December 27, 1991
In case some of you are in a hurry, and want to know my bottom line on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, here it is. Some films are rated G, PG, R, and so on. ST VI is rated BTF: Better Than Five.
If that satisfies your interest in ST VI, you can move on to the CBG classifieds. Otherwise, here’s the rest of it…and without spoilers beyond what’s already been trumpeted in trailers and various press releases.
It’s not necessary to discuss the ending, really. Considering that the film hinges on the proposed Federation/Klingon alliance, and considering that the Enterprise of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” has sported a Klingon on the bridge since the first episode, you don’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce how it all works out.
Kirk and Company, three months away from being mothballed, are summoned by the Federation Council for what promises to be an historic mission. The Klingon Empire has fallen on tough times. Their own version of Chernobyl has blown to bits (literally starting the film off with a bang), their ozone layer is falling apart, they’re atmosphere is depleted, their overly-militarized economy is collapsing. In short, they’ve been visited by versions of every modern-day ailment that a story set in the 23rd Century could possibly support.
As a result they are suing for peace with the Federation (which is intriguing, considering that the Federation and Klingons are not at war–one of only a host of bizarre discrepancies that I’ll discuss later).
The Enterprise is assigned to rendezvous with the Klingon warship carrying the Klingon initiator of the peace plan, Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) and escort them to Earth to attend a peace conference. Kirk is somewhat less than enthusiastic about the prospect (“They’re animals!”) but sucks it up. The crew, with the conspicuous addition of Spock’s new protege, Lieutenant Valeris (Kim Cattrall, whose Valeris can now join most of the distaff side of “Next Generation” as having been afflicted with really unflattering hairstyles), meets up with the Klingons.
In addition to Gorkon, there’s his daughter Azetbur (Rosana DeSoto) and, most notably, Chang (Christopher Plummer), a Klingon so tough that he sports an eyepatch apparently riveted to his face, and so utterly bereft of characterization that he spends 3/4 of the film quoting William Shakespeare because he hasn’t an original thought in his head.
There’s a lengthy banquet scene involving a great deal of blue food. (The script contained much dialogue featuring the inebriated command crew bickering like racist brats, most of which was mercifully edited from the final film. Unfortunately, Chekov, Uhura et al make numerous subsequent references to their deplorable behavior…allusions which now make no sense since most of that behavior wound up on the cutting room floor).
Things are not going swimmingly, and get even worse when the Klingon ship is attacked–apparently by the Enterprise, to the shock of the bridge crew–and Gorkon, amidst the goriest sequences we’ve ever seen in all of “Star Trek,” is killed. Kirk and McCoy, who had boarded to try and lend assistance, are charged with assassinating the Chancellor, and tried on the Klingon homeworld of Kronos.
Their defense attorney, Colonel Worf, is played by Michael Dorn, who portrays the like-named Klingon Security officer who never wins a fight on “Next Generation.” Here the Worf family tradition is established early on as Colonel Worf loses his case and Kirk and McCoy are packed off to the Klingon equivalent of Siberia–Rura Penthe, where they are to live out their lives in hard labor. It is up to Spock, not to mention the Starship Excelsior helmed by the promoted Captain Sulu (who finally gets to do something aside from saying “Aye, Captain”) to sort things out and, as Kirk puts it, “Save the galaxy as we know it.”
“Star Trek” has a long history of taking the modern-day world and transplanting it into the science fiction venue. Of all the films, “Trek VI” (story by Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, with screenplay by Rosenthal and director Nicholas Meyer) carries on this tradition to the greatest degree. The Soviet Union (or whatever it’s being called this week) serves as the model for the Klingon Empire, and the only thing missing to make the comparison complete is a splotchy birthmark on Gorkon’s forehead.
In a modern world where the “commies” are no longer the Evil Empire, where hostages are being released after years of captivity, all tied in with peacetalks that endeavor to solve Middle East disputes going back decades–even centuries, really–ST VI seems to leap directly off the front pages and onto your local movie screen.
The cast dons their roles like comfortable shoes. After giving the supporting cast short shrift in ST V, you get a feeling for their characters once again in VI. Their skill makes even the most outrageous lines (the film is replete with anachronistic 20th century references to such things as movie titles and automobile tail pipes) come off fairly smoothly.
