Are we just, are we letting bygones be bygones? It's like, oh, yeah, you know, there's however many, you know, 50 or a hundred of you on board and yeah, you mute need, but you were undermined control. Yeah, we'll just we'll pretend it didn't happen. I don't think as much of a mind control hold as it is kind of like this cathartic experience that they had and they don't feel a course about certain things anymore. Like this poison's been lifted from their spirit. Yeah. I'll go into that a little bit later on. Okay. But I do love that whole thing where like everyone turns to the view screen and then the camera pushes through all of them into that one little sensor monitor and then the Klingon bird of prey appears. But this wonderful kind of like crescendoing music happens. Yeah. And everyone's like, is anyone paying attention to this monitor? Because this Klingon bird of prey is going to come and F things up. That right now. That's the kind of thing that you want an alarm. You know, you want like some kind of haptic thing like, hey, tap you on the wrist or on the shoulder like, hey, hey, there's a Klingon bird of prey coming and they're gonna fire on you. I did want to know as all of these people are on the bridge looking at the main view screen, how are they seeing what's going on at chakari on the planet? You know, because it is very cinematic. They're getting all these POV shots. It's like, are they when they got out of the shuttle down there to somebody go, wait a minute, let's go set up a camera or it's good thing that this shuttle is covered in GoPros because we're just going to let those roll. And maybe McCoy or Spock or somebody is like, wait, wait, let me run ahead a little bit. I'm going to put this camera in place. Now let's do the slow, dramatic walk down the rock walls to get to meet God. I think that's just movie magic that sometimes we just got a kind of hand wave or or I mean, I was thinking that somewhere along the line, you know, the sensors on the enterprise just have the ability to kind of do that. Yeah, okay. Star Trek hand waving. They do that. But then again, I was watching this with Carol and I said, wow, that's really, it's a wonderful dramatic angle for like walking away from the shuttle off camera. So you want you want to censor with a sense of drama that's really all about. The end scene, though, for me, just after all of this happens and you have all of this action playouts and kind of like all of these messages get kind of sifted through, I love how it just gets very quiet again and it goes to Spock plucking his lira and plucking row, row, row your bolt. I just love that. It just there's something about that that just it just really appeals to me. Yeah, in the story. We needed that kind of bookend. Is it safe to assume the pool table has a filter like an aquarium or is someone playing dirty pool? We talked a little bit about Cybok in the last segment and obviously he is central to this story. So we will come back to him very often, I'm sure. I think the setup about him is so interesting that he rejected Vulcan philosophies of logic and he studied ideas that were forbidden. This idea that emotion was the key to self knowledge. And as you mentioned a moment ago, you know, this is Spock, I would say this is Spock 3.0 is it? Because because we have TOS Spock, we have post-Vieger Spock and and that is a Spock who was reconciled with his at least with his friendship with the humans on board. And then you've got after death Spock and whale adventure Spock, you know, so this is at least version 3.0. And it's interesting that yeah, he kind of has this distaste for Cybok, partly because of the family history, partly because, well, he's mostly looked down upon by all of Vulcan, they're like, no, no, that is entirely too dangerous what what this guy is doing. In fact, he says that Vulcans banished him, but they banished him because of his beliefs. And I thought that was such an interesting detail because it says something about the fragility of Vulcan philosophy. And if anybody should know about the fragility of Vulcan philosophy, it's Spock, because Spock is the guy who we saw at Colvinar raising his hand like, no, no, no, don't don't put the decorative acrylic necklace on me. I'm not ready for this. There's something wrong here. And there's something really wrong because what I actually need is to go hang out with my friends and get back in touch with my emotional side. So it was human side. Yeah, yeah, so there is a Spock that gets this. And there's something that I like. Look, it could be debated. You know, I don't necessarily love the idea of them being brothers. I don't think Star Trek needs to keep, you know, making people, family or whatever. It's really about who they are and what they do, not about having a blood type. But regardless, they made that choice here. I think what's interesting is how that particular emotional journey for Spock then has very specific resonance with cybok. Just because this whole idea of reconciling emotions, it is familiar to Spock. But I wish that he were better able to maybe express that and exert that here. Since he already did it with veger, like, and he already died, it was reborn. And I just kept thinking, like, wait, wait, Spock, you have so much more to say here that you're not saying. I