Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account of the Making of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

by William Shatner, Lisabeth Shatner

William Shatner makes his feature film directorial debut with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Captain's Log is the up-close, inside story of what went into making this remarkable film.

As told by Lisabeth Shatner.

Genres: Star Trek, Nonfiction, Memoir, Media Tie In, Biography

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1989

About the author

William Shatner is the author of nine Star Trek novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Ashes of Eden and The Return. He is also the author of several nonfiction books, including Get a Life! and I'm Working on That. In addition to his role as Captain James T. Kirk, he stars as Denny Crane in the hit television series from David E. Kelley, Boston Legal -- a role for which he has won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe.

Reviews

[kesseljunkie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final rating doesn’t reflect how *fascinating* this book is to read, especially decades after the much-maligned film was released. It loses some style marks, and probably because the apparent glossing-over of some since-revealed issues with the film is readily apparent. It’s also a bit too enthusiastically non-critical as it’s written by a daughter who obviously wanted to paint her dad in the best light possible. Still, some fascinating stuff and I’m really glad I revisited it this many years later.

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this way more than is reasonable. I've always loved Star Trek V, in spite of it's goofiness. It was interesting to get a better idea of Shatner's original epic plan. I would have liked to have seen the movie as he originally envisioned it. The book doesn't have much of an ending, but other than it was a very enjoyable read.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charting the making of “Star Trek V”, this has the great benefit of being written by the directors daughter, so she has almost unlimited access to the production - the downside to that, of course, being that she’s never going to be critical of her Dad. Shatner, in general, comes over well and he’s clearly liked by his cast and crew, though some are not backward about telling him when he’s gone wrong (especially his producer and Leonard Nimoy). Clearly cataloguing the penny-pinching that severely hinders the final product, this nonetheless does a decent job of covering the nuts and bolts of production, even if the post-production aspect is very quickly glossed over. A big plus for the book is it’s layout - a slightly oversized paperback, this isn’t filled with big pictures and artwork and doesn’t have ANY pictures of people sitting around a computer monitor and pointing at the screen. Well worth a read, moreso if you’re a Trekkie, I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

[Wendell T. Wumplepuss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, engaging account of William Shatner's directorial debut. A little confusing occasionally as it's written by his daughter, Lisabeth, as his account - so the changes in perspective tripped me up here and there. I like seeing what the film could have been and the good cheer on the set. Underappreciated movie and novel adaptation!

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just finished Mr. Shatner’s Up Till Now I chose to read this account of making Star Trek V and was pleased to see both accounts were consistent. I also appreciated that this story was an accurate and truthful depiction of the process of making a film, blemishes and all.

[H. Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great literature or anything, and hardly an honest analysis given its status as "book about famous actor as told to his daughter to help market directorial debut," but it's still cool to read the how-tos, technical difficulties with specific scenes, etc. I like the director's/main actors' visions of what the movie was supposed to be a lot more than how it turned out, really. They talk a lot about humor to balance out the seriousness, but they took it too far and an inherently serious story about god turned into an inherently funny story about a cinematic attempt to depict god. But that has nothing to do with the book, the point is that while there isn't really an in-depth personal look here, you do get behind-the-scenes explanations from the actors as well as the different technical departments, and that stuff interests me.

[Tedi31]

Bought: May 31, 2014
Location: Booksale (Makati Cinema Square)
Price: P60

[Norman Howe]

Science-Fiction