{"id":3113,"date":"2022-08-03T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3113"},"modified":"2023-03-06T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:10:18","slug":"trekaday-039","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/08\/03\/trekaday-039\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday 039: Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country<\/strong> (\"4)<\/p>\n

Star Trek V<\/em> had been given a drubbing by the critics, was wildly disliked by fans and hadn\u2019t made the kind money it was supposed to (it cost more than the previous film and made half as much). Possibly, if it had been a smash, there never would have been a sixth film with the original cast. But 1991 would be the 25th anniversary of the franchise and Paramount wanted to commemorate it in some way. Not for the first time, a Star Fleet Academy story was pitched which would have seen a reckless young Jim Kirk meet a stuffy Vulcan named Spock and gradually the two of them would learn to get along. Sounds ghastly, right? And although TNG<\/strong> had proved that there was life beyond Kirk, nobody thought that there was an audience for the same characters but without those iconic actors. Meanwhile, Harve Bennett had gone, the ordeal of cranking out four movies in seven years having taken its toll, and nobody had an idea for how the old crew could compete with the new televisual upstarts.<\/p>\n

Nobody, except Leonard Nimoy. He had two ideas. Idea number one: what if the Berlin Wall fell in space? Something must have happened to put Lt Worf on the bridge of the Enterprise <\/em>by TNG<\/strong>\u2019s time. Idea number two: send for Nicholas Meyer. Meyer\u2019s working title for Star Trek II<\/em> had been \u201cThe Undiscovered Country\u201d which of course means death. Apt for a story as steeped in loss and death as Star Trek II<\/em>. Now, Paramount would ret-con Shakespeare and claim that it referred to the future.<\/p>\n

Is the resulting film any good? Well, the plotting is generally solid, nowhere more so than in the first third, which establishes Sulu as the captain of the Excelsior<\/em> and puts him in a position to see the Klingon moon Chernobyl<\/span> Praxis blow itself up. Now Spock is attempting to broker a peace, and it seems only fitting that the crew of the Enterprise<\/em> be brought out of mothballs and sent to escort the delegates through Federation space. Robin Curtis being unavailable, and a second recasting of Saavik not to anyone\u2019s liking, a new character was created who could fulfill the role of spunky young Vulcan woman who quotes regulations at Kirk. Shatner\u2019s beaming grin as he tells her where she can stick her rule book is him at his most punchably smug.<\/p>\n

Shatner was deeply unhappy at having to play Kirk\u2019s anti-Klingon sentiments, hating the line to Spock \u201cLet them die.\u201d And \u2013 you know what? \u2013 I think he was probably right. Yeah, Kruge killed his son, but don\u2019t forget that a week earlier he had no idea he even had a son. It\u2019s hard to connect the bitter, angry old man in these early scenes to the stoic captain who stamped out racist sentiments when his crew saw Romulans for the first time. Trouble is, it\u2019s also hard to connect these early scenes to later scenes in which he\u2019s doing everything he can to fight for peace. Meanwhile, poor Bones just traipses around after him, getting \u2013 yes sure \u2013 more screen-time than Scotty-Uhura-Chekov-and-Sulu but never getting anything at all in the way of character development. Looking at the trio of Spock, Kirk and McCoy the question \u201cWho would be most likely to give in to knee-jerk prejudice about former enemies becoming new allies?\u201d seems to be to be best answered with \u201cThe bad-tempered one who keeps making grouchy remarks about pointy ears and green blood, not the calm and practical negotiator.\u201d That would preserve the dynamic of logic and emotion vying for the Captain’s decision, which was the very essence of TOS<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, as usual (in every film bar II<\/em>) there isn\u2019t much in the way of depth to any of these characters, and what little there is doesn\u2019t really work, but it\u2019s still a pleasure to see especially Nimoy and Shatner together again and whenever one of the others gets a line it\u2019s warmly nostalgic \u2013 even Janice Rand pops up for a split-second. Much of Kirk and McCoy\u2019s adventures on the prison planet are exciting and funny with the interplay between Kirk and his shape-shifting doppelg\u00e4nger a particular highlight. Meanwhile, on the Enterprise<\/em> there\u2019s a rather low-stakes and long-winded Agatha Christie play being enacted, which naturally ends with the only expendable cast-member turning out to be the traitor. It also surely cannot have been a surprise to anyone that the bad-guy on the Klingon side turned out to be the cackling bald-headed one with the eyepatch. I\u2019m only surprised they didn\u2019t give him a cat to stroke.<\/p>\n

But despite all these structural and character flaws, it\u2019s a very easy film to watch and a very easy film to like. As director, Meyer keeps it light and fast-moving; as screenwriter (with Denny Martin Flynn) he keeps the jokes and call-backs coming and if Cliff Eidelman\u2019s music can\u2019t approach Jerry Goldsmith or James Horner\u2019s majestic compositions, it is at least a step up from Leonard Rosenman\u2019s plinky-plonky score for Star Trek IV.<\/em> And I haven\u2019t even mentioned the rest of the guest cast. As well as a scenery-chewing Christopher Plummer, here\u2019s late lamented David Warner having the time of his life, here\u2019s Kurtwood Smith as a Klingon version of a Kung Fu master from a Shaw Brothers movie, here\u2019s Christian Slater of all damned people. And here\u2019s Michael Dorn, connecting the old show to the new one, playing Worf\u2019s great-grandfather. This film is so stacked, they shot scenes with Ren\u00e9 Auberjonois and cut them before release. Ren\u00e9 Auberjonois!<\/p>\n

What doesn\u2019t work is the appalling mind-rape of Valeris which is presented without any comment. Spock smacking that phaser out of her hand is perfect, but what happens next is just horrible and I think if the film were being made in less of a frantic hurry to slide in before the end of 1991, it might have been re-thought. So, for me this one ends up in the middle of the pack somewhere. It\u2019s about on a par with Star Trek III<\/em> but it doesn\u2019t have the problem of undoing the plot of something as perfect as Wrath of Khan<\/em>. In fact, it\u2019s something of a relief that it\u2019s as enjoyably watchable as it is, following on from Star Trek V<\/em> and that might earn it an extra, illogical half a star.<\/p>\n

But it was definitely time to stop, as what Meyer and co had taken two years to do on the big screen, Rick Berman and team were doing every week in syndication, with higher concepts, greater depth, a more fleshed-out supporting cast and nearly as much visual polish. This is the end of a lot of things which started on NBC in 1966. It\u2019s the last appearance in any professional Star Trek <\/em>production for Nichelle Nichols (who has also now left us), George Takei and DeForest Kelley. It\u2019s the last movie centred on the original cast and the last set entirely in the 23rd century until JJ Abrams shows up. Shatner even signs off by altering the famous catch-phrase from \u201cno man\u201d to \u201cno one\u201d as Patrick Stewart had been saying for five years.<\/p>\n

Star Trek<\/strong> was dead. Long live Star Trek<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country () Star Trek V had been given a drubbing by the critics, was wildly disliked by fans and hadn\u2019t made the kind money it was supposed to (it cost more than the previous film and made half as much). Possibly, if it had been a smash, there never would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,79,534,528],"class_list":["post-3113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-tos","tag-trekaday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-Od","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3113"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3186,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions\/3186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}