think that he was able to actually have that moment when cybok showed him his secret pain. And that was the shame that Sarah had for Spock since birth. And I think that that's where he and cybok maybe have kind of like this kindred spirit from these two half brothers where Sarah was banished because he didn't believe in the Vulcan way. But there's also been this through line about Spock, how he's always had to hide his his human half and present the stronger Vulcan half for the sheer sake of his father. I mean, going all the way back to, like, say, journeyed to Babel, you saw like how he had to wrestle with who he was from the Vulcan standpoint and making sure that the ambassador's son is, you know, prim and proper and Vulcan at the sake of always pushing aside maybe his feelings for his mother who was there. So but that was that that was painful for Spock, though. And it's the Spock that reconciles that human side that reconciles that that emotional side that says, Oh, no, no, no, friendship is way more important than this just blind dedication to logic for logic sake. So it seems like he'd have a little bit of at least a little bit of an understanding with cybok. And obviously cybok has taken it way too far. And again, this gets back to that core question about cybok. Is he aware and is he using his powers for manipulation? Or is he not aware he's just sort of deluded and misguided? Like, these powers are just in him. He does these things. And all right, you're gonna come along with me to go find God, let's do this because this is a great adventure for all of us to have. I have a feeling that the very first time he was able to relieve somebody of their kind of like their deep, dark pain, the way that he presents it to, you know, the alien at the very beginning of this movie, I felt that that was his cause. Like, how did I do this? Is it inherent in me because I'm Vulcan? Because, you know, it sounds like he was banished at a point of understanding because it sounds like there was an adolescent spring that was happening in him where it's either he's going to go for logic or he's going to go for. He had had a Vulcan rum springer. Yeah. Exactly. All right. There you go. Exactly. So it was one of those things where, okay, am I going to kind of like look at the philosophy of Surak? I understand that we have a Romulan heritage that, you know, also embraced that warlight culture. We understand that the warlight culture almost destroyed our civilization. But at the same time, though, it pushed us to greater heights because of embracing that passion. So when he did that, and he said, if I can do this to somebody, for somebody and heal them, then what is my purpose now? My purpose is to keep moving forward with this talent, with this, with this gift. That's what makes cybok so interesting and relevant, not just in a 1989, but also now as we're talking about it, and hopefully is it, you know, people come back and rewatch this movie as they're rewatching all of Star Trek, is that, you know, cybok's reasoning here, the ability that he has, like, that is all solid stuff. Like, what do you do? I'm going to help you face pain. I'm going to help you gain interpersonal strength. Like, these are all great, valuable things that anybody should recognize. But just as somebody who maybe believes a little too much in their own power, believes a little too much in their own hype, and then that gets distorted and perverted. I mean, think about the long line of people who claim to be, you know, faith healers or psychics or whatever, and are able to not just gain the confidence of other people, but then they're becoming this, like, power imbalance, and they can exert that power over those people because now they've tapped in to this really critical, you know, emotional mental well-being of those people who follow them. I think the crux of this is what happens when these people are proven right, right? Because until you reach the point where you can actually create quantifiable proof that your belief actually has, it can be measured and rationalized, you are kind of like the mad man, kind of like the suits, like the seer, the wizard, the, you know, the crackpot. How do you want to call that person? But then all of a sudden, they prove themselves correct, and they become now a hero or some type of master or some type of cherished holy figure. I'm not sure if that's what Seibach was looking for. I think what he was trying to do is like he's trying to make sense of what gift was I given and how do I bring it to the masses. And maybe the only way for me to do that is to find out this particular source of my talent, which is maybe something this god creator or this god figure implanted in his mind. Well, and see, and in either case, I think what's so interesting, whether it's Seibach or a modern day, you know, faith healer, psychic, whatever, like, whether those people know that they are con artists, or they are fully diluted by thinking that they have this power, this ability, like, both of those are dangerous things, you know, both of those propositions, until you get to a point, like you said, where there is some proof, something to be able to hang your hat on and say, Oh, no, no, no, this is replicatable. This is studyable. There is some measure behind it, which, by the way, if