The SmarK DVD Rant for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
– Just to give you an idea of the kind of excitement surrounding this movie in the geek circles in high school, my friend and I cut class in grade 11 and waited in line for 6 hours to see this on opening day, a record which was only topped years later when I waited in line for 8 hours to see a midnight screening of The Phantom Menace in 1999.
The anticipation was due to the cruddy nature of Star Trek V (AKA The Search To Find Out What The Hell They Were Thinking) and the general feeling amongst Hollywood and the fans that no one wanted to see the original crew go out on a Shatner-helmed borefest. So they re-recruited Star Trek II whizkid Nicolas Meyers to pen the script and direct, added a little social commentary, and the result was a slam-bang finale to the legacy of the original crew.
The Film
By the time this movie came out in 1991, Star Trek: The Next Generation was well into the fourth season, and Gene Roddenberry was unfortunately dead, having only lived long enough to see a preview screening of the movie from his wheelchair. While most felt it was the right note to go out on, it was said that Roddenberry hated the script and fought it every step of the way. In fact, the original version of this movie was a “Starfleet Academy 90210” movie, with a young Jimmy Kirk meeting a brash Spock when they were both cadets. More on all that later.
In a nutshell, Star Trek VI is about the elder generation having to make way for the new realities of the younger one, setting aside lifelong enemies and prejudices, and asking the question “If I have no one left to fight, then what is my purpose?” The best sci-fi is about us, not aliens, and this demonstrates that by being an allegory for the end of the Cold War and creating a further backstory for the Klingons in the “present day” reality of TNG.
The movie begins with the destruction of Chernobyl er Praxis, the Klingon moon responsible for 90% of their economy, which has the Federation predicting the death of the Klingon Empire within 50 years if something isn’t done. Of course, 80 years later they were not only still alive but stronger than ever, with or without the Federation’s help, but that’s another issue. Anyway, like true templates of the Russians, the Klingon government not only denies the disaster, but claims that even if there WERE a disaster like that, they still wouldn’t need any help, so y’all can F.O.A.D. More or less.
Despite those kind of strong sentiments, the Federation decides to be buttinskys anyway, as Spock plays peacenik behind Kirk’s back and volunteers the Enterprise for a diplomatic dinner with the Klingon High Council, to lead towards talks of dismantling the military machine fueling their long war and helping them out of their situation. Kirk is naturally tormented, since the Klingons brutally murdered his son in the third movie and he’s spent his whole life hating them before that. Any chance of peace went out the window after his son was killed, as far as he’s concerned, and he’s not alone in that sentiment. The hardline conservative voice of Admiral Cartwright (who would later return as Joseph Sisko in DS9) was also on the side of crushing them while they were down, but higher powers want Kirk to play nice.
During a pleasant and awkward evening of dinner we meet Chancellor Gorkon (the amazing David Warner) and the Shakespeare-spewing General Chang (Chris Plummer, chewing the scenery with true gusto), but after everyone stumbles home after too much Romulan Ale and too many unintended nasty remarks, the Enterprise suddenly fires torpedoes, from under a flag of truce, at the Klingon ship, and two assassins beam onto the ship and kill nearly everyone on board, including Gorkon.
From here the movie breaks into two parallel stories:
1) Kirk and McCoy are arrested for the murder of Gorkon and sent to the prison planet of Rura Penthe after a show trial, where they have to survive and escape an inescapable prison (and screw hot chicks at least Kirk does).
2) Spock leads an investigation of what the hell happened on the Enterprise and where the assassins ended up, and who was behind it all. This is a sci-fi version of CSI, as the logic-minded Spock is only interested in evidence, not theories, and slowly but surely the only suspect left for the traitor is his protégé, Valeris.
(Sidenote: Valeris was originally intended to be Saavik to really give the viewers a kick in the nuts when she turned evil, but Roddenberry felt that Saavik was “beloved” by the audience, which shows how out of touch he had become by the end. However, Kim Cattrall refused the part when she was just playing “the third Saavik” so they had to rewrite the character anyway. Still, it would have been a cooler idea that way, I think)
Finally, we get the big showdown as the President of the UFP is facing assassination from within and the Enterprise (and newly-christened Excelsior, with Captain Sulu) race to stop General Chang and his invisible Bird-of-Prey from wrecking the last best chance for peace. Of course, to make peace you need to kill hundreds of Klingons and blow up their ship, but nobody said it was an exact science.
