"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"

A religious zealout hijacks a starship on a mission to find God.

William Shatner called this concept "ahead of its time." He might have been right, but Star Trek V was ahead of a lot of things: primarily its budget and the crew's inherent talent. It didn't help that Shatner wanted the God Creature to actually BE God, until the producers talked him out of that, because... well, it's Star Trek. You know, Gene Roddenberry, secular humanist. Yeah. Star Trek. All gods are really aliens, even God, the Judeo-Christian big beard in a column of blue light.

The special effects of this movie are notoriously bad: the production was outsourced the Hoeboken, NJ visual effects company that did the effects for, well, "Altered States," actually. This company sure gets surreal, trippy imagery. But Space Opera? Forgot about it. "Star Trek V" is only a step above Roger Corman's infamous "Battle Beyond the Stars."

But back to God. So a renegade Vulcan devoted to the irrational experience of emotion has been drawn to the center of the galaxy. Yes, I know, even Gene Roddenberry considered this bit impossible for the Enterprise. Anyway, the renegade Vulcan is Sybok and turns out to be Spock's brother. By alleviating people of their "inner pain" (psychobabble that would make even Opera cringe), Sybok gains converts among the citizens of an impoverished planet WHO DRESS LIKE ALIEN BEDOUINS IN RUBBER MASKS. He converts three interstellar ambassadors he's kidnapped on his quest for God, which leads him to hijack the Enterprise and convert Scotty and Uhura, who are engaged in a geriatric love affair. And yes, there's the infamous Grandma Fan Dance scene. And the catwoman on cables. The sliding scifi western saloon doors. The list of bad cliches goes on.

After a skirmish with the Klingons, the Enterprise, hijacked by Sybok, reaches an idiosyncratic little planet blue glowing planet with no sun ostensibly at the unreachable center of the galaxy, after passing through an energy field that despite all its dangerous pretentions just seemed to glow real pretty-like. Kirk, Bones, Spock and Sybok go down to the planet and meet...

...God. Now here's what really bothers me about this movie: Star Trek has had some pretty damned God-like aliens. Take Q from The Next Generation. Literally all the powers of a God. Innumerable aliens from the Original Series and the other franchises have had powers that make them nearly indistinguishable from Gods, whether they are computers or energy creatures or incredibly advanced humanoids. Some are more advanced than others, but you'd expect the creature claiming to be The One True God would have to be one of the biggest, baddest motherfucking alien God-things in the universe, right?

Guess again. They should have found Q on that planet, but that would have made the plot pointless. As Kirk asks, the only intelligent question in the whole movie, "What does God need with a starship?"

God being a big floating semi-translucent head with a curly beard and a big forehead and long hair, his only real power besides floating is shooting lasers out of his eyes. Yes, this is the entity who claims to be the God of the Old Testament. Come on, a burning bush would have been more convincing. Anyway, this comes off as alright, since Kirk and Bones and Spock don't believe this thing for one second. First of all, it's stranded on this planet and needs to merge with a starship to get off. Second, it's a floating head that shoots lasers out of its eyes. It doesn't even compare to Star Trek's other alien Gods. It's more like the First Level Boss from a late eighties Videogame. Funny, that.

So Sybok attacks God, distracting him so that the others can escape while the Enterprise does battle with the Klingon ship above the God Planet. But Kirk heroically stays behind, and God spends a few minutes consisting of recycled footage that apparently was inserted to replace an unfilmable sequence of rock monsters emerging from the lava and attacking William Shatner, you know the stereotypical Star Trek moment parodied in comics and Family Guy? Well, not even Star Trek V could pull it off, not surprising considering the budget cutbacks. So Kirk dodges recycled footage of God until said recycled footage is destroyed in ONE SHOT by the Klingon guns, manned for some reason by Spock. The Klingons and the Renegades and the ambassadors and the Star Fleet guys get drunk figure that God is inside everyone.

All in all, a crappy movie that can only be enjoyed when drunk.

1/5 Rubber Foreheads for gratuitous So Bad It's Almost Good value.

I saw Altered States 4 or 5 years ago, and I really enjoyed it.  I have a slightly different interpretation of the film (obviously), but yours is interesting.  I saw it as more of an exploration of the physicality of the religious experience more than anything.  I'm going to have to dig this one out and watch it again for old time's sake. 

Coming soon, a groundbreaking movie from before most of us were born.

Battlestar Galactica: Revelations (Mid Season 4 Cliffhanger)

Serious Spoilers. You have been warned.