Also on view are Grace Lee Whitney (the former Yeoman Rand) on the bridge of the Excelsior, not to mention the startling appearance of Christian Slater as the Excelsior communications officer. The latter was a cute idea, and I suspect Slater pulled some strings for his walk-on. The problem is that his unexpected cameo jolts you right out of the film as you go, “Hey! That’s Christian Slater! Cool!”
The most potentially jarring character aspect–Kirk, portrayed as being rabidly anti-Klingon–was the biggest trouble area. To my mind, Kirk displayed very little tolerance for Klingons throughout the original series, and the passing years…not to mention the death of his son…would quite reasonably have set this attitude in stone. Even magnified it. Others who were in the audience with me, however, vehemently rejected the notion of Kirk as a bigot of any kind. His fierce
racism was startling, to say the least. As for me, I’ll take that sort of character flaw over the humanity-is-perfect attitude currently rampant in the “Next Generation” any day of the week. Having weaknesses to overcome is what makes a hero a hero.
Mention should also be made of Iman, the international model who plays a fellow prisoner on Rura Penthe, with orange eyes and a fondness for stogies. Her sense of fun, combined with Kim Cattrall’s surprisingly effecting Valeris, almost has them walking off with the entire film.
Meyer, who directed my favorite of the “Trek” films, “Trek II,” keeps a firm hand on the proceedings, reins in William Shatner’s tendency to overplay and, along with film editor Ronald Roose, keeps events going at breakneck pace. The negative aspect of this is that there are very few moments available for the audience to catch its breath or get a feeling for the people involved. “Wrath of Khan” was very much a character-driven film. “The Undiscovered Country,” by contrast, is an events-driven film, with the characters caught up in the rollercoaster of history and trying to hold on.
The positive aspect is that, because things move along so quickly, it helps glide the audience past the fact that this a film with a plot that makes little sense. That features an Enterprise and Federation with workings that undercut everything we’ve seen in the past.
In Gene Roddenberry’s idealized future, money was no longer a problem. Starfleet was first and foremost exploratory, carrying weapons purely for defensive purposes. Paper was non-existent–everything was on computers (a point of view that we seem to be moving closer towards with every passing year). On the Enterprise, even the lowliest ensign had private quarters, food appeared in little slots through a process that can most easily be termed “magic,” and communication with alien races was easy since everyone seemed to speak English, or at least used unmentioned universal translators.
Nicholas Meyer, however, is clearly interested in establishing a more solid underpinning for “Star Trek,” and does so by transferring even more realities from the modern world into the future world. The result, for anyone who knows “Trek,” can be extremely disconcerting.
In Trek VI, we have a Starfleet that was created–not primarily for exploration–but largely for military defense against the Klingons. The Klingon peace overtures give the Federation the opportunity to mothball Starfleet and use the money saved therein for addressing other “social ills.” As if the Klingons are the only hostiles in the galaxy (Dismantle Starfleet–yes, by all means, the Romulans will just love that.) As if money has ever been a factor. What social ills? What are we talking about here?
In this version of the Enterprise, crewmembers are crammed into quarters in triple-decker bunks. Uhura apparently cannot communicate with Klingons anymore without hurriedly consulting a half a dozen books on Klingonese (Books? Books?). And for the first time in 25 years, since Kirk’s chat with the Enterprise cook in “Charlie X”–a concept subsequently discarded in favor of automatic food slots–we see the Enterprise kitchen. A kitchen that’s primitive even by 20th Century standards, much less 23rd. At one point Kirk orders the Enterprise to “Right standard rudder.” Rudder? What is this, the starship Enterprise or the Red October?
So what’s going on here? What’s going on is that Meyer’s more down-to-earth, if you will, vision of the “Star Trek” universe might very well be more realistic, maybe even more sensible than the Neverland Utopia we’ve been given in the past. That we’re still given in “Next Gen.” That doesn’t make it any less disconcerting.
And what’s the deal with the Klingon Empire, anyway? The accidental destruction of their power plant on a Klingon moon means that they’re going to be out of oxygen in fifty years. Excuse me? Out of oxygen? Who in hëll is running the Klingon Empire, anyway? Lord Dark Helmet? First rule of science fiction: Never use a story element that was part of the plot of Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs.”
Because, you see, this is supposed to be an spacegoing empire. So the Klingon homeworld is going to go belly up in fifty years. So what? They’ve got spaceships. They’ve got weapons. They’ve got five decades to work with. They can’t find someplace to move to? They can’t, with their advanced technology, solve the problem themselves? (Not to mention the fact that the Klingon homeworld seems just fine, oxygen and all, eighty years later in “Next Generation.”)
