Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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On Sky Movies Screen 2 10/12/09 18:05

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Stars: William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, George Takei, Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Kim Cattrall

Year: 1991 Running Time: 109 mins Rating:

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Proof that all even numbered Star Treks were good, The Undiscovered Country took a Glasnost inspired story as the launchpad for one final, thrilling adventure with the original Enterprise crew. The Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer again brings his magic touch to the franchise, despite frequent clashes with Gene Roddenberry, while a pre-Sex and the City Kim Cattrall also signs up as Spock's apprentice. And the cast literally signing off as the Enterprise flies into the sunset is a fitting conclusion to a bold adventure that began twenty five years earlier.

Review

The Undiscovered Country triumphs due to the use of Star Trek to comment on the collapse of the Soviet Union, much as Gene Roddenberry had used the original series to sneak racially explosive themes under the cloak of silly sci-fi.

Director Nicholas Meyer, brought in to rescue the franchise after the flop of Part V as he’d previously done with The Wrath of Khan after the head scratching disappointment of The Motion Picture, irreverently spins his twin obsessions of Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes into a lively script that opens with an exploding moon and never flags.

Fallout from the moon leaves the Klingons facing extinction and agree to peace talks to ensure their survival.

As Spock is appointed goodwill ambassador, Kirk and crew are reluctantly conscripted to meet with the Klingon ambassador (Warner). After a tense dinner with the ambassador and entourage, including hawkish General Chang (Plummer), the Enterprise apparently fires on the Klingon ship and two assassins beam aboard to silence the ambassador permanently.

With Kirk and Bones imprisoned on an ice planet after a mock trial, Spock must hunt the killers still at large aboard the Enterprise and discover what surprises are in store at the peace conference.

The Undiscovered Country is fun and flavourful in a way arguably all previous Trek movies hadn’t been. Part IV’s fish-out-of-water slapstick pales beside a hammy Plummer quoting Shakespeare (who it is suggested was Klingon), Spock intimating Sherlock Holmes was Vulcan, or some zinging dialogue:

“There is an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China.”

Meyer and co-writer Denny Martin Flynn’s exuberant ambition also nods toward the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Shatner’s infamous ego (by way of Iman’s shapeshifter, Kirk gets to kinda cop off with himself before fighting himself).

The prison planet adventures running parallel with Spock’s whodunit investigation keeps the action at warp factor ten, and Meyer creates a believable community within the slightly worn looking Enterprise (including, controversially for Trekkies, the first sight of the ship’s kitchens).

Not all dilithium crystals are fully functional – Bones not knowing Klingon anatomy is highly illogical, some of effects betray the fact the crew were forced to recycle models from earlier films, and there sure are a lot of flip charts and old battered books in this future world.

But, this all matters not in the climax the Enterprise, joined by Sulu's Excelsior's, engage a Klingon Bird of Prey, saving the Universe yet again.

Joyous enough to make you overlook the misuse of Hamlet’s “the undiscovered country”: the Dane was referring to Death, not the Future, which is why it was the original title for The Wrath of Khan.