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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Good Movies  |  Star Trek VI (1991) « previous next »
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Author Topic: Star Trek VI (1991)  (Read 5559 times)
Neville
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« on: July 30, 2007, 04:44:49 AM »

First of all, I am aware I owe you a recap of both "Star Trek IV" and "Star Trek V". You will have them, but it won't be on this side of the message board, and first I need to recover from the suffering and gather enough negative adjectives. Meanwhile, you can read what i though of the latest instalment of the series (I've always considered TNG movies a different series altogether).




Spock experiences the joys of alien sex in The Undiscovered Country.


After the debacle that supposed "Star Trek V - The Final Frontier", the guys at Paramount decided to take extreme measures. In a decision that probably caused its share of heated debates, Paramount decided to finish the series, and in order to do so in a high note, they hired the brains behind "Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan", Nicholas Meyer.

The film, however, it's a mixed bag. On the bright side, the story cleverly incorparates the aging of the characters, their prejudices against the Klingons and their inability to change their views on their old enemies plays an important part on the plot. The action is also less far-fetched. Not much hand to hand combat or improbable stunts here, instead the aging Enterprisers get to play detectives and find out who murdered a Klingon leader who wanted peace with the Federation.

There's more to like here. The filmmaking is much better than in previous instalments (gotta love the assasination scene in zero-g), the production design is more spectacular (specially the Rura Penthe gulag), Cliff Eidelman's score is fantastic, even if its somber tones are very different from Jerry Goldsmith's Trek themes, and this is one of the few Star Trek movies to have a decent supporting cast, with Christopher Plummer as an evil Klingon general and Kim Cattrall as a sexy Vulcan officer. Even the usual suspects act better than in other instalments of the series, specially Shatner and Nimoy.

Then, what went wrong? In my opinion, Nicholas Meyer. He's way overrated, and although he does stuff the movie with lots of interesting themes (racism, the end of Cold War, the inmovilism of the military) and nods other genres (murder mistery, courtroom drama, prison flick, political thriller) none of them has anything to do with fantasy or sci-fi. Which, you know, it's what Star Trek is suppossed to be about. In its worst moments, "The Undiscobered Country" looks like a prison flick or a political thriller whose props happen to have been lifted from a Star Trek set. And if sometimes Meyer is good enough as a director to  overcome this (the Klingon trial scenes or the investigation on the Enterprise), in others, such as the prison scenes in Rura Penthe or the ending at the peace conference, he is not as lucky.

And then there's the quotes. We all know Meyer is a bookworm, but for Christ sake, does he need to show old books or have the cast use pre XXth century literary quotes all the time? It becomes specially annoying with Christopher Plummer's character, but even Kirk gets to seem pedantic a few times, an occurrence that  must be a first in the series.

So, all in all, "Star Trek VI" is a worthwile entry in the series, and a good ending, but it is also far from perfect. And sometimes, even far to look like Star Trek.




Kirk battles his own ego with mixed results.


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Him
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« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2007, 08:42:57 AM »


And then there's the quotes. We all know Meyer is a bookworm, but for Christ sake, does he need to show old books


I like how they show the Enterprise kitchen where the cooks are cooking with pots and pans. I guess the food replicator was broke that day.
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Neville
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« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2007, 09:05:39 AM »

And when they're trying to fool the Klingons on the radio by speaking their own language we can see the crew of the Enterprise browsing to several dusty volumes. Guess the computers didn't have enough memory for a Emglish - Klingon phrase book.

Some of these archaic touches could have worked in isolation (like Kirk's glasses in "The Wrath of Khan"), but this time Meyer goes too far.
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trekgeezer
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We're all just victims of circumstance


« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2007, 02:30:17 PM »

Leonard Nimoy actually came up with the plot and he brought Meyer into the film.  Paramount wanted something for Trek's 25th anniversary and the original cast balked at Harve Bennett's Star Trek Academy idea and Harve said he couldn't make a decent film in the amount of time Paramount was alloting.

Nicholas Meyer never liked the size and comfort portrayed in Starfleet ships, thus the stacked bunk beds in the crew's quarters, all the pipes lining the ceilings in the passageways, and the kitchen.  He wanted the ship to be more claustrophobic.

Every ship set  (except the bridge) was a TNG set redressed.  The dining room was the conference room from TNG and the federation president's office was the ten-forward set.

The explanation I have always heard for the Klingon translation scene was that the Klingon would have detected the use of a universal translator.

I would rate this as third best of the original series movies.

I don't know if you know this Neville, but in the US theater release version of this film the assassin at the end is not revealed to be Colonel West.  This was surprise to me when I bought the VHS tape.


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And you thought Trek isn't cool.
Neville
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« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2007, 03:03:21 PM »

I didn't know. Is there any other conspirator or they just forget to mention his betrayal?
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D-Man
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Only my head is tiny...


« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2007, 10:18:05 PM »

Star Trek VI is also the Third best Trek film in my mind, behind First Contact and Wrath of Khan.  It's far from perfect, but you can do a lot worse for a Trek film. 

And Kim Cattrall gets no credit for how well she pulled off her role as Lt. Valeris.  Before I got to the end credits, I didn't even know it was her all along.  Nicholas Meyer even said that she did just as good a job in disappearing into her role, as Ricardo Montalban did when he played Khan. 

Overall, it's a decent send off for the original Enterprise crew.  Much better than Star Trek V would have been, anyway. 
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Torgo
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« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2007, 10:45:54 PM »

I liked this flick.  I thought it was cool that it was basically an outer space murder mystery.

Didn't they originally have it scripted that Kirk died at the end?
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trekgeezer
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We're all just victims of circumstance


« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2007, 07:14:06 AM »

I didn't know. Is there any other conspirator or they just forget to mention his betrayal?

They just left the scene before the removal of the assassin's mask leaving us to believe it was just some Klingon in on the conspiracy.


I have to say I did love Plummer in this movie, he chewed the scenery like a true Trek villian.
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And you thought Trek isn't cool.
Neville
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« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2007, 07:33:31 AM »

True, he seems like he's on cafeine during the final battle. He even makes his captain chair spin! But that he wouldn't stop quoting stuff was pretty annoying.
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Jim H
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« Reply #9 on: August 01, 2007, 01:32:13 PM »

And when they're trying to fool the Klingons on the radio by speaking their own language we can see the crew of the Enterprise browsing to several dusty volumes. Guess the computers didn't have enough memory for a Emglish - Klingon phrase book.

Some of these archaic touches could have worked in isolation (like Kirk's glasses in "The Wrath of Khan"), but this time Meyer goes too far.

Don't they normally have eyedrops which fix your eyes in the Trek universe, only Kirk is allergic to them so he has to wear glasses?  Or am I just making that up?  I remember hearing it somewhere...

Personally, I think that every ship as large as the Enterprise would have had several members who spoke Klingon.  Similar to how many WW2 Allied units had members who spoke German, etc. 

Still, while far from perfect, I have to agree with its placement as the third best Trek film, behind Khan and First Contact.
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