Last week, Entertainment Weekly published a feature where Henry Winkler and William Shatner promoted a new project while apologising for an old, bad one. Shatner offers his regrets for the infamous Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, while passive-aggressively blaming Paramount anyway. Fun!
Image: Screenshot from Star Trek V via TrekCore
Here’s what Shatner had to say about The Final Frontier‘s ending, which was presented, I assume for irony’s sake, under the header “Sorry About That”:
I got the chance to direct a several-million-dollar movie, Star Trek V, and I did not get the help I needed in allocating my budget, so when it came to shooting the ending — needing a good villain and lots of computer graphics — I had run out of money. Sorry about that. [Laughs.] I had to use footage that I had already shot — and spit on it a lot. I wanted to give [the audience] earth-breaking granite monsters spewing rocks and fire. Instead, I had a few pebbles in my hand that I threw at the camera.
“I ran out of money, but no one got me an accountant, so oops!” You know what? Honestly, I’m not sure better effects would have saved a movie where Spock’s crazy brother takes them all on a search for God. Or a movie where our heroes sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.