Spock’s brother and some space hippies want to find God who lives in Eden at the center of the galaxy. Naturally they need a star ship to get there and the Enterprise is the first available one they can take over. Oh, and there’s a punk Klingon following because…reasons.
It is hard not to be cynical about The Search for God, as it is often called. Perhaps William Shatner really was thinking about telling a good story and entertaining the fans. But I can’t get the image out of my head of Shatner jumping up and down yelling, “Look at me!” Leanard Nemoy had directed the two previous installments, and Shatner wanted his turn. Well, he got it.
At least if you are going to mangle a movie, Shatner does it with such foolishness that it can be enjoyed for the sheer spectacle of his ego. Kirk climbs rocks, sings songs, tells bad jokes, and acts both as action hero and as slapstick comic.
Looking and feeling like a weak TV episode rather than a film, the movie seems cheap and tiny. Shatner chose to remake The Way to Eden, perhaps the worst original series ep. The space hippies are now a Vulcan hippy and his religious followers, but they are still looking for Eden. Amazingly he’s managed to make it less sensical than it was forty years earlier.
It’s hard to determine which of horrendous camera angles or ineffectual lighting or the psychology of “everyone has a secret pain” is the worst part of the film. But why choose one when they are all so bad? Shatner even manages a potshot at those damn kids now-a-days on my lawn with their funny clothing and rock-n-roll, in the form of bratty Klingon youths.
The Planet of Galactic Peace being the armpit of the universe is clever and could have been the setting for a smarter tale. Plus, there’s Uhura’s fan dance and the line “What does God need with a starship?” so the film isn’t a complete loss. An embarrassment, certainly, but not a complete loss. Maybe I am a bit severe saying not to see this. When a film is so flamboyantly bad, there is some joy in watching the smoking ruins.