My Movie Review on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Greetings and salutations, my friends.

This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.

Today, for my 146th film analysis, I'm gonna give you guys my take of the sixth and final film of the original Star Trek series:

"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"

Here's the rundown of this adventure:

When the home-world of the Klingons goes into ruin after the destruction of their moon, Praxis, the Klingon race has no choice but to negotiate for peace with the United Federation of Planets. In light of this, the USS Enterprise is assigned to pick up the Klingon chancellor, Gorkon, and bring him to Earth despite Captain Kirk's refusal to take the job.

However, when the chancellor is mysteriously killed, Kirk and Dr. McCoy are subsequently blamed for the murder and banished to a frozen wasteland of a planet called Rura Penthe. Believing Kirk and McCoy to be innocent, Spock decides to investigate the matter to find out who the chancellor's true killers are while negotiations between the Federation and Klingon Empire continues.

Will Kirk and McCoy's names be cleared? Or will they be stuck on Rura Penthe forever? And who could've killed Chancellor Gorkon? And why?

After finally taking the time to watch this movie via Amazon Prime, I'm proud to say that this movie was definitely worthwhile. Quite a refresher from the underwhelming previous Star Trek film, if I may add.

For instance, the direction by Nicholas Meyer, the story by Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal, and the screenplay by Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn, were awesomely spot-on!

Returning to series after co-writing "The Voyage Home" and to the director's chair after "The Wrath of Khan", Meyer's work in this movie had me watch with awe every step of the way, and it felt like Meyer literally didn't know when to stop on proving himself to be a true Star Trek filmmaker. The film's connection and references to installments 2, 3, and 4 were among some of my favorite parts of it, because they helped the adventure not seem like it came out of nowhere for the characters and provided the film with things to be built off of. Along with that, the film was intriguing, full of mystery, suspenseful, unpredictable, action-packed, emotional, and occasionally witty in the most fun way possible.

The themes and morals that the film had about racism, prejudice, hatred, and fear were incredible as well. I know that these subjects weren't uncommonly used in the Star Trek franchise, but the way they were done in this film...was in a way that was particularly special and meaningful. Fear, hate, racism, and prejudice are poisons of the human soul, and we should never act on them.

I'd also like to add that the special effects caught me completely by surprise. They were not only an improvement over the effects in the fifth film, but the team behind the effects of this one successfully made everything seem like it was actually taking place in space. I especially enjoyed how real the explosion of Praxis seemed, how the space backgrounds and ships mixed together perfectly, and how they got the CGI used for whenever Martia was shapeshifting to look so real.

The music by Cliff Eidelman was remarkable too. The special thing about Eidelman's work in this film was that he truly knew how to make his melodies unique and different from the music of the previous Star Trek movies, and he did a brilliant job at helping the film feel enormous and life-changing. The best part was that Eidelman's music matched perfectly with the series's universe and settings.

Finally, the performances of the cast, characters, and character development were spectacular.

Among the old cast members, William Shatner was the one who impressed me the most with his portrayal of James T. Kirk. The amount of emotion and personality he incorporated into his character was incredible, and Kirk had awesome development as a character. As a plus, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley were as amazing as ever in the roles of Spock and McCoy, and they and the rest of the regular characters developed nicely throughout the film. I did find myself wishing that Hikaru Sulu had a more recurring presence like the other regular characters did, but I was happy that he still had a big and important role to play. As a plus, George Takei did a splendid job portraying Sulu in the authoritative role as captain of the USS Excelsior.

The film's new characters and cast members were likewise phenomenal. Each new character was an instantly welcoming addition to the franchise, and the guest stars fit their parts like a glove and portrayed their characters with excellent life and emotion. My favorite out of all of them was Christopher Plummer and his character of Chang, particularly because Plummer gave his character astounding personality, theatricality, and unpredictability. Chang himself was a great successor to Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonien Singh and Christopher Lloyd's Commander Kruge, and he proved to be a unique antagonist too.

In conclusion, "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" is not only an improvement over "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", but...it's one of the best Star Trek installments of all-time! And, as the conclusion for the franchise's original characters starring Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, Takei, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and Nichelle Nichols, as well as a dedication to Gene Roddenberry after he died of cardiopulmonary arrest before the film was released...this movie wonderfully served as all two of what I described.

So, I rate "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" a solid five out of five stars.

I know that many of you might be wanting me to review more installments like "Star Trek: The Next Generation" pretty soon. For now, though, I'd like to take a break from the Star Trek franchise to focus on other things.

I hope you all understand.

Comments

[HolyCross9]

I agree with your review of this film.

[Jade Dawn]

I've been finding myself liking this one more and more as time goes on. Maybe it's because I didn't really watch it all that much as a kid (outside of the opening with Praxis's destruction), and I've kind of exhausted my other options of the original six; I've resigned myself to my loneliness in my love of TMP, Wrath of Khan is great but it gets tiresome for me after a while, Search for Spock is just okay outside of a few key scenes (stealing the Enterprise and her subsequent self-destruction), Voyage Home doesn't interest me at all, and I only like Final Frontier in a sense of morbid fascination.

But anyway, I'm rather surprised by how much I've come to enjoy this one in recent years, and I'm glad the movies were able to go out on this high note. I like how it ties into the Cold War tensions of the time (the Soviet Union was collapsing during the 90's, and it's represented in-story by the Klingons), and I like how it at least partially deals with Kirk finally letting go of his hatred for the Klingons for the death of his son. I also like how it makes an effort to portray the Klingons as not a complete race of cold-blooded killers. The shot where Chang's Bird-of-Prey shoots a torpedo through the Enterprise-A's saucer is one of the most memorable combat-related moments in the franchise.

Also, seriously, can we take a moment to acknowledge the awesomeness that is Captain Hikaru Sulu of the USS Excelsior? One of the biggest disappointments of the Trek fandom is that we never got to see more of him.

And Chang's Shakespeare. Beautiful, hammy goodness. My one complaint is that he kind of comes across as a one-dimensional villain, but he, and Gorkon too, actually, does get a bit of an extended background in a video game called Klingon Academy.

All in all, a great movie, and an excellent end to the adventures of the original crew. Glad you enjoyed it.

P.S. Yeah, it's probably a good idea to take a break from Star Trek for a while. Star Trek: The Next Generation goes on for like seven seasons or something. I've actually started watching more of it myself recently, and it's been growing on me.

P.P.S. I actually have a copy of this movie's script, along with those for Wrath of Khan and Final Frontier.