In an effort to imprint the 20th Century onto the 23rd, the moviemakers are asking the audience to swallow one hëll of a lot of implausibles; not just in the beginning, but throughout the script. Without going into detail, the investigation by Spock and the crew to figure out just who on the Enterprise might be working to sabotage the Federation/Klingon alliance is filled with more contrivances, unlikelihoods, and back-breaking twists of logic than one should be expected to swallow in three films, much less one.
But these are only really evident when you read the script before seeing the film. The direction, editing and acting weave that old movie magic, so that the viewing audience–exposed to it for the first time–doesn’t even think about it. That was “Star Trek V’s” failing. You had too much time to dwell on the nonsense. Meyer doesn’t allow that to happen. That’s what gives “Trek VI” the edge, and what will allow it to go down easier with “Trek” fans who wanted something other than “Trek V” to be the final adventure.
And is this the final adventure? It was certainly written with a sense of closure. Then again, a lot can happen before the Enterprise manages to pull into drydock.
However, I can’t help but consider it amusing that at film’s end, Kirk is quoting J.M. Barrie…considering that “Trek VI” is going to face very stiff competition at the box office by “Hook. One wonders if Robin Williams will be returning the favor by taking one look at Neverland and saying, “Beam me up, Scotty.”
Peter David, writer of stuff, picked up the December Omni and was annoyed to learn from Bob Greenberger that the cover-featured “exclusive” article by Nick Meyer about “Star Trek” was actually written for–and is appearing in–the “Best of Star Trek” trade paperback collection DC is publishing. Not only that, but most of the photographs were flopped. Shame on you, Omni.
• 
I thought the Klingon homeworld in TNG was the one they moved to after STVI?
Apparently I thought Star Trek VI was reasonably okay back when it came out. It hasn’t aged well, or maybe it’s just that TNG eventually drove my Star Trek fannishness out of me. It seems horribly dated at best today, and seems downright comical when placed in context with Babylon 5 (which it precedes by about two years).
Other than a few Doctor McCoy lines and the climactic starship battle (which is ludicrously silly, but still somehow fun), I don’t have any fond memories of this film. As compared with Star Treks II and III, which I can watch over and over (and have). Heck, even the first hour of The Motion Picture was reasonably enjoyable.
I have far fonder memories of Generations, which despite its (many) flaws was a better send-off for Kirk (and, by proxy, his generation of Star Trek) than TUC.
“they’re atmosphere is depleted”
THEY’RE???
Please tell me that was a screw up by the publishers.
I’ve always enjoyed ST VI. Up until Nemesis, I had believed that if it was an even-numbered movie, it would be good. That said, it’s no masterpiece. Valeris gets the evidence against Kirk thanks to him not shutting his door, and then not noticing that she’s there? And are we supposed to care about Valeris’ betrayal? They didn’t really give us a chance to get to know her connection with Spock… But I can see why they didn’t use Saavik (sp?) – they may have wanted to avoid Hal Jordan-like fan outrage.
As for the Klingon homeworld being their second homeworld… This sounds familiar, but I’m guessing it’s one of those fan theories that spread, and was never reinforced or contradicted by canon.
I originally posted this on my blog at http://www.eyesofchaos.net, but since it
Whoa. When you have a torpedo coming in and need the ship to move quickly would you rather say
For all the issues, TUC is still the one I enjoy the most. It’s also still the only one I own on DVD to date. 🙂
Let’s go right to the bottom line: 2-3-4-6-8-5-7-9-1-10
About six months before VI came out I was working at a movie theater. One of they guys there started talking about it and decribed the movie in general terms. What I’ll always remember was this comment:
Oh, and the bad guy is played by some guy named Christopher Plummer
My jaw hit the floor. “Some guy” and “Christopher Plummer” did not belong in the same sentence. It’s been a running gag amongst my friends since.
ST:VI recently re-ran on the local UPN affiliate. To my surprise, I found myself quite engaged by it. Whatever flaws the film has, it also has a reunion of (and with) old friends. No, this is not as entertaining as ST:IV and certainly not worthy of mention in the same breathe as ST:II. But it’s like going home to see the old gang.
What’s more, by the time this film came out, Kirk had finally hit his stride. It took twenty-five years and six films, but Jim Kirk was as fully developed as he would ever get here. I liked that he was forced to face his own anger and his racism. I liked that he had to accept that this time he could not stop time from passing. Indeed, by this point, Kirk had actually changed in many ways, something that Picard – even with a brilliant actor playing the character – never could do.