For those only vaguely familiar with the BSG Universe, this review will be useless. But if you, like me, have been hanging on to your seat for the past 5 years trying to figure out things like "Who or what IS the Cylon God?" and "Where did Baltar keep that pen?" and "Was that really Weed Adama and Roslin were smoking on New Caprica?" then read on, by all means...

Number 3: "All of this has happened before..."

Lee Adama: "But it doesn't have to happen again."

We open with Starbuck and Lee... President Lee, the oldest child now in charge of a house with the parents gone. He reads the scriptures, tries to picture the Temple of Aurora on Earth, their destination, their hope for salvation. If Earth alone is real, then all else follows...

He contemplates his father's empty chair, says to his oldest friend that the scariest words from his childhood were "Your father's waiting for you in his study." Now, not even Colonel Tigh can sit in that chair, much less look at it. He still expects Admiral Adama to be back.

The rebel Cylons on their baseship, led by a resurrected (and now singular) Deanna (Number Three) who knows the identities of the Final Five Cylons, choose to hold Laura Roslin and the Colonial Pilots aboard the Basestar hostage while she (Deanna) boards Galactica with Admiral Adama.

Felix Gaeta, in CIC, is back at his post, after losing his leg. He is drinking on the job to deal with the pain. Tigh asks if Gaeta wants to be relieved. Gaeta says he's good to go. Then the Cylon Baseship jumps in, accompanied by a Colonial Raptor.

Number Three and Admiral Adama step of the Raptor in Galactica's hangar bay. The four Cylons living in secret watch as Number Three steps aboard Galactica... will she out them to the Colonials?

Number Three negotiates with Admiral Bill Adama and President Lee Adama. She wants the 4 Cylons in the Fleet, who know the way to Earth. Tori takes the opportunity to go the Basestar with Laura Roslin's medication, despite Tigh's objections. The Final Four are in discord.

In a meeting with  the Admiral and Tigh, President Lee commits to Laura Roslin's communicated request that the rebel baseship must be destroyed, even if Roslin and the Colonial hostages lose their lives.

The opening credits roll.

The Baseship could take out every civilian ship in the fleet, ending the human race. Tigh wants another option. Starbuck says the 4 could give themselves up.

Tori, embracing her Cylonhood, boards the Basestar and is revealed to the Significant Seven.

Gaius Baltar thanks Laura Roslin for not letting him die (she saved his life in the previous episode, despite his admission to her, in near-death, that he was in fact responsible for the loss of billions of lives). Tori enters, reveals to Roslin who and what she really is: one of the Final Five Cylons. She advises Roslin to consider what else she's been wrong about, and refuses to interfere on behalf of the Colonials. "I'm done taking orders from you."

The Cylons execute the first of their colonial hostages, and Deanna threatens another execution every 15 minutes until all Four Cylons are in her hands. President Lee Adama authorizes his father to attempt a rescue and to destroy the baseship if it fails.

Prepping for the Op, Galen Tyrol receives the mysterious "Watchtower" signal. All three Cylons left on Galactica are hearing it. On the baseship, Tori hears it too: the song, something familiar, like from childhood.

The Three- Tigh, Tyrol and Anders- Cylons in hiding, are drawn by the signal to Starbuck's viper. Tyrol is convinced that something has changed, Anders says that this Viper has been to Earth (he believes Starbuck). And then, Tigh makes a decision.

Colonel Tigh, the dysfunctional man, the man who has lost so much- his eye, his wife, his humanity- approaches his oldest, dearest friend the Admiral, and suggests a radical course of action. "I should have told you this when I first found out, but I didn't have the guts." Tigh reveals, to a disbelieving, skeptical Bill Adama, that he is one of the Final Five. Adama is such a skeptic that Tigh must work up a dramatic flourish to convince him: "I'm one the Final Five. Deanna will back down if you threaten to flush me out the airlock." That's the way out, and Tigh knows it. Admiral Adama is finally convinced, and calls the Marines who march Tigh to the hangar deck. In his quarters, Adama- in one of the most painful moments ever to grace television- totally fucking loses it, letting out a horrific howl. He punches a mirror, bloodies his hand, takes a swig of liquor. It doesn't help. He cries, thrashes himself across the room. Lee- the dutiful son despite their differences, sits with his father, tells him that no one knew, it's not his fault. Colonel Tigh fought in two wars against the Cylons. The Cylons took his eye out in a jail cell on New Caprica. The Cylons forced him to do what he did to his wife when her complicity in the Occupation was revealed. Adama needs time. Lee says he'll take care of it. It's gonna be ok.

