Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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Reviews

Amazon.com

Star Trek V left us nowhere to go but up, and with the return of Star Trek II director Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek VI restored the movie series to its classic blend of space opera, intelligent plotting, and engaging interaction of stalwart heroes and menacing villains. Borrowing its subtitle (and several lines of dialogue) from Shakespeare, the movie finds Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) and his fellow Enterprise crew members on a diplomatic mission to negotiate peace with the revered Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner). When the high-ranking Klingon and several officers are ruthlessly murdered, blame is placed on Kirk, whose subsequent investigation uncovers an assassination plot masterminded by the nefarious Klingon General Chang (Christopher Plummer) in an effort to disrupt a historic peace summit. As this political plot unfolds, Star Trek VI takes on a sharp-edged tone, with Kirk and Spock confronting their opposing views of diplomacy, and testing their bonds of loyalty when a Vulcan officer is revealed to be a traitor. With a dramatic depth befitting what was to be the final movie mission of the original Star Trek crew, this film took the veteran cast out in respectably high style. With the torch being passed to the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation, only Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov would return, however briefly, in Star Trek: Generations. —Jeff Shannon

Barnes and Noble

The last Star Trek adventure to focus on the original show’s characters—portrayed by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, et al.—The Undiscovered Country is suspenseful and exciting, but it also has a wistful undercurrent that suggests cast and crew alike knew the torch would soon be passed to the Next Generation. The story begins after a Chernobyl-like disaster, with the Klingon leader attempting to make peace with the Federation. Sent to escort the official to peace talks being held on Earth, Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew are stunned when unknown conspirators murder the Klingon and the blame is fixed on them. The race to clear their names takes on added importance for Kirk and friends when the peace conference itself is imperiled. Director and co-writer Nicholas Meyer, whose involvement with the series dates back to the excellent Wrath of Khan (1982), knows these characters well and gives all the regular cast members a few fleeting moments in the sun before we say goodbye to them. The murder-mystery angle isn’t especially well developed, and the final outcome is never much in doubt, but Meyer goes through his paces and delivers what Star Trek fans expect to see. The familiar cast members, by now wearing their characters like comfortable old sweaters, are predictably delightful in their final outing together; and newcomer Kim Cattrall, well in advance of Sex and the City stardom, makes a fetching addition to the crew. There’s a not-unexpectedly sappy windup to the film, but Trek fans wouldn’t have had it any other way. On balance, however, Undiscovered Country makes a perfectly satisfying coda to one of sci-fi’s most cherished series. Ed Hulse