So, is this anyone else's favorite ST movie?

I wouldn't say it's my favorite. But it's not as bad as people make out either. Frankly ive seen far worse movies in my life time. Its might have its flaws. But it has many great character moments that totally make up for it. The scenes alone with McCoy relives his choice to euthanize his father to end his pain. Is better than anything in Star Trek Generations, Insurrection, Nemesis, and the Two Jar Jar Movies that is nothing but mindless action with nothing to say. To me Star Trek has always been about Philosophy, Morality, and Ethics. Not mindless action bullsh!t. Even Star Trek 2 had McCoy talking about people playing god with genesis and how sometimes people have to sacrifice (even with their lives) for the greater good. Frankly i love all the original Star Trek Movies. Including Star Trek V. Because it actually still seemed like Star Trek to me. Not Action Bullsh!t.

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I love this movie, always have. But I do believe an even better film is there, if only Paramount would let Shatner have his Director's cut. They let Robert Wise do it with Star Trek The Motion Picture, so why not this one? I really believe more fans would stop trashing it if it had better effects and a beefed-up climax, as originally intended. Maybe one of these days we will get to see Shatner's director's cut. But until then, I will still continue to enjoy Star Trek V and defend it.

No, it is not my favorite movie, though I don't hate it either. The film is filled with weak writing, under-developed, and littered with silly little mistakes that could have easily been avoid. Sorry, the laziness inherent in the making of this film (there were a myriad of reasons why this happened, from studio interference to a writer's strike) will forever prevent it from being a favorite.

* The humor is simply out of place nearly every time it rears its head. We get belching Klingons, a body odor joke, flatulence jokes, alcoholism, etc. The only one that the humor truly worked with was Dr. McCoy, and I credit DeForest Kelley for that.

* Underdeveloped characters such as the Ambassadors on Nimbus III who served little to no purpose in the story. They are introduced and even go as far as casting David Warner, only to do nothing with them at all. The Klingon villains are even worse, caricatures who are just in it for the childish reason of besting Kirk. What a non-threat they were. They could easily be removed and the story would be the better for it.

* The plot is terribly disjointed. We spend too much time laboriously gathering the crew, then too little time exploring the great unknown at the Great Barrier. There was a whole story here that could have been told about this god having roamed the galaxy and been the inspiration for various religions across the galaxy before being imprisoned. It would have hearkened back to "Who Mourns For Adonis" among other things. Or, they could have visited the barrier at the edge of the galaxy as seen in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "god" could have turned out to be Gary Mitchell. I think there were many cool possibilities to take things, but all we got was an alien poser who gets mad and shoots lightning from his eyes and then gets shot by a phaser and that's the end of it.

With that said, it does indeed have very good chemistry between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I like Lawrence Luckinbill as Sybok quite a bit too. Many hate his being Spock's brother, but I have no problem with it. Why can't Spock have a secret that he has never divulged? When is it specifically stated that Spock has no brother? I can't seem to think of anything that would prevent this from being true. It's having not been mentioned before is not a valid reason. Carol and David had never been mentioned before Trek II, yet we accept that Kirk has a son.

The movie has some good ideas, but it just never really comes together. I have a difficult time buying into Kirk's mistrust of Spock, and I have a hard time buying into Sybok's Vulcan ability to release people from their pain. Why not explore this and make us understand it better? What is this mysterious power? They introduce it and then just use it as a plot device.

The movie is a mixed bag that Jerry Goldsmith really tipped the scale with by offering up an awesome soundtrack for. Kudos to the film for being the only one out of six to truly take us into the unknown. Too bad they left it so underdeveloped when all was said and done, a real missed opportunity.

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Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

Not my favorite but as others have noted, it's still a good movie. As it has been noted in the trivia section, much of what is (supposedly) wrong with this movie had more to do with the budget and a writer's strike than to it being a lame idea. This is probably why there can never be a director's edition as they ran out of money to do any more on it than what was already done.

Never-the-less, I have found my favorite part being when Sybok had Kirk, Spock and McCoy "give him their pain" and Kirk refused stating that he didn't want to know if he should have turned left instead of right, that he needed his pain and that it had made him the person that he was up to that point. To a younger audience, this bit may not make much sense but to people who have lived into their later years, this can be a very poignant premise. We all make painful mistakes in life - maybe have great regret over some of them - but it is how we choose to deal and learn from those mistakes that gives us character. Life is not a sprint, it is a marathon.
KS

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Star Trek 5 might be my favorite too!

transongeist.com

Sure, ST2 may be more dramatic and ST6 more relevant to the series' mythology, but there's nothing seriously wrong with this movie either (the storyline alone is way better than the completely wtf story of ST4). On one hand, most of the criticism out there is simply childish, and on the other, this movie may just have the best chemistry between the main characters since their fight with Kahn.

Anyhow, this may very well be my favorite ST movie. Anyone else agrees?

Too bad they never gave Bill the director's cut for the DVDs.