While clicking through channels this morning, found Star Trek: the Final Frontier just starting. This was the only Trek film with the original cast that I hadn't bought in a special edition, because I really didn't like it.

My opinion hasn't changed in the years since its release.

In a way I see it as a pity, because I'm not one of those SF snobs who see Trek as barely SF. Like any other series, it had its ups and downs. But it had good actors, a usually literate script, adequate special-effects (I've no need for flash; if the story is good enough, even the BBC £1.98 budget can be endured if the ideas and action works).

Final Frontier, however, does owe a nod to the Brits. It's the Star Trek version of the "panto," the classic British Christmas play.

The "pantomime" is an annual British theatre presentation that mixes various theatrical styles from the 1400s to the present. It is not a "pantomime" in the sense that it is silent, BTW. It's a musical-comedy presentation built around either an old fairy tale like "Cinderella" or "Jack and the Beanstalk" or English tradition, like the story of "Dick Whittington and his Cat." The "dame," the bombastic female lead, is always played by a male actor (usually florid and overweight) and the "principal boy," the young male lead, is always played by a young woman. The productions feature bad puns, flashy costumes or gadgets, broad acting, and music. The audience is encouraged to shout to the players and prominent British actors are one of the drawing cards for each season's "pantos."

Final Frontier, with yet too many stupid jokes--Scotty bonking his head on an overhead beam, Sulu and Chekov trailing after a comely Klingon--after being lost in the woods early in the movie, Uhura doing a strip-tease as a diversion, and too many others to list--is the Christmas panto come to life. Dr. McCoy, presumably due to Kirk's mountain-climbing proclivities, seems to spend the entire beginning of the movie drunk. Indeed, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy seem to be there simply to trade quips. While a madman searching for God--who turns out to be Spock's long-lost emotional half-brother--hijacks the Enterprise and wins over her crew, they take a lickin' and keep on quippin.'

Which, again, is a pity because there are legitimate and interesting ideas behind this entire debacle: Kirk's theory that he can't die because he's not alone, for instance, Sybok's search for God and ability to release people from the pain of their past, and finally, Kirk getting to ask the classic question that has never been asked in other SF films.

You know the films: the ominipotent being--he with the powers of God, who can do anything and hurt anyone he likes--wants to escape from his prison. He gets the opportunity by hijacking a spaceship/starship/rocketship/mind of someone--you know the drill. And not one time does anyone ask "God" why, with all his powers, he needs someone else to help him escape.

So Kirk's puzzled, "Excuse me...I have a question...what does God need with a starship?" is so finally, damnably right, except it's asked in the one Star Trek film that's a joke. High irony indeed!

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:45:00 PM

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