Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
1991
D: Richard Meyer
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Pros: Characters, Direction, Plot, Special Effects, Music
Cons: A Little Too Many Plotholes
As a kid, my experience with Star Trek was limited to a few movies, and some slight scattering of TOS and TNG. Star Trek VI was probably my most primal catalyst for being a casual fan. It had everything: action, cool ships, special effects, music, and Klingons. For a while it was one of my favorite movies. I would regard this as the last true Trek movie, although I do enjoy Into Darkness.
The plot of Undiscovered Country begins with the destruction of the planet Praxis, the primary industrial center of the Klingons. In a nice reference to the Spartan Fallacy (the inefficiency of a completely militarized dictatorship, see also: North Korea), the Klingons lack the budget and civilian infrastructure to survive the disaster. With their entire society on the brink of collapse, they desperately appeal to the Federation for a treaty. Relatively liberal Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) draws up a treaty that oddly includes the complete demilitarization of the Neutral Zone. One would wonder why someone as reasonable as he would come up with this, but I suppose he might have been pressured by hardliners. It makes sense for the Klingons to take this as an opportunity to make a desperate go-for-broke attempt at expansionism to annex enough industrial centers to recover, while be willing to risk honorable destruction. It also makes sense that they would operate under the calculus the Federation would be reluctant to go to war regardless of their advantage.
In a remarkably irrational move, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) suggests that Captain Kirk (William Shatner) lead the initial diplomatic meeting. This makes sense because I’ve always believed that Vulcans (especially Spock) are a passionate race, who merely style themselves as purely rational. Spock recites “Only Nixon can go to China,” which he humorously calls a “Vulcan proverb.” He’s missing the point that our 37th presidend didn’t literally have a vendetta with the people he was trying to negotiate with. The unfortunate drama that ensues inspires a majestic overcompensation from Spock in TNG in which he decides not to send a reluctant friend to do his diplomatic dirty work so he resigns from the Federation council, disappears without a trace so he can aid an underground Romulan liberation movement, and pops up on intelligence camera, scaring the Federation into making Picard to bum a ride on a Bird of Prey to find out what the hell he was doing. Illogical.
Starfleet agrees this despite how little sense this makes, largely because Admiral Cartwright (Brock Peters) is part of a conspiracy to sabotage the peace accords. It’s an interesting idea that members of three warring nations would agree to sabotage their own alliance, but it helps that it makes sense. Conservative Klingons would rather go down fighting than give up their ways, some corrupt Starfleet officials would want to press their advantage, and I’m sure the Romulans have some sort of angle on this ensuing conflict.
So the Enterprise and its crew arrives at a rendezvous point with Gorkon’s flagship, the Kronos One, whose introduction is an underrated gem. Heralded by Cliff Eidelman’s ominous score, the sinister K’tinga-class glides menacingly toward the viewer after a dramatic scene is cut short by the intercom announcement of its arrival. Kirk enters the bridge to and stares in awe at its demonic form lingering at close range on the viewscreen. He’s battled these things before and knows enough to fear them. Fight or flight impulses arise as Chekov (Walter Koenig) nervously asks to raise the shields in obliviousness to the purpose of the mission. Then Kirk realizes that he’s never met this thing before under these circumstances, and muses, “Never been this close before.” It’s a moment that knows how to treat the ships themselves as characters in the movie. Later, when the K1 prepares to fire upon the Enterprise, its torpedo launcher glows red and growls. Not in line with established lore, but a justified break from logic in order to give the ship more personality. I would have liked to see her participate in the final battle. Perhaps she'd try to stop the Enterprise from sabotaging the Accords until the Excelsior shows up, cornering the Bird of Prey into participating, thus making K1 realize who the bad guy really is. Yeah, I do have a soft spot for the D7.
Upon meeting with Gorkon and his entourage for dinner, Kirk is introduced to General Chang (Christopher Plummer), who recognizes him as a fellow warrior. The dinner is tense but ultimately less than disastrous, and the crew is ready to rest until the peace is broken by a sudden torpedo fire upon the Klingon shop from the Enterprise. A couple of masked federation soldiers beam on board the stricken ship and slaughter every Klingon on their way to assassinate Gorkon. Then the K1 demonstrates why her class was so feared: after having taken two unshielded torpedo hits in a seemingly vital area, she quickly recovers and is ready to fight.
