- "You volunteered!?"
- "There is an old Vulcan proverb -- only Moore could reboot BSG"
"They wrote Transformers!"
"Bill, the franchise is dying."
STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
Full disclosure: This is my favourite Star Trek movie.
Does it most excellently showcase the most admirable qualities of the Trek franchise? No. I would argue movies I, III-V do that quite a bit. But it doesn't matter. I like Trek VI the best.
Maybe because I feel it's a movie that has everything. An engaging political conspiracy plot, a murder mystery, allegory, thematic content, character investigation, rousing battle scenes, an atmosphere that mixes dread with determination and immediacy with reflection and excitement with melancholy. It hits all these notes while never seeming schizophrenic and maintaining a rousing storyline that follows logically from A to B while never feeling rushed.
One of the things I love in this movie is the music. I know I'm a minority opinion on this, but I love Cliff Eidelman's score. It not only accentuates the dramatic action but also perfectly underscores the more low-key, character moments in the film. Three scenes really stand out for me -- the first scene between Spock and Valeris in his quarters, the scene where Kirk and McCoy beam aboard Kronos One, and the long helicopter shots of Kirk, McCoy and Martia trekking across the surface of Rura Penthe. It also expresses the brooding, mysterious quality of the film, that sense of the unknown and dangerous. The music manages to evoke a Trek feel, without feeling derivative of the other scores. Indeed, it has a rousingly unique feel to it.
The real strength of this movie, in my opinion, is the examinations it makes of the Kirk and Spock characters. After all this time, after all their adventures, these are the men they have become. Others have strongly criticize the portrayal of Kirk in this movie -- I embrace it. It feels real, it feels human. In my eyes its a perfectly natural attitude for Kirk to adopt after all these years, and everything that's happened to him. And, of course, it's beautifully played by William Shatner, who in my mind gives such a strong performance that it sells the idea to anyone who might doubt it. I'm torn as to whether this or Trek II is Shatner's best performance as Kirk, and at the end of the day I''d say that Trek II is more iconic Kirk, but Trek VI is the better, more nuanced performance.
As for Spock -- I feel that both the arc written for Spock and Nimoy's performance of the character really bring him to the strongest point he's been as a character -- a real culmination of the growth and development in that character since 1964. I love the scenes of anger that Nimoy gives Spock (an element I first saw surface in Trek V's line "Damn you, sir! You will try!"). I love his confrontation of Valeris in sickbay and the hurt, betrayed feeling his gives when he (let's face it) mind rapes her on the bridge. My favourite Spock scenes of all time are the two in his quarters in this movie, the first with Valeris ("Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Lieutenant, not the end,") and the second with Kirk. That second scene with Kirk perfectly encapsulates those two characters and their relationship as far as I'm concerned. "Is it possible that we two, you and I, have grown so old and inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness?" And I love Kirk's line, "You're a great one for logic. I'm a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread. We're both extremists. Reality is somewhere in between."
One of the other highlights of the film is, of course, Chris Plummer as General Chang. Shatner and Plummer had been colleagues at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, and had received the same training as actors -- and indeed it's a sight to see the two of them spar with one another, two men truly on the same level as each other. I love it, and I love the character of Chang. He gets some of the film's best lines, especially "Don't wait for the translation, answer me now!"
The Klingons are great in this picture. I love the sort've feudal, Elizabethan vibe we get from them. I know that Nimoy felt that in the finished film they weren't explored enough, but I think we got enough lectures on Klingon culture from Worf in TNG to make up for it. Indeed, I'm glad the Rura Penthe section was not as originally written. I like that Kirk realizes his flaws by himself in his own self-reflection, it suggests a strength of character in him -- rather than the audience getting some long, condescending scenes out of an after-school special where Kirk meets some Klingons and realizes that they're people too or some such rubbish.
This time watching the film I was really looking for what Tux was saying about it slowing down in the Rura Penthe section and feeling like a TV movie -- but I didn't get that at all. Indeed, I think Trek VI has a very unique story in the movie canon, a murder mystery/political thriller, and that's not a bad thing. Indeed, it gives the film a life and spirit much stronger than just another Trek II retread (*cough* Treks X and XI).
Some have argued, including Gene Roddenberry, that the movie is out of place in the Trek universe for portraying conspiracy within Starfleet and prejudice in the crew of the Enterprise, but I have two thoughts on this. One is that the Gene Roddenberry who disapproved of this movie is the same Roddenberry who created the boring characters and ludicrous restrictions of TNG. The other is that I feel that in showing these people work against prejudice, showing Kirk and Azetbur come together at the end of the movie, showing the Klingons and Federation signing that peace treaty after all the events we've seen, that in fact Star Trek VI really embodies the essence of the anti-prejudice message of Star Trek. I think it exemplifies Tux's theory of Star Trek that rather than show a bunch of perfect people who live in a utopia, show real people rising above themselves to work towards a utopia.
Some may state that this film lacks the exploratory sense of Star Trek, that idea of going into the unknown of space and learning something new, but again I disagree, in that we are in fact going out and exploring another culture, another world, a new future. Here the unknown we are confronting is that of the unknown world of peace. The idea of co-existing as friends with the Klingons. It's a very powerful idea and I think that Trek VI is a very powerful film.
I like, too, that this film gives us a look at the broader political scope of the Star Trek universe. In most of the Original Series to this point we only ever heard about these sort've events and elements, while the Enterprise was off at the edge of space confronting alien puppets and papier mache computer gods.
So indeed, I love this movie because it brings us everything. A Holmesian mystery, political intrigue, rich allegory and metaphor for a contemporary situation (something that Star Trek was built for), and the culmination of character arcs and journeys started twenty-five years earlier. Superbly written, directed, acted, film, and produced all around.
To The Undiscovered Country!
The future.
9.5/10
1. STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
2. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
3. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME
4. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
5. STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
6. STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER
7. STAR TREK
Whaddya know! I followed the even-numbers pattern.
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