I have seen all of them. No idea what made it so bad, it really is one of the forgettable films of the series!

I think it was Shatner's writing and directing that made it so bad. He overused a lot of old movie cliches, and that brought down the overall quality of the film.

The script and the actors. Actually the end credits were quite good I thought.

I think the whole concept was just bad. Give me Star Trek VI any day.

1.) Fifty-something Nichelle Nichols doing a striptease in the moonlight to distract the bad guys. 2.) A journey to the center of the galaxy to find God. 3.) God turns out to be a big giant head with lightning-bolt eyes. 4.) Breaking Star Trek canon by allowing the original crew to travel halfway across the galaxy in a matter of a few hours, while it takes Janeway and crew 7 years in a far more advanced ship... 5.) The writers pulling Spock's touchy-feely half-brother out of their collective backsides.

"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" was a big success and Paramount figured that the draw for the next movie would be huge so why waste money on it. Meanwhile, Shatner had argreed to come back for IV and V on the condition that he direct V, and when he was given the script he was amazed at how bad it was. He refused to do it (and Nimoy backed him up) unless a rewrite was done. The final script that was approved was Shatner's. Then Paramount dropped the bomb... Industrial Light and Magic (SFX house for ST II thru IV) was asking for too much and Paramount wasn't willing to pay, so the effects had to go to other cheaper SFX houses. Because the SFX people had to ramp up (and do several redos) it ended up costing Paramount more to avoid using ILM than it would have to go with them in the first place. The other shoe fell when Shatner was told that he couldn't finish the movie the way he had written it because Paramount wouldn't spend any more on the film. This forced a last minute rewrite and the aborting of several desperately needed special effect sequences. Last minute script additions filled in for missing effects work and the story came to an lack-luster ending. As a footnote, when Paramount was releasing their "Special Edition" DVDs, they gave Robert Wise $2 million to finish "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" the way he wanted to do it and it was a big success (note: the new effects were done in Standard Definition so don't expect to see this version on Blu-Ray). When it came time for the "Special Edition" of "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", Shatner asked Paramount for $1 million to finish his movie the way he wanted and Paramount refused. So when it comes right down to it... Paramount has been behind most of the suck and none of the successes of the various ST pictures. Hope this helps.

Hmmm . . . let's see here . . . Directed by William Shatner Writing credits William Shatner Cast William Shatner ... Captain James T. Kirk ....hmmm . . . I'm thinking that the answer is: William Shatner William Shatner and William Shatner Any questions?