Ahead of the release of Star Trek Into Darkness in cinemas on Thursday 9 May, each week we’re rewatching a classic Star Trek movie, continuing this week with 1991’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country…

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The story

A few months away from retirement, the crew of the Enterprise is pulled into a major crisis when it appears they have opened fire on a Klingon ship without warning or provocation, followed by the assassination of a Klingon ambassador. Kirk and Bones are found guilty of the crime in a show trial. While Kirk’s hatred of the Klingons is well known, it seems that each crew member has good reason to betray the Federation and universal peace.

The major flaw in the storyline, however, is given away in the trailer, when there’s an attempt to whip up some mystery as to the identity of the traitor aboard the Enterprise: Is it – Kirk? Is it – Spock? Is it – Sulu? Is it some new character we’ve just introduced and that you haven’t previously heard of? Yeah, our money’s on that one.

Best moments

The film trades heavily on the fact that this is the last film to star the regular cast, meaning that anyone could be the traitor (and, in theory, anyone could die). As we’ve mentioned above, it’s somewhat squandered with the casting of Kim Cattrall’s character, but generally the result is a tight conspiracy thriller.

The chemistry between Shatner and Kelley is brought to the fore once again in the scenes where their characters are trapped on a Klingon gulag. At the same time, Kirk’s flirting with a beautiful alien (played by supermodel Iman) are entertaining – Kirk, to Bones, after having kissed the alien: ‘Still think we’re finished?’ Bones: ‘Now, more than ever .’

The sequence in which unknown assassins attack Chancellor Gorkon is well realised, with the special effects still holding up more than twenty years later.  Nicholas Meyer’s direction and shrouding the sets in darkness (many borrowed from the TV series The Next Generation) give the film a brooding, paranoid atmosphere.

Nichelle Nichols was uncomfortable with the racist undertones of the line ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’ – a reference to the film of that name – and so it’s given to Chekov, who mutters it with dark humour. The dinner scene itself is a neat sequence of enforced detente, as sworn enemies struggle to make nice with each other

Trivia

» After the failure of The Final Frontier, various ideas were floated for the movie that would coincide with Star Trek‘s 25th anniversary – including one that dispensed with the classic cast altogether, and rebooted the franchise to ‘prequel’ status (a la 2009’s Star Trek), and a tantalising sounding effort from Walter Koenig, which would have seen everybody on the Enterprise apart from Kirk and Spock killed off.

» It was only when Leonard Nimoy suggested an idea of the ‘wall coming down in space’ – a reference to the Cold War thawing – that a plot began to come together.

» Nichelle Nicholls disliked the scene in which she had to hurriedly sort through a pile of Klingon books while trying to translate a back-and-forth conversation. Not unreasonably, she felt that books would be pretty much redundant in the 23rd Century, and in any case, as Communications Officer, she’d know the language anyway. It’s a very good point: but director Meyer overruled her.

» Leonard Nimoy continues his self-appointed job of being the franchise’s moral gate-keeper: upon discovering Kim Cattrall in the middle of a nude photo shoot on the set of the Enterprise, he chucked the photographer off site, before seizing and destroying the film.

» Kirk and Bones’ underground prison is perhaps more recognisable as the Batcave.

Best quotes

There’s a hell of a lot of good dialogue here, particularly as the film steals liberally from such diverse sources as Conan Doyle, Shakespeare (again) and, most successfully, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the rhetoric of Nazi Germany:

Gorkon: “You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.”

Kirk: “Are you afraid of the future?”
Bones: “I believe that was the general idea I was trying to convey.”
Kirk: “I don’t mean this future.”
Bones: “What is this, multiple choice?”

Chekov: “Course heading, sir?”
Kirk: “Second star to the right. And straight on til morning … “

Kirk: “Captain’s Log, stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun, and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man… [a pause before he corrects himself, changing the phrase to the one familiarised by Picard] …where no one has gone before … “

The verdict

The last stab of greatness from the classic crew, Undiscovered Country successfully blends Gene Rodenberry’s original space opera ethos with the Next Generation ascetic (more so than the slightly clunky Generations, if we’re honest).

It is true that Roddenberry himself disliked the film intensely – after having seen a preview cut, he spent the last 48 hours of his life attempting to get nearly a quarter of it cut. In the larger sense, we can sympathise with his concerns that it isn’t quite ‘pure’ Star Trek: Kirk and most of the rest of the crew are significantly more prejudiced against the Klingons than the fully paid up employees of the Federation really should be. But, given the events of the last few films (and the need to make a more fun, exciting film), that’s eminently understandable, and indeed desirable.

There’s a strength and show of confidence that hasn’t always been present in the ST movies, blending well-placed humour with genuine high-stakes tension. Despite Roddenberry’s final concerns, the last regular film to feature the classic cast is a fitting legacy.

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