Star Trek VI was one of the films that I enjoyed tremendously watching the first time when I was caught up with the excitement of seeing it. Unfortunately, the flaws become obvious afterward.
I always had the impression that the Klingon homeworld’s atmosphere was damaged by Praxis’ explosion, and that’s why they were going to run out of air. But they sued for peace because they needed their resources and help from the Federation to save the homeworld, and the peace accord did that, and that’s why Kronos appears in good shape in TNG.
Except in the matte painting TNG used, it was ALWAYS murky nighttime on Kronos. So maybe it’s still in trouble. 🙂
And Christian Slater did pull strings to get the cameo..or at least he asked his mom, who was the casting director of the movie.
I’ve always been utterly baffled by the even/odd Trek convention, since my reading of the film series has been as follows:
I: First half okay, second half dull.
II: A fantastic film.
III: A fine film, funny and moving.
IV: A weak film with a lot of dud humor that completely tanks the dramatic potential of the end of III.
V: Awful.
VI: Weak.
VII: The Kirk stuff is pretty good, the rest is pretty forgettable.
VIII: Story didn’t make much sense, mediocre action flick.
IX: Never bothered to see it.
X: Story didn’t make much sense, mediocre action flick.
In summary: First three good, second three bad, last four weak.
The Rura Penthe shapeshifter’s line to Kirk about wanting to kiss himself was pure gold.
PAD: “As a result they are suing for peace with the Federation (which is intriguing, considering that the Federation and Klingons are not at war–one of only a host of bizarre discrepancies that I’ll discuss later).”
This isn’t a discrepency. The situation was supposed to be similar to that of the Soviet/US Cold War.
“In Trek VI, we have a Starfleet that was created–not primarily for exploration–but largely for military defense against the Klingons. The Klingon peace overtures give the Federation the opportunity to mothball Starfleet and use the money saved therein for addressing other “social ills.” As if the Klingons are the only hostiles in the galaxy (Dismantle Starfleet–yes, by all means, the Romulans will just love that.) As if money has ever been a factor. What social ills? What are we talking about here?”
No mention of money was made in the final film when it came to the Klingon collapse’s effect on Starfleet. One Captain asked if it meant mothballing Starfleet, to which the CinC said that Starfleet’s “scientific and exploratory programs would be unaffected.” He was then interrupted by the Cartwright character who suggested that dismantling the fleet would make the Feds “defenseless before an aggressive species placed a foothold in our territory.” I got the impression from that exchange that only the defensive aspect of Starfleet would have been effective. Cartwright was obviously an alarmist and blew things out of proportion. He wasn’t the guy in charge.
DW
Me: “I got the impression from that exchange that only the defensive aspect of Starfleet would have been effective.”
Sorry, that should have read “only the defensive aspect of Starfleet would have been effected.”
Great movie.
’nuff said
Um, did I accidently click on a web page from 91 or was my head injury worse than I thought?
For whatever reason, I read the novelization of this movie before I saw it. Thus, the motivations/racisms of Kirk didn’t seem as bad (there is a subplot in the book basically about Plummer’s ship attacking a colony and Carol Marcus is gravely injured in the attack, adding more motivational fuel to the story) – I had a similar reaction to ‘Total Recall’ (reading that one, there is another entire layer to the conspiracy that is completely absent from the movie and, if you just add it in in your head while watching it, makes the movie much more interesting).
Having said that, this movie was the first time that I consciously started to realize the utter failure (personally) of the entire concept of Star Trek, how none of this was even remotely plausible, nor would I want it to be.
Look at it this way; who cares if Earth is a paradise, where all social problems have been taken care of and everyone is free from greed and homelessness and dandruff and psoriasis if, in an instant, one of a whole bunch of alien races could show up (out of desperation or whatever) and wipe the place out.
Oddly, I should have had this realization more with TMP or TVH, as they both held imminent destruction of the Earth as their catalyst. I guess, being in my early 20s at this time, I was getting more and more removed from the pace of the action, of the spectacle of the fx and fun storylines, and started to examine things more critically, even when I didn’t particularily want to (causing my late-80s favourite show, ‘Max Headroom’, to age very very badly for me when I got to see it again in the late 90s).