Lee approaches Tigh in the airlock, and punches him in the face, demanding to know the identities of the other Cylons. Deanna calls the Galactica, and Lee tells her that they have Saul Tigh standing in the airlock, and if one more colonial hostage is hurt, Saul Tigh will die. Deanna wants to speak with the Admiral, but Lee says no. Deanna gets to deal with President Leland Adama.

Starbuck, Tyrol and Anders look over her viper for clues to Earth's presence. Starbuck is skeptical. THen the marines enter, arresting Anders and Tyrol. "What the hell"" asks Starbuck. "They're Cylons, just like the XO." says the Marine. "It's true," Anders tells his ex-wife. "There's something about this viper," he says to Starbuck. "Something's changed, you've got to find it."

Tigh is joined by Tyrol and Anders in the airlock.

On the baseship, Deanna is threatening to kill more hostages. Gaius Baltar volunteers to talk her down.

Lee calls the Baseship, updates Deanna of the situation: the 3 Cylons left in the fleet are in the airlock.

Starbuck, in the cockpit of her grounded Viper, tunes into a signal, somehow she knows it's being channeled by the Final Five.

Gaius approaches Deanna on the baseship. "It doesn't have to be this way" is the gist of what he says. And Lee's not bluffing. "He doesn't give a damn about those three, he'll kill them." "Then the human races dies with them," says Deanna. THe baseship targets the civilian fleet with its nukes.

Lee orders the other two Cylons out of the tube, preparing to kill Saul Tigh by airlocking his Cylon ass.

"They'll never forgive us for what we did," says Deanna to Gaius. She can't see another way out except violence, but Gaius reminds her that force didn't work on New Caprica and it didn't work on the Algae Planet.

Lee takes the airlock key, prepares to kill Tigh. "What are you waiting for?" Tigh demands. Enter Starbuck. "Lee, stop! Those three frakking Cylons just gave us Earth." Saul Tigh's execution is called off.

Lee and Starbuck go over the signal her viper receives. It has to be a signal from Earth. Starbuck spells it out for him: it's a signal from Earth. Of all the ships in the fleet, her viper alone has been to Earth. The Cylon hybrids' prophecies are too, and the actions of everyone are being orchestrated by a higher power- call it whatever you want- that wants the Colonials to find Earth WITH the Cylons.

On the Galactica the Rebel Cylons examine the signal received by Starbuck's Viper. Lee says they could have jumped away and left the Cylons behind, but that would have only led to another confrontation, another standoff down the line. "All this has happened before," says Deanna, the Arc Words slipping from her lips. "But it doesn't have to happen again," says Lee, subverting the Arc Words, the Cycle of Time, scripture and prophecy. Lee alone is attempting what neither President Roslin or Admiral Adama could have done: he is willing to break the cycle, to break the repeating pattern that has led human and Cylon to conflict after conflict. Lee says the Four Cylons- Tigh, Tyrol, Tori, and Anders- are free to stay or go. They've got amnesty. "Where do we go from here?"

Deanna agrees to release the hostages. "We go to Earth together."

Lee talks to his unresponsive father who is out of uniform, wearing a bath robe, this tour-de-force of a man, Admiral Bill Adama, who is broken. He looks like he's been crying for hours, since we last saw him. Lee says they can set a course for Earth now. What are his orders. Adama's not sure. Lee gives him every chance to assert authority. "Are you ready to take us to our new home? What are your orders?"

Enter Laura, who speaks to Adama as no other can, as an equal. "It's good to see you," says Adama. "This is it Bill," says Laura Roslin. "This is everything that we have been working for. I want to see you pick up that first fistful of Earth."

Adama excuses himself. "I'll be back."

Laura and Lee talk. Lee's just finished the shortest presidency in colonial history, and Laura Roslin is back in office. She compliments Lee for the way he handled the situation.

Adama is back in uniform. "Let's go find Earth." Lee suggests a recon flight. Adama says it's time to "roll the hard six." If they give the alliance too much time, it will fall apart. HIs orders: screw the Recon, jump the whole fleet, and the rebel baseship, to Earth.

On Galactica's CIC, Adama cedes the duty of giving the final order- to jump to Earth- to President Laura Roslin. "Take us to Earth."

Majestically, beautifully, fifty crippled refugee ships and one crippled rebel Cylon basestar jump, their space folds taking them into orbit around a blue and grey world that Gaeta confirms is Earth.

Adama makes a heartfelt announcement to the Fleet: "Three years ago I promised to lead you to a new home. We've endured a difficult journey. We've all lost, we've all suffered, and the truth is I questioned whether this day would ever come. But today, our journey is at an end. We have arrived at Earth."