you're keeping track of human history, there aren't any yet. But so we're really presented with one of only two options. You're presented with either maybe in the best case scenario that they're deluded and believe this, but then how do you get somebody out of that? Or they are con artists who know exactly what they're doing, and they're using this to manipulate. And I think Seibach has played very wisely kind of in the middle of this, where what he's doing is real. He is actually providing some level of relief for these people, but he is also taking it on this very strange journey, this obsessive chase for God, and it becomes the single-minded purpose, which given the set of experiences that he's had, maybe not that hard to understand because he has been able to exert this level of power over other people. And now he's just going to keep going until he finds the ultimate version of this. What makes it so interesting, though, is the whole aspect of this God complexity, if you will, because in Star Trek, at least up until this point, say from 1966 to 1989, it's not that we haven't met other God-type beings or aliens before this, the God of Shaka'ri, right? I mean, let's go all the way back to who mourns for Adanes, we met Apollo. We met the Metrons in arena. We've met all of these types of the organians, you know, and Aaron of Mercy. These are like super beings that weren't even... There were energy beings or non-corporeal beings, or in Apollo's case, he was basically the Greek God version of an alien species that thrived on adoration energy. It's not like this is something new to Star Trek, but the interesting thing is that the further out we go into space, the further we pull the curtains back on, are these beings actually God? Because that's what... And I know that this isn't really about Deep Space Nine, but that's what the prophets are. To the Bajorans anyway. To the Bajorans are gods, but to other people, they're warm little aliens, right? So it's like a microscope. If you're in the macro lens, all you really see is the God and faith aspect of belief, and then you pull back further and further and further, and then you see that there are so many similar God-type powerful beings that they're just other versions of aliens that we are just not ready to be part of that power structure yet. The Q. Well, it's sort of a God of the gaps fallacy though, because all of these beings that we've met before, they are on this smaller scale to the Star Trek universe. Now, to you or I or to somebody living 500 or 1000 years ago, or in the case of Apollo 2000 years ago, Apollo basically introduces himself as saying like, "Yeah, I'm an alien. I thrive on adoration energy." By the way, a great album title name. Absolutely right. I'd like to pick that up. So he basically says, "Yeah, this is who I am. My people are like this. Here's how we operate." And to the advanced minds and the advanced technology of the 23rd century, they can go like, "Oh, well, of course." And you're doing that to more primitive humans, but we've grown past that. Okay, but to those 23rd century humans who have grown past that and have their hands on all of this incredible technology, like he said, you just move the God idea a little further away. You make the power a little bigger, and you make the stakes a little higher. So now we go through mysterious great barrier. Well, 2000 years ago, that great barrier was an ocean. But in the 23rd century, that great barrier is just a thing sitting at the center of our galaxy. And if you go past that, just like oceanographers did 2000 years ago, they figured, "Okay, we'll try it. We might die in the process, but we'll try it." Are we just sort of allowing these characters to keep that one little shred of an unknowable, just this little bit of faith, this little bit of a thing that they don't quite get? And I guess we'll call that God until we determine, no, just another alien. And it is aliens all the way down as far as you look, which honestly I'm on board with, because I like that message here, because it's Kirk in the end. Yeah, maybe to Jean's point, Kirk is the singular soul hero here. But to his point, yeah, every time we uncover one more being that's a little more powerful than us, sure, they have power. But that doesn't mean that we have to be afraid of them or forbid worship them. It just means that there one more thing out there. There's something else in the universe that's a little bigger, a little more powerful than us. And what we have to do in order to not go mad in the process and actually bring meaning to our lives, is they're not going to give it to us. Apollo didn't give it to us. Trellane didn't give it to us, as we got to look inside our hearts, because that's the only thing that really matters. I mean, going back to Arthur C. Clark, his third law, technology at one point time would be indistinguishable. Oh, yeah, yeah. