Fan Edits are a curious film sub genre. Some simply reinstate deleted scenes to maximise the running time of a movie. Others will remove footage and seek to reorder events in the name of coherency. But a few are far more ambitious. Rather than just reshape what is there, they will shoot new footage to replace material deemed substandard and seek to totally reimagine a movie. On even rarer occasions a few manage to actually improve upon the original, rather than just offering an augmented version. Which leads me onto Star Trek: beyond the Barrier, an interesting and very enjoyable fan edit of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by Anti-Matter from deLimited Productions. It attempts to repair many of the problems found in the theatrical release of the movie. Some would argue that such a task is a Kobayashi Maru test in itself. However, the results are surprisingly good and some tongue in cheek humour shows that the creator understands the nature of their task.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier had a troubled production that is very well documented. The film’s Wikipedia page provides a lot of detail but to summarise, the budget was cut during production due to other studio projects under performing at the box office and the contracted effects company failed to deliver acceptable material. The screenplay lapses into self satire, possibly to compensate for the production deficiencies and it diminishes the story’s impact. However, despite these substantial issues, there are some good ideas and several key scenes involving the Trek Trinity (Kirk, Spock and McCoy) which are very good. As ever, Jerry Goldsmith’s score is sublime and does a lot of the “heavy lifting”, dramatically speaking. William Shatner’s direction is far from bad and he certainly got a raw deal on this production. This is what Anti-Matter deals with in Star Trek: Beyond the Barrier.

The theatrical release of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is 106 minutes. Star Trek: Beyond the Barrier has a leaner running time of 93 minutes. The most noticeable content excised are the humorous scenes. Gone is Kirk falling from the El Capitan, Checkov and Sulu getting lost in Yosemite, Uhura’s “fan dance”, Scotty knocking himself out on a bulkhead and Uhura subsequently flirting with him. All these scenes undermine the characters and the plot. There are some subtle dialogue alterations making Spock’s references to Sybok being his brother more figurative. When the main protagonists finally meet the entity on Sha Ka Ree, some of the scenes are ordered differently. Along with these changes, much of the visual effects footage has been replaced with new CGI material. There are also some wholly original visual effects sequences briefly showing the true nature of the entity, along with its single minion.

Anti-Matter took a crash course in 3D animation to create his new content and although it is clearly generated on consumer software, it is superior to the sub par optical effects that were used in the theatrical release. Despite removing much of the humorous content from the film, he adds a new and rather unique sight gag. Let it suffice to say that Captain Klaa is now shooting at some rather different space junk. Although I like most of the changes they’ve made, I still think the ending is a little muddled. The twist that the entity is evil is now somewhat diluted. However, I like the new additional material inferring its escape along with its minion. Perhaps this edit's greatest success is the way it focuses upon the key scenes with Kirk, Spock and McCoy that work, emphasizing their dramatic power. Overall Star Trek: Beyond the Barrier does not fix all the problems of the theatrical release but it does present its best content more effectively. I therefore recommend it to Star Trek fans and those with an interest in fan edits per se.

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