Kirk agrees to beam aboard with McCoy (DeForest Kelley) when they hear Klingons’ doctor has died. McCoy fails to save the ambassador, and our two heroes are captured and sent to stand trial. They are sentenced to the ice gulag of Rura Penthe. They escape with the help of shapeshifter Martia (Iman/Tom Morga) and beamed back onto the Enterprise. They then rush to stop the assassination of the Federation President (Kurtwood Smith) by a Klingon assassin. They are intercepted by Chang in a prototypical Bird of Prey designed to fire while cloaked, the one that fired upon K1. With help from Captain Sulu (George Takei), they figure out a way to defeat it and then double team that bitch in quite a crowd-pleasing payoff. The assassination plot is foiled, Kirk makes an impassioned plea for peace, the conspirators are revealed, and everyone is happy, especially these guys for some reason.
The movie ends with the Enterprise crew's being ordered by Starfleet to report to base for decommissioning. The officers, wanting to milk some more time on the ship, ignore them. It’s a nice sendoff for the characters we love, but having been in the Navy, I can tell you that there are plenty of unhappy sailors right now. Most seaman and JO’s would just want to get back home to their families, especially after having just survived a space battle. Some of them died. In fact, if they were to mutiny over this, they’d have the law on their side. Oh well, just another example of how being underway is seen as a symbol for freedom for people who’ve never worked on a ship. The credits are a nice touch, as all the cast members’ signatures are shown along with a triumphant secondary theme. Like “All Good Things” it’s a good farewell to a group of beloved characters. And like “All Good Things” nothing good came out of adding to it.
Indeed, Undiscovered Country is regarded as one of the best Trek movies, and a lot of this has to do with the return of Nicolas Meyer, the director of Wrath of Khan. Having spent the last couple of years catching up on the franchise, I decided to watch this old time favorite. Enjoyable as it was, I was disappointed by the sheer number of plotholes and silly mistakes. I’d hate to revert to the nitpicky style of criticism I had grown out, but I’m afraid that urge might again rear its ugly head. Franchise works do work on their own internal logic and should be bound by it, but there’s a gray area of how much can be forgiven. Some recent filth has provoked an unfortunate renaissance in such style of movie reviews, as a form of chemotherapy in response to cancer. Sadly, such critics have shown themselves completely unprepared outside this comfort zone of A-Logging. Examples such as Critical Drinker’s reviews of Midsommar, Us, etc. are like the equivalent of administering chemo to a healthy patient. Now here’s a short list of Undiscovered Country’s flaws.
- The Captain agrees to Valeris’ suggestion to serve Romulan ale at the meeting, despite this being a terrible idea in such a delicate situation.
-Spock rather conspicuously places a very visible homing device on Kirk’s shoulder before he leaves for the K1, allowing him to be tracked and picked up from Rura Penthe. The Klingons somehow don’t notice this throughout the trial and imprisonment. They don’t even relieve Kirk of his uniform, but they do confiscate his universal translator.
-The losers stationed at the Klingon listening outpost don’t bat an eye at an identified ship communicating in horribly broken Klingon. Their technology apparently isn’t designed to recognized a Connie when it wanders into Klingon space.
-Valeris (Kim Cattrall) apparently needs to explain to the Enterprise’s own command personnel that using a vaporizer will set off an alarm. Instead of just telling them like a normal person, she shoots at something with the vaporizer to make the alarm go off.
-The alarm is not triggered by a phaser’s going off at all. Just when when it’s set to vaporize.
-There are apparently only two pairs of gravity boots on the whole ship.
-Martia presumably leads Kirk and McCoy away long enough to give Chang a “Killed While Trying to Escape” loophole, but they’re allowed to go too far before they’re tracked down and they get beamed off the planet.
-Even if they lost the blueprints for the Bird of Prey prototype, everybody knows that this is possible, but no one gets around to making one by the TNG era.
-Azetbur is the new chancellor, but it’s later revealed that Klingon women do enjoy such hight rank.
What makes these nitpicks excusable is the story itself. First of all, it seems that some minor tweaking could fix these holes, which are not truly inherent to the plot and therefore allow the movie to pass the TLJ Test. Also, unlike many newer movies, the passion is there. Star Trek VI does not seek to “fix,” subvert, or deconstruct. It explains how the peace between the Federation and Klingons, as established in TNG, happens, while making it an opportunity for the characters to reflect upon a new world they’re not necessary trained for. Its heart is with the characters and the world they live in. It takes advantage of the political implications of this universe. It’s a gateway into the new world of TNG that uses the TOS characters as its segue (another reason why Generations was a bad idea). For all its flaws, it reinforces, rather denigrates, the franchise. The characters act according to their established roots. It focuses on them and interstellar politics, the strengths of the franchise. Even the dialogue is memorably witty. It could be called the first successful prequel.