So, as it began to dawn on me that the Star Trek universe wasn’t actually a place I wanted to live in after all, I began seeing the real seams in the fabric, the real rust on the deck plates, and the real holes in the (various) plots.
A close parallel would be when I also realized I wouldn’t really want to live in either the Marvel or DC universes. Somewhere in my late teens it started to dawn on me that, while in our real universe, destruction and death was a real possibility from a variety of sources, in no real way was it nearly as dangerous as these two alternate universes.
Not only could someone decide to try and take over everything, to blow up everything, but in the MU and DCU, lots of someones tried to do these very things on a very regular basis. At that time, I really began realizing that a world with superheroes quickly became a world that couldn’t survive without superheroes, thereby diminishing the normal people who cohabit the world with them.
Of course, I suppose many people have similar reactions to any sort of fantasy or imaginary worlds at some point in their life; going from wanting to inhabit those worlds to, instead, gaining a new appreciation of their own world, even when compared to virtual paradises.
…
on a lighter note…
Vulcans with beauty marks? 🙂 I never really took to Kim Catrall in this role in this movie (although it is much better than Robin Curtis as Saavik in TSFS), seeing her acting style as almost a mix of Shatner and Nimoy for some odd reason (I’m sure it is just me thinking that, though…)
…
Also, I was very happy with Plummers’ role in this film – at least compared with his other prominent role in another genre film. (those of you who have seen his drunk/stoned/depressed acting in ‘Starcrash’ will know what I mean)(don’t think I’m blaming Plummer for that movie, though 🙂 David Hasselhoff has much more to answer for in that case).
Interestingly enough, Plummer’s Klingon guy quoting Shakespeare all the time didn’t bother me at all (gotta love Canadian actors and their penchant for the Bard); instead it was the fact that all the other Klingons (and humans) at the dinner table had such an immediate negative reaction to the phrase ‘the Undiscovered Country’. It just strikes me as odd, no matter how good the Klingons’ studies of Earth/Starfleet culture are, that all of them would know Shakespeare well enough to know of that phrase being originally used as a fairly negative phrase. Heck, even the reaction of the humans there was odd (I can’t believe that they all study Shakespeare that much back in the Academy…Well, maybe Pavel, but that is only because Shakespeare is a Russian after all 🙂 ). But that just might be the mid-west Canadian hick in me talking…
But wasn’t this the one where Valeris pedantically and condescendingly explains the concept of sabotage to Uhura and Checkov? I remember expecting either of them to point out to her that they had been doing much more clever sorts of sabotage years before. But then, that might have required the producers to sacrifice a joke, and in the last couple of TOS movies, the equation was that 25 years of characterization could be sacrificed, but not one allegedly humorous wince-inducing moment.
Actually, this was my second favorite of the ST movies (II, of course, being number 1).
I loved Plummer as a Klingon (the picture in my head of a Klingon Julie Andrews singing “the hills are alive… and I’m going to kill them…” was just too good) and thought his characterization was even better than Kahn’s overblown (but wonderful) badness. He ENJOYED being a warrior… just like the more restrained Kirk. He is the dark mirror version of Kirk, after all.
Valaris seemed a cheap replacement for Saavik, whom they didn’t want to do away with… so where was she? (And forget Robin. Kirstie’s only decent role in her life and she leaves it after one movie…)
My only real complaint was them trying to build up Valaris by dumbing down the old regulars. Chekov gets dumber in every movie, poor guy. I’d rather see the command crew softened by their cush lives, only to reclaim their edge with a vengence at some horror perpretrated by the Klingons. They, too, are warriors in peace time. The difference is that they can enjoy peace, while the Klingons can’t.
Just because they had food replicators doesn’t preclude a kitchen (people starving because of a computer malfunction wouldn’t look too good). Of course, hanging pots in a ship doesn’t make any sense.
I echo the previous poster about the Marvel and DC Universes. The general populace would be the most beaten down humans ever known. I wish they would do a little more with this (whole cities are wiped out. I recall thinking the 9/11 tributes a bit hard to swallow when much worse is common in these fictional universes).
With regard to Saavik, there was, at one point, having her as the first officer on the Bozeman, the ship captained by Kelsey Grammar that was thrown into the NEXT GEN era — and having Kirstie Alley play the role again (it would have been easy since CHEERS and NEXT GEN filmed near each other; this is also the reason you’d often see actors from one show up on the other). For some reason, they backed away from that.