An Earth Adama believed for so long to be a myth, an Earth that drove Laura Roslin quest for faith, a faith which has been answered, justified.

And the refugees, the deckhands, and the officers rejoice. All our characters have a little moment where they share their joy with the people they love: Sharon and Helo and Hera, Figursky and a cute blond deckhand, even Starbuck grieves for her lost pilot Kat in the Memorial Corridor.

We made it. We MADE it.

And then...

I suppose we all should have seen it coming. It was obvious, the only possible way for Galactica to make sense, but even though most of us probably expected it, it still took us for an emotional ride. After the celebration, the tears of joy, the grief over those who didn't make it, we see a vast expedition force riding through ominious looking grey clouds. Human ships, Cylon ships... Dozens of small craft, a landing party. I knew it would probably happen when I saw this episode for the first time, when the jubilations occurred three minutes before the end. Those last three minutes were expected, but they still manage to strike a chord and send a chill down my spine. I still have goosebumps. Yes, maybe it was predictable how this episode would end, but there were so many twists and turns along the way that it still manages to almost surprise me.

There is a fade out, and a fade in, to Adama, wearing rough survival gear, picking up that first fistful of Earth, letting the granules of soil fall through his fingers to the ground, as a geiger counter held by an unseen person scans the dirt, revealing the degree of radioactivity all around them. The camera, in one shot, pulls out, showing Roslin in similar gear, next to Adama. "Earth," she says it like a death sentence, in the same tone of utter disgust with which she used to say "Gaius Baltar." I can feel her bitterness. The geiger counter crackles and pops, and the camera sweeps over the gaggle of characters. Caprica Six and Athena have been released from confinement. Six the repentant Cylons, architect of destruction, goes to her new boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, the Final Fiver Saul Tigh. Athena, the only Cylon to voluntarily serve with humans against her own people, is with her husband. Anders approaches Kara, who stands in the midst of the ruins of a building with what appears to be wrecked dome. The camera pans to reveal the devastated, skeletal remains of skyscrapers on an island city, and the distinctive ruins of a suspension bridge. The landscape is desolate, windy, grey and white. The devastated city with its island and bridge is reminiscent of New York. The ominous clouds float over the horizon.

The episode ends on that downer note. Faith led them to Earth, and faith disappointed. God's plan is not over. There's half a season left, and I'm betting it's gonna be ugly.

I want to say a few things about this episode. Firstly, the episode as a midseason cliffhanger (  a staple of Battlestar since season 2's "Pegasus"  ) is self-conscious. In keeping with the theme of the cycle of time within the show (events repeat, unfolding in parallel. Sometimes the parts of the actors are reversed, as Leoben the Cylon Seer has said. The cycle repeats day after day, year after year, epoch after epoch. No doubt, some variant of the cycle took place on Earth, leaving only destruction and ruins. THe cycle came to New Caprica, and New Caprica was left a wasteland after the final battle and exodus. THe cycle came to the Algae Planet, and that world is now dead, eradicated when its star went supernova and revealed the Eye of Jupiter, allowing Deanna to see the faces of the Final Five before she died. And the episode just before this one? Deanna, resurrected with her knowledge. The cycle came to the 12 Colonies too, and the 12 Colonies are abandoned, post-nuclear wastelands.

Just like Earth.

But the Cycle, it seems, is not the plan of the Series' God (and there is a definitely a higher power orchestrating events in the Battlestar Universe). BSG's God, the God worshiped by the Cylons and now by a growing number of humans, against their polytheistic traditions, seems to have nudged the characters in the direction of subverting and breaking eternal recurrence. God wants the characters to break the cycle, to stop the violence and conflict between human and Cylon. And Lee does this, as his father and Roslin could not have conceived. He handles the situation admirably, and uniquely. Like last season, when Lee defended Gaius Baltar by calling out the fact that the Colonial People were no longer a civilization but a gang on the run, Lee goes against all common sense and wins. He takes a stand and does not back down. Of all people, he gets Deanna the Cylon to listen to reason.

