5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Directors Cut
This is a missed opportunity that still has a chance to be corrected. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was a critical and commercial hit and it remains as one of the most popular Star Trek movies, instantly recognisable to non-trekkies as the one with the whales. It was for the follow up movie to carry and run with that momentum, but its pretty much common knowledge that the fifth film starring the original crew failed to do that and had a number of problems. Failure to secure ILM for the special effects meant the film looked amateurish. Paramount refused to give director William Shatner the budget he was after so a number of key sequences had to be scaled down; and most people who watched it could not look past the theme of looking for god, even though the film is not entirely about that. But for all its issues, it's a film that is unfairly judged. Yes the film might suck visually and some of the comedy in the script is more miss than hit but there is a lot in the film that deserves praise. The Kirk, Spock and McCoy relationship that was so popular -and held the Original Series together - has never been so well transferred to the big screen as it was in this film. The story about confronting belief with rational thinking is pure Star Trek and it also has one of the best scenes in Star Trek where Dr McCoy ends his fathers suffering by committing euthanasia. Overall, The Final Frontier is a movie that echoes the Original Series more than any other. William Shatner has made it clear that he would like to revisit the film and release a Directors Cut so audiences finally get the film he originally conceived. Robert Wise was allowed to release a Directors Cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture which vastly improved the film, it seems like the obvious thing to do with the other black sheep of the Star Trek movie series. However, Paramount does not agree. With an established fan base that would love to see a new version of the film, it is not beyond the realms of reality to assume that it will sell like hot cakes. The special effects could be replaced with better CGI ones at a relatively low cost, it could be re-edited to give it a better pace, and the film could get the ending that Shatner originally wanted, including rock monsters and everything. But most of all, Shatner wants to do it and fans want him to do it. With Shatner turning 82 - sad as it is to say - time is running short, but as of 2012, Paramount was still not any closer to green lighting the project as Shatner made clear in an interview;
I would love to do that. I approached that subject years ago and they laughed me out of the office.
You can join the Facebook campaign to get a Final Frontier Directors Cut here but as it stands now, it's a missed opportunity that looks set to remain that way.