They didn’t use Saavik in VI because people liked her and they didn’t want to turn her into a villain.
Oh, and the bottom line for me is as follows:
2-4-8-6-10-3-7-9-1-5
It should also be pointed out that I prefer NEXT GEN to all other televised versions. Bottom line for me on TV is:
TNG-TOS-DS9-VOY-ENT (though to be fair, I have not followed the last three as closely as the first two, and have missed most of what’s generally considered in fandom as DS9’s best episodes).
VI is one of the better Trek movies, but it is marred by one of the largest plot holes I have ever seen in a movie: the Federations and the Klingons want to work together and they are opposed by factions from each side who attempt to sabotage the peace process by, um, working together. Apart from the sheer and utter stupidity of this concept, it requires the most extreme racists on each side to trust each other impicitly.
And as for the whole business of having a traitor on board and it turning out to be the one crew member with a speaking part who wasn’t an old-timer; that was just sad. Imagine the dramatic impact in the story if it had turned out to be Uhura.
Okay, so it would have upset a lot of fanboys, but if not offending fanboys is the criteria for creative decisions then it explains why most of the Trek movies are so bad.
‘I’d give real money if he’d shut up!’ I still use that line to this day, usually when I’m standing next to somebody speaking far too loudly into their mobile phone.
Regarding Kronos/”the Kingon homeworld”: During the assassination scene at the end of the film, the Federation president can be heard talking about the evacuation and relocation of the residents of Kronos. Also, if memory serves, the Klingon homeworld is not actually referenced by name as “Kronos” until very late in TNG. (In fact, in the episode where Worf accepts discommendation, Picard orders Wesley to set course “for the first city of the Klingon Imperial Empire”. WHA??) So it’s entirely likely that the Kronos in the TNG/DS9 period is a different planet than the Kronos in the TOS/ST:TUC period. A relocation is, in the long run, cheaper than a cleanup. And it stands to reason that the peace was fragile at best: the lasting peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire didn’t take shape until after the attack on the Khittomer outpost (as established in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”).
On the Enterprise-A’s kitchen: I’m almost embarassed to say this, but once upon a time I owned the “technical manuals” published by Paramount, and read them cover-to-cover. From what little I remember from “Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise”, the Constellation Class didn’t have replicators so much as they had “food dispensers”, along the lines of a futuristic automat. So it’s conceivable that the various entrees were prepared in the galley, demolecularized and held in a verison of the transporter buffer until the entree is ordered – at which time, the food dispenser makes the entree appear, like ‘magic’. Actual food synthesis from reconsitituted protein molecules came later on.
Valaris was able to easedrop on Kirk and record his log entry not because Kirk did not close his door, but because Kirk had left a bag blocking the door’s path. The wonderous futuristic space door remained open rather than crushing the captain’s man-girdle.
If you’ll recall from the movie, the reason Uhura and Chekhov had to break out the Berlitz English-Klingon dictionaries was because Uhura could not respond to the Klingon listening post using the universal translator – “Ve vould be wecognized!”
I’ve always enjoyed the little nuances that Meyer applied to the Enterprise in Star Trek VI to make it seem more like a functioning ship of the line – the clocks at the bridge stations (which also played a vital role in the storytelling), the chatter over the comm system in the corridors, the idea that crewmen wear nametags and sleep three to a cabin or more. But maybe that’s just me.
Some call it racism, but consider: after ‘witnessing’ (over the comm) his son being killed by Klingons, after losing (I’d imagine) a lot of close friends in battles with the Klingons, wouldn’t Kirk have a right to say something like “I’ve never trusted Klingons, and I never will”? I agree 100% with the previous post regarding Kirk finally being a fully-realized character in this film.
God, this was an awful movie. The Ed Wood-style art direction of this flick was just ghastly.
“Okay…in this scene, the Klingon officials step off the transporter pads, and then an ensign pipes them aboard with a boatswain’s whistle.”
“A _whistle_?”
“Yeah. It’s an old maritime tradition. We’ve got a whole box of ’em here in the shop, so we’ve already got it covered.”
“But this is the _future!_ They surely won’t have _whistles_ in the _future!_”
“Well, what would you suggest?”
“A high-tech, _future_ whistle! With computers! You have to blow into it, _and_ you have to press two buttons, _and_ there are status lights that come on and blink to confirm that it’s working!”
To say nothing about the seasoned, 30-year veteran officers who apparently know less about their own ship than a junior-grade lieutenants straight out of the Academy. I’m not really a Trek fan, so I’m far from a nitpicker…but this was just a bad, bad movie.
