Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

I want to start with this. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the movie I can credit with several things. My serious enjoyment of villains that seem more civilized than the main characters. My serious enjoyment of shoehorning classic literature quotes into conversation. My serious enjoyment of understatement. My serious enjoyment of opening credits. This movie showed me all of those things at a very young age, because for some reason I think my Mom thought this was more appropriate for young eyes than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I'm... not really sure I understand that, but whatever.

This is clearly more kid friendly than Khan. See, it's pink!

When I wrote my review of Star Trek Nemesis, I talked a little about The Undiscovered Country. I also discussed it when I listed my top ten favorite movies. The Undiscovered Country falls in at number eight. So clearly I like it quite a bit. In fact, I don't honestly think there's a single thing about this movie that I don't like. Well... Okay, there's one piece of inconsistancy. But it's pretty small, easy to miss, and is really only inconsistent with the rest of the Star Trek universe, not another part of the movie. So I just pretend it doesn't exist. Like how Klingons didn't have forehead ridges in The Original Series, even when they were totally supposed to.

I'll give you a hint. It's only pink in this movie.

 But let's talk about what I did like. And let's start with a spoiler. General Chang is fabulous. I introduced this movie to my then-not-a-Trekkie wife, who's favorite movie is The Sound of Music, by telling her that Captain Von Trapp was in it. She didn't believe me. We watched it, and she still didn't believe me, even when I pointed out that Chang was played by Christopher Plummer. She thought I was being stupid, and to be fair, that speaks more to the acting ability of Christopher Plummer than it does to the observations of my wife. The man is completely uncanny in this film. He is basically the perfect villain. Suave, civilized, quoting Shakespeare just for kicks. Plummer makes Chang seem so much like the civilized Klingon version of Kirk that you really do get a little blindsided by the revelation that he's the bad guy. He talks like a thespian, walks like a diplomat, and fights like a warrior. He's very close to the top of my favorite villains list, and in large part that's because he legitimately doesn't seem like a villain until the end.

He kinda seems more like a cool grandpa.

It's worth noting, also, that David Warner is in yet another Star Trek role in this movie. It's a nice redemption from The Final Frontier, though to be honest, I liked his creepy Cardassian better. Also, does anyone else get the feeling that David Warner might actually be the biggest Trekkie on Earth?

I mean, he clearly has the best costumes.

Another thing I liked, in two words. Space battle. Near the end, there is an epic space battle, and one that I love for the fact that it is more like actual battles in space would be than most any sci-fi show would admit. More like submarine battles than dog-fighting in airplanes. It's slow but intense, and delivers on all of the emotions you've had building up over the entire movie. The climax of this battle appropriately comes just as all hope seems lost. The Enterprise and Excelsior are going to be blown up, the President of the Federation is going to be killed, Chang is going to win, and then...

This happens.

...holy crap. Those next few torpedo hits are punctuated by pumping fists, cheers, and chest-bumping. It's probably the best resolution to a space battle I've ever seen.

Another thing I liked. Kirk. And Spock. Saying and being themselves with just the right amount of character change over the arc of the movie. Kirk learns to appreciate the need for change. Spock learns to understand and respect his friend's reluctance for change. Kirk learns that the future isn't going to be shaped by him, that he has to let go and allow the universe to move on without him. Spock learns that Vulcans aren't inherently trustworthy, and how to lie. Shatner gives what I would consider the best performance of his career in this movie, and it's a good thing too, since this was the sendoff to the crew of The Original Series.

I know it doesn't look like it, but I promise, he does pretty darn well.

Another thing I liked. Humor. They don't relegate Scotty to being the idiot comic relief in this movie, thank heavens. Everybody get's their chance to make you laugh. Translating stuff badly into Klingon is Uhura's moment. Scotty talking about "repairing" the warp core is his. Checkov makes a crack about having a hangover. Kirk gets in a fight with himself and then makes fun of his own self-obsession. Sulu responds to an obvious question with "Are you kidding?" Bones makes fun of Kirk kissing all of the alien women, in addition to just being his cynical hilarious self the entire movie. Spock says this.

"If I were human, I believe my response would be 'Go to Hell.' If I were human."

It's pretty great, really. You get a real sense that yeah, this crew is about to retire, and they're just sick and tired of crap. They can't take anything seriously because let's face it. They've seen it all. So of course they're going to say stuff like "I'd give real money if he'd just shut up" while working on the last chance the Enterprise has of not getting blown to smithereens. They've been through the wringer so many times that the wringer has imprints of their faces embedded into it. They've long since moved past the point of being scared, and all they can do now is laugh.

"What was that? Let me turn my hearing aide up."

And this brings me to the last thing I'll talk about here. The ending. I cannot fathom a better way to finish this journey. The Enterprise is retiring, the crew is retiring, the adventures are over. But at this point we're already four years deep into The Next Generation, so of course Star Trek isn't ending. That makes Kirk's final log entry even more powerful, knowing that this movie isn't really an ending, it's simply the passing of a torch into the hands of other crews. That is exactly how it should have been. I wouldn't change a thing about the entire movie, but especially the end. It is, in a word, perfect.

This shot is super cheesy, but I love it dearly.