10 Movies That Did Crazy Things When They Ran Out Of Money
7. William Shatner Recycled Footage, Extras & Costumes - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is generally accepted to be the worst of all the Trek movies: it's a bit of a bore for the most part, and lacks the glossy, big-budget feel of its predecessors, despite having a markedly bigger budget than the three prior sequels.
The William Shatner-directed project was a massive challenge for all involved: there was considerable pre-production squabbling over the script, Shatner wrestled with Paramount over the budget, there was a Writers Guild strike going on, and there were major issues while shooting on location and during post-production.
Because Shatner's budget was revised and by his own claim he didn't receive enough help to correctly allocate his allotted money, he had to cut corners at almost every turn to bring it in on-budget.
This included re-using the same extras in different camera setups to imply Sybok's (Laurence Luckinbill) army was larger, recycling costumes from previous Trek films, and filming the campfire scenes closer-up because there wasn't time or money to build more expansive sets for wide shots.
Worst of all, the film's climax was originally intended to have Kirk (Shatner) be chased by a fleet of rock monsters, but when there simply wasn't the money to pull it off, and a single rock monster test scene wasn't satisfactory, Shatner was out of options.
As a result, he ended up re-using previously-shot footage of "God" (George Murdock) for the climax, who manifests and attempts to kill Kirk only to be blown to smithereens by Klingon disruptor fire.
As much stick as Shatner gets for the movie, it really does seem like he tried to make the best of a terrible situation. In a more recent interview, Shatner spoke freely about his frustrations with the sequel:
"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."