14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

The dramatic principle of (Anton not Pavel) Chekhov’s Gun states that if you establish a gun in the first act of a story someone must fire it in the second.

It may not be in the first act, but when the Copernicus shuttle lands on the planet Sean Connery... er, Sha Ka Ree, Kirk pulls open a drawer containing phasers and communicators, the former of which never get used. Sure we get why Kirk doesn’t take a phaser when they disembark the shuttle, but once chased back to it by The God Thing — to coin a phrase — why in heaven’s name (pun intended) don’t he, Spock and McCoy grab weapons in order to at least try to defend themselves?

Sure, the faux god survived the wimpiest photon torpedo ever, but it was sure slowed down for a bit, so once it’s obvious the shuttle can’t take off you’d think they’d have considered grabbing the phasers just in case, especially since the transporter hasn’t been working for the entire movie.

Having established there are arms in the shuttles, think back to when they escaped the Enterprise brig cell, and why didn’t they beat feet to the hangar deck and grab said phasers from that shuttle on their way to try to call Starfleet for help? Sybok's entire posse numbers a dozen, so you'd think Kirk would guess the shuttles were likely unguarded (in fact, we see precisely one cadet in the hangar at the point Sybok announces his plans to the ship).

But then this would require anyone in this movie to act sensibly.