I am not going to speculate here what will happen next, I just want to say a few more things about this episode, which I found to be one of the most gut-strangling, tear-jerking hours of TV in my life. I still choke up when Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, in the memorial hallway with its photographs and letters and candles, touches the dead Louanne Katraine's picture (Katraine having sacrificed herself to guide a ship through a deadly star cluster to the Algae Planet during a food shortage crisis), and says, "We made it Kat." I'm crying as I write that quote here, because Starbuck, like so many of the other characters, is so full of contradictions, so confused and complicated that her behavior comes off as genuinely sad. When Kat was alive, she competed with Kara Thrace. Starbuck and Kat were at each other's throats constantly, ever since Starbuck took on the job of training the draftee pilot Kat in the first place, back in Season 1. When they started out, she was a "nugget" and Kara was drill sergeant nasty, but Kara honed Kat into a masterful pilot, and began to respect her, even when she couldn't show it. And through Admiral Bill Adama, in a sense, they were both his daughters. Now that Kat is dead, she is the only appropriate outlet for Kara's emotional turmoil. Kara (Starbuck) has invoked Kat several times since the young pilot's death, building to this moment. As she grieves, we see Anders approach her. They exchange no words. She is aware of his presence, but does not look at him, just lets him into her personal space. This man- this Cylon- her former husband. She told him weeks ago that if she was a cylon she hoped he would bullet in her head, because she'd do the same to him. Now that knows- really knows that Anders is a Cylon, she does not have that resolve. Part of her still loves that man, if not for what they had, then for the fact that he is somehow part of her destiny, and we know that Kara Thrace has a destiny, whether it is to lead the human race to salvation, or to its end.

Adama's breakdown was equally sad, almost terrifying to watch. Not since recovering from Boomer the Sleeper Agent's assassination attempt has Adama been this broken. Actually, this time he is more broken. After Boomer tried to kill him, and after nearly dying twice on the operating table, Bill Adama walked differently. He spoke softer. He was closer to the ground, more aware of his own mortality. He overcame the trauma when the fleet, divided at that time, was reunited, but the experience never left him. Now, Bill Adama must accept something he does not want to believe: his best and oldest friend in the universe has been lying to him for months. Saul Tigh, hero of the Colonial Fleet, leader of the New Caprican Resistance, a man who would do anything to save his people even if that meant taking on the tactics of terrorism against the Cylons and their human collaborators on that Godsforsaken rock, is a Cylon himself. He knows, too, that he is a different kind of Cylon. He knows who he is, and he makes his own choices. Boomer was a sleeper agent, programmed for sabotage. But Saul Tigh is a real person, and though he was not aware of his Cylon nature the end of Season 3, he has been making his own decisions since Day One. And now he decides that is the proverbial pawn. In an act of self-sacrifice, Saul Tigh saves the day, and redeems himself for all his flaws, all his wrong decisions throughout the the four years of the human exodus. It is Saul Tigh's most dignified moment since he poisoned his collaborator wife.

But this is not a dignified moment for Bill Adama. Bill Adama, the man who embodies dignity, rationality, and humanity in this show, whose wisdom and skepticism have proved invaluable in leading the fleet with Laura Roslin, Bill Adama loses it. He just loses it. I can tell that Eddie James Olmos had fun with this scene, loosing all Adama's pent-up rage at himself and his own perceived weaknesses, weaknesses that he alone knows, that he alone recognizes because every day he has to be Admiral Adama, but he has realized of late that Admiral Adama is a suit he wears to keep himself from getting too sentimental. Last season, Adama realized that he'd grown soft, and he'd let his people grow soft too. He snapped them back into shape by calling out Chief Galen Tyrol's "fat, lazy ass" in the dance- the traditional military no-holds-barred rank-matters-not boxing match and proceeded to taunt the chief mercilessly in the ring. He had to do it, he had to snap his people back into shape. New Caprica was gone, they were on the run again. And they couldn't afford to get weak.

I could say more. Even if you've never watched the show, watch this episode. It is absolutely brilliant. Fans of the shows soundtrack will note the recurrence of "All Along the Watchtower" song, and the strange static which seems to suggest that the Final Five were somehow involved in the detection of the signal by Kara's Viper's equipment. Kara, who came back from the dead as practically a different person, still has a destiny. Is she the savior of the human race, or the harbinger of Death? Leoben's been vague, and Leoben mixes truth with lies to manipulate people. But the Cylons Hybrids have never lied: The First Hybrid warned Kendra Shaw that Kara Thrace was the harbinger of death, and the modern Hybrids have said it too. But this is Battlestar Galactica, and this entire episode was all about saying "f*ck off" to fate, and challenging pre-destination. So maybe Kara can still be redeemed. If Gaius Baltar and Saul Tigh can be redeemed, if the Caprica Six can be redeemed, if the Cylons and the Humans just forgive each other and have trust in each other... then there's hope Kara "Starbuck" Thrace and the others. Not much, this is Battlestar after all, but there's still hope.

This concludes today's review of "Battlestar Galactica: Revelations."