One of the things that disappointed me with the ‘Trek’ film franchise is that they never thought to work in an appearance by Peter Falk anyplace. I mean, given how many of the original ‘Trek’ actors made appearances over the years on Falk’s ‘Columbo’ series (Koineg once that I’m aware of on the original version, Nimoy at least twice on the old version, Shatner’s been on both versions enough to get a permanant Guest Villian slot in the credits) you’d think the ‘Trek’ people would return the favor and have Columbo’s desendant show up for a scene at least. “Ah, just one more question, Captain. . . . . . ” 🙂
Chris
P.S. — Is it now forbidden to use a ‘disposable’ e-mail account to post to this board? Given the choice I prefer to use my Yahoo account when posting on internet boards over using the ‘real’ account I have access to. Just curious.
Elf with a gun points out:
One of the things that disappointed me with the ‘Trek’ film franchise is that they never thought to work in an appearance by Peter Falk anyplace. I mean, given how many of the original ‘Trek’ actors made appearances over the years on Falk’s ‘Columbo’ series…
And don’t forget Kate “Mrs. Columbo” Mulgrew who came to command the U.S.S. Voyager 😉
I’d heard that about Valeris, too: that it was originally supposed to be Saavik. However, I’d heard that Meyer wanted to use Kirstie Alley in the part, again, and the studio said no, so he created a new character.
Has anyone seen the Director’s Cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Much superior to the original version.
I’d heard that Meyer wanted to use Kirstie Alley in the part, again, and the studio said no, so he created a new character.
Of course, they’d need to stitch together two or three command uniforms to make a command “mumuu” for Kirstie.
Alright, I know, that was a cheap shot. Especially since it could be argued that the true “Undiscovered Country” was Doohan’s ever-expanding waistline.
(Yeah, that was a cheap shot too.)
You’re right that the Director’s Cut of ST:TMP is infinately more watchable than the original cut – although the sequence of establishing shots of the refitted Enterprise and the “launching from Spacedock” sequence still seem to go on for hours. Speaking of DVD releases, I was really frustrated by the “extra footage” added to Star Trek VI beginning with the original video release – not so much the “Project Retrieve” strategy session that takes place after Kirk and McCoy are convicted, but more the footage in the conference at Khittomer where the “Klingon” assassin turns out to be Col. West (a discovery obviously ADRed in by Michael Dorn – “This is not KLINGON blood!”)
Star Trek VI has always been my favourite of the Trek movies. The sense of the passage of time is at its greatest here. Captain Kirk is no longer a young man and he is very much rooted in the prejudices of his youth. Chancellor Gorkon tells him that it is their generation that will have the greatest difficulty in adjusting. Old prejudices die hard. It would have been easy to have Kirk be morally perfect, but instead they opt to give him a very human failing. And since its inception, what has been Star Trek’s main driving theme if not the exploration of what it means to be human? And that includes its darker side.
I also like the way in which it is the final voyage for the original crew, and yet also a kind of prequel to The Next Generation, in the way that it establishes the beginings of the peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. It is a far finer ending than Nemesis could ever hope to be.
I grew up watching the characters on the original series.
They were a part of my childhood.
I loved the movie and there’s still a warm place in my heart for ’em.
It was nice seeing them mature and take one last trip to the final frontier and the undiscovered country.
‘Nuff Said. 🙂
Steve Chung
Tommy Raiko
Elf with a gun points out:
One of the things that disappointed me with the ‘Trek’ film franchise is that they never thought to work in an appearance by Peter Falk anyplace. I mean, given how many of the original ‘Trek’ actors made appearances over the years on Falk’s ‘Columbo’ series…
And don’t forget Kate “Mrs. Columbo” Mulgrew who came to command the U.S.S. Voyager 😉
I feel obligated to point out that ‘Mrs. Columbo’ is not considered ‘canon’ by Columbo fans. They feel the same way about that show that fans of the original ‘Battlestar Galactica’ feel about ‘Galactica 1980’ (or whatever it was called exactly). The short-short story about why they feel that way is that NBC made the show against the wishes/protests of Columbo’s creators. And because it wasn’t really very good to boot.
Having said that, I am glad finally Mulgrew got a role to make fans forget ‘Mrs. Columblo’. She really did deserve something better on her resume.
Chris
Comic Ramblings
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