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I don't know why they committed to memory. But it's perfect, though, because that's what we're really talking about here. The more technologically advanced we become, the further away we are from the source of what we believe is magic, because we can start to quantify and prove what things are in the universe. But I do love how you're talking about how these explorers, they go out there and their barrier is the ocean. And that's what limits them to be able to push further until a madman or a rogue or a pioneer, like anyone of, say, the conquistadors like Avasco Dagama, or basically these charismatic leaders that wanted to go further. And also, to coin a phrase, because we're talking about this brainwash, their followers into following them into the unknown. How is Cybok than any different than any of those explorers? How is Cybok different than the first person to say, Zephyrm Cochran, the first person to break the warp barrier? Like Cybok said, you know, the sound barrier, people believed it couldn't be broken. It was broken. But until that happens, you know, the belief at the time is that these things limit man until they don't. But it takes that one person who people believe is insane to do that when they do that, then they're not insane anymore. They're actually heroic there that there this is the person that will lead you into the future. Because about two days ago, before you did this, you were crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, from a scientific point of view, you got to present your evidence. You got to get funding because no bucks, no buck Rogers. That's another truism. So there's a difference there versus the religious zealot who will force people knowingly or unknowingly will force people to follow him because this is what he wants. I think the thing is, you know, present your evidence, let's mount an expedition to go out there. If we get the funding, let's go find out. But Cybok is going about this all the wrong way. Did this movie win our hosts over like Cybok? Or is it a case of Shakari when the walls fell? All right. If this is your first time with Mission Log, and we suspect there might be a few movie in the audience, this is the point in the show where we get to wrap it all up. Yeah, we've pointed out the fun little quirks that we like or maybe didn't like as much. And yeah, we've had our deeply, hopefully insightful conversation in the last segment. But now we get to hold this movie to the two final questions. Does it hold up? And what do we learn? What's the moral meaning or message they get to take away? And thank you to everybody who participated in the pod crawl. This is great fun for us to take this movie again and try to kind of shoehorn it into our format. Norman, I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that this is actually a great movie to fit into the Mission Log format because there is so much to chew on. And maybe it's one of those that what's more important about it, the moral, the meaning, the message, the philosophical heart of the movie, maybe it transcends any of the other problems we might have with the movie. Let's get right into it. I will pose the question, does the movie hold up? I think you've got a few more notes on this than I do. So I'll just, I'll jump in my cell fear and say, look, here are the things that I pick apart. And I think every other fan picks these apart too. I think the dialogue is bad. I don't think it's all bad all the time, but I think this script is very inconsistent. And if you had had a writer like Nick Meyer come along and give this a polish, if you had had somebody else who really knows how to tell a story, I think that could have hidden a multitude of sins with this movie. We were just talking about Star Trek's ability to do comedy, to do drama, to kind of bounce around in different genres. I feel like where this movie fails with the comedy, it's because we get scenes where the jokes are jokes and they're not humor derived from the reality of the situation or of the characters. Again, that's not a blanket statement. That doesn't cover everything that's going on in this movie. But you know those moments, you have those and you watch and go, okay, well, that that's just kind of cringy. And that's because you know that the actor is aware that the character is aware that they're making a joke as opposed to, here's this naturally derived comedy. The effects, they're just bad. They're dated and they were bad at the time. And that's hard to swallow because all the other movies up to this point have had terrific effects. The effects in Next Gen on the air at the same time as this movie are better than the effects in this movie. Still, after all of that, especially now, as you and I are doing Mission Log, as you and I have done over 500 episodes of Mission Log, there is something really refreshing about being reunited with the old friends that are in this movie. And there's also something great about watching the Star Trek movie that strips things down a bit. This is a story that just unfolds logically, directly from one plot point to another. There aren't long as sides. There aren't things that don't actually fill in what's happening and what we need to care about here. So it's nice to see just a very straightforward moving like this. And look, there are moments of comedy that don't always work. There are moments of action that some work better than others. There are genuine moments of tragedy here. And there are genuine, heartfelt moments for these characters. I'm going to share my unpopular opinion. I do not love the camping scenes. I feel like a lot of times the actors are playing the parody versions of