With nearly six decades of TV series and films under its belt, Star Trek is a vaunted franchise
that always inspires fan discussion on the best entries in the series. Here’s why Star Trek 6:
The Undiscovered Country is the best film embodiment of the Star Trek world.
Creator Gene Roddenberry imagined Star Trek as a "Wagon Train to the Stars," with Earth
settlers boldly exploring the final frontier of space. But he also conceived of it as a
Cold War allegory, one in which the United Federation of Planets represented NATO,
the Klingon Empire stood in for the Soviet Union, and the Romulans were the Red-Communist Chinese.
A number of episodes of the original series allegorize Cold War conflicts, including "Errand
of Mercy," "Friday's Child," "Elaan of Troyius," "The Omega Glory," and "Balance of Terror."
Producer Harve Bennett's "holy trilogy" – The Wrath of Khan,
The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home – explored the relationships and trials of the
Enterprise crew and the sacrifices they made for one another. But when Paramount brought back Wrath
of Khan writer/director Nicholas Meyer to make one final film with the original series cast,
he and Leonard Nimoy took Star Trek back to its Cold War roots, imagining "the fall of
the Berlin Wall in space," and its aftermath. Specifically, they wanted to dramatize the hard
work of achieving peace in a world used to hate, paranoia, and xenophobia. The film’s plot, about
a coup that attempts to derail a galactic peace conference, mirrored the real events unfolding in
the summer of 1991 so accurately — including Russian hardliners trying to restore the old
Soviet Union — that Paramount actually tried to rush the film into theaters before it was ready.
Maybe because he started out as a novelist, Nicholas Meyer has a real gift with dialogue.
Sure, he borrows some of the dialogue in his Star Trek movies from classic works of Western
Civilization, but he's good at using those works to underscore his themes. Star Trek II,
for example, opens with Spock giving Kirk an antique copy of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities,
a novel about sacrifice. Later in the film, Kirk quotes the novel, reflecting on Spock's sacrifice
for the greater good. In The Undiscovered Country, Meyer has the Klingon character Chang lay claim
to Shakespeare and even weaves in references to Brave New World, Sherlock Holmes, and Peter Pan.
But Meyer also writes excellent original dialogue. The Undiscovered Country is
about people confronting the prejudice of their own thinking, and the way in
which Kirk and Spock acknowledge their own shortcomings and mistakes is very poignant.
"You're a great one for logic. I'm a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread."
A bit later in the film, Spock asks,
"Is it possible that we two, you and I,
have become so old and inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness?"
It’s very self-reflective dialogue that allows for meaningful change,
making Undiscovered Country a film with exciting character development.
A script with plenty of Shakespearean dialogue demands Shakespearean actors, and Undiscovered
Country delivers. Royal Shakespeare Company veteran David Warner plays Chancellor Gorkon,
a Klingon ambassador trying to forge peace with the Federation. The great Christopher Plummer,
meanwhile, stars as the villainous Klingon General Chang, who spearheads a conspiracy to sabotage the
peace process. By this time, Plummer was as famous as a Shakespearean actor on the stage as he was
for his roles on screen. He had made his thespian bones in Canadian theatre working with none other
than William Shatner. The future Captain Kirk was Plummer's understudy in...wait for it...Henry
V. So when playing Chang, Plummer is right at home intoning quotes from Hamlet,
Henry V, Julius Caesar, and The Merchant of Venice while he taunts Kirk and company.
"To be, or not to be. That is the question which preoccupies our people, Captain."
While Plummer gives a famously flamboyant performance as Chang,
he is fully committed to the role, giving it the dramatic heft it deserves. In fact,
Plummer had been a Star Trek fan when the show debuted in the 1960s.
Despite the fact that Industrial Light and Magic handled visual effects for both the Star Wars
and Star Trek movies, their Star Wars effects became better known, partly because of Trek’s
association with low-budget aesthetic in the original TV show. But the movies featured some
impressive spectacles the space battle inside the pink clouds of the Mutara Nebula in Wrath of Khan;
the Enterprise self-destructing and burning up in The Search for Spock;
and the Klingon Bird of Prey hovering over a whaling ship in The Voyage Home.
Undiscovered Country is the most sustained visual achievement of the original movie series.
It outdoes those previous films in several ways, as with the mammoth opening explosion
of the Klingon mining moon and the giant purple shock wave that engulfs Sulu's ship,
the Excelsior. There's a terrific action sequence set on a gravity-disabled Klingon
flagship when two masked assassins gun down the Klingons onboard,
sending their fuchsia blood floating in neon globules through the zero-G environment.
Star Trek 6 is also bursting with alien masks and makeup, putting on a huge prosthetic show
and giving the galaxy a sense of being diversely populated. Finally, Meyer and cinematographer
Hiro Narita elect for low lighting throughout, which gives the film a burnished, menacing glow.
Every Star Trek movie either introduces new characters or delves deeper into characters
from the original TV series, and the quality of the films often mirrors how well this is done.
Take the arch-villain Khan, who made his classic cinema debut in Star Trek II, and contrast
that with Spock's forgettable half brother, Sybok, introduced in the wretched Star Trek V.