A possible explanation for these script problems is the troubled pre-production planning. There were conflicts between Gene Roddenberry and Nicholas Meyer, of course. This production was also an example of how the franchise was always at its best when in strayed further from Roddenberry’s utopian vision. He did not like having the Enterprise crew display any bigotry, even though the arc was an inspiring example of their overcoming it. Roddenberry did, however, get it right on Saavik. Meyer wanted to turn her into a traitor, but Gene called him out on sullying a beloved character in a way that made no sense, so they changed it to Valeris. Various cast members submitted scripts of varying degrees of questionable quality.
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| WTF, WALTER KOENIG |
The movie's characters are strong. All our beloved characters are here, including Scotty (James Doohan), Uhuru (Nichelle Nichols). Kirk is the depicted as stubbornly skeptical of the peace accords, and harbors a vendetta against the Klingons for the death of his son. He even shows a dark side when he says "Let them die!", but he learns to overcome his hatred. Spock is, to the point of buffoonery, the starry eyed idealist in spite of his stoic demeanor. This is consistent with his history, and I generally like this type of character (see also: Kosh from Babylon 5). McCoy tags along with Kirk as his lovably sarcastic self, but he doesn't develop much. It would have been nice too have more of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate dynamic in this movie.
The Klingons are brutal, but human. Gorkon’s daughter Azetbur (Rosanna DeSoto) is an honorable person who wants Kirk to pay for her father’s murder, but is hesitant to instigate war. Brigadier Kerla (Paul Rossilli) is a loyal member of the Klingon military who advises retaliation but follows orders not to. Rossilli has a great scene of Good Bad Acting in which he reluctantly orders the Excelsior to stay away from the Praxis incident under the pretense that they need no help. You can tell he has a gun to his head with that fake attempt at calm. The Klingon Judge (Robert Easton) shows some fairness in the apparent show trial, at least for a Klingon; he rescinds the death penalty based on lack of truly conclusive evidence (much to Chang’s disappointment). Worf’s grandfather (Michael Dorn) appears as Kirk’s defense attorney.
Chang himself is a great foil to Kirk. He sees himself as an honorable foe to the Captain, and recognizes him as a fellow warrior of old. This does not stop him from using subterfuge to destroy him in an attempt to further his goals. Klingons clearly see an honorable fight differently. He gleefully attacks Kirk on the battlefield of the courtroom, a consummate Klingon. He relates the Terran’s description of the sapient condition by quoting Shakespeare, and these allusions serve as a spiritual successor to the Wrath of Khan’s use of Moby Dick.
Valeris is a subtle enough twist villain, and the movie does a good job making her vaguely unlikable. Well, maybe not so vaguely when she goes on a know-it-all spiel about the etymology of the word "sabotage."
Other cast members include Rene Auberjonois and Christian Slater (whose mother was the casting director), and Darryl Henriques. The special effects are perfect, still using models at the time when they were perfected. Cliff Eidelman’s ominous score completes the intrigue, and is even used as a common temping track in Hollywood.
One moment that annoyed me was the insertion of some post-religious nonsense, presumably to appease Roddenberry, in which Spock refers to Adam and Eve as “ancient earth mythology.” It seems odd to call a belief that persisted at least into the 21st Century “Ancient,” when the term generally refers to pre-Medieval periods, and Vulcans generally don’t do tongue-in-cheek hyperbole. It’s like the trend of calling 80’s music “Oldies.”
I’ve always been a bit confused by the president before I realized he wasn’t Klingon. I wonder if Efrosians suffered hate crimes during the Klingon War to the point where they were the in-universe equivalent of Sikhs. This movie also led my childhood self to believe that Cinderella was a Russian story simply because Chekov said so. I was not yet familiar with that running joke. Always thought that went against the central theme of the franchise.
Anyway, Star Trek VI is an extremely enjoyable movie, a true Trek entry despite its relative amount of action. Oddly enough, I don’t think its writing is as tight as that of Star Trek V, but its execution is better than the direction of its often unjustifiably campy predecessor.
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