themselves. And that's a tricky thing. When you've been playing the same character for nearly 25 years, where do you get to take them next? And I can't put my finger on any one moment or one line in particular, but there were times that I felt like that right after I had been in a moment that made me feel like I'm sitting here with old friends. So those bounce around in this movie quite a bit. That's part of the inconsistency that I think overall hurts the quality of this picture. See also Scotty. I think sometimes we're playing the parody version. We're not actually playing Scotty. But here's what I love. This movie bites off way more than it can chew. It swings way out there for the fences. And that makes it somehow fit right in with the very best of at least what we all say we want from Star Trek. And that is we want strong familiar characters. We want deeply philosophical ideas. And we want some action adventure to move it all along. And it might be a swing and a miss, but I'm glad that a movie like this exists to show that a tentpole entertainment franchise can take on a deeply provocative idea about God, the universe, and everything. And on top of it all, Lawrence Luck and Bill cannot say enough good stuff about his performance. So does it hold up? That is a purely contextual question. It holds up because I'm a fan of Star Trek. I'm a fan of TOS. I'm a fan of stories like this. And I feel like I'm able to overlook some of the shortcomings. If I were to meet somebody and they find out that I'm a Star Trek fan and they say, what is this Star Trek? I've never seen it. I'd like to see some of it with you. I would not show them this movie because I don't think it holds up in that context. But hopefully we can roll around to this movie and really highlight the best that it has to offer. It's on to you, Norman. Does Star Trek 5 hold up? Well, first of all, I was unironically thrilled that we were chosen to do Star Trek 5, the final frontier. And I do say this unironically. I love this movie. And I want to take this opportunity on our platform to put it on the record as to why I feel it holds up and why it stands the test of time. Nice. I'm also thrilled that it's the first time that you and I, John, have actually talked about the original series in any context or content since I started with Deep Space Nice, what season four, Way of the Warrior, I think it was, right? So Star Trek, the original series, that's my route history in Star Trek. I love how much this movie reminded me that Star Trek is fun. It's light-hearted. It's campy and comical, but also can be very dramatic in its allegorical storytelling, very dramatic in its elements, especially the scene where Dr. McCoy's guilt is laid bare for all to see about euthanizing his father, David. I think it's one of DeForest Kelly's finest moments, probably not just in Star Trek, but probably in his career. It was that good. The final frontier attempted to reframe a very timeless story. And it felt like a traditional original series episode, and that's not a bad thing. No, of course not. You know, in fact, it's like, it's a nice palette cleanser after that serialized three movie arc where Kirk and crew experienced death and life together. I mean, we saw the death of the spot, the death of the enterprise, probably the death of their careers, sacrificed that need to be made, and then finally getting this to this moment in the final frontier. Not every story has to be end of the universe, as we know it. And in my opinion, modern Star Trek has veered away a darker lane, darker narrative storytelling, where there's maybe a little bit too much coarseness, too much cynicism involved in Star Trek storytelling. And we need to return back to showing how humanity has evolved past where we are now, but reminded through alien examples that the failings of humanity, we've been able to push through those. That's what traditionally Star Trek has shown us. I agree with you, John. I think that Luck and Bill's performance as Cybok is one of the best antagonists in Star Trek. Why? He's not a villain in the traditional black hat, white hat sense. Like he wants to do what so many have done before and have been called mad or insane or heretic or blasphemer or worse, right? He has this, as Spock described, this advanced intellect, you know, one of the most talented Vulcans he's ever known, to the point where he was cast out by his own people because he believed differently. But does that make him wrong? Does being a visionary make him wrong? Is that something that the Vulcans feared? Yeah, that's something that we just weren't able to get to in this movie. You know, he wanted to create a peaceful way to steal the enterprise. He didn't force Spock and McCoy to join them or to join him because of that power that he had. He released command of the enterprise back to Kirk with no strings attached. Once they reached chakari, right? But he needed the starship, right? He needed the starship to get there. And until someone actually proved something that can be done can be done until that point history calls him something else. But when he does that, they call him a hero or a maverick or a pioneer or someone who's courageous, right? The opposite of who he was before that moment. So I think that Star Trek 5, it just brings this fantastic