Star Trek 6 balances out the main cast with a wealth of memorable new faces beyond Chang
and Gorkon, including Gorkon's fierce daughter Azetbur , played by Rosanna DeSoto, as well as the
grandfather of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Worf, both played by Michael Dorn. Other sharply
drawn characters include a shapeshifting alien named Martia, played by the model Iman,
and Kurtwood Smith as the Federation President. Even Christian Slater shows up for a cameo.
But the best new character is a pre-Sex and the City Kim Cattrall as Lieutenant Valeris,
Spock's Vulcan protégé. Valeris has more scenes than most of the Trek regulars,
and the movie is better for the freshness and vitality of her character. She and Chang,
along with many other new characters, help make the Star Trek universe feel densely populated.
Novelizations and other material in the Trek universe had long established the promotion
to captain of Sulu, played by George Takei, which fans had been clamoring to see on film for quite
some time. His ship, the USS Excelsior, had actually been introduced in Star Trek III:
The Search for Spock as one of a new generation of starships that would replace the Enterprise.
When Kirk goes rogue in that movie, Starfleet sends the Excelsior to apprehend him,
but it fails because Scotty has sabotaged the transwarp drive. But fans found the ship cool,
and they finally got their wish of seeing Sulu in charge of it,
when it showed up under his command a few films later in Undiscovered Country.
Narratively, adding another Starfleet ship widens the scope of the film,
and it gives one of the primary original characters something to do besides hang
around on the Enterprise bridge. Sulu and the Excelsior feature prominently in the
dramatic opening of the film, as well as the exciting climax.
As they race at Warp 10 to help the Enterprise save the galactic peace conference,
a junior officer warns Sulu about the speed, to which his commander barks,
"Fly her apart then!" You can practically feel Takei's relish at getting a line this
exciting after "yes sirring" Captain Kirk all those years.
Sulu’s expanded role fits well into the fast, exciting storytelling on display
in The Undiscovered Country. A Sherlock Holmes fan, writer-director Meyer – who also wrote The
Seven Percent Solution – infuses a mystery story into the larger space opera plot,
as the Enterprise crew races against the clock to figure out who has framed them for an
act of international terrorism that jeopardizes a peace conference. Meyer
and his co-writers Leonard Nimoy and Denny Martin Flynn also add a juicy courtroom trial,
an elaborate banquet scene, and a prison escape for good measure, along with all the space
battles, phaser fights, and philosophical discussions fans had come to expect.
In Star Trek II, Spock saves the Enterprise and her crew at the expense of his life.
In Star Trek III, the Enterprise crew returns the favor but sacrifices the ship.
In Star Trek 4, the stakes include the survival of Earth and all its people. And by the time we
get to The Undiscovered Country, the fate of the entire galaxy hangs in the balance. Can humans
and alien species work together to preserve the fragile goal of peace? Or is the galaxy doomed
to perpetual war? These are the highest stakes of the series so far, making for great tension.
The personal stakes are high in this movie too. Whereas the characters had to save each other
individually in previous outings, in Undiscovered Country, they’ve got to save themselves,
as a group. Will they be able to see the error of their ways before it's too late? They certainly
try. Spock admits that it was, quote, "arrogant presumption" on his part that got them into the
story's mess in the first place, as well as his belief in the inherent superiority of Vulcans.
Kirk meanwhile confesses that he was so used to fighting Klingons,
it never occurred to him to believe they might actually want peace. saying,
"Gorkon had to die before I understood how prejudiced I was."
By the end of the film, he sees them in a new light and has even earned their trust:
"People can be very frightened of change."
Inside, the starships in The Undiscovered Country feel more like tight-packed ships at sea, or even
submarines, than do the brightly lit flying living rooms of The Next Generation. This fits with Gene
Roddenberry's original vision of Starfleet as a navy, with the officers using nautical directions
like port and starboard. And of course, the USS Enterprise was meant to be the descendant of the
many real ships designated "Enterprise," including the famous World War II aircraft carrier.
Meyer embraced Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek as fictional British naval hero Horatio
Hornblower voyaging in space. In Star Trek 6, the director expands that concept even more
fully than he did in Star Trek II, putting the crewmen together in cramped bunkrooms,
referring to the kitchen as the galley, and using torpedoes during warfare.
Meyer epitomizes the naval theme beautifully with Kirk's great final line.
When asked for a course heading, he paraphrases Peter Pan, saying,
"Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."
Of course, Peter Pan was an adventure set on ships, but the line also suggests the
eternal pull of the horizon, which had always informed the hopeful vision of Star Trek.
It’s now expected for popular franchises to wink at their fans, referencing elements
outside of a given film's particular story. But when Star Trek 6 came out in 1991,
the practice was pretty rare, and the film trailblazed in that area too. At one point,
when Scotty suggests that their situation is so dire that they’re practically dead, Spock quips,
"I've been dead before."
Meanwhile, as the film tackles the theme of aging, it directly engages the cultural
jokes about the Enterprise crew saving the galaxy in walkers and wheelchairs.
But nods to the franchise’s history are never at the expense of the film’s central story.
The only responsibility the filmmakers feel is to make a good final movie, especially after the
lackluster Star Trek V. The sixth installment grandly sends off the original cast and crew,
but it's also a send-off to the fans who made it all possible. Their passion saved Star Trek
from cancellation and kept it alive through some pretty weak movies. With Star Trek 6,
the original series ends on a high note. Its greatest gift to fans is saving the best for last.
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