I should really stop watching Star Trek V: The Final Frontier one of these days, but I am old enough now to just come out and admit it is probably one of my favorites of the Treks, as despite the short-changing we get on the FX and the nonsensical and mostly-improvised finale cobbled together from what Shatner could afford to shoot from his own pocket after the studio pulled the plug on the original ending, the script keeps things light, Kirk makes dark allusions about knowing he'll die alone that sound ominous but it's basically him saying as long as his bros have his back he knows he's invincible, and there's a pleasant subtext about the nature of faith in a secular society as an article of singular and internal council rather than something maintained via committee. I mention all this to assure you that I am thus very serious when I say it is a better film than the JJ Abrams reboot, which I have watched and enjoyed several times since it came out but can say with absolute certainty that for me it is so dumb it is actually bad for you. Nero wants revenge for his dead wife, Kirk wants revenge for his dead dad, Spock wants revenge for his dead mum, Captain Archer from Enterprise wants revenge for his dead dog, some security dumbass wants revenge for Kirk grabbing Uhura's boobies during a barfight, Scotty takes a ride in a waterslide, no-one mentions that the Enterprise has concrete floors and is clearly a sewage plant, etc... No aspirations in the story, no allegory, no lofty ambitions or even basic compassion, just some thugs bro-fisting as they blow stuff up and fix everything with the power of coincidence. Next to that, Kirk having another fistfight with another God after the Enterprise is taken over again is small beer.
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