epilogue to the franchise of the movies as at least up until 1989 because it has these incredible two opposing forces that we're seeing play out on screen. You have the forces of technology and the forces of faith that both lead us to the same conclusion that there is proof that God like beings do exist, but in the way that Star Trek likes to tell that allegorical narrative. Right. Dan Brown explored this idea in a more contemporary respect in Angels and Demons, his first book where the God particle or the antimatter molecule was created by scientists that certain in one respect and that because the particle was created by man, creations of God and its ultimate achievement was to reach God through science, then God exists because the ability to create or destroy matter is under God's authority. And I think that's kind of like a message that we almost got to in this movie, but it just missed because again, you probably would have fared better if you had a Nick Meyer or Leonard Demore or both do a little script doctrine or script review just to focus the message. So, but I do love about this is that this is the age-old quest like literally Sibot calls it a quest at the beginning to find God either without or within, to reach the unreachable, to achieve the unobtainable, to literally prove why we aspire to reach the stars and to answer the question, why are we here? But on a personally, you know, on a purely personal note, I truly miss this era of Star Trek, but I'm glad it's preserved in stunning 4K resolution on all platforms because I watched it on Apple TV. I told you this, John. Yeah. And it looked and sounded better than it's ever been. Of course, when it's remastered, the flaws are remastered too. And yes, the effects don't hold up, but I can get past all of that because of how much fun I had with watching this movie. It is a lot of fun. The colors are great in the remaster. You see a lot of that kind of almost painterly effect with light. I was going to ask you because yeah, you convinced me to buy it through iTunes and I got the whole collection. I got one through 10 that way. Came with a bunch of special features, a lot of special features on this reported over from various home video formats. Glad to see them all there in iTunes extras. Did you watch cosmic thoughts? That was one of the one of the special features. And it really, it's a little soft handed, but it is about this kind of awe and inspiration from the universe. And it tries to fit the story of Star Trek V's search for philosophy, for meaning, for the meaning of life, for God, et cetera. It tries to fit it into this kind of scientific exploratory measure. Really good. It's not as good as say like Carl Sagan giving one of his finest speeches, but but very few things in the world are. But I would highly recommend that there's also a commentary from Shatner and his daughter. And there is commentary with Mike and Denise. So it's a lot of fun to be found on those. So thanks for encouraging me to pick those up. So now we get to discuss what is the message or moral or meaning or philosophy or ethical dilemma, all kinds of directions to go here. A couple of things that I want to point out here, because there's a lot to chew on with Star Trek V. Cannot wait to hear from our listeners and new listeners from the pod crawl with their thoughts on the meaning in this movie is great exchange between God and Kirk. God says you doubt me. Kirk says I seek proof unless the other favorite line of mine in this movie. And because that is followed by that favorite line. What does God need with the starship followed by Kirk's punishment from that God for daring to ask that question. And I love this bit because I really hope that people sit up and take notice. As someone personally, I don't believe, but but I think that the spirit of what's going on here is absolutely critical. The very idea that an all powerful God creator of life and the universe would know the kind of proof that I need and would also know the value of inquiry and of reason and of doubt. Punishment is the lie. You know, aren't God? Yeah, I love that. I love that. And and punishment is the lazy gods or the lazy storyteller of God's way of wiping away the possibility of greater understanding. So then Spock follows up by saying, this is not the God of chakari or any other God. And that leaves us with a question. So who or what is he? And what then is the criteria for God? Because I refer us back to our earlier conversation. If the criteria is simply that thing that is more powerful than us, well, there will always be something more powerful than us. That doesn't necessarily mean that they get to ascend to the level of being called God. It's only our understanding that stands in the way of that. I might in fact, Norman, I might refer us back to an earlier Kirk speech in which he says, there is no unknown. There are only things temporarily hidden. And I think that fits very firmly here with this other bit of Kirk dialogue. And if there's something else that would maybe stick with me in rewatching this movie, I think the moral meaning message, I think it gets spelled out for us right there at the end. This is what we call our mission log, the bonk bonk on the head moment, the UC Timmy moment. And that is McCoy saying we were speculating is God