After the misstep of Star Trek V, they bounced back with the one of the strongest efforts in the Trek library, mixing political allegory with a prison-break movie and a whodunit, all very effectively. This isn’t a perfect movie, however — Valeris is so obviously sticking out as a new crew member that you might as well hang a “traitor” sign on her, Kirk fighting himself on the prison planet is very cheesy 60s-style stuff, and all the Shakespeare quotes get a bit annoying after a while. Plus it feels more like 3 movies welded into one, rather than a more cohesive whole like Star Trek II or IV. Not to mention Kirk’s character is a bit too over the top in his hatred of Klingons and his unwillingness to change.
But flaws aside, this remains one of my favorites of the series, and it was one of the most financially successful to boot, sending the original cast out on a strong note and readying the world for the Next Generation movies that were to follow. Funny, smart, and with something to say about the world in general, it more than made up for the failure that was the fifth movie. Unfortunately, it would also prove to be the last appearance of Dr. McCoy, as the brilliant DeForrest Kelly wasn’t part of the Next Gen movies and died in 1999.
The Video
Finally remastered after a long wait (the original was non-anamorphic widescreen), this is a much better transfer than the original DVD, still presented in the oddball 2:1 aspect ratio (unlike all the other Trek movies, which are 2.35:1) but now anamorphic. The colors are better, with the reds of the jackets standing out against the dark backgrounds and all the details of the ship visible now, and the problems with CGI matte lines and grain, that were in the previous movies, were either addressed by 1991 or fixed in the new transfer. A very good job by Paramount.
The Audio
Redone in Dolby 5.1 like all the other releases (except for Star Trek V, which shockingly was recognized as 6.1 by my receiver) this is a disappointing surround mix in some ways. I appreciate the “WHOOSH” of the ships going into the surrounds and the firefights in the rear speakers, but there’s no usage of the subwoofer at all, even in the big explosion that starts the movie. I mean, I know there’s no sound in space, but c’mon. Dialogue was a little quiet, too, and I had to really crank the sound system to hear everything from the center channel, but the dynamic range didn’t seem to be that much because I never really had to turn it down again, even for the big action scenes. Could have been better.
The Extras
Now here’s what I’m talking about!
This is, as usual, a two-disc set, loaded with special features.
The first disc features the traditional commentary tracks — an audio commentary from Meyer and screenwriter Denny Martin Flinn, and a text commentary from Michael Okuda, filled with zillions of trivia bits like the ones I mentioned above. The Trek discs have had some of the best commentaries I’ve ever heard — even Trek V — and this is no exception.
On the second disc, you get a buttload of featurettes, divided into subsections.
– “Stories from Star Trek VI” covers six featurettes running an hour total, and goes from pre-production to the farewell cast party and interviews with tons of people. One interesting section talks about the clash between Roddenberry and the writers of this one, as there was some VERY prevalent racist undertones going on with regards to the Klingons and Gene had big problems with it. In particular Brock Peters (Cartwright) had problems reading his lines about not wanting the Klingons in his backyard, and much of it had to be edited out.
– “The Star Trek Universe” includes a 20-minute featurette on the history of the Klingons, an interview with Meyer, a funny six-minute short subject on the different character actors and how they keep reappearing in other Star Trek roles, a 6-minute featurette on the prop house showing the crazy origins of the props from the movie (like the Klingon scanner re-molded from a miniature ATM used in the Blob!) and an interview with Shatner & Chris Plummer about their early days acting in Canada and how Bill understudied Chris one summer.
– “The Perils of Peacemaking”, a 30-minute mini-documentary tying together the movie and the real-life assassinations of would-be peacemakers like Rabin or Abraham Lincoln, featuring lengthy interviews with Meyer and an actual US diplomat. Fascinating stuff.
– A 15-minute touching tribute to DeForrest Kelley, recapping his career and allowing everyone to tell stories about him. It still pisses me off that the Academy Awards forgot about him in 2000 when they did their annual roll call of deceased movie stars.
– The original cast interviews from 1991 promoting the movie, running about 30 minutes total
– Two trailers and a very early teaser piece featuring Nicholas Meyer that was only screened for people at a convention in early 1991.
– Plus the usual storyboards and production gallery crap that no one watches.
My only complaint is that the special features aren’t anamorphic, although most are in widescreen, but whatever. Still tons of great stuff to give you another couple of hours of enjoyment. Too much Meyer for my tastes, but still interesting stuff nonetheless.
Now bring on Generations!
The Ratings:
The Film: *****
The Video: *****
The Audio: ***
The Extras: *****
