Plot
The crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) enjoys shore leave after the ship's shakedown cruise goes poorly. Captain James T. Kirk is camping with Spock and Dr. Leonard McCoy at Yosemite National Park. Their leave is interrupted when Enterprise is ordered by Starfleet Command to rescue three ambassadors (a human, a Klingon and a Romulan) who are held as hostages on the planet Nimbus III. In space, the Klingon Captain Klaa is bored destroying space refuse and longs for a real battle; when he learns Enterprise is heading to Nimbus III he decides to fight Kirk for personal glory and sets his ship on an intercept course.
On Nimbus III, the Enterprise crew discovers that a renegade Vulcan named Sybok, Spock's half-brother, is behind the hostage crisis. Sybok orchestrated the hostage situation to lure a starship to Nimbus III. He wants to use the ship to reach the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree, where creation supposedly began; the planet lies behind a seemingly impenetrable barrier near the center of the galaxy. Sybok has a mental ability to reveal and mend the innermost pain of a person, and uses it to gain the trust of the hostages and most of Enterprise's crew. While McCoy and Spock accept Sybok's help, Kirk refuses the Vulcan's offer, telling him that his pain is what makes him human. Sybok needs Kirk's experience to navigate Enterprise to Sha Ka Ree, so he stops pressing his offer.
Enterprise successfully breaches the barrier, pursued by Klaa's vessel, and discovers a planet within. Sybok, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy journey to the surface, where Sybok calls out to his perceived vision of God. An entity appears, and when told of how Sybok breached the barrier, demands that the starship be brought closer to the planet. When a skeptical Kirk inquires, "What does God need with a starship?" the entity attacks him. The others doubt that a being who would inflict harm for pleasure could be God.
Realizing that the creature might escape from the planet, Sybok sacrifices himself and uses his telepathic powers to combat the entity. Intent on stopping the being, Kirk orders Enterprise to fire a photon torpedo at the planet, wounding the creature. Spock and McCoy are beamed back to the ship, but Klaa's vessel attacks Enterprise before Kirk can be transported aboard; Spock and the Klingon hostage force Klaa to cease his attack. The vengeful entity reappears and tries to kill Kirk, but Klaa's vessel destroys it in a hail of fire. Kirk is beamed aboard the Klingon ship, and receives Klaa's apology. The Enterprise and Klingon crews celebrate détente, and Kirk, Spock and McCoy resume their vacation at Yosemite.
Read more about this topic: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)