really out there. And Kirk says, maybe he's not out there bones. Maybe he's right here. Human heart. Yeah. And to me, that makes Star Trek five as flawed as it is really the one that gets to the heart of Star Trek's humanistic message. At the end of the day, it's just us and our friends around a campfire, enjoying the love of family, natural family or found family. And sure, we're contemplating the big ideas too. But what's really important is the relationships we have and how those allow us to be our best selves. And also point out that this movie nicely bookends the motion picture another movie with a deeply humanistic message. And that one, it was all about a machine seeking its own God that led our crew to contemplate their own place in the universe. All right, Norman, bring it home for us. What do you got? Well, first of all, that was so eloquently spelled out, John. I mean, it really was. And I'm not really that far different from you here on the morals, meanings and messages. But for me to make the most sense of this movie, let's begin with the title of the movie itself. So Star Trek five, that's just kind of like the marketing title name, but yeah, the final frontier. So I think that the morals, meanings and messages are actually hidden in the title itself. But instead of a declaration of a title, it takes on an entirely different meaning. For me, if you frame it as a question, the final frontier. So is the final frontier achieved when you not only reach God, but prove that proves that he or she or it exists, is the final frontier, some kind of manmade goal that once reached or surpassed have we evolved and become a greater version of ourselves. Or is the final frontier, the capacity to overcome the human adventure, and the ability to come to terms with who we are, overcome all of our frailties, failings and faults. Let's take a look at these questions through the prism of our three main characters, our quote, unquote, triumvirate of ethos, pathos and logos. The opening camping scene is the perfect metaphor for this movie. Mythologically and theologically, the mountain represents the challenge to ascend to the highest possible point in order to touch the heavens to reach God. Narratively, mountains have a variety of theological meanings, including revelation and inspiration. Mountains are often seen as places where God reveals himself or his word. For example, Mount Sinai is where Moses received the covenant, the Ten Commandments, and Mount Tabor is where Jesus was revealed as the Son of God. Also, nearness to God, mountains are universally a symbol of God's nearness because they reach towards the heavens and surpassed humanity. Also, see Mount Olympus, the, you know, the place of the gods. For me, this is Star Trek 101, and return to what I feel is the core competency of Star Trek's founding architecture. It's not the finest production execution compared to the films compared to the films in the franchise before or since, but I believe it is the strongest thematic callback to the original series in spirit. Is Kirk baiting death because he truly believes that until you do, unless you challenge death, you can't free yourself of the trappings of fear. And if a captain can't overcome his fear, how can he lead himself and others into the unknown? Can Spock overcome his shame? For Spock to know that he will never live up to his father's standards because Sarah himself is already biased against his son's human half. The emotional and illogical turmoil in his youth must have been staggering. And can Dr. McCoy, who swore to preserve life, overcome his guilt because he showed mercy and compassion to his father first and a patient second? How does the son reconcile that with himself as a son before a doctor? So these are all human frailties that we have brought with us into outer space. And for some reason, we believe that the further we go out into space to find the answers, the more we realize that the answers are within ourselves. That is what Seibach failed to see. He planned and executed the ultimate strategy to find the ultimate answer. But there is no ultimate answer. We humanity will find those answers because that is our greatest gift. And perhaps our greatest flaw is our insatiable curiosity. In the case of the final frontier, Seibach's quest to prove that God exists can only be proven through the use of the most sophisticated technology available, a starship. But it is the starship itself created by mortal beings that gives them the ability to breach the very heavens that at one time were unreachable. As Seibach said, we're akin to proving that the earth was rounded, not flat, and that the sound barrier was broken. That could never be broken. Gene Roddenberry said that aliens didn't build the pyramids. Human beings did because they are clever and hardworking. Mankind's ability to keep pushing itself to greater heights is what allowed them to touch God. Or in this case, prove God exists. But only in the way we cannot scientifically explain or quantify until technology and God actually meet Allah be enterprise, reaching Shakari. The philosophical implications are staggering when you really think about what the final frontier is trying to say. That by the way, whether you're a new listener or an old listener, that's the moment that we all stand