Why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?

Why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? - Man Wearing Brown Leather Jacket Holding Black Android Smartphone With Brown Case

In the opening scene of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, there is a bald man that is digging in the desert who is then approached by Sybok.

Star Trek V: Digging in the desert

But what I don't understand is why he is digging in the first place. It looks like he's in an open stretch of desert, and I can't imagine what would be worth digging for out there. So why is he digging?



Best Answer

From the actual movie script, not a secondary source:

           FADE IN:

           1   EXT. DESERT - DAY                                              1

               Shimmering waves of heat. A flat unforgiving landscape 
               stretches to infinity. A storm of dust gathers on the 
               horizon, small at first, increasing in size as it 
               rolls toward us. Hoofbeats fill the soundtrack. Just 
               as the storm threatens to engulf us, A RIDER ON 
               HORSEBACK emerges.

               Superimpose: NIMBUS III
                            IN THE NEUTRAL ZONE
                            ("THE PLANET OF GALACTIC PEACE")

           2   CLOSER ANGLE - STRANGE HORSE AND RIDER                         2

               A twisted rhino horn juts from the snout of this odd 
               creature. The Rider spurs the beast, driving it onward. 
               His white robes flare out behind him like the wings 
               of an avenging angel. He rides like a man possessed.

                                                                        CUT TO:

           3   EXT. DRY LAKE BED - DAY                                        3

               Camera pans an arid expanse of scorched earth. J'ONN, 
               a ragged and malnourished homesteader of some alien 
               race, toils beneath a blazing sun, his back to camera. 
               He sinks an augering device into the ground, drilling 
               in vain for water. There are many hundreds
               of holes in the earth around him.

               J'onn reacts to the clop of approaching hooves. He 
               tenses, then whirls around clutching a crude home-made 
               pipe gun.

He sinks an augering device into the ground, drilling in vain for water.

This is the Revised Final Script dated November 21, 1988, with a foreword by Producer Harve Bennett. The original script can be purchased from the genuine Roddenberry family company.

This is backed up by another, highly trusted source, Chakoteya.net:

(out of a dust storm a horseman approaches an alien drilling for water. The horseman dismounts and addresses the alien)




Pictures about "Why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?"

Why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? - White Suv
Why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? - Man Between Star Wars Style Towers on Desert
Why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? - Man in Gray Polo Shirt Sitting on Red and White Bed



What is the entity in Star Trek Final Frontier?

"God", also known as The One, is the main antagonist in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. This entity claimed to be "God", but was actually a primordial malevolent eldritch being. He was played by the late George Murdock, who also voiced Boss Biggis in Batman: The Animated Series.

Where was Star Trek Final Frontier filmed?

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier | 1989 'Nimbus III in the Neutral Zone, the Planet of Galactic Peace' is Owens Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert, south of Lone Pine, central California, between Routes 395 and 136.

What year does the final frontier take place?

This series would be set in the year 2528 and would center around the latest crew of the starship Enterprise in a darker future.

What year is Star Trek V set in?

Series, books, and film settingsYearStardatesEnterprise, The Original Series, The Next Generation, Picard, original timeline films, major events227522787818USS Bozeman launched: "Cause and Effect" (1992)22858100\u20138299The Wrath of Khan (1982) The Search for Spock (1984)22868300\u20138399The Voyage Home (1986)84 more rows



Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (NES Unreleased) Playthrough - NintendoComplete




More answers regarding why is the bald man digging in the desert at the start of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?

Answer 2

TL;DR:

He is digging for the thing you need the most in a desert: water.

From the film's official novelization:

enter image description here enter image description here

A STORM GATHERED on the desert horizon.

J'Onn paused in his work to stare beyond the wavering black bands of heat at the growing cloud of dust. Normally he would have headed back for the ramshackle shelter that served as home and waited the storm out there; today he did not care if the dust cloud swallowed him whole.

He looked back down at his work, at the small auger sunk into the scorched ground in a pathetic attempt to find water. This hole, like all the others, was barren; there was an utter lack of moisture in the soil. J'Onn no longer thought of it as such. To his mind, soil supported life, but this bleak, parched sand supported nothing—not his life, not Zaara's.

After Zaara's death the night before, he had wandered out to the field — once fertile, now no more than an extension of the desert—and begun to dig. Now the sun was overhead, and the field around him was dotted with hundreds of holes, many of them a few years old, made in happier times when water was not such a precious rarity. But most had been made during the gentle insanity that sustained J'Onn though the night and well into the day. - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, novelization by J.M. Dillard.

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Enoch Patro, Mengliu Di, Samer Bououd, Timur Weber