In much the same way as The Motion Picture was a long journey to a less-than-spectacular pay-off, The Final Frontier feels like a TV episode stretched out over a feature length. It's clear from the opening scene that Sybok is no villain, so that leaves the film sorely lacking in the tension department. There's a bored Klingon Captain out to get Kirk but the character is introduced late and is underused to the point of pointlessness. In fact the real bad guy isn't introduced until ten minutes before the film ends, and his scene is a frankly pathetic excuse for a climax.
In place of dramatic tension we're left with pratfalls from Scotty, scenes of Kirk, McCoy and Spock singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" around a campfire and Uhura performing an erotic dance - none of which is as much fun as it sounds. While some scenes border on the epic (by Star Trek standards) others seem to be grappling with budget restraints - the ship that picks up the campers is represented by sound effects and flashing lights, and the less said about the Face of God finale the better - which give the film a curiously schizophrenic feel.
Probably just edging out The Motion Picture as the weakest of the first seven "original crew" films (not counting their cameos in Generations.) Like that film it's not exactly bad, just very thin on plot and not much fun.
In place of dramatic tension we're left with pratfalls from Scotty, scenes of Kirk, McCoy and Spock singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" around a campfire and Uhura performing an erotic dance - none of which is as much fun as it sounds. While some scenes border on the epic (by Star Trek standards) others seem to be grappling with budget restraints - the ship that picks up the campers is represented by sound effects and flashing lights, and the less said about the Face of God finale the better - which give the film a curiously schizophrenic feel.
Probably just edging out The Motion Picture as the weakest of the first seven "original crew" films (not counting their cameos in Generations.) Like that film it's not exactly bad, just very thin on plot and not much fun.