up and we clap. Norman had the official patented trademark copyright mission log Applebox. Slid that under. You got to stand up on that. Thank you. You've felt absolute taller. Great job. Excellent job. No, very cool, Ben. I love getting to revisit this film with you and look at it. Some fresh eyes. It's been a while since I've been in the TOS world. So very cool to do that. Hey, coming up, we're going to talk to women at warp and find out what's happening in their coverage of Star Trek six, the undiscovered country. And don't forget, go to Star Trek pod crawl.com to find links to all the participants covering the first seven Star Trek movies. Thanks to the seventh rule, open pike night, sci-fi sisters, women at warp, Star Trek, the next conversation. And of course, big thanks to the fellows over at Upsbridge, Shimoda, the greatest generation podcast. Check out all the other shows and don't forget to support the National Center for Science Education in CSC helps individuals and communities resist threats to accurate and effective science education. Your donation matters. Find out more at Star Trek pod crawl dot com. Okay, as we just mentioned, it's time to meet the hosts of your next pod crawl podcast. And that is the crew from women at warp who will be covering Star Trek six, the undiscovered country. So representing women at warp, we've got Andy, we've got Jera, we've got Sue, welcome into mission log. And for anybody in the audience here who does not know about women at warp, who wants to give us the the nickel tour. Sure. So women at warp, we are on the cusp of culminating a 10 year mission to explore intersectional diversity in infinite combinations. We are a podcast hosted by a rotating crew of six women featuring a variety of guests from different diverse backgrounds talking about representation of women on the screen behind the scenes, but also issues like queer representation, anti racism, and the bigger kind of Star Trek themes and just looking to bring more diverse perspectives into the fandom. Fantastic. And I assume that you've already covered Star Trek six at some point in your long careers, right? It's been a while. Yeah, we talked about all of the TOS movies at one point and kind of took an overall look at all six of them. And then of course, the undiscovered country comes up a lot when we're just talking about other themes. So we just did an episode on Vulcan women. So of course, Valeris was one of our highlights of the Vulcan women episode. She's one of my faves. We got a chance to talk about her in our undiscovered country episode. And just yeah, so we've talked about it before, but we haven't had a dedicated show to it. So were there new areas to mine in your conversation for the pod crawl, or was it like just revisiting old friends like, Oh, I remember we had that conversation. Let's dive into that. I would say we definitely a little bit of both. I would say we definitely went deeper than we have on this film before, perhaps surprising to some folks. There were a lot of feet questions. Okay. All right. Hey, you find your demographic and you stick with it. So that just proves that we do the fun silly stuff as well as the heavier, more nuanced stuff. So you know, in one minute, you'll get a whole discussion about Kirk's bias and racism because of his emotions. And the next, you'll get a lot of question about crewman Dax's speed. Yeah, fantastic. Let me just say that in case you were ever worried about ruining your algorithm, I searched so you don't have to. Does crewman Dax have a wiki feat profile? You will have to listen to find the answer to that. Oh, okay. That's it. That is all the teas we need clearly. Now, as our audience knows, they can follow every show at Star Trek pod crawl.com and just to make sure if they're looking for you, women at warp, where should the audience find you? The easiest place is probably our website, which is women@warp.com. We're also on Facebook and Instagram as women at warp and all the places that you listen to your podcasts. Yeah, pretty much. All of them. Excellent. Well, it's a little bittersweet. I mean, I look forward to this show, but I know that you are planning to wrap it up after a long and successful run in podcasts. But if anybody, I would be shocked if anybody in our audience has not heard of women at warp, but if you haven't, check them out. And now you got this whole back catalog to listen to. So, women at warp, thank you so much and onward with the next episode of the pod crawl. Some second start of the right. Straight on till morning. Thanks for having us on. Mission Log is produced by Roddenberry Entertainment. If you would like to support us directly, you can do so at patreon.com/missionlog for early access to shows and the Mission Log Discord. Our website is missionlogpodcast.com. And for more Star Trek news and discussion, visit trekmovie.com. Some of the music for Mission Log provided by Warp 11, online at warp11.com. Special thanks to consulting producers, Matt Esposito, Homer Friesell, Rand Hurl, Tom Kozak, Julie Miller, Mike Richards, Mike Shadwell, Paul Shadwell, and David Tuckhechi. I miss hearing about the original crew, but I especially miss hearing about the SaaS. And transmission. This is a Roddenberry podcast. For more great podcasts, visit podcast.roddenberry.com.
